I caught Jane just as she and Willoughby were about to leave. The four of us—me, Denny, Willoughby and Jane—trooped next door to Gladys’s home. I could hear her twin sister bustling about in the living room while we sat around the kitchen table.
“Tell us exactly what you saw this morning,” I said, scribbling in my notebook.
“Well, I don’t see much when I get up, not until I’ve had my coffee and put on my glasses.”
“Start with the man you saw going into the apartment building,” I said. “You told me you’d seen him before.”
She nodded.
“What time was this?” Willoughby asked.
“A little past six. I’d just finished my breakfast and gone outside. I was about to leave, you see, when I saw him ring Phillipa’s bell.”
“You’re sure it was Phillipa’s bell?” Willoughby asked.
Jane straightened. “Let the woman tell her story without interruptions.”
“I knew he rang her bell. I can tell by the sound. It’s the shrillest one. That was my husband’s system, wasn’t it, honey?” She paused. “See? He just nodded.”
Denny and Willoughby looked at each other.
“Then I heard her answering buzz, and he went inside. That’s all I know because I had to get ready for my appointment.”
“You said it was a little past six. Can you be more precise?”
“Two minutes after six. I looked at my watch.”
“What did the man look like?”
“About the same as the last time I saw him.”
Jane bit her lip. “How was that?”
“Tall but not too tall. And thin.”
“As tall as me?” Jane asked.
“Heavens, no.”
“But taller than him?” She pointed to Willoughby.
“Only not fat. Skinny and a little stoop-shouldered.”
“His hair?”
“Brown. No, light brown, I’d say.”
“Curly?”
She thought a moment. “No.”
“Did you happen to notice what he was wearing?” Denny asked.
Gladys slid her eyes to the side and said, “Oxford shirt, blue chinos, cotton jacket.”
“So he rang the buzzer. Was it answered right away?”
“No, and I was ready to chase him out when I heard Phillipa ask who it was, and he answered.”
“What did he say?”
“His name, of course.”
“Which was?”
“Ben. His full name is Ben Small. At least that’s how he was introduced to me way back when.”
I stopped writing for a second, long enough to shoot Jane a look. “Then what?”
“Then I heard the buzzer, and I had to leave to take my cat to the vet.”
Jane brought out a form and turned to Gladys. “I want you to write down what you’ve told us, Mrs. Delucca. Include the man’s name and physical description and exactly what happened from the time you first saw him and heard the buzzer until the time you left for your appointment. When you’re finished, I’d like you to sign and date it.”
“Does this mean I’ll have to go to court and identify him?”
“You may. Make sure what you’ve written is correct before you sign it.”
Gladys Delucca stared, her mouth open, her pen poised.
“You should be proud of yourself. Phillipa’s death is connected to the abduction of a teenager.”
“You mean the one I read about, Brandy, the girl taken near her school in Brooklyn Heights?”
“Yes, and you may be responsible for the apprehension of the man who may have killed Phillipa and who may well have killed before.” Jane’s eyes met mine.
Gladys Delucca took her time. After she finished writing, she read her statement a couple of times and asked her dead husband to do the same. She waited a few minutes, cocked an ear in his direction, smiled, and signed.
“Here’s my card,” Jane said. “If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
“What, dear?” she asked the corner. “That’s right. I forgot to mention it. Ben Small has a bald spot on top of his head.” Her eyes flicked again to the side. “And something else. He’s usually got a toothpick in his mouth.”
Chapter 49
Henry. Morning Three, Careless Planning
Phillipa was dead. Henry knew who killed her. He should have done something about Ben on the car float; no one would have seen. But murder wasn’t part of his plan, not murder. Some things were worse than murder, and he was giving the lawyer something she deserved, something far worse than death, something that would linger forever, something that would haunt. He was giving her fear, lasting fear. She could never be sure again that her daughter was safe. The girl would be late, and the lawyer would suffer all over again.
But he hadn’t planned for this. Phillipa was dead. He couldn’t stop seeing her lying on the floor. He felt her stillness in the hollows of his face. He opened the window of his car and breathed in hay and salt from the sea, trying to cleanse the muck in his brain. He hated it when he was like this. Like a scared child, his mind threw a blanket around itself, trying to cover its mistake. The world became vague, indecisive. All because of careless planning. One of the stones was loose, and he hadn’t noticed. His fault.
Last night after Ben left, Henry was happy. He wouldn’t have to worry about Ben hurting the girl. But he’d given Ben too much rope, and he’d killed Phillipa. She was dead.
When he got home, he found Ben loading the dishwasher. “Not that way. Forks together, tines down. Spoons in one bin, knives in another. Plates arranged by size. Glasses on the top shelf.”
Ben stared at him. “You’re scary, you know that? You think I’m strange, but you’re vermin.”
“I phoned Phillipa. There was no answer.” Henry waited for Ben’s response, but Ben said nothing. His back was straight. He turned, pursed his lips around a toothpick, and smiled into Henry’s face.
Henry wished he’d never met this man. The train slowed in his mind, the air yellowed, and his words felt like stones. He wished he could take them back. He wished he’d never met Ben. His boy was dead. Phillipa was dead.
“She was going to crack, don’t you see?”
Henry grabbed Ben by the shirt collar and twisted. “But she knew nothing.”
“She knew our names. These days, that’s enough. I have a record.” Ben yanked Henry’s wrist and shoved it away.
A record? The first he’d heard. Henry wasn’t careful. He was guilty of the worst sin, involving a man with a record. He felt his father’s stern gaze. Henry hadn’t planned with care. He never should have talked to Ben. He could have done everything alone. After all, the lawyer’s child was a girl; he could have grabbed her by himself. Now Phillipa was dead. Dead. He needed to think. He had to plan for Ben’s exit.
Chapter 50
Fina. Afternoon Three, Lunch
Jane wanted to meet. Willoughby suggested one of his favorite pizzerias in Brooklyn, the Savoia on Smith Street, recently renovated and reopened for business.
“I thought I might die of hunger,” he said after they squeezed us into a table.
After seeing Phillipa’s body and breaking the news to Trisha Liam, I didn’t think I could ever eat again until Denny opened the restaurant’s door. The mix of oregano, tomato, cheese, and sausage hit me full in the face. My stomach growled. I realized I’d had nothing to eat that day, and it was late for lunch.
Probably too early to have hard data from the van, but we needed to hash over Phillipa’s death as well as other pieces of the investigation. They included what, if anything, Lorraine had learned from reading Trisha and Mitch Liam’s briefs, the results of Jane’s canvass, and her team’s interrogation of Brite’s messengers. And I wanted to talk about my visit with Joe Catania, specifically, what he’d told me and Tig about the shadowy assassin who was probably responsible for Mitch Liam’s death two years ago.
Willoughby beckoned the waiter by snapping his fing
ers. The crude summons crushed all my earlier good feelings about him.
I could see by the blonde detective’s stiff body language that Phillipa’s death had ratcheted up her focus. “What was Trisha’s reaction to the news of Phillipa’s death?”
“Visibly shaken.”
“As well she might be. Phillipa’s death has added murder to the mix. If the kidnappers killed Phillipa because she was a threat, they won’t hesitate to kill Brandy after they get the rest of the money.”
Despite the warmth of the restaurant, a chill went through me. I tried to breathe. “When will we know how she was killed?”
“I asked them to rush the autopsy, but they’re still trying to locate next of kin.”
I ran a hand through my curls. “Tell them to forget it. Phillipa told us her mother lived in Kansas City, but they were estranged. I asked Trisha Liam for Phillipa’s emergency contact. She’d neglected to get one, she told me. Can you imagine an employer not having an emergency contact for someone who’s been with her for over twenty years? She knows nothing about Phillipa’s family, has never met her son, so she’s not exactly a data bank.”
“Can’t the ME give us an educated guess as to cause?” Denny asked through the ambient noise of metal on glass.
“Nothing we haven’t already heard. According to him, she died sometime after midnight this morning, but he thinks it was closer to six or seven.”
I played with my silverware. “That fits in with the landlady’s testimony regarding the time of Ben Small’s visit.”
Jane nodded. “I asked him again about the wound on Phillipa’s neck. He said it looked like it was made by a needle. Her heart probably stopped after receiving a dose of something, a toxic substance administered directly into the bloodstream via syringe, but we’ll need to wait for the preliminary toxicology results.”
“How long will that take?”
Jane shook her head. “I’ll do what I can to hurry it.”
“You mean someone stuck her with a needle,” I said, “the same way they stuck Mitch.”
“You’re jumping,” Jane said.
“I’m not jumping, but if I were, someone better be jumping with me. Someone”—I drew out the word and shook a finger in Jane’s direction—“better be finding more people to question. What’s the word on the street, any clue? No, you wouldn’t know, not your style. But no matter, I know in my bones the wiseguy’s assassin is the same Ben Small who killed Phillipa.” I flipped through my notes and read her Catania’s description of the hit man. “‘Thin. Average height. Light hair.’ He’s working for Brandy’s kidnapper, I know he is.”
Jane stared at me. “Now you’re jumping tall buildings in a single bound. We’re on it, trust me, so stop pulling out stuffing from that pillow head of yours.”
Part of me knew she was right, the same part of me that didn’t blame her for thinking I was crazy. Besides, I didn’t like the way my voice sounded. Blood was coursing through my temples, and I unfolded and refolded my napkin and wiped my forehead. But when I knew something, I knew it. I couldn’t help it if I had a sixth sense. Where was Cookie when I needed her? She’d tell them.
“Calm down. You’re not the only one who’s looking for this guy,” Willoughby said.
“For now we’ve got to forget Mitch Liam’s death,” Jane said.
“Am I the only one convinced there’s a mob connection?”
“Could there be two kidnappers?” Willoughby asked.
Jane slapped her forehead. “What rock have you been hiding under? Of course, there have to be at least two. How would one person get a writhing teen into a car, no fuss no feathers, on a weekday morning in the heart of Brooklyn Heights with parents dropping off their kids, people walking to work, lawyers and judges elbowing their way to Court Street?”
“They don’t elbow, they ooze—or they’re driven,” Willoughby said.
I thought Jane was going to shoot him with her eyes.
“Unless he drugged her the instant he grabbed her,” Denny said.
That remark did nothing for my composure.
The waiter arrived, and Willoughby, his mind swiveling from Jane to food, looked up at him. “I phoned ahead and ordered three pizzas, a vegetarian, a campagnola, and a Margherita. Why aren’t they ready?”
The guy looked at his watch and sucked in one of his cheeks. “You must be starved. They’re almost ready. Give us a few more minutes.”
I looked around. Even though it was late for lunch, the restaurant was packed, and since it had turned into a decent day, people were sitting outside, all tables occupied.
“While you’re waiting, what can I get you to drink?”
Before we could answer, a waitress came over with a tray and a few plates. “Two of our specialties, compliments of the house,” she said, setting down a plate of carpaccio next to a basket of crusty bread and a large bottle of olive oil. She placed a platter loaded with shrimp and calamari in front of Willoughby. He scooped up a handful of raw meat and stuffed it into his mouth while the waiter wrote down our drink orders.
I, for one, still had lots of work to do, so I ordered some mineral water and Jane did the same. Denny ordered a beer. Chomping on some shrimp, Willoughby asked for a half bottle of the house red. I heard lots of crunching and wondered if Jane’s partner ate shells, too. In the background, I heard the help scurrying in the kitchen, their voices calling to one another as they did their thing, and I felt crackling heat wafting our way from the wood-burning oven.
Lorraine walked in wearing shades and carrying a satchel. Denny’s jaw dropped at his mother’s new look, but he did a good job of covering his surprise as he rose to kiss her.
I helped myself to the antipasti. “Cookie texted. She’ll be here in five. Anything yet on the van?”
“The slipper you found in the back is definitely Brandy’s Ugg,” Jane said. “It matches the first one, according to the lab, so the van found in the Odessa-bound container is the getaway vehicle. They’re looking for the VIN in all the usual places, but so far, nothing. There’s been obvious tampering—it’s been peeled off the dashboard, removed from the door frame, and filed off the engine mount. The Feds are waiting to hear from the manufacturer if by chance the VIN’s located in some secret place on this model. Meanwhile, they’ve picked the car clean. They’re getting lots of trace and DNA. No prints so far and nothing else that will help us locate the perps, but they’re gathering evidence they hope will help the trial, maybe spur a confession.”
“What’s the make?” Willoughby asked.
Trust him and Denny to perk up when it came to cars.
Jane looked through her notes. “It’s a 1992 GMC.”
“Is that the one the Eagle calls ‘an olive green van’?” Denny asked. “I don’t know any companies that sell green vans, do you?”
Willoughby shook his head. “Must be a paint job and probably not done by one of the usual collision shops.” He dipped his napkin into his water glass and began cleaning a blob of sauce off his jacket. “You can buy your own powder coats and guns and paint it yourself if you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Well, that olive green job wasn’t done in one of the big shops. Our guys checked. It was a do-it-yourself, according to my sources.” Jane scrabbled around in her notebook. “‘Hot coat powder coating,’ that’s what my Fed guy called it. He went on to say there are car paint suppliers all over the place—easy to find them on the Internet, and the colors are mixed according to the same formula, good for no matter what make of car. Of course, to do a decent job, you’d have to have your own shop, and that takes space.”
“So nothing that could be done around here?” Denny asked.
“I didn’t say that. It could be painted in a shop around here, but we’ve got to start thinking like our kidnapper.”
As if some of us hadn’t been thinking like him already, but I kept my mouth shut.
“We’re dealing with a bright guy.”
&nbs
p; “Or gal,” Denny said, looking at me.
Pathetic.
Jane continued, and the restaurant noise seemed to fade. “He’s a careful man with an engineer’s mind, someone who’s had lots of time to devise a plan, someone who’s considered at length all the details, like where the paint job should be done. He probably had it painted in, say, Connecticut or New Jersey, where the population is less dense, where the chances of being noticed are slimmer than around here.”
Willoughby shook his head. “He could have a shop here. Haven’t you ever heard of hidden in plain sight?”
Jane ignored him. She looked at me and smiled. Once again I was glad for my metro area licenses. “And consider this, in Brooklyn neighborhoods, practically everyone is a snoop.”
“I agree. And we know he wasn’t born or raised in Brooklyn.” I crunched into another fried calamari. “No respectable Brooklynite would write a ransom note like his. It’d be, ‘Gimme the dough and you get the kid. Forget about cops.’”
Jane tore off a piece of bread and dipped it in olive oil. “But it’s obvious our perp is acquainted with this area. Only he has access to greater spread, somewhere else to fix up his getaway vehicle.”
We were silent for a while.
“What was the original color?” Willoughby asked.
“White,” Jane said.
Denny took a pull on his beer. “Why would anyone paint a white van olive green? All you see are white vans. They melt into the scenery.”
“Probably thought he was blending in more,” Willoughby said.
Lorraine sat at the table, her hands in her lap. “Or maybe he bought it used, and whoever owned it before him had it painted.”
“Sounds likely,” Jane said. “The paint job was done by someone who knew what he was doing, according to my guys.”
“Then maybe whoever painted it was the guy who removed the VINs,” Lorraine said.
My cell was rocking back and forth, so I looked at the screen. It displayed a call-me text from Tig, so I excused myself and walked outside.
Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) Page 21
