Ellen seemed pleased with the story's happy ending. Scotty Taren raised an eyebrow at me and moved his lips. I made out the words "Professor Tormey." Aaron Kittredge was no longer the only marksman on our list. Guidi could just as easily have been the one who shot at us that day at the Hall of Fame, and Kirby didn't know enough to stop him from telling a story of his childhood that set up his marksmanship for us.
There was a knock on the door and Laura opened it. "Excuse me, sorry to interrupt."
"It's fine," I said, getting to my feet with the expectation that she had Mike Chapman on my phone line. "I can step out."
"It's for Ellen," she said, shaking a finger at me. "Mr. McKinney needs to talk to you, dear."
There was a pause while Ellen left the room, and I decided to wait for her before going on with any more questioning.
"It's an odd set of circumstances," I said to Guidi. "Aurora's body found in the basement of the house on Third Street, and now the possibility that someone you knew bricked her up there to pay back a betrayal. Nobody in literature served up revenge better than Poe, and here we have a real-life copycat. On top of that, you're one of the most generous supporters of Poe Cottage. I don't think I've even thanked you for getting us in for a private tour last week."
"Did I do that?" he said, apparently surprised to hear it.
"Perhaps it was your secretary. Zeldin set it up for us, after we left the Botanical Gardens. I noticed your name on the plaque in the cottage."
"No coincidence there at all, Ms. Cooper. My name is on a lot of Bronx institutions. Zeldin himself can tell you that. I've donated a new magnolia garden in my mother's memory, which will open in the spring. And the two of us traipsed all over the conservatory just before the holidays. He's shameless about looking for naming opportunities, and some of us are vain enough to oblige him."
"Traipsed? What did you do with Zeldin?" The man couldn't traipse, from what I'd seen of him.
"Have you been to the conservatory since it reopened? It's spectacular. He walked me through the whole thing after hours one night."
"I didn't think he could walk," I said. "I've only seen him in a wheelchair."
Zeldin's immobility had kept him out of my main focus as a suspect.
"He only resorts to his iron buggy when his gout kicks in. That makes it too painful for him to get about very much, with the muscle deterioration condition he suffers from. But most of the time he can walk just as well as he can talk."
41
The meeting had broken up by noon. I called Mercer at his home in Queens and suggested we meet at Zeldin's office at the Botanical Gardens up in the Bronx at two o'clock, for another go at him.
When I dialed Mike's cell phone it dumped me into voice mail. Sympathy and concern hadn't worked to get him to respond to me, so I tried another route. "Look what you've reduced me to, Detective Chapman. Now I'm getting information from you through Ellen Gunsher. I'm insane with jealousy. You knew it would have that effect, didn't you?
"Well, she's playing so nicely with me in the sandbox that I'm going to take her along this afternoon. See how she does in the gardens. Scotty will drive us up to the Bronx and Mercer will meet us there. I'm not trying to tempt you to come back to work, but I thought maybe you and Ellen were beginning to bond and you'd want to show her all your old Fordham haunts." I paused, thinking my tone had been too flip. "Take care. I'm not very good at getting the bad guys without you."
Scotty Taren's bulky outline blocked my doorway. "Zeldin's there. I gave him some crap about wanting to discuss Mr. Guidi's connections and contributions. We gotta enter through the back gate on Mosholu 'cause the front entrance is closed today."
"I thought they only shut down on Monday."
"Usually. But they're setting up a giant tent behind the conservatory this week. Most of the staff is off 'cause they'll be doin' overtime for the benefit. Friday night's their big fund-raiser- Winter Wonderland, he called it. He's gonna leave our names with security. I'll give Mercer a shout and let him know."
Shortly before 2P.M. the three of us-Ellen, Scotty, and I- drove through the tall wrought-iron fencing off Kazimiroff Boulevard and stopped at the gatehouse. The guard pulled back the plastic window to tell us that Zeldin was expecting us in the Haupt Conservatory, the stunning crystal palace that was the jewel of the gardens' exhibition space.
There was no sign of Mercer as we parked in the designated space-the only car in the deserted row-and climbed the walkway against the fierce February wind. The pathways were empty but for the golf carts that employees used to get around the miles of roads and sidewalks inside the gardens. There was no one to inquire of at the ticket desk inside the front door of the enormous building-one full acre under seventeen thousand panes of glass. It was very still inside, and eerily quiet.
We must have been there almost ten minutes before a custodial worker trudged from a hallway into the circular lobby area, where we waited under the Palm Dome. It was a thicket of New World palms that reached over ninety feet up into the building's cupola, circling a reflecting pool that mirrored their elegant limbs as they stretched toward the sunlight.
"Excuse me-have you seen Mr. Zeldin?"
The man didn't speak but pointed behind him, in the direction of a sign that announced the entrance to a tropical lowland rain forest.
Scotty started walking and Ellen and I fell in behind him. "Outside, I'm freezing my ass off," he said. "In here, it's like hangin' out at my mother-in-law's trailer park in Lauderdale. I think I'm gettin' a hot flash."
He unbuttoned his overcoat and loosened the tie around his neck.
The newly refurbished cement path wound through thousands of densely planted trees and shrubs. I would have thought we had entered the heart of a Brazilian jungle had the ground beneath us not been paved. Large leaves and fronds hung over our heads, brushing against my hair as I ducked to avoid them. The only sound was the whisper of the misting device that sprayed water from behind the trees.
Scotty was impatient. "Zeldin? Anybody home?"
His voice echoed and I heard a shuffling noise in a small thatched hut that bordered the path ahead of us. "What's that?" I asked.
Ellen read from the large illustrated signage that showed a photograph of a dark-skinned woman crushing leaves between her hands. "It's a healer's house."
"I'll give the bastard something to heal. This place is too hot for me," Scotty said, wiping the sweat that was rolling down his forehead with the back of his hand. "They got monkeys in here, too?"
There was noise above us, now, and we each looked up to find its source. A mesh metal staircase, painted dark green to camouflage it against the foliage, wound up more than fifty steps around a huge empty tree trunk, leading to a skywalk that trailed along the length of the rain forest. A worker in khaki overalls got up from his knees and leaned over the railing, picking brown tips off the ends of thick growth.
"Yo, pal. You seen Zeldin?" Scotty asked.
The man cocked his head and squinted. "No comprende, señor. No lo sé."
"I'm telling you, I feel like we're in frigging Santo Domingo. You think that guy's an exhibit or he's really working here?"
A sharp right turn led us out of the rain forest and into a room that looked like it was built for a Victorian estate. The humidity level lowered immediately, while hanging vines hovered over a long rectangular pool, full of aquatic ferns and plants that surrounded a statue of naked goddesses spouting jets of water over tiered fountains.
Scotty bent over and dipped his handkerchief in the murky green liquid, mopping his brow before I could urge him not to put the slimy stuff against his skin.
The room ended at a ramp that curved down between a wall of lichen-covered boulders. At the foot of it, we seemed to have left the natural habitat for the intrusion of a twenty-first-century convenience-a dark, narrow tunnel several hundred feet long, connecting the arms of the conservatory to each other via an underground passage that was made out of an ugly form of corrugated siding
. I wondered if it was just my own recent brush with a dank enclosed space that made this space seem uncomfortably creepy, or whether my companions were bothered as well.
When we emerged at the far end, we not only found Zeldin, but had transported ourselves into the middle of a simulated African desert as arid as the rain forest had been damp.
Scotty had to pause to catch his breath after mastering the uphill section of the ramp. Ellen and I approached Zeldin, who was seated in his wheelchair but turned his head at the sound of our footsteps.
"I hope you didn't have any difficulty finding me."
Ellen and I answered politely before Scotty could complain, and I introduced them to each other.
"The detective told me you've got more questions for me," Zeldin said with his distinctive drawl. "Why not fire away?"
There was the sound of laughter coming from the next corridor, and I looked up to see its source. Two teenagers, each dressed in baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts, were being chased by a third who wielded a watering can in his hand.
"I assumed we could do this in your office," Ellen said.
"There's no one here to bother you, young lady."
"Those kids-is it a school tour or something?"
"Heavens, no. Just a few of the local boys who do chores around here. I was showing them the carnivorous plants in the next room-they were fascinated," Zeldin said, smiling.
"Who's carnivorous?" Scotty asked, catching up with us and shaking Zeldin's hands.
"The Venus flytrap, the pitcher plant," Zeldin said, starting to wheel in the direction of the rowdy teens. "They're not dangerous to humans, Detective. They don't really eat flesh. The leaves respond to the pressure of insects that land on them and they spring closed. It's the secretions that kill the bugs, who rot inside or starve in a pool of fluid until they dissolve. Not a pretty death."
"I haven't seen many that are."
"If you don't mind, sir," Ellen said, "I'm not here for the plant tour. We have some questions that will probably require you to consult your records."
I couldn't read Ellen as well as I could my usual partners-Mike and Mercer-but what had seemed from the outside like such a benign setting now enveloped us in an oppressive atmosphere that was stifling and unpleasant.
"Records? From the Raven Society? I've already shown them to Ms. Cooper."
"Not those," she went on. "We'd like to talk about Gino Guidi and his involvement here, at the Botanical Gardens. Perhaps his financial contributions."
"Ah, he told you, then, about the Bronx River cleanup?"
I listened to Ellen while she led the questioning. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and distracted while I waited for a call about results on Maswana's DNA from the chief serologist.
Ellen had been drawn into today's outing because of Guidi's self-proclaimed marksmanship and its possible connection to the Tormey shooting. Now Guidi's name was dragging her in the direction of Dr. Ichiko's death site.
I let her run this, in part because of my fatigue, and in part because I thought it would lead nowhere. Guidi's admission about his shooting ability probably had little significance.
"No, sir, he didn't," Ellen answered.
"I'm sure you've seen signs alongside the highways from time to time, where individuals or businesses have paid for the maintenance of a particular area."
We all nodded.
"Mr. Guidi likes his name on things. I hadn't paid any attention to it the day I heard how Dr. Ichiko died, but I was reminded of it more recently, after your visit to Poe Cottage. Con Edison does the environmental upkeep farther downstream of the gardens, and several local corporations have adopted parts of the river that flow through their neighborhoods. But Gino Guidi chose that strip of rapids himself-the part with the waterfall-because he used to play there when he was a child. Knows the area quite well, Ms. Gunsher. I'd forgotten about that, because the sign bears the name of his company rather than himself."
"Providence Partners," I said.
"Yes, yes. I'd forgotten that connection when I first heard of Ichiko's death," Zeldin said, wheeling his chair around.
"That's why I'd like to conduct this meeting in your office." Ellen was attempting to be more aggressive now.
Scotty Taren's face was drained of all color. Again he was sweating profusely and I thought he was beginning to look ill.
He coughed a few times and then spoke to Zeldin. "Why don't you get up out of that buggy and walk over with us?"
Zeldin's answer was sharp and loud. "Don't be absurd, Detective. I can't do that."
The three boys stopped horsing around when they heard the tone of Zeldin's voice. The tallest one started to walk toward us.
I was sweating, too. Maybe it was the intense heat inside the conservatory, or maybe it was the proximity of rough-looking teens coming toward me.
"Get me Sinclair," he yelled out to the hooded boys. "Get Mr. Phelps for me now. "
The three looked at one another and spoke in Spanish, but they were too far away for me to understand.
Ellen reached for the handles of Zeldin's wheelchair. "I'm sorry, sir. Let's all just calm down and go back to-"
"Get your hands off there, young lady," he said, raising the volume another few notches.
Scotty started wheezing and clutching his chest.
"Scotty? Scotty?" I put my arm around him and tried to find a bench to seat him on, but as I leaned in close to talk to him, the teens came running toward us. One broke for a side door that led out to a large sculpture garden, turning to lock it behind him and remove the key before rejoining the others.
The three raced in our direction. They shouted something to Zeldin as they came by him, while one of them grabbed Ellen and lifted her off her feet, tossing her onto a large shrub with branches that stretched out five feet in each direction. They kept on running past us, back to the long tunnel and toward the front entrance.
Ellen's screams should have shattered the hundreds of glass panes that surrounded us.
I let go of Scotty and ran to where she lay, facedown, as though something was holding her in place.
"Ellen!"
She stretched out an arm to me and turned her face. There was blood everywhere.
I stepped off the paved walk and onto the rocks that ringed the giant plant. Encephalartos horridus-a ferocious blue cycad was the way a nearby sign described this unlikely weapon.
Every long arm of the green monster was lined with spikes, from its root down to its very tips. Ellen's face and torso had been impaled on them with the force of the kid's thrust, and I had to literally lift her off its center, thorns hanging from her skin like rusty nails from an old railroad tie.
I sat her on the ground and waited for her heaving cries to stop. Behind me, Scotty-also in some kind of physical distress-kept murmuring apologies about not being able to help.
"Call nine-one-one, Scotty. Can you do that?"
Ellen started to pull the prickly pieces out of her forehead. "Don't touch them," I said to her. "Let me try it."
I could see she was ripping the skin on her face in an effort to get out the thorns. The pain must have been excruciating, and I tried to spread the wounds apart with my fingers to release the embedded needles without further lacerating the surface.
Again I looked over my shoulder. Scotty had rested his bulky body against some kind of small tree trunk. The overweight, outof-shape detective was fumbling with his cell phone as though it was a struggle even to open it. He looked like he was in the middle of suffering a heart attack.
I grabbed the phone from his hand and dialed 911.
"It's just my angina, Alex. It'll pass."
"Operator? Yes, it's an emergency. At the Botanical Gardens. Inside the Haupt Conservatory."
Now the battery of questions.
"No, operator. I have no idea what cross street. It's a police officer down. Two officers, badly injured. We need an ambulance and we need cops."
"I don't understand, miss. Is
this a crime or a medical emergency?" the 911 operator asked.
"It's both, damn it. We're wasting precious time."
I gave her the information and hung up. I dialed Mercer's number. "Where the hell are you?"
"I'm over in front of the administration building. I just arrived but nobody's around."
"The conservatory-the crystal palace, remember? Get security and get over here as fast as you can. There's an ambulance on the way. I'll explain."
I dropped the phone on the ground and tried to stop Ellen from pulling more thorns out and scarring her face.
In all of this, it suddenly occurred to me, Zeldin had never opened his mouth to offer help. I twisted around to confront him, but he was nowhere in sight.
42
"Is it taking them as long as it feels?" Ellen asked.
I had removed all the thorns from her face. Blood had streaked down her cheeks and lined her neck. It caked on my hands as well.
"Are you okay if I go back to the door? Maybe Mercer's having trouble getting in."
She nodded.
"Scotty-don't even think about moving a hair until Mercer and I get back," I said, but he didn't seem capable of trying. I balled up my bloody scarf and tucked it beneath his head.
I retraced my steps through the African desert. The late-afternoon sun was casting shadows now, and all of the plants seemed more sinister than they had before Ellen's assault-branches and tendrils and leaves as large as elephant ears reaching out over the path as though to slow my retreat and grab on to me.
I broke into a trot as the walkway sloped downhill, tree limbs grazing the top of my head and catching on the sleeves of my jacket. The long cylindrical tunnel was dark and claustrophobic, almost like an empty subway tube. I kept looking behind me because it sounded as though I were being chased, but it was just the noise of my own footsteps echoing off the metallic walls.
Out of Africa now, and passing through the end of the tunnel, I slipped in a puddle of water that had dripped from an overhead sprinkler, and grabbed the moss-covered rocks to stop myself from falling. Their surface felt hairy and damp, like a handful of caterpillars resting in the shade.
Entombed Page 31
