Too Quiet In Brooklyn (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 1)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  We’d outsourced as much as possible, accounting, taxes, payroll, interviewing, hiring, and firing, so it was still possible to have Minnie run everything. I could tell by her face that things were going well. As she talked on the phone, she brought out the contract Blake had signed and poked it and made the okay sign. On a notepad she wrote one word, Tonight, underlined and followed by three exclamations.

  I scribbled back, “Call if you need me, but I hope you don’t, we’re celebrating.” As I walked out, Mr. Baggins rubbed against my jeans. I could hear him talking to me all the way up the stairs. One of these days I’d speak to Denny about bringing him to Vinegar Hill.

  At home, I had some time to kill before I started digging into Nanette’s past. Truth to tell, I had to square it with my conscience. Nanette’s past had no bearing on the case, none at all, but there was a robin-hood-in-drag part of me that thought if I knew more about her, maybe I could help, shrink that I’m not. Was I just being nosey?

  It was easy enough to get Ralph’s birth certificate from one of the online archives I belonged to. But if I found out Nanette was his mother as I suspected, what would that prove? How would it help his case? Wouldn’t I be violating her privacy? Don’t we have a right to our secrets as long as they’re not breaking the law or hurting others? I considered for a moment, concluded that maybe she needed help, maybe she needed to tell someone, I mean, to break the weight of the secret. I’d begun discussing this with Lorraine, but I just couldn’t let it go. I needed the opinion of my friends and one in particular, Denny.

  So instead of going to my computer and pressing a couple of keys, I decided instead to take a look at my study.

  When I opened the door, the odor of stale urine bit me hard. No one was working the scene. Yellow tape blocked my way, but when had that ever stopped me. On the other hand, some perversity made me want to keep to the rules so, contrite for all past demeanors and vowing never to overstep the line again, at least for today, I called Jane and fortunately she answered, giving me the chance to rant.

  “We’re through, I don’t know why the tape is still up unless the Feds are looking for something.”

  I told her Marie Connors found the Audi on Columbia Heights. “It belongs to her.”

  Jane told me I was a miracle. I didn’t feel like one, but told her I’d see her tonight.

  I had to get to my computer and look at my bank account, I told myself, and what do you know, Barbara’s check cleared. I should have bet with Denny.

  My finger was still itching, tempting me to violate Nanette’s privacy, so I got out of the house and did what I hadn’t done in a long while—I took a walk. I mean, a walk just to walk. I walked through Dumbo, feeling the soft rain on my face, every once in a while shaking my curls like a dog and hoping it would take the place of crying. I wasn’t about to leave the smell of urine in my study, so despite the risk to my career, I called Lucy’s and left a message asking Minnie to send over a crew. “My study is a disaster after Sunday night, and if I clean it myself, I’m sure to be a failure or at least gag from the stench. Tell them to wear gloves and masks.”

  The Mary Ward Simon case was over. I knew who had strangled her and why. I knew who had killed my mother, but the truth didn’t make me happy. I felt awful. Even the certainty that Charlie was in his father’s safe keep, didn’t comfort me. I felt like I had a week after we found Mom’s body—numb.

  Snoop that I am, I took a little detour to Columbia Heights. There, fat and sassy, was the white Audi with Jersey plates, an NYPD tow truck looming toward it.

  I cut over to the promenade. Listening to the birds squawking and the fog horns groaning, I looked across the East River to where gulls hung low over a garbage scow making its way to Fresh Kills. From her perch on Liberty Island, the green lady stared back at me. She was barely visible through the mist, but I watched how she slammed her torch into the sky. I hoped Ralph was healing and thought of all the times I’d stood here with Mom talking about what her gran said it was like to leave everything. I remembered her telling me that the eyes of my ancestors saw the statue, probably gazed at the spot where we stood. I felt their spirit giving me strength. Mom’s, too. I never doubted you, I still need you, I told her, and peered up at uncertain holes in the cloud cover.

  Vinegar Hill House

  “Doesn’t your partner get jealous, all the time you spend on the job?” Denny asked.

  I didn’t hold my breath waiting for Willoughby to answer. Although the sun came out in time to set, it was still too wet to sit in the garden of Vinegar Hill House, so we gathered around a big table close enough to the window so we could look out on the neighborhood I’d grown to love. Sure our neighborhood wasn’t as glamorous as Brooklyn Heights, but the ghosts of old sailors lurked in the walls of our house, and they had a lot to tell me. Besides, I knew that the cuisine in this restaurant was as close as I was ever going to get to heaven.

  “She’s a midwife,” Willoughby said. “Sometimes we don’t see each other for a week.”

  So that explained it. A woman who helps to deliver new life chose Willoughby to bring her down from the clouds. I watched him brush crumbs off his tie.

  There was a gap in the conversation while they considered the menu. I knew what I wanted, so instead I leaned into Denny and bothered him while he decided. The ending of my first case. We’d already toasted—me, Jane, the crime scene unit, Marie, Willoughby and Denny—who claimed they did nothing—and of course, Cookie. Denny gave a special toast to our new arrival, Mr. Baggins, who after protesting the move by hiding for two days, took over the house.

  Jane told me that the CSU found old blood near the drain pipe in Connors’ Dumbo apartment. “Getting DNA from it will be a stretch, but you never know. We think that’s where your mother was murdered.”

  I hugged my inner child. “I’ll have the butternut tart and the cast iron chicken, and bring them together,” I said and breathed in twice. I felt Denny’s hand on my knee, saving me from the depths.

  “The usual,” the waiter said, eyeing me and scribbling on his pad.

  “And a side of asparagus.”

  Before the waiter left, Denny asked if he’d bring a couple of starters. “Surprise us, whatever you think we’d like.”

  “No fish,” Willoughby added.

  “And bring us two bottles of Cabernet, a white and a red.”

  Willoughby and Denny started talking baseball.

  “I say the Yankees sweep the subway series this year,” Willoughby said.

  “You’re nuts.”

  “Cookie, how was your stay in the hospital?” Jane asked.

  “Worse than being in Ralph’s arms.” She changed the subject. “While he was strangling me, I noticed you’d rearranged your books. How come? I liked them the old way. Hit or miss. Shows a mind that’s—”

  “Don’t say it,” I said.

  “With the Yankee offense?” Willoughby asked. “Their pitching is fantastic. The score will be embarrassing. Poor Mets.”

  They weren’t even paying attention to us. I told Cookie I’d called for one of Lucy’s crews to clean the study. “They’ll make it spotless, like a newborn before it makes bad choices.”

  “And because you won’t be doing the cleaning, you won’t disturb your mojo. Clever.”

  Leave it to Cookie. Some superstitions are worth keeping, thank you very much.

  And speaking of rearranged shelves, I remembered something. “Was Ralph the one you saw in the service area?”

  Cookie nodded. In her mind, Ralph was over and done with. The case was finished. I wished I wasn’t so clingy.

  Denny drank his wine and speared the last asparagus from my plate. He stuck his chin out at Willoughby. “I say they squeak through, but they’re going to take all four. The weight of history is on the side of the Mets this year, all that pent-up motivation. It’s our time.”

  Two waiters brought our entrées and all conversation stopped while we let the steam and the rich odors engulf us.

&n
bsp; “I could use a good cleaning service,” Jane said and took a bite of her trout, piling the fork with potatoes and turnips dripping with smoked butter. “Does Lucy’s do apartments?” she asked.

  I chewed my chicken. “Except for the smell, the study looked really clean when I walked in this evening. The CSU doesn’t clean up after they’re finished, do they?”

  “Are you kidding?” Jane rolled her eyes and paid closer attention to her trout. “Can we eat already?”

  “Denny must have swiped up the dust.”

  Hearing his name, Denny broke up with Willoughby long enough to say through his spaghetti alle vongole that he’d never touch the study.

  “Who did? I swear I’ve never cleaned it,” I said.

  Jane smirked. “Some things are best left unknown.” She cleaned butter from her face.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Cookie said, and raised her glass, her hand on her throat.

  A perfect segue to Nanette. I told Jane and Cookie about my trip to New Jersey with Lorraine, about Nanette’s battered soul, and how she bonded with Lorraine. “Surprised me like crazy,” I said. “But Lorraine has a way with people.”

  Cookie’s eyes slid over to Denny, but he and Willoughby were still into baseball.

  “I’m tempted to take a look at Ralph’s birth certificate.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have the feeling that she might be Ralph’s mother in a previous life.”

  “You’re joking. You’re not one of those mystical witches, are you?”

  “No, I mean in an earlier part of her life, before she met Arrowsmith. Say her first husband died and she left maybe, or got amnesia or maybe she was beaten by her husband. Something bad happened.”

  “More than something,” Jane said.

  “So go ahead, look,” Cookie said. “What would it hurt?”

  “And if I don’t look and she does something bad to herself because I didn’t reach out to her …” I looked at Jane.

  “You need another case,” she said. “And I’ve got the perfect one for you.”

  “You’re crazy,” Willoughby said, wiping pappardelle from his tie. But I’m not sure who he was talking to—Denny, I think, not to me.

  “Give me stats, show me where I’m crazy,” Denny said.

  I know Denny, he’d never give up, not on the Mets.

  “I can’t quote chapter and verse, but I feel it. The way Mariano’s been closing this year. Besides, I got a bet going, a big one. Yankees going to sweep.”

  So that was it. I looked at Denny and smiled.

  I kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Where’s my dessert?” Whatever happened, life was good. Better to keep my mouth shut, I wouldn’t want to spoil it.

  The waiter brought dessert menus.

  “I know what I want—the strawberries over olive oil ice cream.”

  Nods around the table except for Cookie who chose the chocolate sundae with dandelions and gooseberries.

  “I might even sell the Beretta,” I said. “Mom’s car,” I told Jane by way of explanation.

  “That was your mother’s car? Don’t you dare touch it! I’ll call you tomorrow or better yet, give me the keys now. And speaking of a new case, I got the name of someone who needs a good PI. The woman’s hysterical. She can’t find her daughter and she keeps screaming at us that we’re not doing anything.”

  “How old is she?”

  All talking stopped while the waiter delivered our desserts.

  “If you mean the daughter, she’s thirteen,” Jane said through her strawberries. “If you mean the case, we got it late this afternoon. I’ve given her Lucy’s phone number. We work so well together, don’t you think? Feds going to be all over my rear on this one, too, and I’ve got my team on it. I have to go over there after dinner.”

  I nodded and asked her for the woman’s address, thinking I might just take a walk later if she hadn’t left a message on Lucy’s answering machine. “But I still want to get into Barbara’s apartment. I have to find out if she recommended Arrowsmith and Ralph to her mother.”

  “Forgot about that case,” Jane said.

  Denny smiled. “Not Fina. She doesn’t forget.” He whispered to me, “The offer still stands. Got the ring waiting.”

  Characters & Places

  Fina Fitzgibbons, twenty-two-year-old private investigator (protagonist)

  Carmela Fitzgibbons, Fina’s mother (deceased)

  Fina’s father, unnamed and estranged

  Fina’s Gran, unnamed and deceased

  Denny McDuffy, her boyfriend, NYPD patrolman

  Jane Templeton, NYPD detective

  Willoughby, Jane’s partner, also NYPD detective

  Cookie, Fina’s lifelong friend and sidekick

  Mr. Baggins, Fina’s cat

  Minnie, office manager at Lucy’s

  Mary Ward Simon, the deceased

  Barbara Simon, her daughter

  Frank Alvarez, her husband (divorced)

  Charlie Alvarez, the abducted, 4-year old grandson of deceased

  Ralph, Handyman & Gardener

  Arrow, aka James S. Arrowsmith, Handyman & Gardener

  Nanette Arrowsmith, his mother

  Donald Arrowsmith, his younger brother attending Rutgers

  David Arrowsmith, his father (deceased)

  Winston Connors, former president of Heights Federal Bank

  Marie Connors, his wife

  Ken Connors, his son

  Lorraine McDuffy, Denny’s mother

  Robert McDuffy, Denny’s father

  Ashot Smith, Mary Ward Simon’s attorney

  Tig Able, FBI agent and Fina’s friend

  Molly, lawyer who helps her mother run a roadside stand in Allentown

  Phoebe Daligan, Hector Pool, Stan Eppers, neighbors

  Places

  Packer Collegiate, Fina’s & Cookie’s K thru 12, Brooklyn Heights

  Vinegar Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn where Fina & Denny live

  Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn where the deceased lived

  The Promenade, Brooklyn Heights overlook

  Cobble Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn where Barbara Simon lives

  Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood in Brooklyn where Denny’s parents live

  84th Precinct, Gold Street, Downtown Brooklyn

  Lucy’s Cleaning Service, Fina’s fictional cleaning establishment in Brooklyn Heights

  Heights Federal, fictional defunct bank where Fina’s mother was a vice president

  Smith, Jarvis & O’Leary, Fictional Law Firm on Court Street, Brooklyn

  Faramond, Whitlock, Walker & Quentin, Fictional Law Firm, Wall Street area, New York

  St. John The Baptist Church, Allentown, NJ

  La Piazza, a restaurant in Allentown, NJ

  Woodies, a cafe in Allentown, NJ

  A Roadside Stand near Allentown, NJ

  Allentown Auto Body, Allentown, NJ

  Alf’s Auto & Towing, fictitious body shop in Allentown, NJ

  Blue Eagle Farm, fictitious horse farm near Cream Ridge, NJ

  Henry’s End, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights

  Vinegar Hill House, a restaurant in Vinegar Hill

  Teresa’s, a coffee shop in Brooklyn Heights

  Clark Street Station, a subway station in Brooklyn Heights

  About the Author

  Susan Russo Anderson is a writer, a mother, a widow, a graduate of Marquette University, a member of Sisters In Crime, a member of the Historical Novel Society. She has taught language arts and creative writing, worked for a publisher, an airline, an opera company. Like Faulkner’s Dilsey, she’s seen the best and the worst, the first and the last. Through it all, and to understand it somewhat, she writes.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read Too Quiet In Brooklyn! I realize there are hundreds of thousands of books available for you to choose from, and since I’m a relatively unknown author, I’m especially honored that you chose to read
one of mine.

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  Thanks!

  Susan Russo Anderson

  gagasue@mac.com

  susanrussoanderson.com