Guardian Angel

by Adam Carpenter

  At last he was dressed, and the clock advanced toward the time of the meeting. It was a Tuesday, and a sunny, cold day awaited him when he left his mother’s apartment on 10th Avenue and 48th Street. He zipped up his leather jacket, wondered if maybe he should have dressed better than his usual blue jeans and button down shirt. Meeting a CEO, nonprofit or not, might have called for a fancier outfit, but it was too late now. The time was 12:50, and he had ten minutes to get to 6th Avenue and 44th. A light breeze made the cold air brisk, a hint of the coming season. True, it might be December, but the calendar wouldn’t officially make it winter for a couple weeks.

  Jimmy made his way along 48th Street then crossed 9th Avenue and then 8th, where he purposely walked down 47th Street and past the Harold Calloway Theatre. Triskaidekaphobia was still playing its successful run, which was good, because it kept his mother employed and busy, allowing her a sense of purpose and distraction while they awaited the arrival of the first McSwain of the next generation. Jimmy could see Meaghan’s baby growing up on those aisles the same way he had, the way they all had, and he felt a warmth spread through him. Tradition was important within the McSwain household, in the fifth-floor walk-up apartment he’d called home forever, during those weekly Monday dinners, the nights in a darkened theatre. Tradition was also missing his father. Tradition was taking a case and leaving no stone unturned until solving it. One day, all of those elements would come together. He’d know the truth. Truth was a prayer answered.

  For now another case awaited him, or so he supposed. He was going to keep an open mind about what Melissa Harris-J’Arnoud wanted of him, reinforcing that thought as he opened the door to the bistro across the street from the Belasco Theatre, which, like the Calloway, was not without its ghosts. It was two minutes after one when he was greeted by a suited gentleman behind a host station.

  “I’m meeting a lady…oh, there she is.”

  A stylish, well-dressed, well-coiffed woman of about forty-five, whom Jimmy recognized from last Saturday’s benefit, waved over. Melissa Harris-J’Arnound said. “Kevin, that’s my guest…”

  Jimmy was escorted over to a square wooden table at the front of the restaurant. There was only one other table occupied, so they had privacy. Jimmy wondered if that had been arranged. Privacy in public was not something easily achieved in this city, usually done so with money and influence. Given the subject matter at hand, discretion was called for. Jimmy shook her hand as he sat.

  “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” she said, “I’m sure a man of your talents is in high demand.”

  “You caught me on a slow news day.”

  “Modesty. I think this bodes well.” She paused when a waiter showed up.

  “Join me in a bottle of wine?” Melissa asked.

  It was early, and Jimmy preferred to keep a clear head. He could sip. She probably wouldn’t. She was a bit jumpy, shifting in her seat, so he agreed.

  “Thank you, Kelly,” Melissa said to the waiter, and when he left to fulfill their drink order, she said how much she enjoyed this restaurant. “Friendly staff, lovely atmosphere, not to forget the food, which is divine, and this is on me or perhaps on Help Is Here. You are familiar with the work we do, I’m guessing, given your association with Serena. Imagine my surprise on Saturday, when I learned that her escort was a gay private detective.”

  “Which part was surprising to you?” Jimmy asked.

  Melissa paused, drank from her water glass. “Looking at you now, I suppose the gay part.”

  “You believe in stereotypes?”

  “Hardly. It’s just…when I saw you at the benefit on Serena’s arm, I thought, well…”

  “Serena does have a reputation,” Jimmy said, “So let’s move to the matter at hand…”

  The wine arrived, silenced them while glasses were poured and then raised, a gentle click, an unspoken and uncertain toast. They sipped. Jimmy set his glass down, watched as Melissa took a healthier sip. He used the moment to further assess her: big rock on her wedding finger, clothes that looked off a runway show, makeup impeccable. She was a privileged lady, but she worked as CEO for a nonprofit that did good work. She was a stereotype laced with contradiction, and he had to wonder just what she really wanted from him. He considered the ring on her finger and her claim that Henderson Carlyle beat her. Was this before her marriage or during?

  “Ms. Harris-J’Arnoud…”

  “Oh please, call me ‘Melissa.’ My name is so unwieldly.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Melissa, what is it I can do for you?”

  “Simple. I want to know who killed Henderson.”

  “I’m sure the police will release the information when they know.”

  “Is that your way of turning me down?”

  “I know the detectives working the case. They’ve told me to stay away.”

  “Which means that’s the last thing you will do.”

  He paused, took a sip of his wine to consider his response. “Tell me what happened between you and Henderson. I’m sure in your social circle ol’ Henderson had motives as well. What made him so appealing?”

  “He was a ladies’ man, of course, good family, gobs of money, good looks,” she said, then paused. “I’m not proud of what I did. I’m a happily married woman. My husband, Pierre J’Arnoud, is one of the world’s leading cardiac surgeons, but he’s based in Paris, and I’m…here.”

  “A woman gets lonely?”

  “More curious,” Melissa said.

  Jimmy raised an eyebrow, curious himself. “How so?”

  “Henderson was rumored to be quite good in bed, known for his considerable endowment.”

  “I’m guessing you’re not speaking of a financial contribution to your organization.”

  “No, just his organ.”

  If nothing else, Jimmy was enjoying their back-and-forth banter. “Melissa Harris-J’Arnoud was an interesting, complex lady, a flawed one, but weren’t we all flawed,” Jimmy thought. We all act on emotions rather than with common sense, we make choices we probably shouldn’t, and when the sun comes up, we have to live with them. They ride shotgun with us, perhaps informing, defining the next series of decisions we make. Jimmy had one of those himself. He’d made a choice the other night to go home with Steven Wang. He’d made the decision not to go home with Frisano last night. He was the last person to judge, so instead he listened.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband, but we have…I suppose you would say, we have an arrangement. I believe the kids today call it an ‘open relationship.’ I never considered having an affair, but Pierre, being away for so long, I know he’s no saint. He’s handsome beyond words, an insatiable lover, so I hold no ideal of monogamy.” She paused while Kelly the waiter refilled her glass. She blushed, either from her confession or the infusion of wine. “Henderson was a charming man, and we were working closely on a project for Help Is Here. It just sort of happened…”

  “Was it a one-time thing, or over a period of time?”

  “Two months,” she said.

  “And it ended, because…”

  She looked down, embarrassment consuming her. Victims often felt like they deserved it.

  “Pierre was coming to New York. He was going to be in town for a month. I told Henderson we had to cool things off. That’s when he…got angry. I never even saw the first punch. All I knew was he stormed out of my apartment, while I was splayed out on the carpet, dazed and unbelieving what had just happened to me.”

  “You said ‘first punch.’ There were other times?”

  “No, just that night. I skipped over the other details.” Again a pause before she said, her voice a whisper, “I was in the hospital for three days.”

  Jimmy closed his eyes, his mind racing with horrid images of what she must have looked like, combined with the description Serena had given him of her own injuries sustained from this slime. Good that he was dead, that someone had taken him out before he could hurt again, but did that mean this was Jimmy’
s case to get involved in?

  “I’m confused about one thing,” Jimmy said. “Why do you want to know who killed him? Surely you’re glad he got what he had coming to him.”

  “Henderson Carlyle was on the board of Help Is Here. I need to protect our charity.”

  “Why?”

  “We are built on helping families in difficult situations. Imagine if it comes out in the press that we knowingly kept an abusive creep like Henderson on our board, exposing those in need to a man of such duplicity, of such depravity. We do a lot of work with women who are victims of domestic violence. We would lose all of our credibility.”

  “So you want me to find out did it and tell you.”

  “Correct, not the police. This is an internal matter.”

  “How many other victims were there?”

  “I believe the list of Henderson Carlyle’s conquests isconsiderable.”

  Jimmy nodded, took a generous sip of his wine. Menus suddenly appeared, and it was time to dine. But after their orders were placed, Jimmy had one more question, but he left it unvoiced for the time being. He would save it for his investigation. Again he thought about all Melissa Harris-J’Arnoud had told him, and then he wondered about what she hadn’t told him. Henderson Carlyle had a lot of conquests, the implicit meaning he also had a lot of victims, which translated to a lot of potential suspects.

  Finally Jimmy said, wondering as he said the words whether he was already regretting them, “I’ll take the case.”

  Chapter Six

  The first thing Jimmy did after his lunch was deposit the generous retainer check Melissa Harris-J’Arnoud had pushed across the table at the conclusion of their meal. The second thing he did was make a phone call, which third had him hopping the subway with anticipation. The start of a case always gave Jimmy pause. There was always so much to figure out, a strategy, an approach, and of course, more questions than answers. He liked to run his theories past a man who knew a thing or two about investigations, a man who also knew a thing or two about Jimmy.

  While rattling along the #2 train en route to Brooklyn Heights, Jimmy had time to organize his thoughts. His luncheon with Melissa had only expanded the Carlyle case and begged the question whether his killer had been present at the benefit. Where had Henderson gone after he’d been asked to leave the function? Why had the killer chosen Serena Carson’s stoop to enact such a brutal vengeance? What left Jimmy most conflicted was, despite Henderson’s propensity for beating up women, his murder would have taken muscle, a rush of adrenaline, or a very strong man. Was it the boyfriend or husband of one of his conquests?

  Jimmy knew he would only get closer to the truth by getting closer to Carlyle.

  The thought of the man made him shudder, slimy in life, bloody in death.

  “Next stop, Clark Street,” he heard over the tinny speaker.

  The subway came a screeching halt inside the station, the doors opened, and Jimmy jumped off along with several other riders, followed the familiar path to the elevator, which brought him topside and back out into the cool sunshine. After the darkness of the underground, the bright sun made his eyes squint. He had to remember which direction to go. Eammon’s Pub, where he and Ralphie had always met, was in business no longer, another of the unfortunate changes in a once mom-and-pop city going too corporate. The new locale, a hole in the wall called Lou Limerick’s, was found on one of the side streets off Montague Street, the main thoroughfare of the Heights. He darted across traffic, refocused, and found the wooden door that gained him entry to a dark, intimate space that made Paddy’s look like a Broadway theatre. He found Ralphie at the bar.

  “You made good time, Jimmy,” the old man said, offering up an inviting smile.

  “Almost forgot where the pub was, so thanks.”

  “That means it’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Grab a beer. I’ll grab a table. You’ll tell me the latest.”

  Ralphie Henderson, Jimmy liked to think, was his moral compass, a sounding board. Once upon a time the partner of Joseph McSwain, the aging black man had retired from the NYPD and seemingly from the world. He lived a hermit’s life inside his apartment, his walls adorned with front pages of newspapers and tabloids highlighting numerous, notorious cases from his career. It had been illustrious until he decided age—and health—had taken its toll. Now he spent his days in a bar, sipping at too many beers, reliving the past, and giving counsel when needed, Yoda to Jimmy’s Luke. Jimmy had his own beer and slid into a booth, sitting opposite the man who’d made him a private investigator.

  “So, Jimmy,” Ralphie said, once they were settled, “You still like boys?”

  It was an old joke, and the familiarity of it made Jimmy smile, a rare action. “Men, Ralphie,” he said, his expected reply, “I like men.”

  “Like that cop?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “That’s over.”

  “Someone new? You smiled when I brought up your lifestyle.”

  “Maybe, I don’t know.”

  “Not another cop, I hope.”

  “A doctor.”

  Ralphie nodded as though he approved. “I don’t always get this attraction to guys thing, but I respect that you do. So I’ll tell you this, Jimmy: Don’t overthink it. Don’t mess it up. Why don’t you let your guard down for once? You’re not getting any younger. That pretty face will only take you so far in life.”

  Jimmy drank his Guinness. “Right, you hang around long enough, I’ll catch up to you.”

  “Oh, I’ll be long gone before you reach thirty-five.”

  Jimmy was thirty. He didn’t like to think such things. He’d lost enough. Not having Ralphie to talk to, it just wasn’t something he wanted to think about. It was his last real professional connection to his father. He sipped again at his beer, reminded himself to spend more time with the wise old man. Knowledge is power. Ralphie had forgotten more than Jimmy knew. Even if his body was slowing down, the man’s mind was as sharp and insightful as ever. He could interpret the slight uptick of a smile as evidence of what lived in Jimmy’s soul.

  “I take it you have a new case,” he said.

  “High profile. I really shouldn’t be involved. NYPD has it.”

  “Saw the papers. Saw your involvement. This Serena Carson, think she did it?”

  “Always in the know, huh, Ralphie? And no, I don’t think she killed Carlyle. From what I know already, he had a list of victims as long as his…well, let’s just say he had a lot.” Jimmy then told Ralphie the story from the beginning, his being hired first by Serena for protection and second by Melissa to solve the crime. “I get the feeling it’s not really finding out who killed him that motivates her. She’s doing what she can to protect the reputation of Help Is Here. A charity depends on donations, and if word got out that a member of their board was also a woman-abusing creep…”

  “Money dries up. Help is no longer there,” Ralphie said.

  “So someone removed the problem,” Jimmy said, “Not in the subtlest of ways.”

  “So you leaning toward this having something to do with the charity? How many of his victims did he meet there? Charities tend to attract bored rich housewives, who want to do some good and find some good on the side.”

  “Too early to tell. In an investigation like this, it’s often the abused who come under attack for allowing themselves to become victims, and in this case, in covering it up too, not wanting to others to know of their transgressions to begin with except when it comes to Serena. She sought an injunction against him and somehow managed to keep it from the press.”

  “Not so anymore,” Ralphie said. “I read the papers.”

  “Both Barone and Frisano have warned me away from the case. It’s police business.”

  “But you wouldn’t be here you, if you didn’t accept the case.” Ralphie paused, leaving Jimmy in a lingering state of suspension. Did the man have wizened words for him, or was he just enjoying a grateful sip of lif
e in the form of his beer? Finally he set down the nearly empty glass, motioned over to the bartender for another round. It was a simple gesture, a slight move of his finger in the air. Jimmy marveled at his mentor’s ability to navigate the minutia of his own small world. He made it what it was, and he seemed far too content, so settled. Then again at his age shouldn’t one be, not unlike Jimmy, who didn’t know anything about a regular routine, a calm existence? His was a world of troubled sleep, and his waking hours were filled with the drama of others, of himself too. The beers arrived. Empty glasses were taken away, like life was that easy, one moment his perspective empty, suddenly full.

  “You trying to make a point?” Jimmy asked.

  “Just watch your step. You said Barone and Dean are on special assignment to the office of the commissioner, which means they think this case has an even bigger scandal written all over it. ‘Maintain it, contain it,’ that’s the motto, go where the police can’t. Perhaps you can solve it before them, but I have the sense that this Melissa with the fancy hyphen-of-a-last-name has more at stake than just knowing whodunit.”

  “I’ll have to investigate Henderson Carlyle too, retrace his last steps.”

  “An ironic phrase, considering where he ended up.”

  Serena’s steps, a final resting place.

  Ralphie continued. “Shame he had to have such a name, ‘Henderson.’ Impugns its honor.”