“I’m not here for the reason you think I am,” I said.
With Chip sitting so close, his green eyes looking into mine, I understood what all those people had been doing here every night, leaving the loneliness of their own room and going to someone else’s, where under a veil of alcohol and excitement and in the suspension of reality of being away from home, they would fall into the arms of a stranger, and for a moment there was that silent promise that what would follow would be perfect and different and for a few hours would make the world go very, very quiet and seem very far away.
“I’m here because Sam hired me to prevent the very thing that’s been happening since we got here.”
“And what would that be?”
“Murder.”
“Rachel,” he said, taking hold of my arms and pulling me against his chest, “it’s all right. You’re just tired,” he said as if I were one of his children. “There’ve been a couple of terrible accidents, but no one—”
I pushed myself away. “No, you’re wrong. They weren’t accidents. Someone’s winnowing away the competition. You’ve heard all the fighting, all the—”
“Rachel, are you telling me you think Bucky King or Martyn Eliot is a murderer? And anyway, what on earth do you mean Sam hired you to—”
“I’m not a dog trainer anymore. Since my divorce. I just couldn’t go back to it. I don’t know why. Well, you know what they say. One door closes. Another door opens. I’m a private investigator now. Sam hired me to work undercover because she was afraid—”
“A what?”
“A private investigator. This is real, Chip. It’s not a joke.”
“Okay. If it’s real, show me your license.”
He was trying to keep it serious, but his eyes were dancing with what he saw as the humor of the situation, same old, same old. Didn’t we live to goof on each other? Hadn’t we always done that? Or maybe he thought it was different this time, that I was too drunk to know fantasy from reality, that because of the alcohol I was telling a whopper of a story.
“I—”
“Come on. If you’re a private investigator, show me your license.”
I just sat there.
“You know what a license is, don’t you? One of those little laminated things with your picture on it you keep in your wallet and whip out on occasions such as this.”
“I never got one.”
“I see.” The way he was grinning, you’d think he’d just won the lottery.
“No, you don’t see. I work without a license. I didn’t want to do all the paperwork, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Then your business card. Surely, you have a business card, Rachel. Show me.” He held his hand out.
I took a card out of my wallet and handed it to him.
“Rachel Alexander, research assistance?”
“It’s just that … I mean, you don’t want to put on a business card … I work mainly on referrals, and the thing is, people need answers, you see, and I do the research necessary to help them find out what it is they need to know. Understand?”
“And tonight?” He reached out and took my hand. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
He’d figured it out. Or so he thought. I had changed my mind about the meaningless roll in the hay and didn’t know how to say it.
I took my hand back.
“I don’t know who is doing this. I don’t know when it’s going to happen next. I suggested the poker game because it seems evident that men are the targets here. And when I couldn’t keep it going any longer—” I turned toward the window, but the sun hurt my eyes. I looked back at Chip. “When you got up to leave, I thought that if anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Rachel—”
I held up my hand like a Supreme. “Let me finish,” I said.
“That’s very sweet, really, that you’re a PI and you’re going to protect me.” He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He was laughing out loud now. “Maybe vodka’s not your drink,” he said. “Anyway, you’ve forgotten about Betty.”
“No, I haven’t.” I was really annoyed now, and it must have been evident, because Chip had stopped laughing. “Dashiell will protect Betty.”
“No, I mean I have Betty to protect me.”
“See if you can follow this,” I said. “I was a dog trainer. I’m no longer a dog trainer. I’m an unlicensed private investigator working undercover. I know it’s pretty complicated, a lot to absorb at once, so how about if you don’t worry your pretty little head about any of this. I’ll do the thinking for both of us.”
“Seriously, Rachel. Enough kidding around. Even if what you say is true,” he said, and I could see that he was humoring me, “you don’t need to protect me.”
“I do,” I told him. “Look, we only have a few hours. You take the bed. I’ll curl up in the chair. Just make believe I’m not here, okay?”
I moved over to the chair to try to catch some sleep. Chip sat there in the window seat, nervous as a mouse in the terrier ring, not knowing what to make of this. I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the way he smelled, like taking a walk in the woods early in the morning, when the mist is just lifting and everything is fresh. Oh, hell, it was probably aftershave.
I heard him get up and hoped he’d get into bed. But he didn’t. He had come over to where I was and he was leaning down over me, his hands on the arms of the chair. I opened my eyes and looked into his, moss green with flecks of brown in them. And for just a moment I thought of something I’d left in my room, carefully wrapped in tissue paper that had been sprinkled with rose water. Less is more, I thought. And less of what I was thinking was exactly what I needed.
I tried to push him away. I thought I’d go back to where I’d been, sit in the window seat, looking out at Central Park. It would help me to keep my mind where it belonged. But Chip’s arms stayed put, and when I tried to duck under one of them, he stopped me with a hand on my collar, like a mother dog picking up an errant pup by the scruff of its neck.
“I listened to you. Now you listen to me.”
“I don’t think there’s anything else to say. I know you think I’m full of hot air, so—”
“It’s not about that, Rachel. It’s about me, about us.”
I sat up straight, my back pressed against the back of the chair. “There is no us, Chip. You’re a married man.”
Who was I fooling? Certainly not Chip.
He squatted in front of the chair, his hands on my knees. “Remember I told you at Westminster I’d gotten divorced? I’m still divorced.”
“Well, so what? That’s just a technicality, isn’t it? You’re living at home again, what difference does it make if there’s a piece of paper or not?”
“No difference at all.”
“So, then what is this all about?”
“Rachel, I’ve tried to talk to you so many times this week, and you just keep blowing me off.”
“You said what you have to say. That you’ve gone back to your family, and I’ve wished you good luck, so what else—”
He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you. That’s not the end of it. That was the beginning, what happened right after I saw you last time, when I said I’d call you. I moved back in with Ellen and the kids, that’s true, but it didn’t work out. The reconciliation was a flop.”
I sat there saying nothing, just looking at him long enough for human beings to crawl out of the sea, stand upright, and invent no-iron cotton.
“Why didn’t you just say so?” I finally asked.
“I’ve been trying to, Rachel, since Sunday. You kept interrupting me or running away. Three months after the divorce, I moved back in. But it was all wrong. We both knew it. Ellen’s thinking of moving back to California, to be near her family. That’s why I took this job, so that I could give her the money to help her with the move. Sometimes—” he whispered, “whenever I saw you, Rachel, I—”
I reached out to pull him close. I
t seems I’d waited forever for this moment.
That’s when I heard the knock. Well, it was more like banging. Only it wasn’t on Chip’s door. It was on mine, next door. It was Sam. I could hear her calling my name.
We jumped up and ran to the door, pulling it open at the same moment my door opened.
“What? What is it? Why you wake Boris?” He stood there scratching his hairy stomach, which was sticking out of his open shirt.
Woody was already in the hallway, standing next to Sam.
But his hair was wet. And he wasn’t wearing what he’d worn at the poker game.
I walked into the hall and looked past Boris to see if Bucky were there, but it was only Boris. He was the only rat that hadn’t deserted the stinking ship.
Sam looked at me, then at Chip, then back at me.
“What is it?” I asked her.
But she didn’t answer me. What the hell was going on? I wondered. Had she made all this fuss just to tell me she’d finally found Mr. Wright?
But her cheeks weren’t flushed. Even with makeup on, she looked as if she needed a transfusion.
“Someone else is dead.” Her voice was barely above a whisper now. “They’ve just found the body.”
“Who? Who’s dead?”
Sam turned away. I saw her shoulders shaking.
Woody reached out and took my hand in both of his.
“It’s Martyn,” he said.
I pulled away and began to shake my head, as if saying no could make this nightmare go away.
“How?” Chip asked.
“Suicide.”
“No way” I said. “You can’t be serious.”
“Unfortunately, I am. The porter found him on the sidewalk as he was coming in a little while ago.”
“Why he do that?” Boris asked.
Sam faced us again, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands, smearing her mascara onto her temples. “The police are on the way. Let’s get downstairs. I’m sure they’ll have questions, particularly for those of you who were at the poker game.”
She turned and headed for the elevator, Woody on one side, Boris on the other in his stocking feet.
I started to pull Chip’s door closed, but he stopped me, pointing to his bare feet. We stood for a moment in the hallway, looking into each other’s eyes, neither of us saying a word. Then he went inside for his shoes, and we headed downstairs to wait for the police.
22
KEEP YOUR DAY JOB, I TOLD HIM
Who had opened her door when I was coming back with the ice? Had that been Cathy, hoping it was Martyn, even though she knew there was another baby on the way at home in England? Had he managed to explain that away too, the way he’d explained away Graeme and Sheila and his wife, sitting with Cathy during Rick’s last talk and laying it on with a steam shovel?
Sam, Woody, and Boris were nowhere in sight. I heard a siren in the distance, but I couldn’t be sure if it was coming our way. There were so many accidents in the city.
I grabbed Chip’s hand as he reached for the elevator button.
“I need a favor. I need the key to Martyn’s room, or better yet, a passkey. The passkey would be in the office. I have a feeling that the old man won’t be at his post, but out front where all the excitement is. Just have a lie ready, in case the old coot should come back and catch you in the office, which he probably won’t.”
Chip was looking at me as if he’d never seen me before, as if I were some stranger who had grabbed his hand in the hallway of a hotel and was in the middle of telling him some fantastic tale.
“Don’t get too fancy. He’s really gullible. You can tell him you were looking for a phone, to call the police. Tell him anything. Just get me the key and meet me at Martyn’s room. I have something I have to do first.”
I started for the stairs and then remembered something else.
“403,” I said. “If you get there first, don’t go in without me.”
He took my face in both hands and kissed me hard and fast on the mouth, then headed down the stairs. I headed up.
Sky barked even before I knocked. I could hear Cathy telling him, “Leave it.” A moment later she was standing in the doorway in her unbleached, organic nightshirt, her eyes red and puffy, a disappointed look on her face.
“It’s only me,” I said, wondering if I should break her heart the rest of the way before I asked my questions or after. “Can I come in?”
Five minutes later I was across the hall, and Chip was slipping the passkey into the lock on Martyn’s door.
“Don’t touch anything,” I said. “Just stand here in the doorway with me.”
“What are we looking for?”
“An open window.”
“It’s closed,” he whispered.
“Why are you whispering?”
“It seemed appropriate.”
“I didn’t think this is where it happened. I just wanted to make sure before the police get here and seal off the room. And one more thing,” I said, bending down and looking under the neatly made bed. “Okay, we can go.”
“What were you looking for under the bed, the traditional prowler?”
“Keep your day job,” I told him. “A tennis ball. A scented one.”
“Sky’s? You mean Cathy was with him?”
“Yes, but not this morning. Still, if the cops found Sky’s ball in there, they’d put her through hell.”
“Okay, so Cathy had a thing with Martyn, is that what you’re saying? And then what? He—”
“Don’t even say it. No matter what this looks like, you know Martyn didn’t do this himself.”
“But you don’t think Cathy—”
“No, but the only one I know didn’t do it is you.”
“You don’t know that. You fell asleep in the bathtub, remember? I could have slipped out.”
He was right. He could have.
What did I know about this man, anyway? Had I ever seen him take out the garbage or scramble eggs? Did I know if he hung up his clothes or threw them over the dresser for the wife to hang up, the way Jack had? Or if he had to have his dinner on the table the second he walked in the door the way my brother-in-law did, tap, tap, tapping on his stomach to show Lillian how hungry he was? Or if he used the force majeure clause as an excuse to break the contract he’d made with Ellen?
But then I thought, no, I did know him. Okay, I didn’t know if he helped with the dishes or if he handled money well. But I knew how seriously he took his marriage vows—hell, if he was breaking them, wouldn’t he have tried to break them with me, years ago?
“Did you?” I asked. “Did you slip out and push Martyn to his death?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Let’s get out of here.”
We headed for the stairs.
“It’s a schlep, but we have to walk.”
He started down. I grabbed his sleeve and pointed up.
“The roof. We can’t take the elevator because the cops are going to question Jimmy, and he’d tell them we went up there.”
“Why would Martyn have gone up there?”
“I wish I knew. I wish I knew a lot more than that.”
We walked for a while in silence.
“Rachel, why were you looking for Sky’s tennis ball in Martyn’s room?”
“Just to double-check. I don’t know if Sky was with her, but if he was, he wouldn’t have gone without his ball.”
“That’s not what I meant. Couldn’t they have been in her room? Martyn didn’t have a dog to worry about.”
“It seems the females go to the males, just like in dog breeding.”
With dogs, the bitch does the traveling, often by plane. The stud dog stays home, where he feels calm, confident, and relaxed. At home, feeling his oats, the stud dog is less likely to disappoint, more likely to perform.
Partway down the hall on five was the door to the roof, locked up tight, just as it had been when I’d photographed it on Sunday. There was a sign, too. It said No En
try. I wondered if I was right, thinking that this was where Martyn had been when he fell.
Chip reached for the door.
“Wait. Let me do this. This is the last place in the world you want to leave your prints.”
I took two dog bags out of my pocket and put them on as gloves. Then I used the passkey and pushed the door open with my shoulder. There was a narrower flight of stairs behind the door, this one not carpeted. The door up top was a fire door. You could open it from the inside, but not from the outside without a key. I pushed it open with the side of my arm, and we walked out onto the tar roof.
There beneath us was Central Park, and beyond, the skyline of Fifth Avenue. On the roof there were exhaust fans and vents, a water tank, and an equipment shed. We walked forward, as cautiously as if we each thought the other was the one who had pushed Martyn off a few hours earlier.
Once at the edge, we leaned forward to look down so that we could locate the spot from which Martyn had gone over. I could feel a sour taste in my throat, and my knees seemed to be made of sand as I looked down to the sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” He took my arm.
“Just glad I haven’t had breakfast yet.” I stepped back from the edge.
“There’s a little ledge down here,” Chip said, still looking over the parapet.
“Big enough to stand on?”
“Not big enough for me to stand on.”
“Are you thinking Martyn did? That he climbed down onto it and jumped?”
I stepped forward again, trying not to imagine toppling over and landing on the sidewalk below, right beside Martyn. Hands on the wall, one I would have made about three feet higher, I crouched low before looking down at the ledge, so I wouldn’t be seen if anyone below looked up.
“There’s Martyn,” I whispered. He was lying on his back, one arm flung up over his head, the other at his side. His legs were apart. The way one turned in, you could see it was broken, even from up here. He looked almost like a rag doll, the way he lay there, so small and far away, so flat and still.
“The ledge is covered with pigeon droppings, feathers, and lots of good old-fashioned New York dirt. If Martyn had climbed down onto it, that mess there would have been disturbed.”
A Hell of a Dog Page 16
