An Officer and a Gentle Woman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  She offered him a limp hand. “Esther Claiborne.”

  She was a stout woman in her fifties with gray hair, attired in a cashmere twin set and a tweed skirt. Lafferty was ready to present a dodge if she asked to see his badge but she merely stepped aside to let him enter the foyer and then handed him a folded prescription sheet ripped from a pad.

  Lafferty opened it and read that Mr. Kirkland was not to be interviewed for longer than twenty minutes, was not to be upset since he was a cardiac patient, and was not to be interrogated about past business dealings without a nurse present. There was the usual scribbled illegible signature followed by “M.D.”

  Lafferty glanced at Mrs. Claiborne, whose narrow hazel eyes were glittering with triumph.

  “Any questions?” she asked slyly.

  “None. I think you’d better call the nurse, though, because I will be asking your father questions about his past business. As you know very well, that is the reason for my visit.”

  Esther’s mouth popped open in shock. “How am I supposed to get a nurse here on such short notice?”

  Lafferty produced a card from his suit pocket and handed it to her.

  “Elise Carroll, R.N., who also happens to be my sister. She’s in Brooklyn, she has the directions to get here, and she is waiting for your call. I can begin now or we can both wait until she gets here. It’s up to you.”

  Esther’s expression darkened as she realized she had been outwitted.

  “I am going to talk to him, Mrs. Claiborne, now or tomorrow, sooner or later, if I have to get a court order to do it,” Lafferty said. “You can get a team of doctors to say his health will not bear it. I will get a team of judges to sign papers to say that he will go to jail if he doesn’t see me. We can play those games if you want to, but they will only delay me a few days. I did a lot of research on your father before I came here. I know how he made his money, how he bought this house, and I am going to ask him about all of it. The fate of an innocent young woman with two children, a young woman wrongfully accused of murder, may ride on what your father tells me. So you can produce notes, you can rattle blood pressure machines, you can call out the fire department. But this is going to happen, and we might as well do it now.”

  Esther had been listening to him with her arms folded and an expression of extreme annoyance on her pinched face. When Lafferty finished talking she pulled open a door to their left and made a sweeping gesture.

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” she said flatly, and stalked off down the hall.

  Lafferty was surprised by the room he entered, pulling the door closed quietly behind him. He had been expecting Victoriana like the bibelots which filled Hannah’s house, but instead the sitting room was furnished with modern leather and glass, with Picasso reproductions on the walls. Ensconced in a deep brown studded-leather chair was a porcelain old man, watching him.

  Ambrose Kirkland looked as if he had been sent over from Central Casting to play the kindly uncle in a kiddie movie. He had wispy white hair combed over a pink pate, and a thin white mustache. He was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater with trim dark pants and penny loafers with argyle socks. Lafferty found this a surprising outfit for a retired shyster, but sartorial choices were not his forte, so he said, “Mr. Kirkland, I’m Michael Lafferty.”

  The old man nodded. “I heard you giving Esther a bad time in the hall. Not the words, just the tone. Esther is a drill sergeant who conspires to keep everybody away from me because she thinks if I never talk to anyone else I will be forced to leave her all of my money. Excuse me if I don’t get up, my arthritis is particularly painful on a damp day like today.”

  Lafferty nodded and sat in the Eames chair the old man indicated.

  “Mr. Kirkland, I want to talk to you about the illegal adoption of Alicia Green Walker and the monetary deal that was made thirty-five years ago with her biological mother.”

  Kirkland surveyed him in silence for several seconds and then said, “I see you don’t plan to beat around the bush, Detective.”

  “I only have twenty minutes.”

  Kirkland looked away from him. “You could have saved yourself the trip from Queens. I will not discuss the Alicia Green case, or any other, with you.”

  Lafferty nodded. “I see. You do realize that in refusing to cooperate with my investigation you could be liable for obstruction charges as well as open to subpoena.”

  Kirkland snorted. “Your investigation? You are on leave from the police force, Detective. I read the morning newspapers. Any investigation you are conducting is strictly on your own and without the sanction of any official body.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your daughter that?”

  Kirkland waved his hand dismissively. “Esther is a fusspot and I will determine who sees me and who does not. That doesn’t change the fact that I won’t tell you a damn thing.”

  Lafferty sighed. “You put me in a difficult position, Mr. Kirkland. I don’t want to upset you, but one phone call to my captain will produce a search warrant which will have a team of detectives tearing apart your records going back to the Eisenhower administration.”

  Kirkland pointed to a teak desk against the wall to his left. “There’s the phone.”

  Lafferty had to admire the old guy in a perverse way; he sure didn’t rattle easily.

  “Mr. Kirkland, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon right now I was at my precinct house very early this morning talking to a couple of old geezers who worked Manhattan when you were in your prime. They told me all about you. You were quite the fixer in your day.”

  “I helped my friends.”

  “Like Darnel Green?”

  “His father was my best friend.”

  “Oh, why so noble? Your ‘help’ was not restricted to friends, was it? It was available to anyone who could pay for it, isn’t that so, Mr. Kirkland?”

  Kirkland picked up a magazine from the table at his side. “Young man, you’re boring me. I believe your time is almost up.”

  “Okay, then I’ll speed this up a little. Let’s talk about blackmail, and extortion, and the facilitation of both ”

  Kirkland sighed. “In connection with a thirty-five-year-old adoption? The statute of limitations has run out on those felonies a long time ago, my boy. You should review your math, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  “How about murder, accessory after the fact. The statute never runs out on murder, pal.”

  “I know nothing about a murder.”

  “Joe Walker’s murder? You just told me you read the papers. Alicia Green Walker is accused of killing him, the same Alicia Green who was sold as an infant to your buddy’s son Daniel Green and his wife Margaret.”

  “I fail to see a connection between the events of thirty-five years ago and the fit of insanity which led Alicia to shoot her husband down in cold blood.”

  “Well, Mr. Kirkland, that’s what I am here to establish. And if you don’t start talking pretty quick I’ll have to call your daughter in here and tell her everything I know about Harmony House.”

  The old man didn’t move but the tightening of his lips told Lafferty that his thrust had reached its target.

  “You did come prepared, Detective Lafferty.”

  “The precinct captain who protected you on that one is just a memory—retired, dead, gone. There’s a new group in power now and they wouldn’t mind dredging up that old chestnut if you refuse to play ball. I have their word on it. If you cooperate with me they will continue to let bygones be bygones. If not, your daughter, the pillar of Holy Cross Church, whose favorite charity is Mercy Foundling Hospital, will learn in the papers about the illegal abortion mill for the well-heeled and discreet, run quite profitably some decades ago on referrals from one Ambrose T. Kirkland.”

  Kirkland looked like a man who had been unexpectedly checkmated.

  “You didn’t think anybody still cared about that, did you, Kirkland? Thought everybody had forgotten? Cops have long memories, especially one cop who lo
st his sister to a butcher you set her up with in 1960.”

  Kirkland was silent.

  “You’re pretty much dependent on your daughter now, aren’t you? Wife dead, son living in Europe, arthritis ready to put you in a wheelchair. What do you think would happen to you if I told your daughter how you paid for this house, her pony, her private school, her piano lessons? Funny, Ambrose, she doesn’t seem like the type to forgive and forget to me.”

  Kirkland eyed him malevolently.

  “Let me help you out. That’s how you got involved with the Green adoption, right? The Lassiter girl wanted to have an abortion at Harmony House but Green wanted to keep the baby. You paid her off to have the baby and give it to the Greens and keep her mouth shut about it. You arranged for the payments to continue after Daniel Green died, and in all likelihood they continue to this very day. How am I doing so far?”

  Kirkland coughed delicately. “I don’t see why you need me, Detective. You seem to know it all already.”

  “Not all. There’s something missing, something I can’t quite reach. And you’re going to tell me what it is or so help me God when your daughter walks in here, which she is scheduled to do in about three minutes, I am going to give her chapter and verse on the doings at Harmony House Convalescent Home circa 1955-1970.”

  Kirkland stared at Lafferty, as if weighing carefully what to say.

  Lafferty looked at his watch pointedly. “Now you have two minutes and forty seconds.”

  Kirkland closed his eyes. “There were two children,” he said flatly.

  “Two children?”

  “Alicia and another. Two little girls exactly alike. The Greens took Alicia and the other...”

  “Alicia has an identical twin?” Lafferty whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Does her grandmother Hannah know this?”

  “No.” Kirkland closed his eyes and shook his head. “Nobody knew there was a second baby except the Lassiters. And me. Daniel was not there when the children were born, and the Lassiter girl’s mother, Nancy, wanted to keep one of the children. Deborah just wanted it to be over, and Daniel was expecting only one child so Nancy Lassiter kept the second baby. As far as I know she raised the child. She probably used the payoff money to do it.”

  Lafferty’s mind was spinning with the implications of what Kirkland had just told him. “You knew Alicia had a twin and you said nothing when she was arrested on eyewitness testimony? You know there is somebody else out there who looks just like her and you did nothing when the entire case against her is based on identifying her as the killer? You’re a lawyer, man, an officer of the court! Didn’t you feel any obligation to come forward and tell what you know?”

  Kirkland avoided his gaze, saying nothing.

  Lafferty threw up his hands. “No, of course you didn’t. It was much more important to keep the secret of Harmony House and enjoy a peaceful old age.”

  “I would not have let her go to jail,” Kirkland finally said quietly.

  Mike could hardly contain his anger. The thought of what Alicia had gone through while this smug senior citizen sat on his laurels made him want to throttle the old man. Kirkland could have alleviated her pain with a single phone call.

  “Oh, bully for you!” Mike exploded. “What about what she is going through right now, the fear, the uncertainty, the worry about her children? You were going to come forward only if she was convicted, nght? You were going to wait it out, see what happened, see if maybe she might get off and then you wouldn’t have to blow the whistle on yourself. You’re a piece of work, Kirkland, a real credit to your profession.”

  There was a knock at the door to the hall.

  “Time’s up,” Esther announced spitefully, pulling open the door smartly.

  “Mr. Kirkland, tell your daughter that you need a few more minutes,” Lafferty said evenly.

  “Go away, Esther,” Kirkland said. “I’ll call you if and when I need you.”

  Esther looked from one man to the other and then hauled the door shut with a bang.

  “Tell me everything you know about the Lassiters, the people who kept the other baby. Where they were living then, how they picked up the money, any mailing addresses you may have, any subsequent information—everything.”

  “The only survivor at this point may be Alicia’s twin, and I have no idea where she is.”

  “What happened to Alicia’s biological mother, Deborah, and the grandmother, Nancy?”

  “Nancy died around the time Daniel Green was killed. I made arrangements to continue paying Deborah and Alicia’s twin, who were still living together then. That’s all I know. The checks were drawn on a trust account set up by Daniel Green and sent to a PO Box and were always cashed about three days after mailing.”

  “And this went on for all the years since Alicia was born? It never stopped?”

  Kirkland smiled thinly. “You must understand about banks, Detective Kirkland. If you set up a trust account and make a bank officer the trustee, the bank will keep sending out checks as long as the money lasts or until the Creator arrives in person and tells the bank to stop. And then the bank will ask Him if He has a certified letter from the trust establisher to that effect.”

  “I see. And somebody picked the checks up right away. Somebody was waiting for them.”

  Kirkland nodded. “I assume so.”

  “Give me the addresses.”

  Lafferty scnbbled down what Kirkland told him and then rose quickly, tucking his notebook under his arm.

  “I assume you will be taking this information to the district attorney?” Kirkland asked.

  “Yes, as you should have done.”

  “Remember our bargain and keep my involvement out of it, Detective.”

  “I won’t bring your name into it. But if Woods is as sharp as I think he is, he’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “You’re sleeping with the Walker woman, aren’t you?” Kirkland asked as Lafferty turned to go.

  “I am not going to discuss Alicia with you,” Lafferty replied, not even looking at the older man. “She managed to turn out just fine despite the machinations of people like you and a marriage that would have driven most people insane.”

  “Margaret Green was a good woman. I am sure she made a fine mother,” Kirkland said.

  Lafferty glanced at him then. “You were concerned about that?”

  “We can’t all be self-righteous heroes, Detective Lafferty. I did what I could. I knew Margaret Green wanted a child desperately and could not have one herself. Children given to such people rarely come to any harm.”

  “And what about the other child, the twin? Did you think the baby the Lassiters kept would not come to any harm?”

  Kirkland shrugged slightly. “It is very difficult to take a child away from its biological mother.”

  “It sounds like it was the grandmother, Nancy, who really wanted to keep the baby.”

  “Even the grandmother would have had rights to her before a stranger,” Kirkland replied.

  “You have an answer for all of it, don’t you? It must be nice to be able to justify everything in your mind.”

  “To tell you the truth, Detective, I rarely think of those days anymore. It was all such a long time ago.”

  “Not for Alicia, pal, not for Alicia,” Lafferty muttered under his breath and pushed open the door of the study abruptly. Esther Claiborne was standing two inches from it and jumped back, startled.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Claiborne,” Lafferty said as he brushed past her. She opened her mouth soundlessly as he made his escape, saluting her with his fingers as she stared at him through the glass panel of the front door.

  He could hardly conceal his elation as he ran down the brownstone’s brick steps and stepped into the street to hail a passing cab.

  Alicia had a twin. There was a woman out there who looked exactly like her, and this must be, had to be, the person who had murdered Joe Walker.

  For the moment he was not
concerned with how or why. The existence of a known double should be enough to reopen the investigation in light of Alicia’s insistence that she was innocent. Where the twin sister was or why she might have wanted to kill Joe Walker was a mystery he would solve presently. His immediate task was to postpone Alicia’s indictment hearing and to tell her this good news as soon as possible.

  He hailed a cab and gave his Queens address. Alicia was coming to his apartment to have dinner that evening and discuss what he had learned from Kirkland. He had not expected to be this lucky. He knew that the existence of a sibling would be another shock for her, especially since it seemed likely that the sister was the killer. But nothing surpassed the feelings of relief and joy surging through him. He might finally be able to save Alicia from the horrible juggernaut that had overtaken her life.

  He got out at his building and paid the fare, overtipping the cabbie and bounding into his building. The hall outside his door was empty and as he paused to pull his keys from his pocket a blow fell on the back of his head that knocked him to his knees. He turned to face his assailant and then suddenly realized there were several men in the narrow hallway, all coming at him. In the few seconds of consciousness he had as he struggled to return the punches and kicks raining down on him, he heard a harsh voice say, “Stay out of the Walker case!”

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 9

  Alicia balanced the grocery bag in the crook of her arm as she fished in her bag for her keys. Lafferty had given her a duplicate key to his apartment, but the ring had sunk to the bottom of her purse, into the morass of receipts, used lipsticks, crumpled tissues, assorted coins and lint-covered breath mints which abided there like the loose pieces of a child’s board game. She rummaged in frustration for several seconds and then noticed that Lafferty’s door could not possibly be locked. It was not even closed. It stood ajar, and she let the grocery bag fall when she noticed the drops of blood on the floor.

  Lafferty was sprawled on the couch that used to grace his sister’s living room before his nephew spilled day-glo paint on it. He was still wearing his jacket, and one hand trailed to the floor; his face was a mass of cuts and lumps, one eye was swollen half closed, his shirt was ripped across his chest, revealing a large purpling bruise across his ribs, and a gash on his lower lip ran all the way to his chin.