Lost in New York: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 5)

by J. J. Henderson

  "What did you do last night after she left the nightclub, Miss Ripken?" Sanderson asked gently.

  "I told you. I stayed at the club—at Parkistan—late."

  "And?"

  Lucy hesitated. She'd been seen at the club. She was totally alibi'd and nobody would have a clue as to when she'd left or where she'd gone. But still, lying to a cop with a dead person on the scene was not a good idea. "I went up to the Chelsea Hotel with a friend."

  "Who was that?"

  "Look, am I a suspect, or what? What difference does it make?"

  "We have to cover all the bases, Lucy," Sanderson said.

  "What he means is," said Riles, "Is yeah, you are a suspect. An admitted drug user, spend the evening with a friend, the friend ends up dead from drugs, what do you think?"

  "Admitted what? I haven't been near a line of coke in at least five years, Bozo," Lucy snapped. "So don't waste your time threatening me."

  Riles bristled. "Don't talk to me that way, Ripken. You're involved here, see."

  "All right, all right," said Sanderson. "Cool it, Riles. Look, Lucy, I..."

  His diplomacy came too late, as Lucy flew into a rage. "You think I would give...even if I did still do drugs, which I don't, you shithead!—you think I would risk my friend's life to...what are you thinking, you vicious little pinheaded prick, how dare you come in here and...and..." she burst into tears. "Jesus Christ, my friend's dead, my Dad's in the hospital, and you're accusing me! You asshole!" Claud jumped up and began barking.

  "Christ, Riles," said Sanderson. "Nice work." He made a brush-off gesture at Riles, who left the room angrily. "What's this about your father?" he asked. "He's..."

  "Last night. After the message from Patty, there was one from my Mom. It's there if you want to hear it. My Dad had a heart attack last night. He's in the hospital. Out in Portland. Where they live. Portland, Oregon. I talked to my Mom this morning." She began crying again. "I'm sorry, it's just that I've never...this has got to be the worst morning I've ever had in my whole life. I don't even know what...I need to go to Oregon to be with my Mom, but now Patty's gone and..." She took the proffered handkerchief from Sanderson, and cleaned her face up a little. "I don't know what to do."

  "I'm not sure I do either. I'm not even sure this guy Smithson is a for real suspect, to tell the truth. I mean, he may have supplied her with drugs, and he may have tied her up, but we...there's no way to tell if any of this stuff was forced on her, Lucy."

  "But I'm telling you she didn't take drugs. Ever."

  "People have their secrets. Judging from the pictures I saw, she had some weird ones."

  Lucy thought of the Chinese Brazilian, and three young bankers in a bar, and wondered how many men had Patty's card, complete with address and multiple phone numbers. "Yes, well, I don't know about that but...like I said, I...Hell, I don't know, maybe she did mention bondage once or twice. Look, last night I was at the Chelsea with a kid named Yarber. Stage name Chain Saw. He's the lead singer in a band from Spokane, Washington called the Wet Prophets. He told me they were going up to Boston to play a gig there tonight. I'm sure you could find out what hotel he's staying in easy enough, if you want to check my story out. I went there around two, and came home around four."

  "Chain Saw? Wet Prophets? Miss Ripken, far be it from me to judge such things, but aren't you...a little...mature for such adventures?"

  "You mean too old to mess around with punk rockers? Is that what you mean? Yeah, I guess I am," Lucy said defiantly. "But why should I let that stop me? Huh? Why? Why?" she felt the hysteria rising, and he sensed it too.

  "No reason, no reason, no insult intended," he said hastily, his hands up placatingly. "I'm sorry, I just...you seem like a very...like a woman of feeling," he said. "And somehow a person named Chain Saw doesn't strike me as...suitable for a woman like you."

  "He was the most sensitive Chain Saw I ever met," Lucy said, a smile fighting through.

  He grinned. "I can only imagine." He stood up and handed her a card. 'Listen, you go to Portland and do what you have to do. Just be careful between now and then, and when you get back. We don't know anything about this Smithson character except what you've told us, and since none of it checks out, either you are an incredible liar, or he is. I'm inclined to believe you. Which means that he could be a very dangerous man. Or it could be that he and Patricia Moody were partying a little too hard, got carried away, and when she lost it he got scared and ran. Or he could have gone home, wherever that is, and this Philip Santucci could have somehow gotten into Patty’s place and done this. I don't know, but...until I do, I think you'd better look both ways, if you know what I mean. Call when you get back from Oregon." Lucy followed him into the other room, where Riles sat scratching Claud's head.

  "I like your dog," Riles said.

  "Thanks," Lucy said, those words earning Riles immediate forgiveness. "He's a genius."

  "I can see that," said Riles, standing. "I bet he speaks French, doesn't he?"

  "And Russian," said Lucy.

  "Let's go," said Sanderson. Lucy saw them to the door.

  "Sorry about before, Miss Ripken," said Riles. "I just got carried away."

  "Forget it," Lucy said. "I'm in a state. This has been a really bad day."

  "They don't get much worse, do they?” said Sanderson. "Bye now, Lucy. Be careful. Good luck with your Dad. I hope he's all right. Call ASAP when you get back, and we'll see where we stand."

  They trudged down the stairs, around the turn, and out of sight.

  Lucy remembered to feed Claud. Then she put her gym bag together and headed out. She hit the street and trudged south on Broadway, bound for the cool blue mindless caress of the pool, where she could swim herself into a zen state, and perhaps get a detached fix on what she was feeling.

  She had known illness and death before—like most people of her generation in New York, she'd lost friends to AIDS or overdoses over the years. She'd been to funerals and memorials and ceremonies sending the spirits aloft in balloons and birds and even, once, in a bat painted pink—but this was different. She strolled along next to the gridlocked tangle of cabs, buses, trucks, and limos, and neither saw nor heard any of it.

  Friday mid-morning, the pool was empty. She swam for an hour and a half, until she could hardly lift her arms for another stroke, and then she sat in the hot tub for a while. Nothing had come clear, no meaning had emerged from the numbness. She walked home, somewhat revitalized but exhausted, thinking she would take a nap and try to get back to work on the galleys later in the afternoon. What else could she do?

  She walked in the door. The phone rang. "Hello?"

  "Hi, it's me. Rosa. Sorry I haven't called but I've been buried in this fucking painting and I just got out. I left a wreck behind, but at least I'm still breathing. How are you? Oh, listen your mother called about half an hour ago and asked me to come over and bang on your door. She said she had to talk to you and you weren’t answering and…”

  "What did she say? When did she call?"

  "Nothing. To have you call. Like I said, half an hour ago."

  "I'll call you back." Lucy slammed down the phone, picked it up, and called home. No answer. She called information, got the hospital phone number, called and asked for the ICU. They rang her through. "Hello I'm trying to reach Mrs. Ripken. She's...her husband's...my father's in there, and..."

  "I'm sorry, Miss Ripken, your mother's not here. She..." The woman paused.

  "What?"

  "Didn't she call you?"

  "Yes, I talked to her earlier. But then I was out and my voicemail was off, so..."

  "Hold on a minute." Lucy could hear voices murmuring in the background.

  "Hello, Miss Ripken?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Doctor Aikens. Your mother's not here right now so...look, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Your father had a second heart attack about an hour ago. He...we did all we could, but...we couldn't save him. I'm sorry."

  Lucy froze. At last, in a small
voice, she said, "You mean he's....he's dead?" What a really weird word to use to describe Daddy.

  "I'm afraid so. Your mother's taking care of the arrangements now. I know she tried to call but...you had gone out, and...she seems OK, by the way...I'll tell her you called back when she finishes with what she's doing."

  Lucy looked at the phone. It was white and dirty. She put her mouth to the speaker, and wondered what words should or would come out. "Um...OK. Yeah. Tell her...tell her I called. Tell her, tell her to call me. Tell her...Oh Christ, where is she I need to talk to her? Now!"

  "I'm sorry, but she's on another floor. I will have her call you as soon as she's back up here. She has to come up to get...your father's things, so I know I will..."

  "What things?" Lucy snapped.

  "His personal effects, Lucy," the doctor said gently. "That's all."

  "Oh. OK." Lucy hung the phone up gently, placing it in its cradle like a newborn babe. She wondered if her mother would burn him or bury him. They had never talked about it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NORTHWEST WEIRDNESS

  The next day Lucy flew home. She pushed the airplane food around on the tray until they took it away; then she watched the movie while zoning out on half a Valium, a gift from Rosa, who'd delivered sedatives, Szechuan Chinese, and her undivided attention for most of the last night, helping keep off the demons. And she'd taken Claud for as long as necessary. Now as the plane circled for a landing at the Portland Airport, it was time for a reality check: Patty dead, Dad dead, Mom waiting below. Mom never called to see if planes were on schedule; instead she arrived at the airport an hour early, and waited. Outside in the deep blue October sky, puffy white cumulus clouds floated past. Shaking off the Valium, Lucy imagined her Dad, a disembodied soul soaring into the clouds' embrace, supersonic rocket man of the spirit, relieved at last of his earthly burden.

  Just fifteen minutes late, she filed off with the others. Crisp northwest air seeped in to the connector tube, and though tinged with diesel exhaust, it smelled like home. Lucy, carrying her soft suitcase and a digital camera, strolled through the quiet Saturday terminal and out to the loading zone. She hadn't been home without an agenda—and without an attitude—in years. This trip had a somber agenda, but an unpredictable one. Without Dad there, what would Mom be like? Would his death free her?

  Not from her airport waiting habit. They met with a hug and cried, holding each other for a moment; and then Mom broke away and said, "I've been parked nearly an hour where it says no parking. We'd better get a move on." And so they quickly wiped their eyes and got a move on. The 1993 four door sedan was in perfect condition, and spotless. Mom, too, was spotless, and dressed for homemaker success circa 1962 in retro-cool bright red calf-length pants and a sleeveless yellow shirt. From the final generation of long-suffering career housewives, Mom never failed to keep up appearances. Her graying blonde hair was perfectly coiffed, and her earrings sparkled. She was locked into her homemaker persona, but Lucy could see right through the mask. Mom's face was, as always, lovely, aging gracefully, but she looked exhausted.

  "How was the flight?"

  "Fine, Mom." Lucy looked out the window as they drove down the manicured airport boulevard.

  "Had a great summer here," Mom said. "The garden's just a wonder. Still got more tomatoes than I..."

  "How are you, Mom?"

  "Fine, I'm just fine, Lucy," she said primly. Lucy glanced at her. She was composed. Beyond composed. Granite-like in her self-control. "This didn't come as a total shock, you know," she added.

  "What do you mean?" Lucy asked, folding her arms across her chest. She wanted a cigarette. She hadn't smoked one in six years.

  "Got a new Denny's there." Mom pointed. "Put it up in about three weeks it seemed like."

  "Mom, please. You were saying."

  "It wasn't his first."

  "First what?"

  "Heart attack. Had a small one in July. He..."

  "He had a heart attack and you didn't even call me? Mother, what..."

  "After Christmas I didn't want to bother you, so..."

  "My God, Mom, I...Christmas was what it was, but...Jesus..." Lucy stared out the window. Dad fell off the wagon and got smashed at Christmas, and it's my fault? But of course—because I wanted to leave, and did, rather than stick it out with her. She saw pine trees and gas stations and fast food restaurants with "espresso" banners draped across their facades. "Me and Dad had our problems, but..."

  "You know what he said to me...yesterday morning, Lucy? About two hours before he died? His last words?"

  "What?"

  "Tell Lucy I'm sorry."

  "Oh, Mom," Lucy said, as the tears came again. "Those were his last words?" All busted up, she couldn’t help but think, damn, that’s pretty fucking corny. Bad girl that she was.

  The funeral had been scheduled for the very next day, a Sunday, and Lucy passed out at 7 pm Saturday night and slept for thirteen hours in the little chenille-covered single bed she'd slept in for seventeen years, her black and white John Lennon poster still stuck on the wall above the headboard covered with dead bug slime now after all the years. Next morning in the church they viewed the body. Dad, in his best suit, looked very dead and suitably grave. He was 61 years old and handsome and his hair was still thick and brown but for gray temples. He should have lasted twenty years longer, except that maybe he hadn't wanted to.

  Looking down upon him there, Lucy felt no urge to fling herself upon him and howl her anguish, choking on a mouthful of metaphorical ashes. Rather, she felt...not cold, but...implacable in her love for him. Their relationship had been dictated by him—she had always tried to please him, and then, when she'd figured out she never could, she'd left. That had been his decision as much as hers, she figured.

  They drove to the cemetery, and after a minister made a little speech they buried her father. Then Lucy and her mother went back to the house and laid out a table of food for the mourners. Armored in numb exhaustion, Lucy sat in her father's dark brown naugahyde easy chair in the little yellow living room where the frilly white curtains were perpetually drawn, greeting an array of cousins and aunts she hadn't seen in 20 years, or had never known. Two of her own old friends also showed up. Gwen Brooks—she and Lucy had been best friends in high school—lived in a big house in Lake Oswego. Her husband practiced corporate law downtown. They had three kids. Gwen took a lot of classes at the gym. She looked great, a successful homemaker flourishing in her time, well-dressed, well-groomed, and happy to be that way. The complete package. With her was Rachel Trueblood, the class genius who'd gone off to Harvard on a full scholarship, intending to go on to Harvard law. After three years undergrad she'd gotten pregnant on a Christmas vacation, dropped out, and married her high school sweetheart, now a building contractor. They lived in a renovated Victorian on a hill not far from downtown, and had two kids. Rachel drank too much at the wake, and told Lucy she was smart to stay single and childless. Lucy professed admiration for both of them for their domestic fortitude. She felt the inevitable twinge of envy, contemplating the lives they lived, all barbecues and little league and station wagons; but, then, watching the brilliant, bitter, gone-to-fat Rachel slosh up the vodka and soda, she and Gwen both slyly belittling the husbands, those shadowy, amorphous, yet dominating figures home watching sports on the tube, Lucy knew few if any regrets. There wasn't much security in the family 'burbs either, when you got right down to it. Besides, a settled, married life had receded into the realm of the fantastic for her, and there it would remain, barring a miracle. Still, it was good to see the girls, and to re-live a little high school.

  She and Mom spent Monday back and forth from garage to basement, going through Dad's things. Mom had already decided to give it all to the Salvation Army, but Lucy grabbed a couple of tools—a manual drill, a hand saw, an old hammer, a boxed set of socket wrenches, and a pair of gleaming, fancy hunting knives with hand-tooled blades and bone handles—from his green metal toolbox. She and Daddy used
the wrenches to change spark plugs and tune up the yellow and white 1956 Ford stationwagon he'd driven through her childhood; with the hammer and saw and drill the two of them had built the three level Victorian style birdhouse which still stood atop a post in the backyard, although no birds inhabited it any more. She just liked the knives, though she had no idea where he'd gotten them, and so she wrapped the blades in a couple of old handkerchiefs and took them too.

  Tuesday morning she rented a car and headed north on I-5 with Daddy's tools in her suitcase and the knives in her purse. She had intended to spend a week in Portland, assuming that through Daddy's death she and her mother would be liberated—that they would talk about him, and in talking about him talk to each other. Instead, as they'd gone through Daddy's tools and Lucy tried to tell Mom what the hammer meant to her, and why, Mom said, "That's nice. What about this old tennis racket?" Then she threw the racket on top of the Salvation Army heap, and went on to the next thing. Lucy considered throwing the hammer through the window. Instead, she gathered it up with the other tools and took them to her room. Packing them into her suitcase, she left unsaid all the things she wanted to say to her mother.

  Faced with Mom's cool stoicism, Lucy fled to her friends. It had always been friends, not family, to whom she turned when times were hard. She had never known how to breach her mother's walls, and so far Daddy's death had changed nothing. Now she was Seattle-bound to visit her old pal Robin Markham.

  Robin Waters and Bill Markham had been the dream couple at Portland State, so attuned to each other their friends had attributed it to divine intervention. They met and fell in love in the Humanities Department, and had been inseparable since. Lucy had gotten Christmas cards and postcards from them over the years, and sent cards in return; every two or three years, they'd met for drinks in Portland, and once had dinner in New York, when Rob and Bill stopped there for a day en route to Europe. They'd married right after graduating, shortly before Lucy had left for New York, and had been happy ever since. They moved north to Seattle, where Robin got licensed as an architect, and Bill managed a rare book store in Pioneer Square. One of the seemingly ideal childless couples, happily ensconced in an inherited waterfront house on Perkins Lane in the Magnolia neighborhood, they traveled, they entertained, they still went to plays and night clubs and kept up with the music scene. Rather than fading into the bourgeouis life for which they had been programmed, they remained curious.