Ice and Steel

by Alexie Aaron

  “I made it strong enough to chew,” Sissy warned. “I can’t believe how much you look like Fredericka. Do you have the sight too? Well, lord in heaven, Sissy, what a numbskull. Why would you be here if you didn’t,” she answered herself.

  “I inherited some of grandma’s talents. I have a few of my own too,” Mia informed Sissy. “Audrey has a skill for research and deduction. She’s our Nancy Drew.”

  Sissy looked over at Audrey and smiled. “So you’ve come to help us.”

  “We’re going to try,” Audrey said.

  “Can you help Mr. Davis too? They think he’s killed a man,” Sissy told her wide-eyed.

  “Oh pooh, hasn’t everyone?” Naomi stated.

  “Not everyone,” Alan cautioned. “And I told you, Ernest died of natural causes.” He walked into the room, gently guiding Naomi towards a chair. “Sit down, and we’ll catch Mia and Audrey up on all they need to know.”

  “Even about Ernest?”

  “Especially about Ernest,” Alan promised.

  Mia sipped her coffee, watching the sisters. She also was keeping an eye on the spirit of a dapper looking man who was leaning against the wall of the hallway picking at something under his nail with the tip of the knife end of a switchblade.

  Chapter Four

  “Well, that gets Mr. Davis off the hook,” Alan said, walking back in the room. He had taken a call from the Coroner’s Office in Naomi’s sitting room.

  “Care to share?” Mia asked, watching the hooligan in the hall as he examined Alan more closely.

  “The body they found in the chimney is approximately ten years old. Mr. Davis moved in five years ago. The previous tenant is deceased, a…”

  “Gabe Woods,” Sissy filled in. “He and his wife, Mora, lived there for ten years. People like us usually don’t last too long. It’s all the booze,” Sissy explained to her company. “If the drugs didn’t get you in the nineteen-sixties, then the booze and the cigarettes would probably finish you off by the time you reached the ripe old age of seventy. I think though, it was Gabe’s wife that did him in. Made him take those little blue pills before they came out on the market. She was his fifth wife and wanted to have a baby boy to seal the deal on the Woods fortune. Can you imagine having a baby with a seventy-three year old man? No amount of vodka would put me near that man’s Viagra-charged pecker.”

  Audrey giggled nervously. Mia just laughed. She liked Sissy.

  “Sissy,” Alan warned red-faced.

  “Don’t you go playing daddy with me, young man. We girls know what we like, and it’s not a dehydrated Ballpark frank.”

  Mia looked over at Alan who frowned in disgust. The ghost next to him was lifting his wallet. Mia jumped up, grabbed the salt shaker from the counter and ran towards Alan. She had the top twisted off and the salt sailing before Alan could ask what she was doing.

  The ghost howled, dropped the wallet and disappeared.

  “What the eff just happened?” Alan said, looking at his wallet lying on top of the salted floor.

  Mia bent down and handed him his wallet. “I’d count the money to make sure it’s all there,” Mia said. She moved her gloved hand along the wall for a moment and shook her head. “He’s not gone, just powerless.”

  “He sounded like our moaner,” Naomi said. “What did he look like?”

  “Medium height, blue jeans, jean jacket, brown hair, side burns. I’m thinking he passed on in the seventies or eighties. Guys are slow to change style,” she explained.

  “Then it wasn’t Ernest,” Naomi said very pleased. “So why’s the SOB bothering me?”

  “If it isn’t personal, then it’s to scare you away. How many people live here during the winter time?”

  “Oh I don’t know for sure. You’d have to ask Mr. Stewart. Albert told me once that there was ten of us left after the holidays,” Naomi answered.

  “Sounds about right,” Sissy agreed. “There’s me and Naomi, Mr. Davis, Maude Abrams, those snooty women on three. What are their names? Bitch, Bitch, and oh yes, Bitch. The toilet paper heir on four. He’s a quiet one. I think he’s scared of women. The retired football coach on eight. I’ve been calling him sweet cheeks so long, I can’t remember his real name. And Harvey McConaughey, he’s a dear. I think he writes books. How many is that?”

  “Ten,” Audrey answered.

  “The ghosts could want all of you out of the place. I wonder why?” Mia asked.

  “Even if we left, there’s the management and the cleaners. I’m sure Harvey’s nurse would stay on. She’s got no other home,” Sissy said sadly.

  “Why would they want us out?” Naomi asked.

  “It seems to me that all of you are rich, and it seems to follow that some of you may have some very expensive baubles in your possession,” Mia answered.

  “So the ghosts are trying to rob us? Unbelievable,” Naomi scoffed.

  “I was just robbed,” Alan said.

  “Well there is that,” Sissy said, nodding her head.

  “I’m not saying this is the answer to the goings-on,” Mia said. “But it’s worth looking into. I’d like to look around your place if I may. You can come with me if it makes you more comfortable,” Mia invited.

  “No, you go on,” Sissy said. “I trust you. Not with matches mind you, but otherwise, I can see that Fredericka raised you right.”

  Audrey got up and drew out a small moleskin notebook from her purse. Mia looked over at her and appreciated the professionalism of her friend. “Let’s start in Naomi’s bedroom and work our way around the apartment,” Mia said, walking down the hall.

  Audrey followed her, jotting down Mia’s impressions while they walked.

  “There’s a strong odor of sandalwood. Can you smell it?” she asked Audrey.

  “No, it smells a little like stale Chanel No. 5 and nachos to me.”

  “Interesting. The sandalwood smell is stronger the closer I get to the bedroom.” Mia skirted the furniture in the sitting room and made a beeline to Naomi’s bedroom. She opened the door and turned on the light. Colors filled her senses. There were so many rich, vibrant works of art hung on the walls that they gave Mia sensory overload, and a wave of dizziness washed over her.

  Audrey saw her waver and put a steadying hand under her elbow. She didn’t speak to her friend who seemed to be caught up in another dimension of some kind. She kept her hand on Mia, ready to pinch her if she was too slow to regain focus.

  “There is a woman standing in the corner. She is too faint to communicate with. She is wearing a beautiful sari. Something dressy… a bride… She is a bride,” Mia corrected. “She is attached to a painting. Ask Naomi to come in here, please.”

  Audrey left and moved quickly through the apartment. “Naomi, Mia would like you to come into the bedroom. She has a question about a painting.”

  Naomi rose regally and looked over at Sissy. “I hope I remember who painted what. Otherwise we’ll have to get out the ledger from the safe.”

  “You have a safe?” Alan asked surprised.

  “All these condos have safes. What do you expect us to do with all our jewels, keep them in the bank?” Naomi asked.

  “One of the draws to living here is that the safes are part of the construction of the place. They were attached to the girders of the building as it rose. Surrounded by steel and manufactured to last in a nuclear blast, Alan dear,” Sissy mentioned.

  “Nuclear blast?” Alan scoffed.

  “Okay, a fire or demolition. The selling point is that they can’t be cut out of the walls; they are the walls,” Sissy said and waited for Alan to comment.

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “See, you learn something every day. Stick with me kid, and I’ll educate you.” Sissy winked saucily.

  Naomi walked in and followed Mia’s gaze. “That’s an Amrita Sher-Gil, one of her later works. She spent her early tutelage in Paris - as they all do - but it wasn’t until she returned to India that she really grasped her talent.”

  “Tel
l me about this piece,” Mia said, moving closer, keeping her hands behind her so Naomi would not be distracted by the thought of Mia touching the painting.

  “There’s not much to tell. It came to me from a friend. He had purchased it for his bride. A tragic story really. He had been in love with the young woman all his life. He was of a lower caste. She, the last daughter of a bankrupted businessman. I can’t remember her name. Anyway, the father died, and the mother consented to the match. The dowry was waved, and the wedding ceremony was small. His wedding gift to her was this painting. Hers, her heart.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Mia said, watching the spirit as tears rolled down her face.

  “He found her in her room after the ceremony. She looked as if she was praying. She was in a kneeling position but didn’t answer her new husband when he spoke to her. He knelt down and turned her head, that’s when he saw the blood. They think the uncle killed her for shaming the family. He wasn’t tried, and the family hushed up her death. My friend was pressured to leave the country. He took the painting with him.”

  “Why did he sell it to you?” Audrey asked.

  “Oh, dear me, no, he didn’t sell it. He asked me to keep it safe for him. He needed to return to India to complete the sale of his company. He never returned.”

  “She’s here, attached to the painting,” Mia explained. “I don’t think she’s the screamer. She is too weak to do any harm. She is barely a wash of color on the surface of the painting.”

  “Tell me about her, Mia. Is she beautiful?” Naomi asked.

  “All brides are beautiful, Naomi. She is radiant. Her face seems resigned though, perhaps a tinge of sadness.”

  “Can you talk to her?”

  “We all can talk to her, but even if she understands English, she has no will… that’s it. She has no will to communicate. Her loss is so great that it emptied her. She is but a shell. Her only tie to your friend is this painting.”

  “We should find him,” Naomi declared. “Although, I’ve had the painting sixty years. I suppose he’s dead. Can we find out what happened to him?” she asked.

  “I guess. Why?” Mia asked.

  “Because true love is too hard to find,” Naomi said simply. “If she is waiting for him, then there is some reason he hasn’t returned. We should see if we can help them.”

  “It would be expensive,” Mia told her.

  “I’m made of money. I’ll put it in my will. I expect it will take some time. Alan will take care of it for me,” she said confidently. “He’s the best lawyer I’ve ever had.”

  “Audrey, you may want to put Alan in touch with Angelo. He would have the international connections needed to search for Mister…”

  “Sarna, Birbal Sarna,” Naomi answered. “His bride was Ullupi, but I don’t remember her surname.”

  “I think it’s remarkable you remember as much as you do,” Audrey said.

  “Listen to her,” Mia said. “Audrey can remember the number stamped on her Ken doll’s butt.”

  Audrey blushed. Naomi looked from one girl to the next and shook her head. “You could be sisters. Not in looks, but in regard.”

  Mia winked at Audrey before speaking, “Alas, I don’t see anything else in here that would draw the hooligan that was staking out your hallway. Let’s move on.”

  ~

  Clive put the phone down. The Chicago detective wanted the security logs for the last month. The video tapes had turned up nothing except for David’s ill-timed swim in the pool. According to the security company who monitored the alarms on the doors and windows of the first floor, no one had entered or exited the building yesterday that they didn’t have record of. He had a few calls in to check on the alibis of a few of the delivery personnel and one cleaner with a few priors.

  He wanted to talk to David again, but he was unavailable until the evening shift. The boy had gone through a lot of interrogation and missed his classes. His mother insisted that he take the night off. He was home sleeping.

  The condo board, or at least the president, should be notified, but Clive wasn’t up to the drilling the pompous ass was going to give him. He would want to know everything. Clive was using this as a reason for not notifying him sooner. He didn’t know everything. He had no idea who or what caused the destruction in Mr. Davis’s apartment. The police didn’t have a name for the unfortunate person left to rot in the chimney ten years ago. Clive hadn’t been here then. This year was his seventh anniversary with the Uptown Senior Living Condominiums. He didn’t think anyone on the staff had been there longer than him. Come to think of it, most of the residents purchased their condos in the last few years. He tried to remember who had been here when he arrived and couldn’t. He would search the building’s records to see who, if any, of the seniors living here now was around ten years ago.

  Chapter Five

  Mia stood in front of 7A. Crime scene tape decorated the opening in a large, luminous yellow X. She looked for where the police had put a seal and didn’t find one. She looked up at Alan and said, “Well?”

  He withdrew the set of keys Mr. Davis had left with him and found the front door key. He reached in and unlocked the door. He held the tape to one side. Mia and Audrey stepped through, and Audrey returned the favor so Alan could enter and not disturb the continuity of the yellow barrier.

  The first thing Mia noticed was the black and ivory keys from the broken Steinway on the floor of the hall. She squatted down and picked up the ivory-topped levers that had once produced music. She found it disturbing that someone could take out whatever aggression they had on this beautiful instrument. She turned over the key and examined it for a tiny compartment and found nothing that didn’t belong to the normal construction of this piano.

  “Why did they smash the piano?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

  “Mr. Davis said at one point the clown-faced man had the Steinway over his head. He told him to put it down, and the man complied. That’s why he was so heartsick when he returned to find his treasure demolished,” Alan said.

  “Where was it originally?” Mia asked.

  “In the music room. Mr. Davis used the formal living room as his music room. The piano needed the space the room afforded.”

  Mia followed Alan as he stepped over wood, brick and ivory pieces on the hall floor to get to the music room.

  Mia stopped and turned to Audrey. “I smell a cigar. Remind me to ask if Mr. Davis or one of his guests smoked.”

  Audrey made a notation in her book. She couldn’t help but like this independent investigation they were on. Mia was a courteous leader, and it was a pleasure to see how she worked when she wasn’t trying to be a team member or wasn’t cowed by the disapproving comments Burt tended to fling her way. Sure, she was intense at times, but this only made the job more exciting. Audrey didn’t want to alert PEEPs to what they were doing. More accurately, she didn’t want to let Burt know what they were doing at this point of the investigation. He probably would have insisted Mike be there as a senior member of staff. The lead position of the investigation would have been allocated to one of the males. Not as a sexist action, but because the ladder of seniority was male at the top rungs.

  “Did they take anything?” Audrey asked, looking into the broken, looted room from the hallway.

  “You would think they took the whole lot, but as far as Mr. Davis could tell, only a first edition copy of To Kill a Mockingbird,” Alan replied. “He claims the author signed for him in person.”

  Audrey followed Alan and Mia into the room. Mia moved to the center of the room and slowly turned, taking in the whole room. Audrey would have gone right to the fireplace or where the fireplace used to be. Mia seemed more interested in the room as a whole.

  Mia closed her eyes and took off her gloves. She opened her hands and moved them away from her body until her arms were tired from the exercise. She started to turn again and spoke, “Audrey, I sense that our hooligan has been in here along with a very large man. The smell of sweat is
overpowering. Kind of like Burt’s PEEPs hoodie. I feel a bit of fear residue. That could have been left by Mr. Davis.” Mia stopped and put her gloves back on. She walked over to the open wall and looked up the chimney. “Alan, could you give me a boost?” she asked sweetly.

  “You’re not going up there.”

  “Why not?” Mia challenged. “It looks like the forensic team has already been here.”

  “What if you get stuck?” Alan argued.

  Mia looked up at him intently. “I’m not going to get stuck.”

  “Why do you feel you need to climb around in that chimney?” he asked.

  “I need to see if I can figure out what was so effing important or valuable for a person to risk their life climbing down the chimney for. And what that behemoth was looking for when he tore the fireplace apart brick by brick.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, squatting down and cupping his hands.

  Mia stepped into the hold and let Alan move her body up along his until she caught hold of the bolts of the flue and pulled herself up. She pushed her back against the metal wall and held herself steady with her legs. She walked her body as high as she could, examining the structure as she moved upwards. Something caught her attention. A piece of cloth. She pulled it away from where it had snagged. In front of her was a metal duct of some kind. She put her flashlight in her mouth and moved her body closer to the opening. The blackness ate up the beam. Mia touched the side of the chimney, and a vision flashed before her eyes.

  A man dressed in black clothing was climbing upwards on a rope that was suspended from the top of the chimney. He could almost see daylight when there was a flash of steel, and the rope fell, taking the surprised cat burglar with it.

  Mia shook off the vision and continued to move upwards in the chimney. She felt a cramp in her back and wisely postponed any further exploration. “I’m coming down,” she warned.