I wondered what the NYPD list of suspects looked like. Orders of magnitude longer than mine, I figured. What betrayed lover or unhappy victim had they discovered whom I didn’t know a thing about? What would they uncover from an exhaustive search of Amber’s work records, any of Tina’s files that involved her, and Amber’s friends and neighbors? I felt my efforts were like those of a scientist who’d been given only hydrogen, a single-proton element, to work on, when there were more than one hundred other elements in the periodic table.
I followed the yellow dots around the corner and suffered a slight panic attack when I saw no one waiting by the elevator.
So many people were passing by in the hallway. Was no one ready to go down?
Off to the side I saw a door marked STAIRS. USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.
Did my newly developed fear of being alone in an elevator car constitute an emergency? More important, could I walk down eleven flights of stairs and still be upright at the bottom?
I waited a few more minutes, reading the literature on a little table by a grouping of chairs. I learned tips for treating severe burns, acid reflux disease, bee stings (in New York City?) and knife wounds (I chose to think of these as resulting from kitchen accidents).
Finally I gave in to my fear and turned away from the elevator. I headed for the door to the stairway and went through it.
The heavy door closed behind me with a loud thud that echoed in the bare stairwell. Ahead of me were gray metal railings with matching steps and walls. Even the sound of my rubber soles hitting the treads made an echo.
The stairwell was creepier than an empty elevator.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEEN
This was a first for Lori. Up early on Thursday morning to go to a video store. She figured if she ran down and picked up the CURRY II DVD that ended up in the Erin Brockovich case, she could come back and review it before lunch.
She stuck the CURRY II case with the movie into her tote and headed out her door.
The weatherwoman said it wouldn’t be as cold today, but Lori still put on her thermal gloves before she left the building.
It was an easy walk to Red Carpet Video on West Fifty-first Street near Ninth Avenue. Lori enjoyed the overcast sky, the bare trees, the occasional puddle left by an overnight shower. New York was a Stieglitz photograph. A Hopper painting. A Woody Allen movie. She was into this now. A Frank Sinatra song. A Marge and Gower Champion musical. A Lori Pizzano documentary. Lori smiled and mentally bowed to adoring fans of the future.
She stopped for coffee and a muffin, sat at the café counter, and looked out at the street, already busy with people on their way to work or early shopping. Lori felt lucky to be here—and not in jail. She knew with a certainty that didn’t come often that she’d never succumb to anyone again the way she’d given in to what Amber Keenan offered. No amount of money was worth giving up her freedom to enjoy mornings like this.
Red Carpet Video was at street level, below tony apartments in one of the clay-brown town houses that lined the street. Lori pulled open the heavy glass door and entered a small buffer zone of a foyer. She knocked on the inner door and got the attention of the clerk, who had to buzz her in. Lori had been in art galleries with less security. She figured the procedure was left over from when videos were new, hot merchandise and worth seventy or eighty dollars each. Uncle Matt had told her that back then you had to leave a large deposit, like fifty dollars, before you could take a videotape out of a rental store. Now—well, now you could get them for ten bucks in a store or two for five on the street.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
The buzzer sounded like her doorbell at home. Annoying. She pushed the door quickly so it wouldn’t sound again.
“Hey,” said a young guy with silver studs on his chin and the side of his nose, and hoops on his lower lip and eyebrow. He wore a brown Black Eyed Peas hoodie that looked new. Lori thought there might have been a concert recently.
“Hey,” Lori said. “I called last night about a DVD mix-up. I’m not sure who I talked to.”
“Uh, that’d be the night guy. Garrett.”
“Okay, well, the problem is I thought I was returning Erin Brockovich, but it turns out”—Lori pulled the CURRY II DVD case out of her tote—“I put the movie in this case by mistake, and you have a personal DVD of mine in the Erin Brockovich case that I brought back.”
The guy scratched his head and squinted.
He’s really trying to concentrate, Lori thought, but he has all those holes in his face.
“I could look on the racks out here, but it’s not a new release. Whoever it was got it for me in the back. So can you just show me all the Erin Brockovich es you have, and we can look through and find my DVD and I’ll give you this one? I’ll pay for the extra two days, of course.”
That seemed to get him thinking in the right direction. He held up an index finger and then disappeared into the stacks.
He came back with eight DVD cases. Lori and the brown hoodie each took four from the pile and started opening them.
Julia Roberts came up on all four of Lori’s and the first one (he was slow) of the clerk’s. Lori slid a case from his pile and opened it. The sixth case was empty.
Uh-oh. Lori opened the two remaining cases. Julia again. And again.
“I don’t understand this,” Lori said. “Where’s my DVD?”
The clerk scratched his head, causing his oily black hair to fall close to the eyebrow hoop. “Dunno.” He took the Erin Brockovich DVD from where Lori had placed it on the counter and plopped it into the empty case.
“Well, can you look around? Maybe someone went through and checked and realized it wasn’t the movie in the case so they put my DVD somewhere else.” Not in the trash, Lori fervently hoped. She realized her voice was getting higher and louder. She knew she wouldn’t get anywhere if she showed anger. She took a breath. “Wouldn’t someone call me if they found the wrong disk in my case?”
“Uh, yeah. We’re supposed to call if anything like this happens, like if we get an empty case. I always do.”
Lori had a hard time believing he cared enough. She inhaled deeply. “I’m sure you would never let something like this get by you. Do you think you could check in the back, or under the counter here? Where would you put something like that if you found it?” She hoped she sounded utterly confident in this guy’s ability to handle unusual situations.
The clerk’s eyes brightened. “We have a lost and found. I’ll check there.” He disappeared behind a wrinkled fabric divider.
Lori waited, leaning against the counter, scanning the rows of movies. She remembered only a couple of years ago when videotapes predominated in this store and only about ten movies were available on DVD. Now Red Carpet displayed DVDs almost exclusively. She fiddled with a bag of M&M’s from a pile of candy for sale. One corner of the store was devoted to snacks and drinks. Popcorn, candy bars, chips, and giant soda bottles were stacked three deep. One-stop shopping.
Lori was tempted to buy some corn to pop while it was handy, but she knew it would be more expensive than in a regular market. She tapped her fingers on the counter. Where was Jewelry Man?
When he finally emerged from behind the deep blue curtain, he was empty-handed. Lori’s heart sank.
“No luck,” he said. “I left a note on the bulletin board back there. Maybe someone else knows where it is.”
Lori thanked him and left the store. Halfway down the block she realized the guy hadn’t charged her a late fee. She’d have to think about where that fell on the roster of crimes. For now, she walked on.
Lori stopped at the same café on her way back and got a coffee to go, more to steam her face than anything else. She considered her next steps. She’d look on her computer and see if Amber had left a file. She didn’t hold out too much hope of that, however, and the police still had Amber’s camera, she was sure. She’d check the other DVD cases that had been in use lately. Maybe Craig or Billy had been looking through her collection and misfiled some of t
hem. Craig should know better.
Speaking of Billy—where was Billy Keenan? Lori wondered how the police talked him out of returning to her loft without telling him why. Had they found something else suspicious so they could charge him?
Her own feeble attempts to investigate had turned up nothing on Billy, but a big surprise in Rachel Hartman’s confession. She knew she had to tell the police what she’d learned, but she felt sorry for Rachel. She’d tell Uncle Matt first, and then he could filter it to Detective Arnold. Maybe they’d be more inclined to give Rachel a break that way.
Lori walked down Eighth and took a left on West Forty-eighth Street. Almost home.
Murder suspects, threatening letters, flimsy alibis—these weren’t her usual topics of meditation on her walks around town. She preferred thinking about how to list her videos on independent documentary sites, being sure she had all the deadlines straight for the film festivals, identifying concepts and themes that could be included in a curriculum study guide—something that would work especially well for her ozone project.
She looked forward to being able to get back to working on . . .
Lori stopped short. Fortunately no one was directly behind her. She was having too many of these moments lately. This time it wasn’t a bright idea that stopped her.
Billy Keenan was sitting on the front steps of her building.
Lori stepped partway into the doorway of Lou’s Pizza. She squinted and strained her neck to locate the unmarked. The car that had been there at eight thirty this morning was gone, and she didn’t see anything else that seemed likely.
This is silly, she told herself. How could a cute farm boy be dangerous unless he’d had one too many and a pitchfork in his hand?
She stepped out of the doorway and looked toward her building again.
Her stoop was empty.
CHAPTER TWENT-EIGHT
The hospital stairway to the street, empty and hollow, painted in shades of gray, stretched above and below me.
Once again, I was alone in Manhattan. How did I orchestrate so many moments of stark solitary confinement in New York City? The next time I heard about the throngs of visitors, the thirty-seven hundred buses (this from Rose), or the urban jungle, I’d have an experience or two to share.
I moved as quickly as I could down the long multilevel flights, ran out of breath, then stopped at the next landing. I was grateful for the large, dark gray numbers painted on the wall to tell me what floor I’d reached, but disappointed to see the 8. I wasn’t even halfway down. I sat on a step and listened for footsteps.
Nothing. I didn’t know whether to be glad or upset that the stairwell was quiet and vacant.
No hospital sounds got through the thick stairwell doors. No noisy gurneys or food racks or beeping monitors. Not even the heavy smells of medicines and boiled food that had permeated the hospital corridors made it through to my perch.
I was trapped in a solid insulated chamber. Larger than a single elevator car, but no less frightening. At least this one isn’t sealed shut, I reminded myself.
I stood up, my knees shaking, but more from the eerie environment, I thought, than the physical exertion. At least so far.
Four more flights, and I barely had feeling in my calves. I was on the fourth floor. Almost there, I told myself, struggling to ignore the pain in my chest and the dryness of my mouth. So this was why people joined health clubs, I mused. To be in shape for this kind of emergency.
Thud.
The sound of a stairwell door closing on a floor above me echoed down the shaft; it was unclear from how high up. I pressed my back against the wall and heard muffled voices. A picture of two goons, the size a private investigator might hire, on their way to kill me came to my mind.
I closed my eyes, unable to move. This is it, I thought. It could be weeks before a power outage sent people scurrying to the stairwells where my bloody body would be found.
“Come on, Sheila, no one’s gonna see us.” A deep, urgent voice.
Then a giggle and “I don’t know, Stevie . . .”
“Just relax, baby. You’re on your break, right?”
Lovebirds. Don’t do it, Sheila. Hold out for a nice hotel. Or were these two hit men trying to throw me off? I couldn’t risk waiting to find out. I zipped down the last three flights, convincing myself there really were knees and legs under me though I felt neither.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed the door marked STREET.
I expected the comfort of daylight and a busy city sidewalk but found myself instead in a narrow alley, dark even at this hour of the day, because the buildings were so close together. The sky was overcast, as gray as the stairwell, leaving the alley bereft of warmth or sunlight.
I was breathing hard and thought of researching an elevator support group.
I made my way to the street where a most wonderful vision awaited, better than sunshine: a line of yellow taxis.
As my cab pulled away, I looked around for signs of the NYPD. Would Dee Dee be arrested once they knew she’d lied to them? Or Zach for whatever was on CURRY II? Or me, if Tina alerted the police that I might be hindering their investigation?
I looked at my watch. Oddly enough, I’d be at Zach’s company in a couple of hours. If they’d already posted a job opening for regional purchasing manager, I’d have my answer and I’d be able to go home soon.
This time I called Matt.
“Where are you now?” he asked immediately.
“On my way to a nice, relaxing lunch with Rose and Grace.”
I heard a combination grunt-sigh. All he really needed to know was that I was safe; he didn’t have to believe I was relaxed.
“What have you got?”
Back on the job. I briefed him on what I’d learned from Dee Dee about her three trips to Lori’s building, starting with the possible Billy sighting on Saturday.
“The day before Amber was murdered, and two days before he says he arrived in town,” Matt said. “I’ll see if anything like that is in the police report from canvassing the neighbors.”
“Do you know where Billy is now?” I asked, hoping they’d convinced him not to go back to Lori’s.
“Buzz says they told him that Lori’s apartment might be a dangerous place to be, possibly the killer is coming back, Lori is moving out also, and so on. I think they offered to get him a room in a Y and take his duffel bag to him. As far as I know, that ploy worked.”
“I’ll bet Billy is all too willing to believe New York is a bad place and no one is safe,” I said.
“It’s not great to have to play on someone’s fears, but whatever works. Back to that Curry video. If Dee Dee’s report is correct, Zach now has a disk that Lori thinks she has but doesn’t?”
“Right. Unless she’s tried to view it. My question is, Why bother doing that? Eventually Lori would see that it was missing.” I wondered if Matt’s explanation would make any more sense than Dee Dee’s.
“They’re just buying time, figuring that by the time Lori discovers it’s gone, she won’t be able to trace back to when she saw it last. It’s amateur, but most criminals are amateurs. I’ll give Lori a call and see if she’s figured it out.”
I started to say good-bye, but Matt interrupted. “I almost forgot. Buzz made me promise I’d tell you this one.”
I groaned.
“Listen,” Matt said, “Buzz doesn’t usually take to laypeople horning in on a case, so count it as a compliment that he wants to send you a message. It’s his way of saying he likes you.”
“In that case, give it to me.”
“ ‘I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.’ ”
“Okay, mildly funny. Aren’t you getting carried away with these baseball quotes? You don’t even like baseball.”
“The Yankees are different. They’re not just a team, they’re an institution. Also, when in Rome . . .”
“Wait. I thought of one,” I said. “Here’s an Einstein quote. Just to show Buzz I l
ike him.”
“Give it to me.” Matt tried to mimic my churlishness.
“From Einstein. ‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’ ”
“Whoa. I like it. Worthy of Yogi himself,” Matt said.
I thought Einstein would have been pleased to hear it.
I made it to the New Vineyard for lunch by eleven forty-two. The restaurant comprised one sprawling new-looking dining room with sparkling glasses hanging from the ceiling over the bar and plants fanning out from the rafters everywhere else. Small Christmas trees twinkled here and there throughout. I breathed in deeply to enhance the smell of zeppole, the fried dough that had been a staple of my youth.
I made my way through the busy area, partially knocking over a top-heavy coat chair in the process, to join Rose and Grace at a back table.
Fortunately Rose’s watch was always fifteen minutes slow, so I knew she’d consider me right on time. When I approached, she and Grace were deep into a conversation about the many specialty shopping areas Manhattan offered.
“I never knew there were so many districts, Gloria,” Rose said, helping me get settled and placing a small zeppoli on my bread plate. “Silver district, diamond district—well, I knew about that one, of course.” Rose wiggled her earlobe with her finger to call attention to the diamond studs Frank had given her when their first child, Karla’s husband, was born. “There’s even a shoe district, down on Eighth Street. That’s one I need to get to on my next trip.”
“The hat district is still my favorite,” Grace said. She dipped into a green-and-red-striped shopping bag by her seat and pulled out packages of thick felt, colorful ribbon, and several decorative buckles and pins. “It’s the place to buy materials for custom millinery.”
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