Take Out

by Margaret Maron

  Seen from the narrow street, Number 42½ could have been a run-down industrial site. The dirty gray concrete wall was too high to see anything except the upper stories of an old factory, so there was no way for casual passersby to realize that the wall concealed a single-story dwelling that had been added for the factory’s foreman sometime in the 1930s. Set in that wall was a dilapidated wooden door that left flakes of green paint on Sigrid’s shoes when she unlocked it. Roman had convinced her to leave it as it was.

  “We don’t want anyone thinking there’s a reason to scale the wall,” he’d said when she suggested a fresh coat of paint.

  As she stepped inside and let the door latch behind her, she found Roman deadheading some yellow flowers that had bloomed last week. Their courtyard was less than half the size of Mrs. DelVecchio’s garden and it lacked both a pool and the manicured formal flower beds, but it did have some tall flowering bushes, and a white marble replica of a Greek god stood in one corner beneath a Japanese cherry tree.

  A nude replica.

  A well-endowed nude replica.

  “Tante Caroline thought he looked like her first husband,” Roman had said. “A nice man, but he came from the south of France and he hated New York winters.”

  As a result, whenever it snowed, Roman always felt as if he ought to throw a blanket over those bare muscular shoulders. Today, bathed in June’s warm afternoon sunshine, the god had a wreath of flowers in his sculpted hair and Sigrid thought he looked faintly embarrassed.

  “I’ve been wanting to show you something,” Roman said, leading her toward the thickest bush that grew in the corner of the L where the maid’s quarters that he occupied joined the larger side formed by the living room and two bedrooms.

  As he gently parted the leaves, a small brown bird shot out of the bush.

  “See?” he said.

  There near the ground was a nest of twigs and grass. It held four speckled eggs.

  “I think it’s a white-throated sparrow. But sparrows are so hard to identify.”

  “Why is one of those eggs so much bigger?” asked Sigrid, who had almost no knowledge of wildlife.

  “I rescued it from some wretched boys who found a nest in the park and tore it down. They said it was a red bird. Probably a cardinal or tanager, and being boys, they smashed the other eggs to see what was inside. I managed to talk them out of this one. It’s been in the sparrow’s nest for two days now, so I think she’s accepted it. Maybe I can get an article out of it like the one I wrote on cowbirds. They lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, you know, and sometimes the baby cowbird will push out the legitimate nestlings so that—”

  “Is that for me?” Sigrid asked, pointing to a padded envelope on the garden table. Given a chance to lecture, Roman could run on for hours, but he never seemed to mind being interrupted.

  “It’s from Anne,” he said in his deep sonorous bass. “Addressed to both of us, so I took the liberty of opening it. Your mother is an absolute angel! She’s sent us passes for Saturday.”

  “Passes? Passes for what?”

  “BookExpo. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “What’s BookExpo?”

  “Christmas and birthdays with tons of free books for presents.”

  Then Sigrid remembered that Anne had invited her back in March to join her at the Javits Center for the huge annual book fair that would see the launch of the book she had written about her near-death experience in Somalia. Part memoir, part coffee table book, it was illustrated by the graphic and heart-rending photos she had taken, one of which had won her a second Pulitzer.

  “Mac can’t come that weekend,” she’d said, “so why don’t you? My publisher wants me to speak at a breakfast. Billy Collins is supposed to be signing after lunch, so you can score a free book and get him to autograph it. I’ll get an extra pass for Roman.”

  Free books? A chance to meet one of her favorite poets in person? “I’m in,” she’d said happily, then promptly forgot all about it.

  “Anne’s so fortunate,” Roman said now as he read the name of her publisher on their passes. A large, soft man with thinning hair, his accent was a cross between cinematic British and cultured Midwest spoken in a deep bass voice. “True class.”

  He fitted the passes into the plastic holders that Anne had included and handed Sigrid one of the lanyards. “Of course she’s a star and I’m a midlist nobody, but my editor brushed me off when I asked them to give me a signing time. It wouldn’t have had to be in the official autographing area. I would have been quite happy to sign at their booth but they declined. Wouldn’t even give me a pass.”

  As they talked, Sigrid became aware of an appetizing smell that drifted from an open window, reminding her how long it had been since lunchtime.

  “Something smells good,” she said, opening the door.

  “Only boring chicken pot pies, I’m afraid.”

  As far as Sigrid was concerned, “boring” was preferable to some of Roman’s more exotic leaps of culinary fantasy.

  Unfortunately, she was not to taste it that evening. Before Roman could take the pot pies from the oven, the phone rang and she smiled upon hearing Buntrock’s voice. “I haven’t had a chance to go over the catalog proofs yet, Elliott, but…what? Marcus Livingston? No, he hasn’t called. Why?”

  Thirty minutes later, Sigrid slid into a booth in the diner across the street from Rudy Gottfried’s studio. Buntrock had avoided telling her why this meeting was so urgent.

  “What’s happened, Elliott? Is the Arnheim still trying to make us to pay for the extra insurance? Rudy?”

  The older man seemed distinctly disturbed. “I swear I didn’t know, Sigrid, honest.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “That Oscar may have had a son,” Buntrock said bluntly.

  “What?”

  “He came to the gallery today while Hester and I were finalizing the picture selections.” He quickly described how Vincent Haas had arrived claiming to be Nauman’s son. “And he had this with him.”

  He handed Sigrid a copy of the birth certificate that Haas had given Hester. She quickly scanned it and her gray eyes were stormy when she turned to face Gottfried. “Is this for real, Rudy?”

  “Damned if I know. I was just as surprised as you when Buntrock called.”

  “But you and Nauman shared that loft with her. She had Nauman’s baby? How could he not know? How could you not know if she was living there?”

  “Because she never said. The dates are right for when she and Oscar broke up and she split for California. If this birth certificate is legit, he was born about six months after she moved out of the loft. I helped her pack up her things, but she didn’t say a word about being pregnant. Not to me anyhow.”

  More upset than she wanted to admit, Sigrid took a long, deep drink from the glass of water a waiter had brought her when she sat down. “Did Nauman know?”

  “Maybe,” said Buntrock, and told her about the letter from Austria that Hester had forwarded to their hotel in LA. “That could have been where he went that day.”

  Finally, Sigrid thought. A real reason for him to drive out from LA alone, because surely he would have tried to question her about a child no matter how crazy she was.

  “You guys ready?” asked the waiter, who had brought over a basket of warm rolls.

  When he had taken their orders, Sigrid leaned forward. “What does Marcus say?”

  “He plans to backtrack on this, see if he can locate any of Oscar’s relatives.”

  “Relatives? Why?”

  “DNA,” Buntrock said. “Unless you kept something like a hairbrush?”

  “Only his pipe,” she said sadly, “and it won’t be of any use. Marcus’s secretary cleaned and waxed it before she brought it to me.”

  Mrs. Bayles had meant well, but in preserving the wooden bowl and plastic stem, she had polished away most of the fragrant tobacco smell that had been as much a part of Nauman as the turpentine and oil paints of his studio.

&nbs
p; “According to Livingston, when he drew up Oscar’s preliminary will, he was under the impression that there were no close relatives.”

  “Does this mean that you don’t think he’s Nauman's son?”

  “Doesn’t matter what we think, Sigrid. Livingston wants more proof than this birth certificate if Vincent Haas plans to put in a claim against Oscar’s estate.”

  “Is that what he’s going to do?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Sigrid leaned back in the booth and took a deep breath to steady herself. “I should meet him.”

  Buntrock frowned. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “Maybe not, but I need to see him for myself.”

  “Except for his white hair, he looks almost nothing like Oscar.”

  “I don’t care, Elliott. If he is who he says he is, he’s entitled to make a claim. To all of it, if that’s what he wants.”

  “Oh, I imagine he’ll want,” Gottfried said with a cynical face.

  “I hope you won’t do anything rash until we know for sure,” said Buntrock.

  “Don’t worry. Marcus won’t let me,” Sigrid said, smiling for the first time. “Does this man have any artistic leanings?”

  “Not that he’s mentioned,” said Buntrock. “His parents—his adoptive parents—were lawyers and he himself is a statistician. A bean counter. He’ll be looking at the balance sheet, figuring up how much the works will bring.”

  “He won’t be the first,” Sigrid said quietly.

  As the waiter set their plates in front of them, he gave Sigrid a sheepish grin. “I meant to call you, Lieutenant, but I couldn’t find the card you gave me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, one of our customers? He’s the locksmith down at the end of the street, across from where those bodies were. We were talking about it yesterday and he said that he’d got called out after hours the evening before…Tuesday evening, right? When he went by the shop to get his tools, he saw an old guy with a beard sitting on the bench and he was talking to a man with a takeout box.”

  “Did he know the man?”

  The waiter shrugged. “Said he might’ve seen him around the neighborhood. Didn’t know his name, though. Guess I should’ve called you, huh?”

  CHAPTER

  10

  No ID on our second victim,” Tillie said as Sigrid came out of her office with a cup of black coffee on Friday morning. “But we may be close. A news vendor in the area recognized the picture but didn’t know his name or anything about him except that he buys Variety every week.”

  “Variety?” said Hentz. “Ninth and Forty-Third? That’s right in the Theater District.”

  “Which could mean he’s connected with show business,” Elaine Albee said, “but that’s not going to help us without a name.”

  “We’ll get it,” Tillie said confidently. “Just a matter of time.”

  “Till then, we concentrate on Matty Mutone,” Sigrid said. “Hentz, call Mrs. Jennings. Find out when that Overhold woman’s due back. And I want to talk to Charlotte Randolph.”

  “Randolph told us that she didn’t recognize either man,” said Jim Lowry as he came back to his desk with two steaming mugs of coffee and handed one to Albee.

  “But those were the first pictures we took of them,” she reminded him. “Maybe it will jog her memory to see ones with their eyes open.”

  The morning briefing continued with a report from Gonzalez and Jackson, the two newest members of their team.

  “We should finish up the paperwork on that domestic stabbing tomorrow,” said Jackson. “The DA will knock it down to manslaughter if he’ll confess.”

  “And will he?” Sigrid asked.

  Gonzalez handed her a picture of two frightened children. “The boy’s five, the girl’s seven. They saw him do it. He doesn’t want to put them on the witness stand. His sister says she’ll take them in.”

  “Poor kids,” Dinah Urbanska said softly.

  Three days since those bodies had been found, yet they still had no identity for the second body. Sigrid knew she should update Captain McKinnon on their meager progress, but it was difficult to concentrate on the case while still reeling from the news that Nauman might have had a son. Had he known? Had he visited his old mistress? Had a coherent talk with her? Learned about their son? Frustrated, she pushed back from her desk and fished a puzzle ring out of the bowl that held her collection. Fitting the circlets into a unified band usually helped her to focus, but not today.

  She frowned when her phone interrupted the alternate scenarios she was piecing together in her head and she was not happy to hear Marcus Livingston’s voice on the line.

  “I understand Buntrock told you about Vincent Haas?”

  “Yes.”

  Livingston waited for her to say more. The silence stretched between them until the attorney said, “Hester Kohn sent him to me. He just left.”

  “Is he Nauman’s son, Marcus?”

  “I honestly can’t say. He has a birth certificate, but that alone doesn’t prove anything to me. He doesn’t particularly look like Oscar and he has nothing more than the letter his mother left. His adoptive mother.”

  “Did you know about Lila Nagy?”

  “Never heard her name till Buntrock called. Oscar didn’t mention her to me and I’m sure he would have if he’d known there was a child. I gather that Rudy Gottfried confirms that the dates are right?”

  “Yes,” Sigrid said, back to monosyllables again.

  “Let me reassure you that even if he proves to be who he says he is, Sigrid, he has no real claim on Oscar’s estate. I’ve never had one of my wills successfully contested.”

  “There’s always a first, Marcus. Does he plan to contest?”

  “Probably. It’s a lot of money. He says that isn’t his primary concern.”

  “But it’s probably his secondary?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If he really is Nauman’s son, though…”

  “Let’s wait about crossing that bridge. A pity my Mrs. Bayles is so efficient. She tells me the cleaning crew removed all his personal effects months ago. I don’t suppose you—?”

  “No.”

  After hanging up the phone, Livingston called for Oscar Nauman’s file, but he didn’t immediately see what he was looking for.

  “I clipped it to his death certificate,” said his secretary. “Shall I call them and see what I can find out?”

  Getting the information he wanted would probably mean listening to hours of execrable elevator music broken by a chirpy “Please continue to hold. Your call is very important to us.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bayles,” he said. “That would be most helpful.”

  The manager of the market on Tenth Avenue studied the flyer the policeman had handed him and shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know him. What’s he done?”

  “Died,” said the officer. “With no ID on him.”

  “Yeah? Too bad. I’ll stick this on our board over there by the door. Maybe someone will recognize him.”

  “He bought a bottle of aspirin over a week ago?” asked the clerk at the Duane Reade on Ninth Avenue. He gestured out at the crowded store. “And you expect me to remember him? Give me a break.”

  “You were right, Charlotte,” Grace Landers said. “Mom did have some pictures that Grandma took when you went to Rome to have those polyps removed, but you may not be able to use any of them. I’m afraid they’re not very flattering.”

  Charlotte Randolph watched her sister’s granddaughter unzip a flat leather envelope and dump several dozen snapshots on the glass-topped table. It had been her sister’s first trip abroad and she had snapped roll after roll of film with her Brownie camera. St. Peter’s, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps. And even through Charlotte had expressly forbidden Daisy to take pictures of her, there she was—more than forty years younger and caught in candid shots that were embarrassingly awful.

  “Mom says that’s when Grandma started putting on
the pounds.”

  “I’m afraid we both did,” said Charlotte, grimacing at a particularly unattractive view of her round face and pudgy waistline. “All that pasta. Took me six months to get back to singing shape.”

  “Too bad she didn’t follow your example,” said Grace, who did not carry an extra ounce on her slender body.

  “She didn’t have the same incentive,” Charlotte said complacently. “But it was good of her to come with me and keep me from overdoing. When I was in rehab, my voice therapist said that the extra weight would help keep my vocal cords flexible while I recovered. It was the first time I’d had a real rest since joining the Met and a side benefit was that I came back fluent in Italian, which was a huge help for some of my roles.”

  As Charlotte sorted through the scattered pictures, separating the purely tourist shots from those that might make it into the book, she paused and said, “Could you make us a cup of tea, darling? Just talking about my vocal cords has dried them out.”

  “Of course.”

  The real kitchen was downstairs in the basement, but here on the first floor where she entertained, mirrored panels concealed a butler’s pantry that had a wet bar, hot plate, a microwave oven, and everything needed for making hot or cold drinks.

  As Grace disappeared behind the mirrors, Charlotte Randolph quickly plucked four of the most unflattering pictures from the pile and tucked them into the pocket of her robe.

  More loose ends to be tidied away.

  If this book made as big a splash as her editor predicted, she would once again be in the public eye, and who knew where reporters would go poking?

  “You’ve papered that neighborhood with flyers?” McKinnon asked when they met late that afternoon. “And it’s on television, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sigrid said.

  “Then I don’t see what else you can do to ID him till someone comes forward.” He noticed the dark rings under her eyes. “You okay?”

  “Just frustrated,” she said with a wan smile.