Death and Disappearance (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 5)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  Refreshed if still bewildered, I trudged up the walk to the store. Lights were still on, and as I approached, a shopper stepped out, a package underneath one arm. She smiled and held the door open for me.

  Ina O’Neill was behind the counter, straightening rolls of wallpaper. “May I help you? Oh, it’s you again.” The corners of her mouth turned down.

  “Is your daughter here?”

  Ina O’Neill shook her head. “Supposed to be here two hours ago, but you know Lake when she’s got a brush in her hand.”

  “Not really. I’ll wait.”

  “Is this the way you detect? Turn up like a bad penny?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Her eyes flitted right and left. “You might try finding Stephen Cojok’s killer instead of harassing me.”

  I kept my mouth shut, crossing my arms and leaning against the counter.

  In a moment, “I can’t have you standing up, not in your condition. There are chairs back there. Make yourself comfortable while I close the store.” She walked to the door, turned the lock, and set the alarm.

  I folded my arms. “I’ll just stand here and wait for Lake. I want to talk with both of you.”

  “You can start with me.”

  “Both of you together.”

  She made no reply but opened the cash register and began counting money while I watched, the silence killing both of us.

  She was the first to crack, as I knew she would.

  “I can assure you, I had no idea Lake was in her studio. None at all. I never would have gotten you involved. Never. I mean, I realize you’re pregnant. I never would have gotten you up in the middle of the night. You must think me heartless.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “This has all been such a mistake, but of course, I was so relieved when Lake called. Well, you must know that. Or at least you will in a few months.” She ran a hand through her curls. “You’re going to be a good mom, just like your own mother was. And if your child ever goes missing, even for a minute or two, say, in a store while you’re shopping and you look the other way and she disappears, just for an instant. Don’t do that, by the way.”

  Words were spilling out of her, and I let it happen. She ought to meet Brandy: the two could have a contest to see who could squirt out the most words in one minute.

  “I never dreamed it would end like this. Stephen being killed and all. Of course, I can’t say I’m not happy he’s dead. But the furniture. Lake’s clothes. All gone. Not a trace. Do you have any more information?”

  I said nothing.

  “Not that the money’s important, but Lake did have an expensive china set. I bought eight sets of everything for a shower someone gave her, two large platters, a soup bowl and ladle, all gone. I didn’t see you at the shower, but I know you were at the wedding. You and Lake were friends and then you disappeared. What’s the matter with you? Have you no heart?”

  Just then there was a pounding. Lake stood outside, and her mother flew to the door to unlock it, enfolding her in her arms and whispering something in her ear. A warning, maybe. To which Lake made a reply. I didn’t really catch the words, but I saw her shoulders relax, and as I looked, I began to see the mother-daughter resemblance, both of them the same height, both of them disheveled, eyes like saucers, although Lake’s hair was tied back in a flighty ponytail and Ina’s hair, tied up in a scarf, was rimmed by the recessed store lights. They finished their hugging and turned to me.

  “She has questions for us.” Ina O’Neill, her arm still around Lake, motioned us both into the back room.

  “Let me make everyone some green tea.”

  I shook my head. “This won’t take long. I’ve got to get home.” I held up my phone showing the image of what I’d assumed was Lake’s painting inside the Augustus Gallery. Granted the picture I’d taken through the glass of the front door was not a winning photo—bright reflections masked most of the painting, which stood in a dark corner. But Lake stared at it and nodded, her arms wrapped around her waist, her eyes cast downward and a fine line of color washing up from her neck.

  “The day he came to my studio and dismissed my work? Moses Longfellow took one painting on consignment.”

  “Not much of a dismissal,” I said.

  She shrugged. “A small work, but representative, he said. And no contract was signed.”

  “You mean he just took your work without giving you a receipt?”

  She looked down.

  Poor Lake. She’d have to start being more assertive if she were going to make it as an artist. If she were going to make it in life. I wondered if I could help her in that department and then remembered which hat I was wearing.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me because?”

  “You’d forgotten about it?” Ina O’Neill prompted.

  “I’d forgotten about it.” Her eyes fished for something to rest on. She didn’t want to look at me. “I … I was so distressed about losing Blue.”

  Dinner at Lorraine’s

  Denny was waiting for me when I got home, sitting in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace, his feet on the coffee table. His eyes were closed, one hand on his forehead. My heart sank for an instant before anger overtook me. I swallowed and was about to say something nasty but stopped myself, who knew why, and walked out of the room, my foot poised on the stairs before I ran up to my study and sat in the dust and the mess, breathing and sweating and trying to calm myself. Outside the window, a slight breeze moved spring leaves in a kind of balletic dance. I watched for a while, mesmerized. Robert still haunted us; when would he ever go away? I stared out as the lights of Manhattan began to appear, tenderizing the evening sky. In a while, I heard footsteps on the landing.

  “Can I come in?”

  Granted, it was my study, but when had Denny ever felt the need to ask before he entered? Who was this man freighted with a grief that changed him into someone else? A grief that ebbed and flowed and wouldn’t go away. What was it doing to him and to us and to our unborn child? What could I do or say that would still his sorrow?

  He moved a pile of papers onto the floor and sat next to me in the dark. In my head I ran through topics in our neutral territory but didn’t have the strength to start talking, so I reached for his hand and held it, letting him have his emotion.

  “I know you hated him.”

  I said nothing for a while, trying to recall some happy or at least mildly amusing memories of a man whose predilections I’d loathed, of a man raised in a bygone era whom I hadn’t understood, a man who made me feel, at best, uncomfortable. “Hate is such a strong word.”

  “Admit it, you hated him. You weren’t sorry when he died. Now you’re happy for my mother and that man.”

  I was about to let him have it when for some reason, maybe the growing fetus in my body, I stopped myself. I begged my late mother for help, berating her for leaving me. Now I was an orphan in unchartered territory. As if in answer to my plea, I remembered something my gran used to say, something about finding salvation in our stories. Because in the end, what is life about but sharing stories, she used to say. That was where we’d find meaning. And family members were those who knew the same warm tales.

  So I trudged through my stories of Robert, most of them bad or comical, and as his ghost came back to me, I told Denny about a winter’s night a few years ago, when I’d met Robert outside a funeral parlor of all places. It was a night when the resolution of a case I was working on seemed so remote. Not just that: it was a bleak time in our relationship because Denny and I had called it quits. Decked out in his Knights of Columbus feathery outfit, don’t ask me why, and looking like a clownish Cyrano in the snow, Robert confronted me in the cold, an unexpected presence, giving me, of all things, courage to continue, by telling me he was sorry I’d screwed up so bad. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, kid.”

  As I told the story, Denny brushed back tears. When I stopped, he thanked me.

  “Hungry?”

  He no
dded.

  “Have you given your mother her Carnegie Hall tickets?”

  He hadn’t had the chance, he said, hadn’t seen his mother since she’d gotten back from her trip. We decided to pay her a visit. If we were lucky, she’d feed us.

  “If Frank is there?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You’ll make it through the evening, I’m sure; and if his presence makes you angry or sad, we’ll deal with that too.”

  “I’ll punch him in the nose. What he deserves.”

  “Okay, just not tonight—I need your mother’s help.”

  When we opened the door to Lorraine’s four-flat in Carroll Gardens, the smells of her cooking filled the parlor as Denny hugged his mom and I asked about her time in Chicago.

  “Lots to tell, but after dinner.”

  She’d been gone a month, and feeling her warmth and gentle presence, I realized how much I’d missed her.

  “I couldn’t wait to get into my kitchen. I made a corned beef and was about to call to see if you could join me.”

  I looked around. “Where’s Frank?”

  “Seeing to his shop.”

  Denny relaxed, and Lorraine led the way to the kitchen, where he began carving the corned beef. I watched as Lorraine dished out the cabbage and potatoes.

  We sat around the dining room table and I filled her in on Stephen Cojok’s murder, my meetings with Lake and Stephen’s father, Lake’s empty apartment and her disappearance, only to be discovered the next morning in her studio, oblivious to our frantic search.

  “Strange,” Lorraine said as she served the meat and passed out plates while Denny helped himself to a huge blob of cabbage and four red potatoes. The room seemed empty with just the three of us seated around the long table, Robert’s vacant chair accusatory at the far end.

  Earlier I’d called Jane, and she told me the crime scene unit was still working the Cojok’s apartment, but so far they’d found nothing—no fingerprints, no blood, not even a mote of dust. It was as if the landlord had gutted his fifth-floor apartment and finished off the job with a team of dust busters.

  Lorraine stared at the far wall, her fork on her plate, the food untouched. “And you’ve met Lake’s mother, of course.”

  Nothing like zeroing in on the heart of things. Lorraine told me they’d known each other for years, not as friends, although she admired her ability to turn a clerk’s job into the owner of a successful store.

  “I don’t think she’s sorry Stephen’s dead,” I said.

  “To put it mildly.”

  Lorraine buttered a potato. “Lake’s brief disappearance doesn’t bother me. Artists are like that, and if she expected you and Cookie to visit her studio the next day, she’d want to make sure her work was perfect. More puzzling is the ransacking of her apartment. Who do you think is responsible?”

  “Probably whoever killed Stephen.” I told her what the coroner had said about the murder weapon.

  “So anyone could have killed him, including a woman?” she asked.

  I finished chewing a mouthful. “Anyone with lots of strength.”

  “Not to mention hate.”

  After taking another juicy morsel of beef, I told her what one tenant had said about seeing a fancy moving truck parked on the street.

  “You say Stephen worked for an art dealer?”

  “According to Lake. But the truck may or may not belong to Stephen’s boss—they insisted on using his van to move the goods.”

  Denny rolled his eyes. “He was a sitting duck. If the cops caught him, he’d be the one holding the bag.”

  I told her about Al’s Auto and his glimpse of Stephen’s employer, a suave suit, and the man’s need to be in Rhinebeck. “Cookie’s researching gallery owners with venues both in Manhattan and in Dutchess County.”

  “Fine art, my eye,” Denny said. “Drugs are behind it all. Have to be. He promised to meet the drug lord in Rhinebeck, is all. Of course he was anxious. Probably wetting his pants.”

  “Drugs or stolen artworks,” Lorraine said.

  “Or both.”

  “But it’s odd that Lake didn’t tell you about her work being in the Augustus. Landing a painting in an Uptown gallery, even if on consignment, is a coup for an emerging artist, and she’d want her friends to know, especially since one of them is an artist. She’d want to brag about it. You told her you’d seen it?”

  I nodded. “She was embarrassed, said she’d forgotten to mention it.”

  “And you believed her?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sure she’s not telling me everything. Even when I met her yesterday morning after learning of Stephen’s death, she seemed strange.”

  “She was in shock. She’d just heard of her husband’s brutal murder,” Denny said.

  “Tell me more about her work in the gallery.”

  I told Lorraine it was only one painting, and it wasn’t showcased in the gallery’s window when Cookie and I saw it, but sitting on a chair or pedestal or something and shoved into a corner.

  Lorraine promised to have a look tomorrow. “Frank and I will pretend we’re prospective buyers.”

  At the mention of Frank’s name, Denny speared another piece of meat.

  “More mustard, Denny?”

  He didn’t look at his mother, but shook his head. “I went to Dad’s grave today. It was the only one in his section without flowers.”

  Lorraine reddened, and as if on cue, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it.” She half rose.

  Frank, who must have had a key, walked into the room and kissed Lorraine on the cheek.

  I watched Denny’s ears get red, but he kept his eyes plastered on his plate and continued eating.

  “How was your trip?” I asked, just to say something.

  “Hello, Denny.” Frank extended his hand.

  Denny looked at it for a second and continued eating.

  Her glasses fogging, Lorraine looked at her son. “Heavens. I forgot to serve the wine. Why didn’t you say something?” She tripped as she got out of the chair, and Frank caught her and held her for a couple of seconds longer than necessary, his eyes never leaving Denny. Lorraine shot Frank a look, and wuss that I am, I asked Denny to pass the beef.

  “You haven’t finished the meat on your plate.” He looked down and continued shoveling in cabbage.

  “I’ll get the wine,” Frank said. “Sorry I’m late. I should have been here to serve it, but I had to get the store ready for business tomorrow.”

  Denny shot up. “My fault. Wine’s my job. Sit down, why don’t you?” And he shoved his plate in front of his father’s vacant seat, offering Frank his former place.

  Lorraine slapped the table and stared at her son.

  “What?” he asked, his voice cowed.

  She said nothing, but her eyes never left Denny, who continued to eat.

  “So now you want Frank and me to be a couple?” I asked, trying to smile.

  Denny slid his eyes from me to his mother, shrugged, and moved back to his original seat. “Since you put it that way.”

  Later, after we’d eaten, I helped Lorraine clear the table. In the kitchen I told her about Denny’s recent behavior. “He’s been up and down, having a hard time of it, especially with you and Frank; and I must admit, I’m getting mighty bored with his moods.”

  As I knew she would, she made excuses. He was her son, after all, but she assured me, she and Frank would not stop seeing each other just because Denny was having issues. “How long did it take you to get over your mother’s death?”

  “I’ll never get over it. If I hadn’t been more observant—”

  “Stop right there and listen to yourself.”

  Following Jake Thompson

  When we got home, I checked my phone and found several texts from Brandy telling me to call her.

  No hello when she answered, just a “Do you want to solve this case or what?”

  “Have you found the cat?”

  “Not yet.”
>
  “So tell me what you’ve got.”

  “This guy Jake Thompson’s not so bad looking for an older dude, but he’s wearing us out, me and Billy.”

  “Are you sure you were following the right person?”

  “You’re dealing with professionals.”

  “You and Billy?”

  “Who else? We sweet-talked the guard in the lobby.”

  I wasn’t about to ask how. “What time was this?”

  “And he shows us this wall with all kinds of screens, like little TVs? He points to one row and says they’re from the cameras on Jake Thompson’s floor and across from his door and stuff. ‘Hold on, he’ll be down pretty soon,’ he says. ‘Comes and goes all day long. Guy’s got the cooties.’ Sure enough while we’re looking, Billy asking him if he wore a gun and the guy shaking his head and telling him practically the story of his life—”

  “Cut to the chase.”

  “Thompson’s office door opens and I get a good look at the guy, and I give the guard my credentials, just like you do—”

  “What credentials?”

  “Minnie had business cards made up for us—where have you been? As I was saying, we thank the guard and rush across the street and hang out, casual like, across the street where that muffin place used to be, our eyes peeled on the building’s door, when all of a sudden Thompson shows, and we follow him, not too close, like you said, until he gets into his car.”

  “So you lose him?”

  “How dumb do you think we are? We grab our bikes and the chase is on, following his car down Henry Street to Cobble Hill, where he hovers and so do we. Billy says he’s looking for a parking place, so we cool it and wait. Pretty soon we see him hopping over some crime scene tape and disappearing into the building. But we wait, and sooner than soon, the guy’s out.”

  And so it went, a blow-by-blow account by a major mouth of Jake Thompson’s movements. I had to hand it to Brandy. She and Billy were good at tailing. She told me they’d followed Jake Thompson back to his office, waited for another hour and saw him emerge again. When he did, they continued their tail, this time all the way to Ina O’Neill’s store.