The second she was out of sight, I opened the door.
Inside, I found a thick pile of books and papers, all neatly stacked in size-order like a pyramid, tied together by an old string. It looked like Walter kept everything in order, even his secrets.
I pulled the bundle out of the safe and brought it over to the desk. I undid the string and quickly went through the stack. It was everything I had expected to find in an insurance man’s safe. A ledger. Bank statements. Stock certificates. Receipts. Deeds to various properties listing Mr. Walter Fairfax, Jr. as the owner. I bet some of the things he’d given Countess Alexandra were in there. I had hit the jackpot. I would’ve immediately begun examining everything if it hadn’t been for something else that didn’t belong.
It was a worn leather notebook, bulging with papers, secured by rubber bands wrapped around it.
I’d just started to undo the rubber bands when I noticed Mrs. Swenson was already back at the doorway. She didn’t look happy.
“I thought we agreed you’d wait.”
“And I thought we’d agree you’d ride down to the lobby with Billy to make sure he left. If he got off on another floor and starts ripping tenants off, that’s on you.”
“You don’t give a damn about that.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You just wanted me out of the way so you could look over what you found in that safe. Well, what was in there?”
I wasn’t sure what I had, but I knew I wanted to review it alone before Mrs. Swenson or anyone else could see it. I put the notebook on top of the pile. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m going to need a bag to carry all of this stuff in.”
“No,” she said. “We can take all the time we need to examine everything right here. I’m in no hurry at all. When we’re done, we can put everything right back in the safe.”
I sat back in the chair and looked at her, really looked at her for the very first time since I’d met her that afternoon. There really was something different about her; a confidence and strength that hadn’t been there before. I wasn’t sure I liked what I saw. Not because I liked my women weak, but because the change was pretty sudden. “You mean put it back in the safe you now know the combination to? Sorry. No dice. A bag, please.”
“Stop being so dramatic.” She folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe, showing more curves than I knew she’d had. She even threw in a smile. “We’re all on the same side, aren’t we, Mr. Doherty?”
But I wasn’t so sure anymore. Something had changed. “Are we, Mrs. Swenson?”
“It’s not Mrs. Swenson,” she said. “It’s Miss Swenson. Sarah Swenson. Mr. Fairfax thought his wife would be jealous if she knew a single woman was working for her husband, so he thought calling me Mrs. Swenson would be better for all concerned.”
Given what I knew about Fairfax’s history, I couldn’t blame her. “In that case, my name’s Charlie, not Mr. Doherty. And I’m still going to need that valise, Sarah, because no one’s seeing anything in this pile until I’ve had a chance to review it.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but the lights went out.
***
It was after six o’clock and just past dusk. Some natural light still filtered through the windows there in Walter’s office, but the rest of the floor was pitch-black. All the doors to the exterior offices were closed and all the secretaries had gone home.
“That damned fuse again,” Sarah said. “Goes out all the time.”
But I wasn’t so sure. Everything had gone dark at a damned convenient time; too convenient for it to be an accident. I quickly gathered the ledgers and statements back into one pile and tied them up again with the string. I picked up the phone on the desk, but couldn’t get an outside line. We were trapped.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Get me something to put these in and do it fast.”
She was as calm as I was anxious. “I’m sure there’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s just a fuse. Happens all the time. I’ll just go check the fuse box myself. It’s up by the elevators on the left. I know my way around here in the dark like I know the back of my own hand. It won’t take more than—”
“Damn it, do you have a bag or don’t you?”
She took a step back toward the door. “No, I don’t. But if you’re concerned, put the documents back in the safe.”
Since that’s what she wanted me to do, that would be the last thing I would do. “If a hack like Billy could get it open, whoever pulled that fuse might be able to open it, too. Now start looking for a—”
I shut up quick when I heard something get knocked over somewhere in the pitch darkness of the office. Something small, like a picture frame off a desk, but loud enough for us to hear it.
Now I was sure someone had killed those lights on purpose.
I gathered up the bundle and shut the office door. I tried to lock it but, just my luck, no lock on this side. Whoever was out there had just been plunged into total darkness. At least we were all on a level playing field.
I kept my voice low as I took Sarah’s arm and whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here as fast and quiet as possible. You said you know your way around the office in the dark. Is that true?”
She nodded quickly.
“When I open this door, we’re going to go outside and I’m going to shut it quickly behind us. We’ll be in the dark, too, but so will they. You’re our advantage. You’re going to lead us to a stairway door and we’re going to head down several floors and grab the elevator there. Not the elevator on this floor, do you understand? Not the elevator. That’ll give away our position. Understand?”
She whispered that she did. I pushed the awkward bundle higher into my armpit and grabbed the doorknob. “My hand will be on your shoulder the entire time. Let’s go.”
***
I opened the door just wide enough for us to slip through, then shut it behind us. I knew we weren’t fooling anyone. Since I didn’t have a gun, we only had one play to make and that was to make a run for it. I just hoped she knew her way as well as she said she did.
I placed my hand on Sarah’s shoulder and nudged her forward. I didn’t like keeping her out front like that, but she was the only one who knew how to get us to safety. With my left hand on her shoulder, I used my right to cradle the bundle under my left. It was bound tight enough to use as a weapon if I needed to. It should be enough to knock someone off their feet, especially in the darkness.
I heard something brush against the wall to the left. Whoever was in here with us was using the wall as a guide, while we moved between the rows of desks. I couldn’t tell how far we had moved but we hadn’t knocked anything over or run into anyone else, so all was good for now.
Then I heard something move directly in front of us. A snap of cartilage or bone popping. An innocent enough sound in daily life, but deadly in the dark.
I moved Miss Swenson behind me as I lifted the bundle above my head and brought it down blind, as hard as I could.
It felt like it connected with a shoulder, not a head. It was hard enough, though, to send whomever I’d hit tumbling backwards, knocking over desk phones and lamps and papers.
I tucked the bundle back under my arm and pushed Miss Swenson in front of me, my hand on her shoulder, hoping she’d stay calm and lead us out of there as quietly as possible.
She took a hard left and I could sense we were in a clear part of the office. She opened a stairwell door, temporarily blinding us with the light.
I shut the door behind me as I heard more sounds of things being knocked over in the darkness. They knew where we were and headed our way. It would only be a matter of time before they followed us. I couldn’t keep the door shut forever, especially if they had guns.
Sarah was already halfway down to the next landing, beckoning me to follow her. “Hurry! We don’t have time.”
My eyes had
adjusted to the light by then and I saw the one thing that could buy us some time.
I tossed the bundle down to her and she surprised me by catching it. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Let’s go!”
I pulled a length of firehose coiled in the stairwell and drew it across the landing, wrapping it low around the newel post just above the first step of the landing. It wasn’t tight but the canvas hose was just heavy enough to make someone trip, especially if they were running from darkness into the light.
I hopped over the hose and ran down the steps to grab Miss Swenson before she got too far. I took the bundle back from her. “I’ll stay here. You keep going down until you find an elevator. Get downstairs and have them call the cops.”
“Why are you staying here? This is crazy.”
“Because I need to know who—”
The stairway door burst open and one of the men bolted into the stairwell. A bald, square-faced man in a gray overcoat. He squinted into the light, just as I had done, but was running. He tripped over the hose, falling face first like a log on the landing before crumpling over onto his back. The dumb bastard was out cold.
A second man came through the door and followed suit, this time tumbling as he hit each of the steps until he fell into his friend.
It was Blondie, the same punk who’d gotten away from me twice that day.
Sarah shrieked as I bounded back up the stairs and kicked Blondie in the gut as he tried to get to his feet. “Who sent you?”
He muttered something familiar that I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t hear what it was. I grabbed his neck with my free hand and slammed his head against the stair. “Who sent you, goddamn it?”
“Nein,” came the response.
A gunshot boomed from the stairwell door above me, a blind shot fired by a blind man who knew his friends were in trouble but couldn’t see. The bullet hit the wall feet above me, but since I didn’t have a gun, I did the only thing I could do. I grabbed Miss Swenson and down we ran.
Five floors down we found an open door that led us to a common lobby, where we caught the elevator down to the ground floor.
I told the men in the lobby what had happened upstairs and waited while they called the police.
When the boys in blue got there, I showed them my retiree badge, which cut down on the hassle. They searched the building but came up empty.
But the cops had Miss Swenson and me. And they wanted us to make a statement.
So much for a quiet evening at home.
Chapter 9
I had been in the midtown station house more times than I could count. I’d once been assigned there when Chief Carmichael put me out to pasture, shagging fly balls on the graveyard shift, praying I’d have enough pride to quit. I was too proud to give him the satisfaction.
The station house had been a miserable building since my first days on the force, and the years had not been kind. It was always damp and humid, even in the dead of winter. Someone always had a fan going, even on Christmas Eve. The paint that hadn’t peeled had faded, pipes leaked, the walls were moldy, and the only thing bigger than the rats were the cockroaches, which seemed to be the only creatures that thrived in the environment.
In fairness, my ex-partner Loomis gave the roaches a run for their money when it came to attachment to the place. He rarely went home, often coming in earlier and leaving later than he had to. The job was his life.
He was busy questioning Sarah in another part of the station house while he let me write out my statement at his desk. I guessed it was professional courtesy, seeing as we had been partners not too long ago. I knew it would take a while for Sarah to calm down enough to make any sense, much less for Loomis to get a statement out of her.
After writing up my statement, I used his phone to make a call that was suddenly long overdue.
I called Mr. Van Dorn at the Washington, D.C. number he had given me. I didn’t know why he was in Washington, just that he spent a lot of time down there, especially after Roosevelt had become president. They’d gone to Groton together and had remained close ever since, so I figured that might be the reason. But Mr. Van Dorn didn’t give me any details, and it was none of my business anyway.
“Charlie,” he boomed when he came on the line. “Your timing couldn’t be better. How did everything go with Mrs. Fairfax?”
I gave him a rundown on everything that had happened that day. The list Mrs. Fairfax had given to me. The two attempts on my life. The kid I had found following me in Times Square. My conversation with Dr. Blythe. The news about Countess Alexandra von Holstein. The contents of Walter’s safe. The people who’d attacked me in Fairfax’s office, Blondie being among them.
I got the feeling he was taking notes the whole time, but I couldn’t be sure.
Mr. Van Dorn didn’t say a word until I was done. That’s the way he worked. He never asked questions until it was all out in the open. When he figured I was done, he asked his questions in his own way. And he never forgot anything I told him, either, even when I thought he had.
“Sounds like we’ve gotten someone’s attention. I had heard about the shooting on the news, but I didn’t know you were involved. You may have wanted to let me know about that earlier.”
That was as close to yelling as Mr. Van Dorn ever got. He never said I was wrong or raised his voice, only that he wished I’d considered another way to do something. “I know, sir, but things were happening pretty fast and, seeing as no harm was done, I figured I should go about my business. Next time, I’ll call right away.”
“I think that’s best, considering everything that’s happening. This seems to be a far more complicated matter than we originally thought. They must have followed you to the mansion and for some time afterward in order to catch up with you twice. That shows some level of organization on their part.”
I put my feet up on Loomis’s desk. “That’s what bothers me, sir. I don’t know if I was lucky or these clowns are lousy at this kind of thing.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Charlie.”
“Take the shooting on the street this morning,” I explained. “Those guys didn’t just have a guy with a Tommy gun in the Ford. They had Blondie as a backup on the street, too. He could’ve shot me dead when the Tommy gun missed. But he just ran past me when he saw I was alive, and got in the car. Why was he even there in the first place? And tonight, in the office, at least one of them had a gun. They didn’t have to kill the lights. They could’ve rushed the office and shot me if they’d wanted to. But why would they have wanted to? Why were they there at all? If they wanted me dead, they could’ve taken another run at me on the street, but they risked coming into the building instead. And killing the lights like they did. There’s just something off about the whole damned thing.”
“Yes,” Mr. Van Dorn agreed. “I see your point now.”
“And here’s the topper. I grabbed one of the guys who came after me at the office. Blondie again. I think he was speaking German.”
Mr. Van Dorn was silent a beat longer than normal. “German. You’re sure?”
“He’d busted his head when he fell and was spouting a lot of gibberish, so the only word I heard clearly was nein. But the rest of it sounded close enough to German to me. I heard enough of it in France to know.”
I heard his tone change. “I take it you didn’t have your gun with you today.”
“No. I didn’t want to bring it to the old lady’s house, and I hadn’t gotten back to my place all day. But that’s going to change as soon as I get back home.”
“A wise policy. They’ve learned as much about us as we’ve learned about them today. They won’t be as reckless next time, and you’ll need to be prepared. Tell me what you found in Walter’s safe.”
I pulled the bundle over to me and began sorting through it. “Some receipts from private jewelers for pieces he had made over the
past couple of months. Bank statements for a couple of accounts that he set up with Countess Alexandra’s name on them. Judging by the size of the deposits and withdrawals on the account, looks like it takes a lot to make that woman happy.”
“Prussian countesses aren’t known for frugality, Charlie, especially the poor ones. How much did he give her?”
“Based on what I’ve read in the ledger I found, it looks like he gave her a million dollars in 1932 and a million and a half so far this year, sir.”
I heard Mr. Van Dorn stop writing. “Two and a half million dollars in less than a year? That buys an awful lot of happiness.”
I went through my pile again. “I’ve got a lease here in Walter’s name for an apartment on Central Park West, dating back to nine months ago. He seems to have signed it over to her on the same day. I’ve also got bank statements that show a lot of charges from furriers, hat makers, and it looks like she spends more money on clothes than the army spends on bullets.”
I heard Mr. Van Dorn resume writing. “Looks like Walter got himself quite an expensive pet.”
“Doesn’t seem to be shy about throwing it around, either. It looks like Walter has donated about a million to one group in particular. The Friends of New Germany. There are also deeds for properties he’s bought in Sussex, New Jersey, and places I’ve never heard of here in New York. Probably upstate.”
“What’s the name?”
I fumbled as I tried as best as I could with the pronunciation. “Yaphank.”
“That’s not upstate,” Mr. Van Dorn explained. “That’s Long Island. What kind of properties has he bought?”
I read through the documents. “Seems just to be vacant land according to what I can see.”
I heard Mr. Van Dorn write that down, too. “Interesting. We’ll see if we can find a way to get you to meet Alexandra at the Stuyvesant Society gala tomorrow night. I checked, and it seems she’ll be there tomorrow night. Bought her own ticket, too. By the way, I understand Dr. Blythe had already arranged for you to attend.”
The Fairfax Incident Page 8
