She rose to her feet, her face burning. “You want evidence? You’ll have evidence soon enough.” Her heels clicked against the floor as she headed to the door. “It’ll be my body at the morgue.”
chapter twenty-four
Friday, April 6, 1979
Detective Wanless saw to it that a constable followed Rebecca in a squad car as she drove home. The young uniformed officer watched her open the front door with her key and turn on every light, going nervously through the rooms as he waited in the hallway. In the kitchen she turned on the floodlamps that bathed the backyard in artificial light. Even if the driver of the van knew her name, she thought, she was not listed in the phone book. He would have to find her address some other way, like following her home. She had lost him this time. But how did she know he hadn’t followed her before?
The constable waited at the foot of the stairs while she climbed to the second floor and wandered from bedroom to bedroom, flicking on the lights. By the time she was finished, the house blazed with lights in every room and closet.
She smiled sheepishly at the constable. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. She felt completely alone and without help. Wanless, with his professional sympathy, had made up his mind about her the way she had made up her mind about Goldie. Would Goldie still be alive if Rebecca had believed her? She slunk into bed, feeling the old familiar pang in her heart. Stop it! she cried to herself, Goldie’s paranoia had precursors; it had been a valid diagnosis for Rebecca to make. Even Wanless saw that. She imagined that he considered his reasoning about the case was sound, too. Her blood froze when she took the comparison to its logical conclusion: Goldie had ended up dead in her own living-room. Rebecca had no intention of submitting to that fate.
Even with the kitchen knife stashed away in the drawer of her nightstand, Rebecca slept fitfully, the glare of the van’s headlights piercing her shallow dreams. Sometimes Capitán Diaz got out of the van and sometimes it was Feldberg’s face she saw coming toward her.
Feldberg. Seeing him at the club was a shock. And the relationship with Isabella. How long had he been cheating on Chana? Before her illness, Rebecca guessed. Was that a motive for murder? How was he involved with Diaz? She seemed to have come to a dead end with the Capitán.
If only Chana could talk. There was no one else to ask about Feldberg. She was loath to go to sleep; if only she could keep looking for the killer round the clock. Maybe then she could survive. He knew her; that was his advantage. She had to find him. In that twilight between sleeping and waking, she saw Feldberg in his leather armchair, his legs crossed, one knee pointing toward her. “Too many letters’ ” he whispered. “Why should Chana miss Goldie, they wrote and wrote, always writing. She told Goldie everything.”
Rebecca opened one eye to check the clock: 7:10 a.m. She told Goldie everything. Rebecca sat up with a start. There would be letters. Goldie might have kept letters from her sister. But would Chana have written anything important in them?
By eight-thirty, in the muted light of a grey morning, she was heading along Eglinton Avenue toward Bathurst. Her eye caught every dark van that passed by. How was she ever going to feel safe again? She parked on a side street south of Goldie’s duplex. The yellow police tape flapped in the chill morning breeze, but no police stood guard. Their investigation seemed over. They were giving up.
She ignored the tape strung across the front door and tried to turn the knob. The door was locked. Traffic on Bathurst drifted by as always, people going to work, people going for breakfast. Good God, what was she doing here? She squared her shoulders. Trying to survive, that was what.
She walked down the lane to the side door, looking over her shoulder. Maybe she had missed him in the mirror. Maybe he was watching her right now. She tried the side door. Locked.
She stood a long moment facing Bathurst, scanning the circumscribed view of the street that the lane afforded her. If he were there, she would see him. She had to stay calm, keep her head clear.
She walked further down the lane toward the garage, wondering if Feldberg would see the irony of her asking him for the key. She turned the corner of the house and stopped. In the back the blinkered bedroom window reflected the morning light.
“Argentina too hot,” Goldie had said more than once. “In Poland, air was fresh. Canada, too. Air fresh. Can’t sleep with window closed.”
Rebecca glanced around at the backs of the houses facing the rear of the duplex. People still minded their own business in a big city. Thank God for small mercies.
She gingerly tried the whitewashed sash of the window on the ground floor. It seemed loose in its place but wouldn’t lift. She knew from experience that everything stuck in old houses. That didn’t mean it was locked. She braced herself and pushed hard against gravity and old paint and damp-expanded wood. The window moved. Marginally. She was dogged about it and pushed the sash up an inch at a time till there was an opening wide enough. She wondered what the College of Physicians and Surgeons would say if they could see her. One more cursory glance at the blankeyed windows of the houses opposite, then she heaved herself up one leg at a time, wondering why, at her weight, it was still so hard to lift those bones a few feet. She fought with the drapes inside the room before finding herself crouched on top of Goldie’s dresser. Some tubes and jars clattered beneath her.
There was less debris in the room than she remembered, the remainder no doubt divided onto glass slides in the forensics lab. What could she possibly find that they hadn’t?
Creeping up the hall — why was she creeping? — she could see there had been no attempt to clean up the apartment. The police had collected their samples, then left without looking back. So much for civic responsibility.
She headed to the living-room, drawn by some ghoulish force. Goldie was gone, there was no blood, no bodily evidence to mark her final resting-place. Nevertheless Rebecca knelt down near the spot, trying to evoke earlier memories of Goldie than the image of her that had imprinted itself on the inside of Rebecca’s eyelids.
She had to get on with it. Who was she feeling sorry for anyway? Goldie, or herself?
Rebecca began methodically opening drawers in the dining-room and kitchen, then in Goldie’s bedroom and the den. She went through every paper she could find, foraging in the apartment for nearly two hours. So far, she had come up empty.
The last stop was the spare bedroom near the front. She had the least hope for it since it appeared unlived in. The closet had been trashed, its contents helter-skelter on the floor. Nothing of interest: old shoes, sweaters, blankets. The top drawer of the dresser had been left pulled out. She searched it and pulled out the other drawers in a cursory shuffle if only to convince herself she had looked. Then she found them. In the bottom drawer, pale blue against the nightgowns and slips lay a sheaf of airmail envelopes bound with an elastic. The police had found them and hadn’t bothered with them.
The top envelope was written in a rounded European hand addressed to Mrs. Goldie Kochinsky in Argentina. Rebecca slipped off the elastic. All the envelopes were the same. The return address from Chana Feldberg on Bathurst Street in Toronto. Rebecca pulled out a letter and sighed. It was written in Polish. At least she assumed it was Polish, the strange dots over letters and strokes through l’s. It certainly wasn’t Spanish.
Suddenly a noise startled her. A key turned in the apartment door. Someone was stepping in. She held her breath while the blood began to roar in her ears.
chapter twenty-five
Rebecca quickly noted the window in the small room. It would take too long to open and would make too much noise. The closet in the corner. If she could make it to the closet without creaking the floor. A pounding, like a surf, began in her ears.
The intruder had stepped into the hall and stopped. Rebecca turned her body, slowly trying to head for the closet. Clothes lay strewn on the floor. Her feet prodded the ground gingerly before each step. The surf rose in her ears.
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The intruder moved through the living-room. Rebecca caught the toe of her running shoe in a sweater on the floor. It made a slight shuffling noise that she hoped would not be noticed. No such luck.
“Is someone there?” said a voice Rebecca recognized. The intruder appeared in the doorway of the small room and turned on the light.
“What are you doing here, Doctor?” asked Feldberg.
He was small, she thought. I’m only in trouble if he has a weapon. “I could ask you the same thing,” she said. His chin rose in a self-righteous thrust. “I wanted to see the condition of the apartment. What needed to be done. I helped her with the maintenance while she was alive. She was my sister-in-law, after all. I have a right.”
The beat of the ocean receded from Rebecca’s ears. She bridled at his gall. Goldie had dealt with everything herself. He needed a good jolt of reality.
“Perhaps you want to take responsibility for cleaning it up then.”
His thin lips twisted as he looked around. “I’m going to call and complain to the police. They’ll have to send someone.” His eyes moved down to her hands and his expression shifted, resolved at the sight of the letters.
He stepped closer to the door, then held out his palm before her, ready to receive them. “I believe that is my property,” he said, the German accent more guttural.
Suddenly the letters took on a new light. She quickly bundled up the envelopes and put them in her purse. “This is something Goldie left for me,” she said.
She tried to step past him in the hall. He grabbed her arm and held her fast. “Are those the letters of my wife?”
Size wasn’t everything, she realized. His grip was iron hard. She was in pitiful shape in comparison.
“Certainly not. I wouldn’t keep letters from your wife.” She counted a heartbeat. “My secretary’s waiting for me outside.” She looked down pointedly at his hand on her arm.
For long seconds he seemed to be weighing his options. Then his iron fingers released her with reluctance. She scooped up her jacket and hurried out the front door.
Rebecca had trouble concentrating that afternoon in the office. She was relieved the problems her patients brought her that day were relatively simple ones. Flus, birth control problems, stomach ailments. Iris had given her an odd look several times and Rebecca wondered if her distraction was showing. She would not compromise the care of her patients. If she had to take off more time, she would.
At the end of the day she eased into a chair near Iris, who was finishing some paperwork. All Rebecca could think of was the sheaf of letters that lay undeciphered in her purse. Who did she know who spoke Polish?
“You must’ve been out late last night,” Iris said without looking up.
Rebecca shifted gears. She hadn’t mentioned the trip to the club or the police. “Did you call?”
“Twice. Did you get my message?”
“I didn’t check my phone. I just went straight to bed.”
Iris finally looked up from her papers. “Are you all right?”
Rebecca was unwilling to drag her friend into her own troubles. She didn’t want anyone else on her conscience. “You’re always telling me to go out, so I went out.”
Iris pulled her glasses down to perch on her nose and observe Rebecca. “You look tired,” she said. “Come for dinner tonight. Joe and Martha are coming. They’d love to see you again.”
Rebecca wasn’t in the mood for company. She stood up. “I know what I need,” she said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt. “It’s a good day for a brisk walk.”
As soon as she closed the door to her inner office, Rebecca looked up the number of the bakery.
“Could I speak to Rosie?”
“She gone home.” A tired woman’s voice.
Rebecca peeked at her watch: six o’ clock. “Could I have her home number?”
“We don’t give up home numbers. Call tomorrow.” The woman was finished.
“Wait! Do you happen to know if she speaks Polish?”
There was a surprised pause. “Rosie? Nah. She speak Jewish.”
“What about you? Do you speak Polish?”
“Me! You joking? I’m Hungarian. Look, customers are here. I’m busy.”
The woman hung up.
Grey vaporous clouds hung over Cecil Street, casting a pall. Rebecca marched smartly along the sidewalk in her sweatpants and leather running shoes, though her heart wasn’t in it. She had to clear her mind. Speedwalking was good for that. April smelled of earth and moist clouds. She wanted to take it all in, like someone seeing it for the last time. To die in spring would be too ironic, everything just beginning again. God, she felt morose. A few days ago she could almost hear the new buds twisting in the ground. Now it hardly seemed possible to consider any kind of regeneration on this greycanopied street.
She needed to feel her pulse rise, get her heart beating like it used to when she felt alive. The light at Spadina turned in her favour as she approached and on impulse she decided to cross to the market side. There was something about disorderly stores and merchandise spilling onto sidewalks that suggested energy, an affirmation.
It wasn’t till she reached Baldwin Street that the gathering odour of dead meat and fish negated that promise. She glanced down the street, then stopped. Blue Danube Fish sat sedately in the evening. She wondered whether Vogel knew anyone in the market who spoke Polish. It was Friday; everything was still open. Shoppers strolled along Spadina, some of them peering up at the lowering sky. Rebecca stepped onto Baldwin Street. A misty drizzle cooled her skin.
It was almost too late when she saw him striding toward her from the parking garage across the street. The grey sweatsuit, the baseball cap that shaded his eyes into a dark blur. He was coming straight at her. She gasped at his speed. He was three yards away when she turned around and bolted across Spadina against a red light.
Traffic was slow but two cars had to brake to avoid her. One honked as it streaked by within inches, raising the airborne spray into her face. She turned, looking for her pursuer: the grey sweatsuit weaved between the cars more deftly than she. Nearly across the six lanes, she dived for the curb to avoid a speeding taxi. Her foot slipped on the pavement. She fell down on one knee, stunned for a moment as blood began to appear through her pants.
“Wait! Stop!” someone called out.
She jumped up and began to run again. No looking back, no time left. Down the other side of Baldwin, run to Beverley Street. Her knee began to throb, she wasn’t running fast enough, the trusty running shoes couldn’t do it alone, they couldn’t perform miracles. The office was too far away, she wouldn’t make it. She’d have to stand and fight in front of one of those gaudily painted houses. No, her best bet was to find someone at home. There was no one apparent on this side of Baldwin, especially since the drizzle in the air had taken shape and slanted into a soft rain. Her hair hung wet and sticky in her face.
She could barely see where she was going. She couldn’t run anymore. This house would have to be it! She pulled herself up two steps at a time onto a veranda, the green door in sight. Just get to the door! He was stumbling up the stairs right behind her.
“Jesus!” he said as they both toppled over an old bike that leaned into a corner of the veranda. The front door of the house was within reach while her body swayed over the bike. She began to bang her fist on the door.
“Listen to me!” he cried, trying to pull her away.
Just then the door opened. An elderly Chinese woman in a brocade blouse stood in the doorway.
“Call the police!” Rebecca cried at her. “911.”
The tiny woman looked from Rebecca to the man and back at Rebecca again with expressionless eyes, then uttered a stream of singsong Chinese.
Rebecca tried to make for the open door but the man held her back. “Police! Call the police!” she yelled.
The woman registered a brief exclamation of annoyance, then closed the door.
The man took Rebecca by the
shoulders and held her firmly. He was very strong, she couldn’t move. He said something to her but she was too frightened to listen. Suddenly adrenaline coursed through her when she remembered. Her office keys were in her pants pocket. Plunging her hand inside, she struggled to arrange the keys between her knuckles. Then, with all her strength, she plucked her hand out of her pocket and aimed at his face. Sharp metal edges scraped at his cheek.
He let go of her then. His hand probed the wound. He looked down at the blood on his fingers. “Are you crazy?” he said in a perturbingly quiet voice. “Why did you do that?”
For the first time she looked at his face. His eyes were not what she expected. They were deep-set and restrained with a perplexing depth to them. And he wasn’t big, just a few inches taller than her. But her heart still pumped fiercely and her words gasped out.
“Why are you chasing me?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Talk to me?”
Under the wet visor he watched her. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I wanted to talk to you about Goldie Kochinsky.”
“Just who are you?”
“I was trying to tell you back there but you wouldn’t stop. My name is Malkevich. Nesha.”
Despite the cap, his face had not escaped the rain and drops of moisture glistened on his tanned cheeks. A piece of puzzle edged into place.
“Look, I’m sorry about back there,” he said. “I should’ve tried....”
“You’re the cousin,” she said in an instant of revelation.
“She told you about me?” Rain mingled with the blood on his face.
“You didn’t have to chase me. You could’ve tried some other way to communicate.” Rebecca felt stupid and embarrassed and, finally, paranoid.
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 15
