by Carrie Smith
ALSO AVAILABLE BY CARRIE SMITH
Silent City
FORGOTTEN CITY
A Claire Codella Mystery
Carrie Smith
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Carrie Smith.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-62953-767-2
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-62953-785-6
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-62953-786-3
ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-62953-787-0
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-62953-788-7
Cover design by Lori Palmer.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: December 2016
For Cyn
Contents
Monday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Tuesday
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Wednesday
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Thursday
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Friday
Chapter 78
Acknowledgments
MONDAY
CHAPTER 1
The piercing ring startled Constance Hodges out of deep sleep. She groped for the phone, her blind fingers grazing the alarm clock, tissue box, and stack of nighttime reading. She lifted the receiver. “Yes?” Her voice was a gravelly whisper.
“Ms. Hodges?”
She cleared her throat. “Speaking.”
“It’s Cheryl O’Brien.”
Hodges pushed herself up in the bed and glanced at the dial on the clock. Clarity quickly dispersed the fog in her brain. The Park Manor night nurse would not call her at four fifteen AM unless something was wrong. Had a resident with dementia rolled out of bed and hit their head? Had an independent living resident suffered a sudden heart attack or stroke and been rushed to the hospital in the private ambulance on call for just such occasions? Or had death—life’s inevitable equalizer—once again visited their privileged confines? Based on Cheryl O’Brien’s grave tone, Hodges sensed that the latter occurrence had precipitated this call. “Who is it?” she asked.
She held her breath and wondered which name the nurse would utter. Virtually every Park Manor resident was a once prominent New Yorker or relative of a now prominent New Yorker, and whenever one of them passed the veil, they prompted a lengthy New York Times obituary, a high-profile funeral at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue, where all of Manhattan’s elite went out in style, and at least one new exposé about the obscenely privileged care given to Park Manor’s “senior one percenters.” Each of their deaths required Constance to play many parts—grief counselor, funeral planner, family therapist, and personal advisor—in addition to her official role as Park Manor’s executive director.
“It’s Lucy Merchant,” Cheryl O’Brien answered.
The name ricocheted through Hodges’s brain, and she was so surprised that she failed to edit her first reaction. “How can that be?”
“Maybelle Holder found her during the four AM check.”
“Found her where? What happened?”
“We don’t know. She was just lying in bed.” The nurse’s tone suggested that she was equally stunned by the turn of events and that she had enough insight into the dynamics of Park Manor’s business to appreciate at least some of the consequences. Lucy Merchant was no frail octogenarian whose peaceful passing in the night would signal the sad but acceptable culmination of a long life lived to the fullest. Lucy Merchant was only fifty-six years old. Her obituary would tell the tale of a musical theater legend turned choreographer stricken with early onset Alzheimer’s and dead within two years. It would spotlight her grieving daughter, Julia, and her high-profile husband, Thomas, chairman of the Bank of New Amsterdam.
Hodges turned on her bedside lamp and tried to focus on all the tasks Lucy Merchant’s death would entail today, but the familiar death steps wouldn’t crystallize into a coherent mental checklist. Focus, she thought, as if this silent admonition would magically shift her mind into gear.
As she scanned the room, her eyes registered the Courvoisier XO bottle and minisnifter sitting next to her clock. There was still an inch of cognac from last night in the bottom of the glass, and she imagined gulping it down right this minute. It would spread a soothing numbness through her extremities, she thought, like one of those heat-producing analgesic creams that athletes and arthritis sufferers used. She felt her left arm begin to reach for the snifter. But if she sipped the cognac now, before she was even out of bed, wouldn’t it signal that she had crossed an invisible line, that she had a serious alcohol problem? Wouldn’t it mean that she was out of control?
“Ms. Hodges?” Cheryl’s voice brought her back to the moment.
Hodges picked up the snifter and swallowed. She closed her eyes and relished the hot burn down her esophagus. Her thoughts coalesced into a mental flowchart of what she must do: Get to Park Manor. Call Thomas Merchant. Speak to the physician on call. Debrief the night staff. “Is Baiba there?” she asked Cheryl.
“I’ve phoned her. She’s on her way.”
“Good. I’ll be there shortly,” she told the nurse in a now commanding voice. “Leave Mrs. Merchant where she is. Lock her door. Tell Baiba to let no one in. Kee
p the Nostalgia night staff on site until I have time to speak with them. And call Dr. Fisher immediately. Have him meet me there. We need him to certify the death as soon as possible.”
CHAPTER 2
Detective Claire Codella was used to waking up at all hours of the night. After all, murders in this city—in any city—did not conveniently occur only between nine AM and five PM. But no call had come from Manhattan North this morning. No murder explained why she had been lying awake since four AM.
She slid her palm across the mattress to the other side of the bed where the sheet was cool to the touch, no body heat to warm it, and for an instant she regretted that she had sent Brian Haggerty home, that she had chosen to face this morning alone. In the very next instant, however, she reminded herself it was better this way. Wasn’t it just naïve to think that anyone—even the person you were closest to—could ever really accompany you into your own dark places? And anyway, how close was she really to Brian? Until three months ago, they hadn’t spoken in a year, since the night at the St. James Pub when he’d worked up his courage from way too much Knob Creek and told her—albeit inelegantly—how he felt about her. He’d expected her to admit her feelings, too. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d accepted a promotion and run all the way to Manhattan North. Then she got the lymphoma diagnosis and went through ten months of cancer treatment without even calling him—how could she? And he hadn’t called her, either. Only later did she learn that he had come to the hospital to visit her, stood outside her room, and seen her at one of her lowest moments—when she was rattling the side rails on her bed and screaming for the nurse to bring morphine. He’d known she would be furious, that her dignity would be crushed, if she knew he’d seen her like that. And so he’d walked away, as hard as that had been to do.
Cancer had made her a little more vulnerable, she supposed, a little more receptive to him. She cared about him, of course, but she wasn’t one of those women who needed someone around all the time, someone to tell her everything was going to be all right. She’d been taking care of herself for as long as she could remember. She’d gotten herself to New York on her own, she’d earned her gold shield without any help from an uncle in the ranks, and during her chemotherapy, she’d earned the equivalent of a PhD in self-reliance. She didn’t need Haggerty or anyone to give her reassurance. She would be fine. And if she wasn’t—well, then so be it.
She whipped back the blankets and sat up. The room was as cold as her fear. The frigid February air from her open window helped her sleep at night, but it did not make rising very easy or comfortable. She dragged herself to the bathroom, closed the door against the bedroom’s cold front, flipped on the bright, uncompromising light, and stared into the medicine chest mirror. Her black hair was disheveled from Haggerty’s hands. The pale skin around her lips was red from his wiry stubble. And the crow’s feet at the outer edges of her eyes seemed to have disappeared. She remembered kissing him in her living room. And then she closed her eyes and relived the rest of the night with equal measures of satisfaction and apprehension. Her relationship with Haggerty was never going to be the same again.
She splashed warm water over her face. Did her need to forget about this morning explain why she had let him come here last night? Or had she simply given in to desire that had been on hold for too long? It was probably a little of the first, she admitted, and far more of the second. She had been a stranger in her body for more than a year. Cancer had moved in and evicted her desire, and when the cancer had moved out, she had been too terrified to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
To his credit, Haggerty had sensed this, and he had let her call the shots. Even when she was on top of him, even when he was inside of her, he had waited for her to make the first move. “Go ahead,” he had whispered as if he knew she needed coaxing, as if he understood she was afraid to try this ultimate act of vulnerability and pleasure that she had not experienced since cancer had changed everything. And while he had whispered his permissions, she moved—tentatively at first, then with growing desire, and finally with need that erased self-consciousness—until she exploded into a mushroom cloud of sensations that fragmented her whole being like atoms dispersing. When she had finally rolled off of him, she felt her first moment of deep peace in almost two years.
But now that peace was decaying like a radioactive isotope, and in its place, cold dread was forming once again.
CHAPTER 3
Brandon Johnson found Baiba Lielkaja in the corridor that connected the east and west suites. “Can I go in Lucy’s room, Baiba, just for a second? I want to say good-bye.”
Baiba frowned. “Didn’t you already see her?”
Brandon shook his head. “I drew the short straw—again. I’ve been sitting and walking with Mr. Lane for three hours. Please. This could be my only chance.”
He touched the sleeve of Baiba’s burgundy Park Manor blazer and stared into her blue eyes. She was wearing no makeup this morning, he observed, and her long blond hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She had rushed to work without taking her usual time in front of a mirror. Still, she looked perfect, he thought. She had always looked perfect to him, ever since the afternoon two years ago when she had interviewed him for the Park Manor job. He remembered staring across the desk at her. He had imagined how soft her pale, high cheekbones must be. He had felt mesmerized by the sound of her ever so slight Latvian accent.
“Please, Baiba,” he repeated, and he sensed that she would grant his request—for the same reason she had pressed an envelope into his hand last week. Baiba’s caregiving instincts didn’t shut off after hours, and when he had told her his story—more of it than he’d ever told anyone other than his therapist Judith Greenwald—she had wanted to become a part of his happy ending. “I admire your strength and courage so much,” she had told him as she’d reached across the diner table, covered his hand with her warm palm, and insisted he take her envelope containing three thousand dollars.
Now she glanced over her shoulder down the quiet east corridor. Six resident suites were situated on this side of the “Nostalgia Neighborhood,” as Park Manor called its memory care unit. Lucy occupied the suite in the far corner overlooking Madison Avenue. Brandon could see her rooms clearly in his mind. He had tucked Lucy Merchant into her bed six nights a week for the past eighteen months, and now he found it impossible to accept that she was really gone. He had to see for himself. He had to bring her death to life.
Baiba fished in her blazer pocket. She was his manager and she was eight years his senior—he had organized the Park Manor party last month for her thirty-first birthday—but age and titles didn’t matter. They were friends, and she would do this for him. “Come with me—quickly,” she said as she pulled out her keys. He followed her down the carpeted corridor lined with photographs of turn-of-the-century New York City. As she unlocked Lucy’s door, he stared at a photo of Fifth Avenue mansions on “Millionaire’s Row.” Some of those mansions still stood just blocks from Park Manor. “One minute, Brandon,” she told him. “That’s it. No more.”
And then he was alone in Lucy’s rooms. He took a deep breath. Despite the meticulous care provided by Park Manor’s staff, some Nostalgia residents’ suites had the faint odor of old age and incontinence, but Lucy’s apartment always smelled like jasmine body lotion and the bouquets of fresh-cut flowers her family had delivered every four days. Her still-drawn curtains blocked the bright morning light. Lucy lay in the middle of the bed exactly where he had left her last night at ten thirty. She was on her back, and someone—Maybelle, he supposed—had arranged her hands neatly over her stomach. Maybelle would do something like that out of respect for the dead.
He kneeled next to Lucy’s quiescent body. In death, as in life, she was an arrestingly attractive woman. Her brows arched symmetrically. Her skin was spotless. She had one of those rare, perfect noses that even the most sought-after Upper East Side cosmetic surgeons could never artificially sculpt. And unlike the other Nostalgia residents, she
still looked youthful. Just last week, Park Manor’s stylist had come to her room and given her a pixie cut. Only when Lucy smiled did you realize that something was wrong with her. Then you saw her straight but yellow stained teeth with hardened plaque and food particles at the gum lines. Even Brandon—who could coax Lucy to do almost anything—could rarely get her electric toothbrush into her mouth anymore.
He stroked her short hair. It was soft. It did not feel like the hair of a dead person. But then, wasn’t the hair on your head already dead? Perhaps hair didn’t change when you died. He touched Lucy’s arm. Were the cells in her skin dead yet? He had once read that the body does not die all at once, that the cells give up their lives one by one. Were there any living cells in Lucy that still sensed his presence? “Good-bye, Lucy,” he whispered to those invisible cells. “I’ll miss you.”
Baiba was tapping on the door. Brandon quickly kissed Lucy’s cool forehead, rose from the carpet, and rejoined the Nostalgia Neighborhood care coordinator in the corridor. “Thank you, Baiba.”
Baiba relocked the door. “I didn’t just do that.” She wagged her pale index finger at him and winked. “I’ll have to deny it if you say I did.”
“But I won’t. You know I won’t.”
He returned to the kitchen where Maybelle and Josie were setting the dining room tables for the residents’ breakfast. He slumped into a chair and Maybelle patted his shoulder. “At least she now with God,” she consoled him in her booming Bajan patois. Maybelle was a tall, big-boned black woman who carried herself proudly through the Nostalgia Neighborhood of privileged white inhabitants. She was Brandon’s favorite coworker because she was optimistic and kind to the residents. She always adjusted herself to the idiosyncrasies of their dementias instead of trying to force them to relinquish their delusions. When Mr. Morrow wandered the halls and repeatedly asked what time it was, she patiently answered, “Don’t you worry yourself, Mr. Morrow, I not gonna let you miss that train to Scarsdale again!” And when Dr. Evelyn Bruce, a once prominent surgeon at Sloan Kettering, tried to follow Cheryl O’Brien into the dispensary while she prepared medications, Maybelle told her, “Let your nurse do her job, Doctor. Let her be. Now go read your new medical journal.”
