When I got to the Promenade, I looked out at the Statue of Liberty, trying to soak up her calm and strength. The harbor was loaded with barge traffic. Gulls swooped and cried as I clung to the rail, wondering what was wrong with me. Across the river, Manhattan gleamed. I imagined the rest of New Yorkers walking arm in arm, happy, Wall Street runners, Madison Avenue shoppers, execs, street vendors, cons and prostitutes, the whole world going about their business except for me. I’d ruined my life.
“Lost, little girl?”
I spun around and faced Robert McDuffy.
“You don’t have the sense of a snail, leaving the one good thing in your world.”
In a perverse way, he was right, of course. I turned and started walking away before I remembered Cookie’s advice to do more talking and less running. But did she mean wasting words on Robert? After all, he was the cause of the breakup.
“I suppose I should thank you for leaving before you messed up my son’s life,” he said.
I watched runners turn their heads, their breath like golden smoke lit by random light. In the distance, tugboats honked.
I stopped and faced him. For a moment my mouth wouldn’t work. Then something welled up from deep down in me. Bile, I’d guess, and with it, words. “You have no idea, do you? Growing up in your smug little world of subservient women, every meal on the table at its appointed time. You’ve never had to see your mother grovel for work, go crazy because there was no food. You can never grasp what misery my father caused. He was married, committed, had a wife and child, and he left us. That was twelve years ago, and there’ve been no letters, no money, no nothing. I wasn’t sure whether he was alive or dead. I didn’t care. Now he wants to return? When his obligations are over? When the damage has been done? He ruined my mother’s life. By helping him without first consulting me, by sucking Denny into your scheme, you destroyed our happiness.”
“I can’t stand to see my son this way. He made a mistake.”
“You made the mistake.”
“All right, I was wrong. I’m begging you, at least talk to him.”
My head was pounding, my heart twisting. I didn’t reply, but marched out of there, steady, sure, empty.
Lurking Around
Kat’s Monologue
Garth is my uncle, but I don’t call him that. I don’t call him anything. He’s too weird. Granny said he changed a lot after he came back from the war. Which war, I don’t know, and I’ve never asked. They’re all the same, practically, according to Mrs. Boddington, except for the big war. She means World War II, and even that one has some sticky issues.
Mostly I see Garth lurking around Old Liese’s house. The shed in the back is his. Old Liese calls it the gardener’s house. Whatever. He used to be fun to talk to when I was little and he’d take me to the park, but now he argues a lot with Old Liese. Lately, he’s been as bad as she is. Worse.
Like this one day when I was totally bored. It was in summer on one of my many duty visits. I watched him mowing the lawn and doing something with the bushes and the flower beds. Afterward he disappeared into his shed, so I peeked through the window and saw him tinkering with something. I knocked on the door, but he didn’t hear me, so I opened it a crack and saw his back bent over something coppery, pipes and couplings, I think they were. I crept inside and stood there in the gloom, letting my eyes adjust.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He didn’t turn around but brushed his forehead with a greasy paw. “Something for your grandmother.”
He didn’t have to say which one.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer, so I asked again.
He told me to get out.
That night after dinner when the others were in the music room—that’s what Old Liese calls it even though I never hear anyone play the piano—I looked around at all the books on the shelves, remembering what Granny said about books sometimes being fun, sometimes sad, sometimes hard, but always setting you free. They didn’t seem free to me. I wondered how they could read so many books and lead the kind of life they did. For one, when I’m visiting, no one, I mean no one, speaks to me. It’s like I’m not there. Sometimes I look up from my phone and watch them watching me, but it makes my stomach jumpy. Anyway, I was bored, my usual, so I stood. Old Liese was reading her reports and didn’t look up. I took a few steps. No one noticed. A few more steps and stopped. Like that. Pretty soon I’d left the room and tiptoed through the kitchen. I turned the handle to the back door, softly so they wouldn’t hear. I was halfway out the door when a rough hand grabbed me from behind.
I smelled Garth.
My heart practically jumped away. “Too stuffy. Getting fresh air,” I told him.
“Go out the front door,” he said, pinching my upper arm and walking me through the hall, past the door to the music room, to the front of the house. It’s a long way. I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t cry, but I looked him in the face and told him never to touch me again.
“Or what?” He grinned.
Gross.
Since that day, he doesn’t talk. Fine with me.
I hate them all. Even Kirsten with her phony Ladies and Gentlemen routine.
When I came back from that visit, Granny could tell something was wrong. She said from now on she’d make excuses. Twice a year is all I’d have to put up with.
Explosion
Officer Deems and I had just settled in with the hospital security tapes when my cell rang.
“Liese Goncourt’s home is in flames,” Jane said. “They think it was a gas explosion.”
“Any survivors?”
“Don’t know. Too hot to get close enough to search. Firefighters are trying to save adjacent homes.” Jane’s voice crackled with a poor connection. “And something else,” I think she said, but I didn’t have time to listen.
I could see the flames and smoke from Prospect Park, clouds of billowing ash blocking the sun. Pedestrians looked up and pointed. Cars honked. Sirens roared. Traffic snarled. I hadn’t moved in what seemed like forever, so I parked the car several blocks away and ran to the scene.
I arrived sweating, cold, and out of breath. The police had sealed off the block with tape, cars, and themselves so that none of us could get within a block of the blaze. Day had turned to night, the smoke was so thick. A crowd had gathered and the place swarmed with uniforms, squads, ambulances, fire engines and National Grid trucks. A sanitation worker was spreading salt on the street, which was already covered with ice from the hydrant and hose overflow. It was impossible to tell whether I was hot or cold, but heat seared my face, and the ash was too thick to breathe. I pulled a bandana out of my purse and covered my nose and mouth, sideswiping sawhorses, trying to find an unattended spot. I was about to duck under the tape when I felt a hand on the back of my collar.
“Are you brain dead?” Jane asked, coughing out the words.
“Got to find Liese Goncourt,” I said.
“Your funeral,” Willoughby said, letting go of me and wiping his hands on his coat.
But Jane stood inches from my nose, blocking my way. “Stay here. That’s an order.” She gave her partner a withering look.
“You in charge?” I asked.
“Not my precinct, but since we’re investigating Phyllida Oxley’s death—”
“She’s dead?” My heart stop beating. She shouldn’t have been, couldn’t have been, not dead. She’d had a chance, that’s what the doctor told us. Poor Kat. Poor Lorraine.
“You hadn’t heard?”
I swallowed smoke and my own teary snot. “Have you seen Liese Goncourt?” I asked, wiping my nose and blinking.
“If she was inside when the blast occurred, she’s charred meat,” Willoughby said.
I searched my heart but felt nothing for the woman, no revenge, no sympathy, no sorrow, just a hole where my humanity should have been. Maybe my leaving Denny was the explosion, the cause of Phyllida’s demise, and I was turning into dust and ashes myself. Did I miss him? I fe
lt a sharp blade inside me. The pain was too much, so I turned every ounce of my mind toward the fire, vowing never again to think of him. Why hadn’t Lorraine told me about Phyllida? Whatever, I’d find out who killed her, the same person who blasted Liese Goncourt’s home.
Just then I heard the flapping of wings, a faint scratching sound. I looked around and spied a knot of people surrounding an old woman in a fur coat sitting on a folding chair. She was muttering something and rocking back and forth, covering her eyes with her scarf and balancing a cage on her lap. She was surrounded by people, probably neighbors, except for a woman with a huge set holding a notebook and smiling at me—Zizi Carmalucci, Denny’s former girlfriend, now reporter at the ready.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” she said, taking pictures and texting. “Where’s Denny?”
As if she didn’t know.
Paramedics were lifting Ameline out of the lawn chair and onto a gurney.
“I want to go home.”
“Where are you taking her?” I asked the EMS guy.
“Where do you think, lady?” the wise mouth said.
“B-b-Brooklyn General,” his partner said.
“I want to be alone,” Ameline said.
“Give me the bird,” a policeman said.
The maid bent like a corkscrew, hugging the cage. “He saved me. I was taking him to the vet when this happened to the house.” Her gesture took in the flames. “He’s all I’ve got. Oh my Liese, dear Liese, where are you?”
“Ameline, what happened? Where’s Liese? Garth? How did you escape?”
But she stared through me, and although she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.
“I seen it,” a man standing close by said.
“I thought it was a bomb or something.” A woman’s voice, probably his wife’s. She was still in her robe, a blanket thrown over her shoulders. The couple hugged three children to them, all holding hands. “A big boom,” a boy of about twelve said. “Are we next?” the woman asked. She buried her face in her husband’s shoulder.
I heard a commotion several feet away.
“What happened?” a man asked, his voice raised. He was pushing spectators out of his way as he approached.
“What’s with you, buddy?” someone asked.
“Help me,” a man yelled. “My mother’s in there. Where is she? I’ve got to find her. Mother?” It was Abe Goncourt in overcoat and scarf. His hair was disheveled except for his Wall Street curls. He tapped Jane on the shoulder. “I’ve got to find my mother.”
I introduced Jane to Liese Goncourt’s oldest son, Abe, surprised to see him.
“My mother. She must be inside. You’ve got to find her.”
“With luck she wasn’t home when it happened,” I said.
“She never leaves in the morning, never. Oh, God, oh, my God.” He started running toward the house and had to be restrained. He hunched down, held by two policemen, struggling to be free at first but soon acquiescing, saliva running from one corner of his mouth.
Hoses were aimed at the fire, which wasn’t abating. If anything, it was growing, and I heard the fire chief yelling to hose down the adjacent houses. A paramedic and a police officer with a loudspeaker went through the crowd. “If your house is close to the blaze, we have shelter. This way to shelter. This way.”
No one moved. We were mesmerized, watching as firemen surrounded the house, the water pounding what was left of the structure from different directions.
“Almost done,” Willoughby said. “We’ll be fine in a few minutes as soon as they put out the blaze and the air clears.”
Jane raised her eyes.
Then there was a sucking sound, the heaving of timber, and a mighty roar as the walls and roof of Liese Goncourt’s Queen Anne cratered down into its foundation like some mythic beast hurtling into the abyss, its fall feeding the flames. Smoke and ash seemed to bloat as if boiling. It billowed into the sky, expanding, obscuring sight. Everyone around me stared, coughed, moaned. My eyes felt like cinders. As if we were puppets pulled by the same master, we spun our heads away from the blinding light, doing everything we could to cover our faces.
“Probably gas-line tampering,” Willoughby said when the worst of it had cleared.
“You don’t know that,” Jane whispered.
“Hell I don’t! What’s with you, anyway? Think just because you made first grade you know everything? I talked to the National Grid guy. He said someone had been tampering with the line going into the house.”
Jane shook a finger at him. “And he doesn’t know the cause, either, not yet. So if you think you’re going to talk to that two-bit reporter over there … You already have, haven’t you?”
Willoughby stormed off.
As I made my way to the edge of the scene, I saw Abe Goncourt leaning against a tree, struggling with himself, his breathing ragged.
“Sit here a moment.” I unfolded a flimsy lawn chair I’d found discarded on the ground a few feet away.
He slumped into the seat, his head in his hands. “I’ve got to find her,” he said.
“What can I do to help?” I asked. “My car’s a few blocks away. Can I drop you off somewhere?”
He shook his head. “My car’s around the corner.”
I wondered how he was able to park so close to the scene. “So you were coming here when you heard the sirens?”
He shook his head. “Earlier. My morning visit. Needed to talk to my mother before I left on a business trip. I’ve got to find her, don’t you see? She needs to sign papers before it’s too late.”
I wasn’t going to tell him about Phyllida, not just yet, so I told him I was late myself for a meeting and showed him my ID, asking for his number in case I heard anything. He handed me a fancy business card.
“You’re the president of Oxley Paper?”
The Loss
I dug out my phone and noticed the screen was filled with messages from Lorraine, asking me to meet her at the hospital. She’d sent them about the time I was talking to Robert on the Promenade. In my head I saw Kat stroking her grandmother’s hand, followed by the image of Denny standing on the stoop as I drove away the other night. Trying to get rid of the stench of smoke, I opened the window and drove hard and fast, my hands gripping the wheel.
Charlotte and her mother, their arms around Kat, sat on the couch in the waiting room, facing Lorraine. When I entered, Lorraine looked up, her face swollen from crying. Kat stared at me for a second, burrowing back into Charlotte’s shoulder.
“I smell smoke,” Lorraine said.
No time like the present, I figured, so I told them where I’d been and what I’d seen. The news of the Goncourt explosion seemed to rock Lorraine, but only for a second. Charlotte’s eyes widened, but there was no response from Kat, as if she hadn’t heard. Nothing beyond Phyllida’s death could touch them, and Lorraine’s tears were slow and steady and all for the loss of her friend.
“I had to do it. There was damage, the doctor told me,” she said. “They could tell, I guess, by the machines hooked up to her, by whatever movements or lack of them in her limbs. She wouldn’t have wanted to live like that, a vegetable. I had to stop it, don’t you see? It was in her will. I had to.”
Kat lifted her head. “She might have been all right. She might have.”
Charlotte’s mother looked at me, then at Kat and shook her head.
“We’ll go for coffee,” I said and took drink orders. While we walked to the cafeteria, I began telling Lorraine about what little I knew of the explosion. As if hearing the news for the first time, she snapped her head back, steadying herself against the wall. I stood beside her for some minutes.
“Liese Goncourt? Garth?”
“They’re looking for them.” I told her about meeting Ameline and Abe Goncourt. “I didn’t know he worked at Oxley Paper.”
She told me that after Norris married Abe’s sister, Abe became comptroller of Oxley Paper; after Norris’s death, he became the president. I let that ne
ws roll around for a while. It seemed both of our brains were working in slow motion. But Lorraine was preoccupied with the death of her friend.
Lorraine explained that after she’d finished with her morning chores, she’d checked on Phyllida and met the doctor, who told her there’d been no change and asked what she intended to do.
“I couldn’t let her go on like that. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I sent you a message.” She twisted her hands and began crying, and I wrapped my arms around her and let her cry.
“You had to.”
She nodded, wiping her eyes. She wanted to hear more about Liese Goncourt’s home.
When I told her how it had collapsed, Lorraine steadied herself on the nearest wall, pressing two hands to her chest.
“Liese can’t be alive,” she said.
“Too hot to search now, but I spoke with Ameline.”
“Did you ask her—”
“She’s in shock.”
“Of course.”
“And Jane was no help,” I added.
She gave me a look and I told her about what Willoughby had said about the gas line.
“Where will Ameline stay?”
I shrugged.
Lorraine gathered herself and stood tall then, as if more bad news was just what she needed, saying she’d check with Jane, who would tell her the whereabouts of Ameline. I didn’t doubt that. Jane would tell Lorraine anything.
“If she needs a place to stay, Ameline can use our fourth-floor apartment until she gets on her feet. It’s been vacant for over a month. Of course, Robbie won’t like it.”
“Maybe the bird will keep him in line.”
The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Page 13
