The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  “Oh, golly, you don’t think she ran away, do you? Poor Kat, she’s been a bit morose lately, what with being shunted around after her parents died so horribly, and now with Phyllida gone. She doted on her grandmother, you know, can’t stomach Liese darling, but then how can you blame her?”

  The sneak, thinking she could get away with not answering my question. But I shot her another one. “You broke into Phyllida’s home tonight. Who was with you?”

  No answer, just white noise for a beat. “Abe’s mother was right about one thing. Kat should be with the family.”

  “What were you looking for in Phyllida’s house?”

  Again, no answer.

  I stretched the silence for a few seconds. First of all, I wanted to get more of a feel for her reaction to the news of Kat’s disappearance, which on the face of it seemed phony, if in fact it was news to her, or was she feeding me a line; and second, because I wanted to spill as little news as possible, and the best way to do that was to keep my mouth shut. I listened for a tremor in her voice and didn’t hear one. I didn’t mention sighting her Studebaker in Bensonhurst, much less breaking into it, but against my better judgement, I told her we were on our way to interview her and would arrive within the half hour.

  “I’m not home, darling. Could you make it tomorrow? In the afternoon? Wait until I get my calendar out. Yes, in the afternoon. No, the morning would be better. Wait, there I go again. Late afternoon would be best—Abe should be home by then and you can fire your questions at all of us at once. Easier for you that way, don’t you think?”

  Easier for them: they’d have a chance to get their stories straight.

  “By that time Kat will be back with her friend’s family, I have a feeling. Sorry for the yo-yo, I’m being such a ditz, I know, but the news about Kat is a bit of a shock.”

  “I can’t wait, I’m afraid. In fact, we’re halfway to Princeton now.”

  There was a heavy sigh. “In that case, you won’t see me when you arrive. I’ll try to get there as soon as I can, but the St. Bart’s charity dance is tonight, and I’m in charge.”

  The noise in the background told me she was at a big gig. I could hear the clink of ice cubes, people laughing, someone calling her name.

  “I’ve got to go now, darling, need to smooth the feathers of a fussy coot. I can’t possibly leave right this minute. I’ll phone my assistant. He’ll let you in. You’ll like him. You can talk to him until I get there.”

  The approach to the Goncourt residence looked pretty impressive even at night, a streetlamp on every corner, the quiet blanketing this neighborhood of stately homes and impressive trees situated less than a mile away from the university. We rode around to get an idea of the neighborhood—if you could call it a neighborhood. To me it felt more like a group of separate castles whose ancestors had signed peace treaties. Most of the properties were gated, and peeking through the grillwork, I glimpsed long approaches to stone or brick mansions built probably in the 1920s and surrounded by well-kept lawns. I peeked through fences and noticed some had separate smaller buildings in addition to the main house, probably built in a bygone age as servants’ quarters. Throughout, there was the hush of old money, and I felt a chill not caused by temperature.

  At the Goncourts’ address, we stopped between two brick pillars on either side of a wide drive, some fancy grillwork preventing our entry. Denny got out and pressed the intercom. He stood facing me in the cold waiting for it to be answered, and our headlights played on him as he jumped up and down, a few flurries hitting his guileless face. He waved to me and grinned. It felt like old times. Before I realized what I was doing, I blew him a kiss. He stopped and slowly smiled and was about to blow one back when the squawk box crackled, and he swiveled around to face the security box. I figured it was some sort of Face Time affair, because he bent to the screen and gestured to the Jeep and in a few seconds, the gates began to open.

  We rode the long length of the drive in silence, gliding over a tree-lined approach so smooth and devoid of cracks it must have been paved last week. I saw tall trees and dark shapes strewn over a spacious lawn. A layer of snow covered the ground. As we slowed, Denny said, “Her assistant, if that’s what he is, looked like a nice enough guy on the screen, but you never know.” He patted his calf, where I knew he kept his Glock.

  We parked close to the front entrance of a huge dark brick facade trimmed in white, lit dramatically with outdoor spots. After we’d climbed the first couple of steps to the house, the front door was opened by a tall guy bathed in light from the hall behind him. I gave him the once-over. He was dressed all in black except for a pair of red socks toeing out from his flip-flops. His hair was wet and his mitts stretched both ends of a hand towel wrapped around his neck. Mole on his left cheek. Cute, but no match for Denny. He introduced himself as Rip, Kirsten Goncourt’s assistant.

  Stepping a little too close to me, he took my hand and slowly shook it. I stepped back, shoving my card in front of his deep blue eyes. Usually I don’t make snap judgments, but I thought his name was apt.

  He led us through a long hall to a room with floor-to-ceiling glass on one side, books filling the opposite wall, and a medieval-looking stone fireplace on the far end surrounded by a grouping of chairs and love seats in chintz and velvet.

  “Excuse me a sec,” Rip said. “I need to phone Kirsten. She wants to know when you arrive.” He disappeared.

  A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Resisting the urge to swing from it, I glanced at the books, untouched, I figured, since they’d been unpacked and artfully arranged on their thick walnut shelves.

  “You’re not thinking of looking for a hidden room behind those bookshelves, are you?” Denny asked, smiling. While he held onto the rolling ladder, I climbed up and spun around to get a better view of the garden and patio lit with spots, probably impressive in the summer, but now edged with fallow beds and withered grasses. In the distance were university spires and a hint of rolling clouds, but it was the extensive back lawn, almost a park, I was interested in. Picturing a host of attending landscapers wearing straw hats in summer, I glanced over the gardens to the left of the Goncourts’ pool and tennis courts, both now covered with tarpaulins. Partially hidden in a clump of tall evergreens was what looked like a small bricked bungalow matching the big house, its facade also lit. A trail of thin smoke rose from one of its two chimneys. In the near distance was a five-car garage, also a dark red brick, its door and windows framed in white. Too poor to have it attached, I reckoned, until I saw a passageway leading from the garage to the side of the main house, half hidden by blue spruce and lattice work. The grounds and houses were large enough to hide a hundred teens. My stomach churned. How would we ever find Kat here? We had to rescue her and soon—it had been a little over twelve hours since she was last seen.

  Rip reappeared, standing in the middle of the room underneath the chandelier, bathed again in light, this time like an actor on an empty stage delivering his final soliloquy. He had presence, I’d give him that.

  “Kirsten said it’s okay if you don’t have a warrant. I wouldn’t have been so nice, but she’s the boss. Said I should show you around, answer any questions you have, so shoot.”

  “She told you why we’re here?”

  He nodded. “You’re worried about the kid. She is, too.”

  “Where were you this afternoon?”

  He whipped back his head as if I’d slapped him. “Seriously?” He grinned.

  When I didn’t budge, he licked his lips and mumbled something about having to look at his calendar to make sure.

  I smirked.

  He revised his response and told us Kirsten was at the hall making preparations for the dance all afternoon, so he’d stuck around the house. Then he remembered something.

  “Oh, yeah, she’d asked me to unclog a drain in one of the third-floor bathrooms. I’ll show you. And I had a paper to write. Show you that, too, if you’re interested. Pretty technical, though. Otherwise I putz
ed around.”

  I cocked a brow. “You know Kat?” I asked.

  “Met her a couple of times at Liese darling’s house.”

  Liese darling. He’d gotten that from Kirsten. Something familiar about this man. I’d seen him before, but couldn’t remember where. “You work for Liese, too?”

  Rip quirked one side of his mouth. He stood in front of us, arms crossed over a muscular chest, not bothering to answer.

  “So aren’t you going to show us around?” I asked.

  He led us into the living room filled with expensive furniture, crystal lamps and spots, thick rugs, the works. I sat on the edge of the chair, Denny on the couch next to me, Rip across from us.

  There was silence for a while, so to break the ice, I said, “I think you’re hiding Kat here.”

  Face red, he shot up, crossing his arms. “Follow me.”

  He strode through the hallway to a circular staircase, and running up the first flight before stopping and peering down at us, he said, “We’ll start on the third floor and go down. Inspect everything on the grounds, this house, the guesthouse, pool, garage, tennis house. Trust me, you won’t find Kat here.”

  When was the last time you trusted a person who said “trust me”? I looked at Denny just to reassure myself he was by my side. He reached for my hand and I took it. Electricity charged through me and we climbed, following our tour guide.

  At the top, Rip gestured to the first door across the landing. “Master bedroom’s in here.”

  “Wrong. Attic first,” Denny said.

  Rip, who seemed like Princeton’s answer to an Olympic gold medalist, smiled, not a drop of sweat on his face. “Attic’s up there.” He pointed to a three-foot-square recess in the ceiling, disappeared down the hall, and came back with a ladder. Running up the rungs like an orangutan in heat, he pushed open the door and disappeared for a second, his head popping back out. “C’mon.”

  I beamed my flashlight around a finished attic, vast and empty except for the upstairs furnace and a few pieces of muslin-covered furniture pushed against one wall.

  “Kat, oh Kat!” he yelled. “Come out wherever you are. Show us your silky brown hair.”

  “When the FBI arrive tomorrow, you won’t be so flip.”

  He gazed at me, squinting his eyes and narrowing his brows, but saying nothing.

  I bit my lip and looked at Denny, who smiled. “Easy,” he whispered as Rip led us through a maze of rooms, bedroom after bedroom and a study on the third floor, another large suite of rooms on the second floor as we paced back and forth, looking under beds and in closets, under desks, leaving no space unchecked. Kat wasn’t here, I was sure, but we’d gotten this far, and I wanted to put this guy through his paces.

  “How did you meet Kirsten?” I asked.

  No one could accuse him of being specific. He told me they went way back. “When my dad died, he left me a little money, so I decided to get my PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Now I’ve spent my wad and need the money. I help her out whenever I can, especially when Abe’s not here.”

  I’ll bet.

  He smiled, reading my thoughts. “I keep her schedule, answer phones, do the gopher thing.”

  After covering the main floor, searching through the living room, a large library, the theater and stage, the conservatory, a heated pool, furnace room, and wet bar in the basement, I asked him to show us the guesthouse and garage.

  He laddered his legs, his muscles flexed. Pulling on his lower lip, he told us he’d take us through everything except for one room. “You know Ameline?”

  “She’s here? I’d like to talk to her.”

  “No can do. She’s had trouble ever since the explosion. You know what happened to Liese’s house?”

  We nodded.

  “Ameline wasn’t there at the time. She escaped, and now she has the survivor thingy going on.”

  “Still, I’d like to see her.”

  He shook his head, explaining she’d had trouble sleeping. “Wakes up each night with violent dreams. Tonight was no exception and we were out of sleeping pills. I’d just gotten back from the drugstore, given her the pills, and settled her back down to sleep when you arrived.”

  I told him we’d be quiet, but I insisted. “Kat’s missing. We’re here now and I don’t want to leave without seeing everything.”

  “Ameline has the guesthouse. I’ll let you take a peek in her room, but no noise. I can’t have you waking her up.”

  Suddenly Rip was a helpful mother hen. I looked at my iPhone screen and saw how late it was, wondering why Kirsten hadn’t shown.

  “It’s way after midnight, and your boss isn’t home yet.”

  “She’ll be tied up for a while. Usually is.”

  “She does this a lot?”

  He shrugged. “Got charitable appearances. Good for business, I guess.”

  After going through every inch of all the structures on the grounds, including Ameline’s room, where I could see the outline of a sleeping body, standing there long enough to assure myself of its rise and fall, the constant companion of most living creatures, I turned to him and asked him where Kirsten’s Studebaker was.

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Wheeler’s Antique Cars in Manhattan. On Eleventh Avenue. It gets a tune-up there once every six months.”

  “You delivered it?”

  “They came and got it.”

  I said nothing for a second. “I guess that’s it. In one hour, I turn into a pumpkin, so tell Kirsten when she gets home I’ll be here sometime tomorrow.”

  “In the afternoon?”

  “Whenever it suits my schedule, and this time, I’ll bring friends with warrants.”

  As Rip waited for us to leave the guesthouse, I heard the flapping of wings and a faint squawking.

  On the way home, Denny turned on the radio and hummed along.

  “You’re playing highbrow.”

  “Brahms. His first piano trio, I think.”

  “I didn’t know you liked that stuff, and let me guess, you get it from Lorraine.”

  He nodded. “My old man hates it.”

  We’d been together for almost three years, and as it turned out, I knew almost nothing about Denny. My toes were frozen, my gut churning.

  “I’ll turn it off if—”

  “Not on my account. If Robert hates it, I love it. Besides, I think I’ve heard it before. My gran …” I could feel myself disappearing down that long memory tunnel to a time when I was a kid and life was still whole, and every Wednesday night, Gran had friends in, other musicians she’d met who knew where, and she took over the parlor. They’d gather around her grand and they’d play. Once I came running in and felt the music through the wooden floor, and the woman playing the big fiddle let me touch the strings. I was told to sit on the couch and listen and I did. I liked it well enough, but those days were soon gone.

  For some reason I started crying. Maybe it was the frustration of not finding Kat, or maybe it was the feeling I’d been duped, or maybe it was the sadness in the music or the lateness of the hour. Whatever. I told Denny I thought my grandmother played the piece with her friends.

  He touched my shoulder with his fingers. “You told me once you sold her piano after she died. You had to, or lose the house.”

  This brought fresh tears, and I told him about coming across her piano bench in the attic the other day and having a huge cry. Then I caught myself. Where was my starch? I’d never find Kat this way.

  So I made a fist and hit my thigh. Then I told him everything I knew about the Goncourts, not so much for his benefit but for mine. There was something I was missing and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I talked on and on, some of the time going in circles, the events not in any order but overlaid in my mind, like photos jumbled in a book. I told him about my impression of Phyllida after talking with her that first night in the hospital when he’d stayed outside her room, about meeting Kirsten and Abe Goncourt and, of course, Liese.

  I went on about Kirst
en, one of two drama queens pitted against Liese Goncourt, and the unbridled animosity between the two women. Was it coming down to Kirsten? Because who was left? I told him about the waitress who’d seen Kirsten meeting Phyllida in Frankies Spuntino the night we found her senseless. “By accident? I don’t think so.”

  “It took them a long time to do her in, but they finally did it.”

  “They or him?”

  “Or her? Let’s just say they for now.” I went over the two men they’d seen in the hospital the night Phyllida was found on the floor by her bed. “One close to her room, the other one riding up in the freight elevator.”

  “Are you sure it was two different men?”

  “Dunno.”

  We were silent for a while, and I let the music seep into me, trying not to breathe the stench of the Holland Tunnel.

  “The coat and wig,” he said. “What about them?”

  So I talked about the visitor Phyllida had the night she was murdered. “Liese Goncourt said it wasn’t her.”

  “And now she’s missing, presumed dead? Because of an accident or planned?”

  “Not sure.” It was all too complicated, and my eyelids felt like elephants. “They haven’t found her or Garth, but I have a feeling about that. I don’t think they’re dead.”

  I looked at the time. Close to three. Denny and I had been together almost twelve hours. Like the old days—the good old days that I seemed to have a knack for destroying.

  “We’re dealing with a shapeshifter,” I said. “Someone very clever who knows how to disguise.”

  “And the motive?”

  “Money.”

  “Suspects?”

  “All the Goncourts, including Liese and Garth, until we find their remains.”

  “Rip?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You didn’t tell him about finding the car at La Belle Hélène?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Ameline?”

  I shrugged.

  “Victims?”

  “Phyllida and maybe Kat. Maybe others.”

  “Others? Who?”

  But I couldn’t answer. Not yet, the thought was too new.