The Guardian

by Konvitz, Jeffrey;

  Faye looked up. “John, I think we’d all be better off if we just forgot about her, left her alone.”

  “Why’s that?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. I just have this feeling! Ever since we moved into the building, I’ve tried to forget that the woman is next to us. That our bedroom is right beyond the room, where she sits. It’s been very unnerving. And, Ben, when we returned this morning, I sensed that she was looking down at me. I’ve never felt that before, and I don’t know why I did then, but I did!”

  Jenkins turned on an additional lamp. “I think we’d better change the subject.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Ben said, hoping they’d not precipitated a witch hunt. The old nun had been there for a long time, and nothing had ever occurred to even suggest there was something sinister about her.

  Sorrenson placed the new recording by the string quartet on the phonograph. The apartment, which had grown quiet, sputtered to life.

  Ben joined Jenkins near the window. Jenkins had become strangely aloof.

  “What’s on your mind?” Ben asked. He could see Faye watching them curiously.

  Jenkins sniffed and rubbed his hand along the base of his nose. “I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About the nun. And what Faye said, that we’d all be better off if we just forgot about her, left her alone.”

  “Oh, Faye’s just frightened by the old broad.”

  Jenkins smiled. “Yes, frightened, but I think she’s right.”

  Ben pressed his face against the cold window glass. Faye. Batille. Sorrenson. Grace Woodbridge. And now Jenkins. All of them spooked. Incredible.

  “I think I’m going out of my mind,” Faye declared, as she bundled the laundry together on the dining room table and stuffed it into the carrying cart.

  “What do you mean?” Ben asked. He was curled on the couch with his shirt off, smoking a cigar.

  “Well, not out of my mind, but don’t you think that all of this is kind of weird?” Faye slid onto the couch. “Don’t you think it’s been something of a coincidence to suddenly have the Catholic Church breathing down our necks?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “First, we meet Father McGuire on the ship. Then you’re awakened in the middle of the night and find a crucifix on our door. I grant you, chance…possibly. But we come home and discover that the Archdiocese not only owns all the land on both sides of the block, but this building as well. And, of course, there’s the nun. Now, come on, Ben, those are a lot of coincidences.”

  He groaned and raised himself against the rear of the couch. “That’s exactly what they are! Coincidences. I don’t mind playing twenty questions with the neighbors, but let’s not get wrapped up in this ourselves.”

  “Ben, please…”

  “Faye, honey, I’m tired. We just got back to town. We should never have gone to Sorrenson’s tonight. And frankly, all I want is some peace of mind and some sleep.” He stared at her; she bit her lip; then, glancing at his watch, he said, “Hey, it’s almost twelve. If you expect to get the laundry downstairs tonight, you’d better hurry.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “Do you want me to help?” he asked.

  “No, I can manage,” she replied. She grabbed the laundry cart, walked into the hall, and waited as the lights on the elevator panel slowly crawled upward. Damn that Ben, she thought. He was being a pain, especially since he was well aware of the disturbing coincidences himself.

  The elevator arrived and the door slid open. She pulled the laundry cart inside. As the car descended, it was silent except for the whir of the mechanism’s motor and the swish of wind in the elevator shaft. The indicator ticked downward; then the car slowed and stopped. The door opened and she wheeled the cart into the cinder-block-lined corridor.

  The laundry room was at the end of the building, around a bend in the dark hall. Ahead, Faye could hear the bellow of the huge boiler. Behind, the sound of the rising elevator was barely audible.

  She moved through the basement, telling herself to remain calm. She hated the place. But the laundry needed to be done, and if she waited for the morning, all the machines would have been taken by the early risers.

  A sound. Movement. Somewhere ahead. Or was it her imagination? No. more sounds. Maybe another person. Someone else trying to beat the morning rush to the machines. She stopped, listened, looked around.

  There was no one there.

  “Hello,” she said, as she moved slowly past the janitor’s dressing room.

  A slight echo.

  But no answer.

  “Is anyone here?”

  Breathing. Waiting. And no reply. Everything was okay.

  She turned the bend. Ahead was the garbage compactor room and the laundry room beyond, illuminated by a small red light.

  Damn!

  The cart suddenly felt so heavy, as if she were pulling a load of bricks. And her legs seemed incapable of feeling, paralyzed.

  She walked down the corridor and stopped. There was dark blotch in front of the compactor room. Strangely, it seemed to be expanding.

  Moving closer, she leaned over.

  It was blood, a trickle coming from under the door.

  She wanted to run for the elevator. But could she? Someone was certainly hurt, possibly caught in the garbage compactor.

  She jiggled the knob and opened the door; it was black inside.

  “Is anyone in here?”

  No reply. She fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on.

  She looked ahead.

  Then she screamed, her lungs seared by a blast of hot air, her skin shriveled on her body.

  “What the hell,” Ben mumbled; he forced open his eyes and looked out at the blur of the room.

  Someone continued to knock violently on the door, screaming his name.

  “Coming…coming.” Damn idiot’s going to wake the baby, and Faye, too. She’d come back, hadn’t she? “Hold your horses!”

  He threw on his shirt and stumbled into the foyer.

  “Okay,” he said, snapping the latch and opening the door. “What’s going on here, Joe!”

  Biroc limped into the room, holding Faye in his arms. She was half-conscious and drained of color, except for her lips, which were cyanotic blue.

  “Mr. Burdett. Oh, my God!”

  Ben grabbed Faye and laid her on the couch. “Faye…honey?”

  No response.

  “Faye!”

  Gibberish.

  Biroc opened the windows.

  “What happened?” Ben cried, as he ran to the kitchen, grabbed a damp cloth, returned, and put it on Faye’s forehead.

  “I’m not sure,” Biroc said, shaking. “But there’s a horrible…” He stopped, crying.

  Ben grabbed him by the collar. “Get hold of yourself, dammit!” He shook him hard and pushed him onto the couch. “What happened?”

  Biroc held his head to steady himself and jerked in two or three heavy breaths. “I was on the door, when the elevator opened and Mrs. Burdett ran out screaming. She didn’t make much sense, but I could make out some words. She said there was a dead body in the basement. I left her at the door with Mr. Spezio from 3H, took a flashlight and a club from the closet, and went downstairs.”

  “What was down there?” Ben asked, starting to come unglued himself.

  “A body. And blood, in the compactor. Oh…my God…my God…”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No.”

  Ben ran to the phone. Goddamn hands were shaking so badly, he misdialed several times. Finally, he asked the operator to get the police. When the connection was made, he repeated what Biroc had told him, then set the phone back on its cradle and returned to Faye.

  She threw out her arms, trembling violently, foam bubbling form her
mouth. He held her tight. Whatever Biroc had seen in the basement must have been horrifying to have made a man, as stable and strong as Biroc, go to pieces. There was much Ben wanted to ask, but he just sat there, quietly caressed Faye, and waited.

  There was no furniture, only a solitary chair in front of the center living-room window. The door was triple-locked. There was no light. In the chair sat a nun, Sister Therese. In her hands was a gold crucifix. Normally totally immobile, she was squirming, upset, her hideous face contorting terribly, her discomfort increasing.

  Charles Chazen was in the building!

  4

  Chief Inspector Jake Burstein, Manhattan Homicide Division, felt his stomach ravel into a knot. He’d seen many corpses in his life, but this one was by far the most revolting. The entire body had been burned, then compacted like a package of garbage. Only the right arm, which extended out of the compacting chamber, remained completely intact, though it too had been burned almost beyond recognition. The skull was still in one piece, though most of it had been compressed. The torso was just a stump. The legs were crushed and black.

  Burstein unbuttoned his raincoat…he’d just arrived…and looked around the room. It wasn’t very large, maybe ten feet square, made of gray cinder-block. There was blood on the floor. And a trickle was still oozing out of the chamber. “Who found the body?” he asked, his voice heavily tinted by a Long Island inflection.

  “A woman on the twentieth floor,” said detective Wausau, who was standing to Burstein’s right.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Faye Burdett.” Wausau looked at the pad in his hand. “Her husband called us. A doorman, named Biroc, saw the body, too.”

  Burstein stepped around an NYPD forensic specialist, who was dusting the floor, and several other unit men, who were working on the compactor chamber beneath a temporary light attached to the water pipes on the ceiling.

  “Who’s in charge?” he asked.

  The man nearest the compactor identified himself.

  “Any prints?” Burstein asked.

  “So far nothing.”

  Burstein poked a toothpick at the remains of the roast beef he’d eaten for dinner. “How long’s the victim been dead?”

  “Not sure. But certainly not too long. The skin’s still smoldering and there are no signs of decay. No. I’d say he bought it this evening.”

  “He?” Wausau asked.

  The forensic specialist pointed. “It’s a man. Got a good set of genitals to prove it.”

  Burstein nodded and breathed deeply. The putrid smell of burned flesh was everywhere, intensified by the lack of ventilation in the room. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his raincoat and leaned against the wall. He was tall, thin, and bald; his face was soft and unblemished.

  “How long until we can get some kind of identification?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if we ever will,” replied the forensic chief.

  “What do you mean? Peel some prints. Have his dental work checked.”

  The forensic chief held up the victim’s hand; the ends of the fingers had been cut off. “No prints. And all the teeth have been removed.”

  Burstein glanced at the arm and the remains of the head, then pulled the forensic chief aside. “I want this entire basement checked for the missing fingers and teeth. And if there’s any other way to identify the body, work on it. Scars. Marks. Something.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Whatever marks or scars may have been there aren’t there anymore.”

  Frustrated, Burstein turned to Wausau. “Where’s the doorman and woman?”

  “Upstairs.”

  Accompanied by Wausau, Burstein left the room and entered the basement corridor, now clogged with uniformed police and detectives.

  The building superintendent, a Puerto Rican named Vasquez, was seated by the janitor’s dressing room. Burstein introduced himself and questioned him. Vasquez provided the names of the building employees and their responsibilities, then explained the normal procedures for the compacting of garbage. Most of the work was done in the morning. At that time, the garbage that had accumulated in the shaft overnight was compacted by the janitor, placed in disposal packages, added to the packages compacted the day before, and taken outside for collection. Although the janitor would have been in and out of the room all day, no one should have been inside after six.

  “What do you think?” Burstein asked Wausau, as they walked down the corridor to the elevator having finished their interrogation of the super.

  Wausau shook his head. “Not much to go on.”

  Burstein smirked. “No, not much!”

  “Chief Inspector Burstein,” Burstein said officiously. He looked over the sallow faces in the room.

  “Ben Burdett,” Ben replied; then he introduced Joe Biroc, Ralph Jenkins, and John Sorrenson.

  “You reported the murder?” Burstein asked.

  “Yes,” Ben responded

  Burstein moved around the apartment and inspected the furniture; Wausau remained at the door. Sorrenson sat on the sofa and loosened the collar of his shirt; Jenkins moved down next to him.

  “Where’s your wife?” Burstein asked.

  “In the bedroom. I gave her three Valiums, according to her doctor’s instructions. She’s in a state of shock and he said he does not want her awakened or questioned.”

  The coy expression on Burstein’s face matched the biting facetiousness in his voice. “Did the doctor say when she’ll be in condition to speak?”

  “No.” Ben said.

  “I see.” He walked by Jenkins and Sorrenson. “Were either of you two here when Mr. Biroc brought up Mrs. Burdett?”

  They shook their heads.

  “We came in to help,” Sorrenson offered.

  Burstein sat down next to Biroc. “You okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Biroc replied unsurely.

  “Couldn’t this wait until morning?” Ben asked, as he hovered over them.

  “I’m sorry. If the murderer had had any consideration for our welfare, he’d have waited to kill the victim. But the murderer didn’t wait. So, unfortunately, I can’t either. Now, Mr. Biroc, I want you to tell me what happened. Okay?”

  Biroc nodded, then described the sequence of events.

  Burstein listened. Wausau took notes. When Biroc had finished, Burstein adjusted the handkerchief that sat neatly in the pocket of his sport coat and began to pace aimlessly around the couch, switching his stare from Ben to Biroc to Jenkins to Sorrenson with irritating rapidity.

  “Mr. Biroc, I’m told that the compactor is shut off at six. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who shuts it off?”

  “I do, sir. Last night I turned it off at exactly six-fifteen.”

  Burstein sat down on the arm of the sofa. “Did you see anyone in the basement?”

  “No, sir.”

  “To your knowledge, did anyone go into the basement after you?

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m sure there were tenants in the laundry room, and there’s a rear entrance that tenants use to bring in bicycles. There are always people down there, Inspector.”

  Burstein turned to Ben, who was watching them like a hawk, eyes wide open, attention rapt. “Why was your wife in the basement?”

  “She wanted to put the laundry in the washing machines, so that it would be done overnight. She does that often. So do a lot of other tenants. There’s absolutely nothing unusual about that.”

  Burstein raised his eyebrows. “Did I say there was? Mr. Burdett, I’m not insinuating that your wife had anything to do with the murder. That’s the farthest thought from my mind.”

  Ben nodded.

  Burstein smiled, returning his attention to the doorman. “Mr. Biroc, have there been any suspicious people in the building? Anyone who has done anything that mi
ght be considered off-balance? Anything at all that you’d know of?”

  Biroc breathed deeply. “No. No one that I could point a finger at. Oh…you know, any building this size has its share of kooks. Mr. Cram on the fourth floor talks to his English bulldog. Mrs. Schwartz on seven has a nasty temper.”

  Sorrenson interrupted. “I’ve lived in this building since it was built, and I’ve known just about everyone who’s ever lived here, and I can tell you that there’s no one who would have done something like this. Don’t you agree, Ben?”

  Ben nodded. “Whoever did this must have come from outside.”

  “Why don’t you let me reach the conclusions, Mr. Burdett? That way nobody gets into trouble.”

  “I don’t like the tone you’re taking, Inspector,” Jenkins said suddenly. “I assume we’re not under suspicion, so why should we be spoken to as if we were?”

  “I beg to differ. Right now everyone is under suspicion! Is that clear?”

  No one answered.

  “There is one thing,” Ben said.

  “What?”

  “Well, I can’t imagine how this would be of any help, but…”

  “But what?” Burstein challenged.

  Ben stepped forward. “Well…there’s a nun who lives next door, who’s as peculiar as anyone you’ll ever find. Strangely enough, we were all in Mr. Sorrenson’s apartment last night and she was the primary topic of conversation. But again, I can’t imagine how she’d be involved. I’m told she’s paralyzed, deaf, dumb, and blind.”

  Burstein’s face was blank. Ben sensed that the policeman was responding to something, that he already knew of the nun or had heard something about her. Perhaps he’d even seen her from across the street upon his arrival, sitting in her twentieth-floor window.

  “What’s the nun’s name?” Burstein asked.

  “I don’t know.” Ben replied. “No one does.”

  Burstein paced the room slowly, then walked to the living-room window and looked out. The city seemed a blur. Could it be a coincidence he asked himself. He raked his memory, picking at pieces long relegated to a file somewhere in a police archive. It was so long ago. The girl. The old blind priest. That complicated web of murders and unanswered questions that had nearly driven his predecessor, Tom Gatz, into a mental hospital. He seemed to remember. What was the address? Somewhere in the West Eighties? Somewhere close to where they were right now? He was curious. He’d call for the file in the morning and check the addresses. Then he’d see. Just for the sake of knowing.