The woman said nothing, but the hand covering her eyes fell to her side.
Cookie stepped closer.
“Don’t you come any nearer, hear?”
“I wanted to show you a picture of the girl. She lives around here and walks in this park. Maybe you’ve seen her?” Cookie held out her phone with Dorset’s picture on the screen.
“Don’t go sticking that thing in my face. The devil’s work, I say. The world is in the hands of evil spirits. They’re trying to get me. They have you in their clutches only you’re too silly to know it. They won’t catch me; I won’t let them.” She backed her cart and turned it toward the nearest sidewalk and began pushing it away from Cookie.
“Please, Mrs. … I don’t know your name. Mine is Cookie. I have two young children. I’m harmless, really.” She walked toward the woman.
Just then there was a clap of thunder, a bolt of lightning and fat drops of rain slapped spring leaves, a gust of wind swirling them and bending their branches.
The woman shielded her eyes and looked up. “Now look at what you’ve done. It’s a sign, don’t you see? You’re in league with the evil one, but you won’t—”
Thunder ripped through her words and the woman cowered, turning the cart around once more and shoving it toward Cookie, finally sheltering underneath the lowest branch of a large blue spruce. Cookie stood in the open, getting drenched.
“Get over here, girl, my tree will keep you dry.”
Cookie sat on desiccated pine needles covering the dirt underneath the spreading arms of the spruce and rubbed shoulders with the woman, her breathing shallow, trying to get used to the musty scent of her companion mixed with the smells of a spring rain coming down hard now.
In a few minutes, the woman spoke. “Show me that thing again, but don’t hold it so close to my face, girly. And take those sunglasses off. How do you expect to see?”
Cookie did as she was told and held up the screen and the woman took her arm, pulling and pushing, all the while squinting at Dorset’s photo.
“I might have seen her. Then again, maybe not. Park is filled with youngsters.” She narrowed her eyes and shook her head.
Cookie, although impatient and willing something, anything, some shred to take back to Fina, was afraid to say anything. She held her breath, then let it out in a rush when the woman began to speak.
“Might have seen her this morning over there.” She pointed in the direction of the far bench, the area picked clean by the CSU. “Or maybe it was last week.”
Cookie felt her temples pound. “She was alone? Sitting with someone? Standing? Running away?”
“Let me think.” The woman closed her eyes. “Must have been this morning because I wasn’t here all last week.”
Cookie gave her space.
“Here, let me see that picture again.”
Cookie held it out. The woman stared at it, nodding. “Her, all right.”
After a few seconds, Cookie said, “You were here this morning?”
She nodded. “And I seen the girl walking into the park from over there. She was with someone, I’ll say that much, because they were holding hands. A woman, I think, although I can’t be sure of that. I know whoever it was had those furry things on her feet. I remember that much because I said to myself what I wouldn’t do for a pair of them beauties. They would keep my feet warm. I’m not crazy, you see, just prefer my own company. But it gets mighty cold. Some of my friends go South for the winter. They asked me to come along, but I stuck it out. Otherwise my spot might be taken over. Squatters’ rights and all.” As she spoke, she pointed to the other side of the park. “I’m sure I saw that girl. But when, I couldn’t say. Best not to count the hours or watch the minutes tick away. Time makes a person crazy. So it might have been last week when I seen her. She’s here a lot. Always comes from over there.”
Cookie felt her back stiffen but said nothing while the woman stared in the direction of the Promenade. Cookie watched a couple scurrying through the park, holding newspapers over their heads.
“No, it was this morning, wasn’t it? I wasn’t here all last week, not until today.” She hiked up her skirt and held out one foot, as if she were a ballerina thrusting one leg in the air to check her shoes. “See that bandage?” She pointed to her ankle. “Sprained, the doctor told me. Hurt like the devil one day when I woke up. Hobbled around until I couldn’t stand it. Then a friendly policeman—don’t look at me like that, some are nice—he helped me find a doc. The doc took pictures of it, gave me a boot, said I should stay off it, so I did for a whole week. What a time, I found doorways and alleys where I knew I could sit without being bothered, got around on my hands and keister, but this morning, I was my old chipper self, so I got myself up, brushed myself off, and got to work.” She narrowed her eyes, looking into Cookie’s face for the first time.
Not a reliable witness, Clancy would tell her when she got home, she could just hear him, but the woman was good enough for Cookie. She waited for the woman to say something more.
“They took her away?” the woman asked.
“They? You saw her with others?”
“Missy, in case you hadn’t noticed, this here is a busy park. Not just you and me and the little girl and maybe her mother, although I couldn’t tell you for sure. People crossing through here in droves. It’s my patch, so I do my bit to keep it safe. That’s the agreement I have with the boys in blue. Most of the people in and out dress in crazy outfits. Running all over the place, lots of them sipping coffee and eyeing their phones. Silly creatures, all of them, rushing to who knows where, and in the end what does it matter? It don’t, I can tell you that.”
“Think, Mrs. Whatever your name is.”
“That’s my business.”
“You’re trying to help me, I know. But the woman with the little girl, that was her mother. And she’s frantic with worry because her daughter is missing. Do you have children?”
The woman stared across the park. In a few minutes she brushed her eyes. “I had one myself once. That was years ago. One thing about children and mothers—they leave. My mother left me and my kids are grown. They have no time for me.”
Cookie was silent, afraid to touch her companion, but she wanted to hold her, dry her eyes, maybe. The rain was tapering off now. For a second, the silence was deafening, punctuated only by a car honking some streets away and the last of the raindrops hitting branches.
“Maybe that’s what happened. The little girl decided it was time for her to leave.”
“You saw her go away without her mother?”
The woman got up and held out her hand, looking into the park. “Like the rain, they come and go, come and go. In case you hadn’t noticed, missy, that’s life.” She began singing softly to herself and Cookie figured that was all she was going to get from her.
But still she persisted. “Did the girl leave with her mother?” Cookie asked again, but the homeless woman didn’t answer. One thing was certain—well, almost certain—Dorset had been with her mother in the park early that morning.
“Where can I reach you if I need to ask you more questions?”
“Here’s as good a place as any. Like I say, it’s my territory. No one else dares enter.”
Cookie thought about that, some unwritten rule of the street people, she reckoned. She wanted to ask where the woman lived but stopped herself. Just then Clancy texted, asking her to meet him on Joralemon. She’d almost forgotten about investigating the drugstore robbery.
Dorset
Dorset’s Monologue
It was Jerry’s brother, Kenny, the one with the mouth, who interrupted us. I didn’t like Kenny, but like Dad would say, the two brothers are a package. If you like one, you have to find a way to like the other one. “Take our family,” he’d say, and he’d give me one of his winks. Then he’d give Mom a big grin and she’d smile back at him and nod and quirk her head to one side before lifting her hand and brushing the side of his hair, telling him she liked the cut of hi
s jib. I like to think of them that way. It helps.
If I had been looking for imponderables that morning, there was one right before me—the way Kenny’s face looked, as if it had been twisted by a giant’s hand, the way you screw on a bottle cap. The face, his face, I can’t forget it: he had a half smile, his eyes squinting, one side of him pointing in one direction, the other glaring at me. He stood rigid and I knew there was something wrong. Jerry and I had been played for fools. But this morning when Jerry and Kenny came and got me, I wasn’t trying to figure imponderables—I was looking forward to seeing Jerry’s collages. I walked with Jerry, who held onto my shoulder while we stopped at the corner until the light turned green. “Now,” he said, and we walked, Jerry almost running the closer we got to his house. Well, not a house, but a door in a building. He pointed up to where he lived and we waited for Kenny to open the door. “Remember what I said,” he whispered to Jerry. He thought I hadn’t heard. But I had heard, and when he said it, my back got that funny feeling it does when it’s my turn at bat and the bases are loaded. I should have known then. “Don’t strike out,” I could hear my father whisper even though I usually did. When I saw Kenny’s face, I should have run back to the park and my mother, and nothing bad would have happened. So now in this cramped place without enough light to draw in, I wonder how bad it can get. Not much worse, I hope. Although to give them a credit or two, the woman is nice whenever she’s around, which isn’t often. “Do you like your bread toasted?” she goes while I’m sitting all scared and the sound of her voice softens it. “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon,” she says, and I press my lips together and tell myself not to cry. It’s hard to breathe sometimes in the dark, and in the dark, I can’t draw.
Ellston Drugs
Clancy hugged Cookie and stopped in the middle of the block to tie his shoe. An NYPD patrolman, he had the day off, and although he had planned to drive to Poughkeepsie with Denny, the opportunity to make some money on the side was too tempting, so he called Denny and they changed the appointment to the following day. When Cookie texted him, he was waiting for her at the entrance to Ellston Drugs, a store with a bright green awning in the middle of Montague Street. “This is going to be so easy. There are so many cameras on the streets now, one or two at every stoplight. Did you know in New York City we’re likely to be caught on camera hundreds of times a day?”
“Then why haven’t the cops caught these guys?” Cookie asked. “This is their third break-in. There have to be cameras all over the place, not just in the store. See?” He pointed to a sign tacked on the brick, which read Security Cameras.
Clancy shrugged. He held the door for her and they entered.
It was a tiny place, the aisles just wide enough for a man to walk through without touching the shelves. It was crammed with merchandise and Cookie noted the displays were orderly, the labels easy to read and handwritten. She hadn’t seen that in a long time. As they walked toward the counter, Cookie’s coat somehow got tangled in a bucketful of umbrellas, knocking one over. It clattered to the floor, its plastic handle hitting the tiles with a bang, which reverberated in such a small space.
“Who’s there?” someone yelled from the back. The voice was high-pitched. “I have my finger on the alarm, so don’t try anything foolish.”
Cookie looked up and saw a slight woman walk into view. She had graying hair. Less than five feet tall, she was dressed in overalls underneath a frilly shopkeeper’s apron. A light above the counter shone in the lenses of her rimless glasses. She reminded Cookie of a granny character in an old Western—sweet on the outside, but made of tough leather.
As they approached, Cookie held out her ID. “I’m from the Fina Fitzgibbons Detective Agency. We’ve come to investigate your robberies.”
The woman gave her a gentle smile, but her words were sharp. “About time, too. My husband said he called your outfit yesterday morning.” Judging by her twang and the way she carried herself, Cookie was sure she hadn’t been born in Brooklyn.
She held out her hand. “I’m so sorry. You must be frightened every time a customer enters. I’m Cookie Scarpanella and this is my husband, Clancy Donahue. He’s an off-duty cop.”
The drugstore woman’s face brightened. “Typical. Youngsters these days—who can keep their names straight? My nieces are the same way; they each kept their maiden names. Course, I don’t blame them, they married men with unpronounceable surnames. And they told me when they’re old enough, they’ll let their children choose their last name. Can you imagine? Where I come from, that’s just not done. But I guess I’m just old-fashioned. I can’t imagine raising kids today, although Lord knows I prayed to have them.” She smoothed her apron. “Stanley and I weren’t blessed. And it was all my fault, too.”
Cookie saw tears in the woman’s eyes and she felt for her. Here she was with two already. Hard to remember when you had them what a blessing they were.
The woman went on. “Life is getting too complicated, if you ask me.” She interrupted herself and, extending a hand, introduced herself as Shirley Ellston. It was soft and delicate, the nails polished. Cookie shook it and handed the woman her card.
After pocketing it, Shirley Ellston went on. “What’s wrong with our police? They can’t solve the simplest break-in? Lord knows we’ve given them three chances. Each time I call 9-1-1 as soon as the bandits leave. They have guns, I tell you. Scares you half to death.”
A tall balding man with a mustache and generous stomach appeared from the back. He wore a striped shirt, a matching apron and, despite the chill in the store, short sleeves. He put an arm around his wife. “There were only two, my dear, and, true, one had a gun, darling, let’s not exaggerate. The other one looked like he couldn’t remember his own name. I swear I’ve seen them before.”
“Of course you have, Stanley. The last time they were here, they took all the money from the till.”
“But not the big cash, darling mine.”
“Go on, tell them how smart you are.”
Cookie could tell Shirley was proud of her husband.
He explained his routine, telling Cookie more than she needed to know, starting off by saying he and his wife owned the building. They lived upstairs and rented out the top floor. Each day, he emptied the register three times a day, transferring what monies they’d taken in so far to a large safe located in the back.
Shirley Ellston took over the talking from her husband. “So I call emergency. I tell them there’s been another robbery and the operator asks me if I need resuscitation or the police. What kind of question is that?”
“You were breathing so rapidly, darling. I don’t blame you. And I don’t blame them for asking. It’s time for us to pack up and go to the farm. We’ve had a good run here, but someone’s trying to tell us something. And what with my heart and your knee—”
Shirley lifted her chin. “Not on your life, Stanley Ellston. I’m not leaving Brooklyn. It’s my home.”
“We have a farm in Dutchess County. “Can’t miss it when you take the Taconic to Rhinebeck. Stands tall and proud on the Slate Quarry Road. And what’s more, Brooklyn wasn’t always your home. It’s not like you’re a native.”
“That’s as may be. But I’ve been here so many years. Met you here. Married here. Cared for this big store.” She made a wide gesture with her hand.
Cookie elbowed Clancy, who rocked back and forth, his eyes on his big feet, the color rising in his cheeks.
“I’m with you,” Cookie said. “And I’m born and bred here. We named our daughter Brooklyn.” She gave her husband one of her all-eye looks.
The druggist’s wife went on with describing the police response. “Took them ten or fifteen minutes to get here. The sirens blare, they swarm the place, and look at us as if we’re the robbers and not the victims. Then they send in a pair of slick detectives, who take our statements and look around, one of them talking on her radio and tapping her stilettos on my nice wooden floor while I’m telling her what happened. Stanley takes t
he other one into the back and he looks at the CCTV footage, shaking his head. They say they’ll be back in a few hours, and we never hear from them again.”
“Not true, Shirley. Second robbery, they took us down to the station and asked us to identify our robbers.”
“I remember now. A lineup, they called it,” the woman said. “Every one of them looked the same to me. Hoodies, dark glasses.”
“That’s the trouble, Clancy said. Perps today know how to fool cameras, which are usually placed close to the ceiling.”
The man nodded, pointing to the four corners of the store where, he said, they’d had cameras installed. “We have a fifth one overhead, too—the works—and I don’t mind telling you the system was a pretty penny. A pretty penny.” He stopped talking, a smile spreading across his face. “But I fooled all of them. My nephew-in-law, he’s the smart one, he’s the one who persuaded me to have it set up like this. Kept talking about redundancy. Not worth the money, he told me, unless you have backup. Backup’s the thing,” the druggist said. “Besides, I wouldn’t have called your agency unless we had something to show you.”
“Don’t build up your hopes,” Clancy said. “Cameras are good for monitoring protests and protestors, but thieves, now, that’s another matter. They know how to fly under the radar. They wear a hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses; many use an IR camera blinder. If you get an image at all, it looks like a gray ghost.”
Cookie watched Stanley’s face change from hopeful to somber. “I tell you, it’s time we moved. At this juncture in our life, all we need is our health and a little peace.”
Cookie held up a hand. “I’ve got questions before you start looking at tapes. Which one of you saw these men?”
“The last time?” Shirley asked and Cookie nodded.
“I was here. I won’t forget them, not for a long time. One tall, the other short. Both wearing something on their heads. This was a couple of weeks ago, mind, and they were here all of five minutes. You can imagine what I was like, a basket case.” Shirley put a hand to her chest and rocked back on the counter. “I’d just said goodbye to my grandnephews. Thank the lord they weren’t around.”
Dorset in the Dark: A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Page 14
