He took the exit and we were silent the rest of the way.
We’d decided to park several blocks from La Belle Hélène, and as he backed the Jeep into a slot, I could see a dark object with taillights idling on the other side of the street. Denny must have seen it too, because he told me to wait while he got out and started for the car, but as he did so, it sped away, trailing mist.
“Same plates?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Must have been one of the Goncourts, probably Garth. Who else?”
“No one’s seen him since the explosion,” Cookie said. “He’s got to be dead.”
But there was a small voice growing inside me. Why was I seeing Goncourts behind everything—Phyllida’s death, the massage parlor, the car following me, Kat’s disappearance. Truth was slipping through my fingers, not that I ever held it, but there had to be something, someone I wasn’t seeing. “Maybe Garth and Liese planned the whole thing and got out before it happened. I mean, who else would be following me?”
I was shaking and asked Cookie if she really wanted to do this, reminding her in a whisper of her condition, but she said there’d be no danger if Clancy were by her side.
I did a mental eye roll as we began walking to the address, a two-flat with a storefront, our breaths misting ahead of us. I could feel my temples pounding. Denny and I, who moved faster, stopped across the street until Clancy and Cookie caught up. I looked over at the awning bearing the words La Belle Hélène, its white letters ominous in the ambient glow.
“Better if we don’t use a flashlight,” Denny said. “Think you can see without it?”
I nodded, keeping as close to him as I could. It felt good to have him by my side, even though my heart was racing and I had a side stitch. I kept thinking of the father thing, the rift between us that for some reason had narrowed during the ride. But I told myself our new sense of togetherness was just for this gig. I’d ruined it between us, I knew I had. He was being polite, maybe even already had dates lined up. Otherwise, why would he have mentioned selling the house?
When we got close enough, we stopped to study the situation.
“No way we can get in,” Denny said. “Got storefront security shutters.”
“Besides, we promised Jane we wouldn’t break in,” I reminded him.
He turned his face to mine and grinned, grabbing my arm and bending to me so close I could feel his warmth and smell his aftershave. “When did that ever stop you?”
I almost melted into him, smiling and crying at the same time, until I caught myself. For a second his cologne was the only thing on my mind, that and the fact that I’d missed him something fierce. Lorraine’s words echoed in my mind: “Fighting’s for sissies. Fighting destroys; talking mends.”
My heart twisted in my chest and I remembered where we were and what we were about to do.
“Let’s walk around to the side,” Denny said.
We got halfway down an old cement path when I looked up at a light shining in a side window on the second floor, not watching where I was going. Wouldn’t you know I tripped on something. Denny caught me just in time.
“What was that?”
“Piece of wood,” I whispered.
Just then there was a rustling in the bushes, and my heart leapt to my throat.
Denny pulled me away from the walk. Quick as jackrabbits, we tucked behind a large bush in the next-door neighbor’s yard, Cookie and Clancy following. We knelt in the dirt and waited while my heart did frantic pulsating, at one point stopping, I was sure.
“Scared?” Denny asked.
I nodded. “And sweating.”
“Cover your mouth when you talk. I don’t want them to see your breath. I’m scared too, but we’ll be all right. I was wondering, would you ever consider meeting me in Teresa’s from time to time? I mean, just to talk. I miss talking to you.”
“When did we ever talk?” I asked.
“A few minutes ago in the car. I told you about my dream, remember?”
“That was talking?”
“That’s what they call it. We started in about an issue between us.”
“Are you seeing a shrink or something?” I asked.
Just then my blood froze when I heard a gravelly voice say, “Somebody’s here, Al, I seen ’em.”
I hugged Denny’s arm.
“You seen nothin’. Boss says to take a look around is all. Every hour on the hour. Didn’t see nothin’, dunder bucket, now let’s get moving.”
“But they’ll be looking soon. Old gal says so, and she’s usually right.”
My jaw dropped and I started after them, but Denny pulled me back. “What did you just hear?” he asked.
I repeated the guy’s words. “Has to be Liese Goncourt he’s talking about.”
“But she’s dead,” he whispered, his breath warming my face.
Still, I felt a hundred-legged creature crawl up my spine. “We think she’s dead. But maybe she’s not.”
“Better write down what he said.” Denny held me a moment too long. It was all right with me.
We waited for what felt like hours but was probably less than five minutes.
“Let’s get out of here,” Clancy said. “They’ll be back.”
Cookie reminded us this was our window of opportunity. “We need to check out that shed or whatever it is in the back.”
After three or four passes around the house, looking for ways to get inside, poking at debris hidden in shrubs, and having no luck getting in or finding anything significant, we crept to the back. Was this a waste of time, a fraudulent exercise dreamed up by me because in the puniness of my brain, I could think of nowhere else to search for Kat? Or was I becoming my own Jane? I heard the roar of an engine in the distance, a sudden burst of words spurting from some middle ground a few blocks away, and my heart just about exploded, but I hung onto Denny.
“See it?” Cookie asked. “The glint on that window?” She pointed to a garage some twenty feet away from us. We ran to it, landing on the frozen snow that rimmed it. I slammed into its brick wall.
“Okay?” Denny asked, rubbing my shoulder.
I winced, but opened my eyes and smiled at him.
Rising slowly, Denny swiveled around, visoring his eyes, and peered between the bars protecting the side window.
“Can’t see anything.” Silence for a few seconds. “Wait, there’s something there. A machine, I think, or a car. Whatever it is, it looks like it’s covered with a tarpaulin.”
“Here’s a door. Locked, of course,” Clancy said. He brought out what looked like a credit card and began fiddling with it, trying to spring the bolt.
“No break-ins!” Cookie’s voice was a sharp reminder. I thought of what Jane would say if she were present. But she wasn’t here.
My mind worked fast. “When she said no break-ins, I’m sure she meant the storefront, not the garage.”
“But what if those men return? C’mon, Clancy, let’s get out of here.” Cookie started walking away, but I grabbed the end of her coat and pulled her back just as Clancy opened the door. We piled inside.
Denny locked the door, knelt on the cement and began lifting the canvas, shining his flashlight inside. “It’s a car.”
They worked at exposing more of the vehicle. “An old Studebaker.”
Kirsten Goncourt’s car. But what was it doing here? A coldness slid down my throat as I explained what Lorraine had said about Charlotte seeing Kat getting into Kirsten Goncourt’s car.
“Or one like it,” Clancy said.
“An antique like this? How probable is that?” Denny asked.
I tried the door handle. Locked.
Denny put his hand on the hood. “Still warm, or at least not cold. Used in the last couple of hours.”
“We’ve got to get inside. What if Kat’s in the trunk?” I asked.
Denny walked around to the back and tried lifting the trunk door. “Locked.”
“I hear something—footsteps outside, guys bre
athing,” Cookie said.
“In the car, both of you!” Denny said, shoving me and Cookie into the back. We crouched on the floor, covered by an old blanket Denny found on the seat. “Don’t move. Going to cover the car again. It’ll be dark in there.
“Swear I saw something in that garage,” a voice said.
“Seein’ things,” his partner said.
My toes were like frozen peas, my forehead sweating, my heart beating like jungle drums. I thought for sure they’d hear it. Just then I heard a loud rattling.
“Locked, I tell ya, c’mon, wastin’ time.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
In a few minutes, silence returned.
“Got to pee,” Cookie whispered.
The dark became gray and I watched as Denny lifted the tarpaulin and extended his hand to help us out.
“Who were those guys, anyway?” I asked.
“Thug security, I guess,” Clancy said. “Lucky for us, they’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer.”
“Before we leave—”
“Let’s get out of this place before I have an accident,” Cookie said.
“Put your brain in neutral. We’re here. Let’s look in the trunk. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t open it, and later we found—”
“No need to spell it out.” Lowering her head and crossing her arms, Cookie shook her head. “But hurry.”
“Those old Studebaker trunk locks break easy,” Clancy said. “Give me two seconds.”
So we waited, Cookie tapping her foot. In a second, I heard the creak of metal as Clancy lifted the handle.
Silence for a beat, then Denny said, “No one’s in the trunk.”
I let out air. “One second while I look.” I shone my flashlight inside. At first I saw nothing except for the spare, but not content with my eyes, I put on gloves and began feeling the interior with my fingers, hit the tire and felt something soft shoved into the well. In a tick I pulled out a wad of dark cloth and shook it out to reveal a wool coat. As I did so, something flew out of the sleeve.
“What’s this?” Denny asked, picking it up off the floor.
“A wig,” Cookie said, too intrigued by then to worry about her bladder. “Put the stuff back where you found it, and let’s get out of here.”
“Got to take pictures.” I spread out the articles in the trunk. Denny shone his flashlight while I snapped photos of the wig, the coat, the inside label. Le Bon Marché, it read. And for good measure, I snapped the front, sides, and back of the car, showing the rear license plate bearing the words New Jersey and Historic.
“I’ll check the glove compartment,” Denny said, lifting the cover on the passenger side.
I was sure the coat and wig belonged to whoever had masqueraded as Liese Goncourt and paid the comatose Phyllida Oxley a visit, loading her IV line with potassium chloride. The murderer’s disguise found in La Belle Hélène’s garage and in Kirsten Goncourt’s car, the same car Kat was seen getting into this afternoon. It was the mother of a motherlode, proof beyond a doubt that the Goncourts were mixed up in the massage parlor and in whatever they were covering up.
“Wait until Jane hears about this,” I said.
“You’re going to tell her we broke in?”
I didn’t answer.
“I found identification,” Clancy said, his hand in the glove compartment. “The insured is Kirsten Goncourt, and here’s her address.”
She lived in Princeton, New Jersey. My heart was in my throat, but if she had picked up Kat, why was Kirsten Goncourt’s car still parked in Bensonhurst? My head was spinning with all the possibilities.
The Brooklyn Drop
On the drive back to Brooklyn, I got a call from Tig Able. He apologized for not getting back to me sooner, saying he’d been in the Bahamas and had just gotten my messages. After giving him an overview of my investigation, I asked him if he knew anything more about Kat Oxley. When he replied in the negative, I told him what we’d found in the trunk of a 1951 Studebaker convertible belonging to Kirsten Goncourt and how I was sure the coat and wig were tied to Phyllida Oxley’s death. I was almost certain it was the same car that picked up Kat Oxley earlier, according to Kat’s friend, who’d seen her get into the car.
“Where’d you find the Studebaker?”
I held my breath for a second and leveled with him, telling him where we’d found the car, insurance identification, and cheesy getup. I wound up by saying that I was sure Kat’s maternal relatives, the Goncourts, were mixed up in Phyllida Oxley’s death and her granddaughter’s disappearance. “I also believe they’re players in La Belle Hélène, the massage parlor we’re watching for NYPD.”
When all I heard was ragged breathing on the other end, I gripped my phone, waiting for his tirade.
“You don’t fool around, do you?” He went on to say they’d been watching the Goncourt family and La Belle Hélène for a while, certain they’d been involved in human trafficking for years. “They dupe minors into signing on with them for what they believe is a new life and a lucrative job in New York. Instead, they wind up in street prostitution.”
My heart bled for those innocent young women.
“La Belle Hélène is the end of a convoluted trail that starts in Eastern Europe. They ship their human cargo to Canada,” Tig continued, “promising them God knows what, and after an inspection in Toronto by representatives of a holding company with controlling stock in La Belle Hélène, they arrive in the States, so-called employees of La Belle Hélène. One of our guys dubbed the parlor ‘The Brooklyn Drop.’”
Holding company, controlling stock, I was beginning to get dizzy. “So the Goncourts don’t own La Belle Hélène?”
“They’re involved, but so are others.”
Clancy leaned forward and said, “Organized crime.”
Tig went on. “A few years ago, the Goncourts needed money, so they sold stock in their company, but they still run the day-to-day operation.”
Just as I suspected. Liese Goncourt was desperate for funds. Wait until I told Jane. “So why haven’t you arrested them?” I asked.
“Not my case, is it, but we have an undercover agent assigned to do the honors. It’s been his specialty for years.”
“What’s taking him so long?”
There was a Tig silence before he said, “Lots of players. These things take time.”
I asked if the undercover agent intended to get a warrant.
When he didn’t answer, I said, “I can take the hint. Before you go, I have a huge favor to ask.”
“I knew it.”
I gave him Kirsten Goncourt’s address in New Jersey and the tags of the car and asked him please to get me her phone number and be quick about it. He was silent.
“You can do it. I could, if I had my computer.” I waited while he sighed and finally got me the information—two phone numbers for Kirsten Goncourt, one listed as her landline, the other, her mobile.
I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, listened as he explained a surveillance job he needed me to do on the double, and looking at Cookie, who was nodding, told him we’d begin in the morning.
On the way back to Lucy’s, I called Jane. After she’d spluttered her too-busy-to-talk routine, I told her I had information that would make her tits curl, so she told me to spill it fast. In quick sound bites, I gave her the lowdown on what we’d found in the massage parlor’s garage, including a caution about the two bozos we’d heard in the yard. She was speechless until I mentioned that the FBI planned to get a warrant, a stretch on my part, and said she might want to beat them to the punch.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, now that you’ve polluted the evidence,” she said, but that was mild for Jane, and I could hear her wheels spinning, so I added, “The Studebaker’s there for the plucking. Wouldn’t it look nicer sitting in your lab than in Quantico? Besides, you’ll get to try on a red wig and a coat from Le Bon Marché.” She disconnected the call.
My attempts to re
ach Kirsten Goncourt went to voice mail, but I left detailed messages about Kat’s disappearance on both lines, telling her Kat was last seen getting into her car and asking her to return my call at her earliest.
In Princeton
After saying goodbye to Cookie and Clancy, Denny and I sat in his Jeep in front of Lucy’s, looking at each other. “My car’s parked on Joralemon, so if you wouldn’t mind turning the corner and dropping me off there?”
“Going out again?”
“I can’t sleep. My mind’s buzzing like a chain saw. Time is of the essence. I’m going to New Jersey.”
I watched him rub the stubble on his jaw. “Give me the address,” he said. After I did, he punched it into his GPS and studied the route. He started the engine, but then braked and smiled. “You have your charger?”
Denny knew me too well.
Fortified with cables, I asked him to stop at Teresa’s since I was running on empty. They were closing, so we took away two grilled cheeses and a coffee. Denny ordered his favorite drink, a large orange juice, and sipped through a straw as we raced over the bridge, crossed Manhattan, and drove through the tunnel. The moon was a sliver, but as we drew closer to Princeton, a bazillion stars shone in a velvety cold sky. They seemed to surround us as Denny drove well over the speed limit.
Before the turnoff, my phone vibrated. It was Kirsten Goncourt returning my call.
“Are you the Fina I met the other day through Liese darling? Short? Red curls? Mouth?”
I didn’t answer.
Kirsten Goncourt went on about the explosion, wondering if there was any news about Garth or Liese Goncourt. “Poor Liese darling, to have her life end like that. Maybe they’ll never find her body. She wore a wig, you know. Maybe they should be searching for that. Then again, it must have been eaten by the flames.”
Her voice was low and flat, the concern, minimal. Strange.
“In any event, someone’s mistaken, my dear, I haven’t seen Kat in a couple of weeks, and my bullet nose is being fixed.”
She could say that again.
“Where is it, and when did you drop it off?”
The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Page 17
