Havoc-on-Hudson (4 page)

10

It was a day before his twenty-second birthday, a cold, blustery January morning, when Danny Joe Farrell was paroled. He walked out of that depressing stone and brick building, wrapping the gray wool Salvation Army scarf around his neck and chin, and he didn’t look back. As a free man for the first time in almost eight years, he breathed in the life-affirming frigid air with g
usto.

“What now?” he wondered. When he’d left Juvenile Detention, a pale clerk had handed him seventy-five dollars and a folder of instructions. He could temporarily go to a shelter for ex-cons, or the State would pay for two weeks at a motel. The clerk had also highlighted in yellow the name of a job adviser at a state-run facility in Ossining, New York. Danny Joe decided to head in that direction, since there was a shelter in an adjoining building, and he wouldn’t have the hassle of finding a place to stay for the night. “I ain’t staying at any motel!” he decl
ared.

From the upstate facility, he took a bus to Penn Station in New York City. Agape at the crowds and the tall buildings, Danny Joe walked across town to Grand Central Station, where he boarded a northbound Hudson-line train. According to the map, the shelter and his adviser’s office were located down the street from the station, in close proximity to Sing Sing. Getting off the train and following the pamphlet’s direction, he could see the prison’s massive structure silhouetted on the distant skyline. “Hey, maybe that’s gonna be my next home,” he muttered wryly, laughing at his own joke. “Gimme a cell with a river
view!”

Early the next morning, he walked into his advisor’s office building and passed through security. He was surprised to see crowds of men and women lining up for various services. He could almost smell the desperation and hopelessness. Cops at the ready, occupied every corner of the large, open space. Danny Joe could smell the threat of violence, too; where he’d spent the last nine years, that odor was always in the air. Danny Joe peered overhead at the signs: there were lines for Employment, Clothes/Shoes, Dormitories, EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), Showers, and Legal
Aid.

He was nervous, now, and still rubbing his hands together from the bitter cold outside. Looking around, however, he felt his anxiety slowly dissipate. He knew these people. The people in this massive room were his people; they were family, the only family he’d ever really had in this fucked-up w
orld.

11

A few months later, after local brokers had all but forgotten the possible threat of a psychopath in our midst, out of the clear blue sky a catastrophic event occurred in Hudson Hills.

It began innocently enough. Late on a midsummer afternoon, I’d scheduled an appointment with a young couple from Manhattan. The 4:37 from Grand Central was due, my Mercedes was idling in front of the Hudson Hills train station, and I stood next to it awaiting my clients. The day was fine, unusual for July, and I gazed out over the river, enjoying the vista and the occasional breeze. Then my phone rang. I looked at the readout: Claire.

“Hi, what’s up, Clairsey?”

“Andrew called. He knows you have an appointment now, didn’t want to interrupt you. He says he’s going to be in town, tonight—has a meeting at Town Hall at 8 p.m. with the Architectural Review Board. You free for dinner after that? What should I tell him?”

“Yeah, okay. I can do that.” I felt the little thrill of happiness Andrew’s attentions always brings. “I’m only showing the Mullers one house, and that won’t take long. Those town meetings are usually over by nine-thirty or ten. Tell him I’ll wait at my office for him with some dinner from The Station Café. Bye!”

“But …”

I heard the train rumbling into the station and hung up on Claire before she could begin adding complications to the plans.

I’d been showing houses to the Mullers for at least five months, and they’d been waffling the entire time. I knew that if they didn’t settle on a home in Westchester very soon, they’d have to renew their existing lease in the City for another year. That would be unfortunate for everyone.

Me, especially; I really wanted to make that sale.

But, then, an interesting new listing had come on the market. I hadn’t previewed it yet, but after studying the property information I felt this might be what they’d been hoping to find.

Sue Muller was red-haired, petite, and very pregnant. I mean, just about ten-months pregnant. She grinned at me. “This is it,” she bubbled. “I just know it is! Can’t wait to see it!”

“Nesting,” her lawyer husband, David, mouthed at me, as Sue slid carefully into the Mercedes’ front passenger seat.

Located on a quiet, tree-lined country lane, the newly-listed house, a rambling, gray-shingled Colonial, sat on almost an acre of beautiful shrubs and trees with a gently sloping, manicured lawn. I try not to do a hard sell, but when I saw the place, my gentle, motherly smile automatically beamed:
Oh, what an idyllic setting for raising a fa
mily!

Sue was starry-eyed. David was grinning big, like Papa Bear approaching his rocking chair and porridge. All good signs. I could almost feel the closing check being deposited in my bank account with a satisfying little ka-ching. The owners had already moved, so the house had been staged for marketing purposes, as vacant homes are often harder to sell. Oohing and aahing, Sue grabbed David’s arm as they preceded me up the flagstone path to the front door.

I’d picked up the house key, clearly marked, from the listing office. Now I smiled my most domestic smile at the young couple, and inserted it into the upper lock. It went in easily. I winked at the ecstatic Sue, and turned the key to the right. It wouldn’t move. Damn! A twist of the wrist, and I turned it to the left. Nothing.

Keys, the bane of our existence, can also be a broker’s worst nightmare. I smiled at my clients again, took the key out of the lock, then reinserted it and turned, hard, turned it the other way. It wouldn’t budge in either direction.

And I’d persuaded these folks to cancel their evening plans in order to see this place!

I gave them the shit-eating grin all real-estate agents learn in kindergarten. Sometimes the listing agent will carry the original key, or know the trick of working with a finicky lockset on a listing. I called Marcy on her cell phone, getting only her recording—
puhleeze leave a message
. “Call me,” I said. “Call me NOW!”

The pregnant customer suddenly looked as if she were in pain. “Really, Maggie, Sue said through her teeth. “How could you let this happen? If this house looks as good on the inside as it does on the outside, we’ll bid on it right here and now. But if we don’t get to see the interior this afternoon, we can’t bid. By tomorrow there’ll be multiple bids—a million of them. We’ll lose out!” A tear rolled down her left cheek. Then another. “And I just
have
to raise our baby in this house!”

“Yes, Sue is right,” David added. “This is the house for us. We’re ready to make a decision. This location is so close to the train station. We wouldn’t even need two cars!”

And it’s just two blocks from the very best school,” Sue wailed. She was in full spate, now.

I took both her hands in mine and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Believe me, I’ll get you into this house or die trying.”

From the trunk of my Mercedes, I grabbed a can of WD40 and applied oil to the lock, but the damn key still wouldn’t budge. A newly minted key is sometimes the source of the problem. I bent down and tried to smooth it on the concrete steps. Nope. No luck.

Worst-case scenario, I could check to see if any of the windows on the main level were unlocked. Over the years I’ve gotten good at breaking and entering. It may not be strictly legal, but anything in an emergency. Nope. All the windows were secured. Then I tried other doors—garage, mudroom, laundry. Nothing. In the back of the house, my last hope, French doors on the patio. The first was tight. So was the second. Then, just as I was in complete despair, a doorknob moved slightly within my grasp. I sucked in my breath and turned it, hard. It slid open easily at my touch. The last agent to show the house must have left this last door unlocked. Well, that was her problem, and I wasn’t about to tell! With a sigh of relief, I entered an airy living room and made my way over thick carpets to the front door: Welcome, I told my anxious clients. Sue gave one last, tiny, gasp, and stopped crying.

Dear God, I thought, what a stupid brat she is!

The two-story entrance hall was awesome, with patterned Italian tile flooring and a curving staircase with a wrap-around balcony on the upper level. A ficus tree in a large blue ceramic planter was set into the center of the entrance hall and grew towards the light from a massive skylight above. I felt encouraged. So far, it had the tasteful architecture the Mullers had hoped to find in their comfortable price range.

The Mullers were impressed with the spacious living room, and impressed with its twelve-foot ceiling, dentil molding and carved mahogany fireplace mantle. “If you look straight ahead,” I told them, for all the world sounding as if I knew this house inside and out, “you will see three French doors leading out to a private, terraced garden. That’s how I was able to get in—one was unlocked. Also, to your left is the formal dining room with custom-made Japanese screens on the windows.”

“Whoever the architect was, he really knew his stuff!” David remarked.

We entered a stunning gourmet kitchen. I went into my spiel. “This state-of-the-art kitchen was designed with all the accessories young families are looking for these days: granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, an attached great room so children can be supervised from the kitchen.”

“I looove it,” Sue Waterman crooned.

It began to look as if I was finally going to sell these folks a house!

We finished our tour of the downstairs, and began walking up to the second level. I was leading the way, and was first to hear the sound of running water.

“What’s that?” David Muller asked. “Is someone taking a shower?”

The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of the master suite on the left. Had some member of the family come back to the house? Maybe to get some last minute items taken care of? Had they forgotten a real estate agent had an appointment to show the house this afternoon?

Recently, I’d walked into a bathroom with a prospective buyer, and we were met by a woman just emerging stark naked from her shower. I really didn’t want to have another embarrassing experience like that. I’d better check it out.

At the landing, halfway up the stairs, I paused and turned to the Mullers.

“Why don’t the two of you stay where you are, while I check to see if anyone’s upstairs,” I said. “If it’s just a faucet that’s been left on, I’ll have you join me.”

Hopefully, there wasn’t some kind of a leak to deal with. That’s a sure way to dampen a client’s enthusiasm!

“Is anyone home?” I called out, as I walked toward the sound of the water. I cautiously pushed open the double doors to the master suite, walked past an antique four-poster bed fitted with pastel silk pillows, and called out, again, “Is anyone home?” The door to the en-suite bath was slightly ajar, and the light was on. I felt uncomfortable. What was going on here?

“Hello, anyone there?” I asked loudly, in front of the door. There was no response, but closer to the bathroom I could hear the sound of a motor.

Then my cell phone suddenly rang. I almost jumped right out of my Ferragamos. It was Marcy Goodwin, the listing agent for this property, returning my earlier call. “Maggie, there’s nothing to worry about. The sellers have definitely moved out. I checked the house yesterday evening. It was in perfect shape—all ready to be shown. And I don’t know what’s going on with the key—I tested each and every one of them myself, and they all worked fine.”

“Well, mine didn’t!”

“It should have!” Marcy was beginning to sound miffed. “And about the water, maybe the cleaning people forgot to turn it off when they were done cleaning early this morning. Maggie, why don’t you see what’s going on—I’ll stay on the line.”

I opened the bathroom door just a bit more and stepped over the marble threshold. “Oh, my God!” I screamed.

“What? Wha-a-t?” Marcy’s tinny voice came from my dropped cell phone, from where it now lay in a pinkish puddle on the floor. Oh my God!” I screamed again.

On the left side of the huge, luxurious master bathroom, in a double-sized whirlpool tub, a naked figure was floating face down, the motor sending jets of bloody water around the body and into spirals of steam. A broken Prosecco bottle lay on the shelf of the tub facing me, jagged pieces of glass and blood scattered everywhere. I took a step forward. Glass bits crunched under my expensive new shoes.

“What’s going on,” David Muller yelled from just outside the door.

“Call the police,” I shrieked, whether to David or to Marcy, her tinny “Wha-a-t,” over and over again, still emanating from the phone, I didn’t know. Trembling, I approached the tub, my hands covering my mouth, the desire to help giving me the courage. It was a woman who lay in the bloody water. And there was no way to help her. A large piece of glass protruded from the back of her head.

“Call the police,” I yelled again. “Someone’s been murdered!”

As David burst, all manly, into the room, I cried, “There’s a dead woman in the whirlpool! Call the police! Hurry! Hurry!”

David took one look at the floating body and promptly fainted.

I left him there. In a cold sweat, I backed from the bathroom, my heart pumping almost out of my chest. I called out to Sue Muller, still waiting on the landing. “Get out! Get out fast!” I screamed. “There’s a dead woman in the tub, and the killer might still be in the house!”

I could see the terrified woman waddling down the stairs and out through the front door, and I followed on her heels as fast as I could, leaving her husband still slumped over the bidet.

So much for finally selling the Mullers a house.