Midnight Voices (28 page)

Ryan nodded too quickly, and this time his words escaped his lips before he could control them. “I didn’t see anything! Honest!”

“You’re not telling me the truth,” Anthony Fleming said, his voice as cold and flat as his eyes. “I don’t like that.”

“I am!” Ryan wailed, but even he could hear the lie in his voice.

Fleming pulled Ryan to his feet and steered him out of the kitchen, down the long hall, up the stairs, and back to his room. “I think you should stay here for awhile,” he said. “In fact, I think you should stay here until you learn to tell me the truth. I’ll be back at lunchtime. If you’re ready to talk to me, you can eat. If not . . .” Leaving the words hanging, he pulled the door closed, he took a key from his pocket, twisted it in the lock, and tried the door. Satisfied that it was locked, Anthony Fleming returned the key to his pocket.

Ryan waited until he heard his stepfather’s footsteps fade away before he went to the door and tested it, even though he knew it was locked. Then he went to the window, opened the latch, and raised it. Sticking his head out, he peered down at the sidewalk below, the dizziness he was feeling just looking down the six floors telling him he’d never succeed in creeping along the narrow ledge outside the window even if he could work up the nerve to try. But there had to be a way to escape from the room—there had to be!

He went to the big walk-in closet and peered up at the ceiling, but there was nothing—just the same cedar planks that lined the whole closet. He was just about to abandon the closet when he remembered last night, when he was in his stepfather’s study and had seen the open closet door.

And heard the voices that sounded like they were coming from inside the closet.

Or maybe from another room that was hidden behind the closet?

He went back into the closet. There was a built-in chest of drawers at one end; open shelves at the other. The back of the closet was bare except for the cedar paneling. But when he tapped on the paneling, it sounded hollow, like there was empty space on the other side of it instead of a solid wall.

He went over every inch of it, trying to find some kind of hidden latch, but there was none.

Next he pulled out every drawer in the built-in chest, searching behind them. Nothing.

Finally he turned to the shelves, but nothing on the wall that backed them, either. With nothing left to try, he climbed up the shelves, using them like a ladder, until he could reach the ceiling.

He pushed. At first nothing happened, but when he pushed harder, he felt something start to give. Lying down on the top shelf so he had better leverage, he tried once more. And this time there was a faint squealing sound as first one nail and then a second and third gave way. Praying that the sound wouldn’t get any louder, Ryan pushed harder, and more nails gave way. Then one end of the ceiling lifted in a single panel.

It wasn’t solid at all—it was a trapdoor! But a trapdoor that was completely invisible when it was closed, and had been nailed shut.

Nailed shut how long ago?

And who besides Ryan knew it was there?

And most important, where did it lead and what was it for?

Frank Oberholzer, with Maria Hernandez in tow only because their chief had insisted, glared dyspeptically at The Rockwell as he waited for a break in traffic. There wasn’t anything he liked about the building at all—not its ornate architecture, or its ill-lit lobby, or its death-trap of an elevator.

Not to mention the doorman, who crouched behind the counter of his booth like some kind of gargoyle guarding the gates of hell.

Why would anyone want to live in a building like that? And how did it happen that Caroline Evans Fleming was living in it?

Of course, it could just be coincidence, but Oberholzer had figured out a long time ago that with murder, coincidence didn’t happen very often. Unless you counted something like what had happened to Brad Evans—being at the wrong place at the wrong time—as coincidence, which up until this morning Oberholzer had been almost willing to concede. This morning, though, he’d gone back over the Brad Evans file, which hadn’t taken very long since it consisted mostly of notes about interviews that had gone nowhere. But the interviews weren’t what had interested him anyway. Instead it had been a nagging thought that had kept him awake until almost midnight last night, which was something that usually only the acid in his stomach could accomplish. This nagging thought, though, had nothing to do with acid at all, but with the way Brad Evans had died. So when he’d arrived at his office that morning, he’d looked at the M.E.’s report on Caroline Fleming’s first husband.

Broken neck. Approached from behind, left arm slipped around the neck, followed almost instantly by a hard push from the assailant’s right hand.

Or at least that was the supposition made by the M.E., which was pretty much the same supposition that had been made about Andrea Costanza.

Who was a good friend of Caroline Evans Fleming.

Who now lived in The Rockwell—the same building in which the last person to see Costanza alive lived. All that, together with the fact that neither he nor Hernandez had been able to turn up even a hint of a boyfriend for Costanza, was making Oberholzer willing to take another look not only at Dr. Theodore Humphries, but at whoever else lived in the building as well.

Now, with the building looming across the street, Oberholzer could feel the acid in his stomach starting to burn—the fact was, he didn’t much like talking to people who lived in buildings like this one; they always acted like their address should give them some kind of immunity from having to talk to anyone as lowly as a cop, detective or otherwise. Caroline Evans, on the other hand, hadn’t been like that at all. She’d always been more than helpful, spending hours telling him more about her husband than he’d really needed to know. But that was okay, too—she’d obviously needed to talk, and he’d always been a good listener. A good listener and a good observer. That was all being a detective was about, really: listening and watching until you either heard or saw what was going on. And this morning he was going to listen to Caroline Evans very, very carefully indeed, and watch just as suspiciously as he listened, because suddenly she seemed to be the common denominator of both killings.

Now all he had to do was fit it together.

He glanced at his watch—two minutes before nine, which meant that Caroline Fleming’s kids—Ryan and Laurie, which he’d remembered without any help from the file on their father—would have left for school and her husband would have gone to his office, assuming he had an office, which was an assumption the detective wasn’t ready to make. If Humphries worked out of a home office, there wasn’t any reason why this Fleming character couldn’t, too. “You ever been in this place before?” he asked Hernandez as a break in traffic appeared and he started across the street, ignoring the fact that the light was still red.

“Actually, yes,” Hernandez replied.

When she said nothing more, Oberholzer shot her a sour look. “So you gonna tell me about it, or what?”

“Nothing to tell. My mamma cleaned for Virginia Estherbrook for a while when I was a kid. She brought me along a couple times.”

“So?” Oberholzer prompted. “What did you think?”

“Creepy,” Hernandez replied. They were at the front door now, and suddenly Maria Hernandez chuckled. “Once a kid at school told me the doorman was a troll.”

Oberholzer pulled one of the heavy oak doors open for Hernandez, then followed her into the vestibule. As they pulled open the inner doors, Rodney looked up from the paper he had spread out in front of him on the counter. “I’m afraid Dr. Humphries isn’t in right now.”

“Not here for Humphries,” Oberholzer replied. “Which apartment do the Flemings live in?”

“I’m afraid I really can’t divulge—” the doorman began, but Oberholzer had already flipped his wallet open to expose his detective’s shield.

“I’m not asking you to divulge a damned thing,” he interrupted. “Just answer the question.”

Rodney looked as if he was on the verge of arguing further, but then seemed to think better of it. “5-A,” he said. “Fifth floor, overlooking the park.”

“Thank you,” Oberholzer said with exaggerated politeness. Then, as he and Hernandez headed for the elevator and Rodney reached for the telephone, he spoke again, not even bothering to turn back to face the doorman. “And don’t call ahead.”

Rodney waited until the elevator—and the two detectives—had disappeared upward before dialing Anthony Fleming’s number upstairs.

The elevator jerked to a stop, and Oberholzer pulled the door open. It stuck halfway, and he gave it a jerk. “You’d think they’d put in a new elevator, wouldn’t you?” he grumbled.

“There’s nothing new in this building,” Hernandez replied. “Everything looks exactly like it did when I was a kid. Even the doorman looks the same.” She shivered slightly. “He’s got a creepy look in his eyes.”

“He’s a doorman,” Oberholzer retorted. “They all have creepy eyes—it’s part of the job.” He jabbed at the button next to the door of 5-A, then jabbed it again when there was no immediate response. He was about to punch it a third time when the door opened and he found himself facing a tall, dark-haired man that he figured was maybe in his mid-forties. Oberholzer could tell from the look in the man’s eyes—a look that wasn’t quite hostile, but couldn’t be called welcoming, either—that the doorman had called ahead, which only made the acid in his stomach bubble a little higher. “Mr. Fleming?” he asked. When the man nodded, Oberholzer flashed his badge and introduced himself. “Actually, it’s your wife I’m here to see.”

Anthony Fleming pulled the door open wider. “I think you’d better come in,” he said, the neutrality of both his expression and his voice dissolving into worry. “We can talk in my study.” He led Oberholzer and Hernandez into the wood-paneled room, and the detective took in every stick of furniture with a single sweep of his eyes. Had anyone asked him a week later to describe it, he could have repeated not only the entire inventory, but diagramed its placement in the room as well. By the time Anthony Fleming had reached his desk, then leaned against its edge when neither Oberholzer nor Hernandez accepted his offer of chairs, Oberholzer’s focus had already shifted from the room to the man.

“I assume this must be about Andrea Costanza,” Fleming said, resting his hands on the desk at either side of his hips.

“Your wife was a friend of hers,” Oberholzer replied. “We’re talking to everyone she knew. Is your wife here?”

Fleming shook his head. “I’m afraid my wife has taken this very hard. Andrea was her best friend, and after—” He hesitated, then began again. “My wife’s first husband was killed in Central Park a little over a year ago. And now with her best friend being killed. . . .” His voice trailed off a second time, then he took a deep breath and spoke one more time. “I’m afraid I had to take her to a hospital last night. Ever since she watched them take Andrea’s body away, she’s been having a rough time of it. Bad dreams, and—it’s hard to describe it. Paranoia, I suppose. Yesterday she came home from work early, and when I got home she was nearly hysterical. Certain that people were watching her—that sort of thing. When I couldn’t get her calmed down—” He spread his hands helplessly, sighed, and shook his head. “I’m hoping she’ll be home in a few days.”

“Where is she?” Oberholzer asked, his pencil poised over his notepad.

“The Biddle Institute,” Fleming replied. “Up on West 82nd Street.”

“How well did you know Costanza?” Maria Hernandez asked.

“Hardly at all, actually,” Fleming replied. “We had dinner with her once, and she was at the wedding of course, but it was one of those woman things—she and my wife were friends from college, and they stuck together like glue. The other two are Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman.”

Oberholzer nodded. “And can you tell us where you both were last Friday evening?”

“Last Friday—?” Fleming began, but then grasped what Oberholzer was getting at. “Ah. The night Andrea was killed. Well, for the most part we were here. We had dinner with the kids, and then I had a board meeting.”

“A board meeting? At night?”

“The co-op board,” Fleming explained. “We meet once a month, mostly to argue over money.”

“And who else was at that meeting?” Oberholzer asked.

Fleming’s brows rose slightly, but then he began ticking them off on his fingers. “Well, let’s see. I was there, of course, and George Burton and Irene Delamond. And Ted Humphries.”

“Just five?” Maria Hernandez asked.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get five people to agree on anything?”

“And the meeting lasted . . . ?” Oberholzer left the question hanging.

“An hour and a half maybe. Certainly I was home by eleven. Now, if we’re about through, I’d like to go up and check on my son—he seems to have picked up a bug himself.”

“Okay,” Oberholzer said, closing his pad and slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Do you have any problem with us visiting your wife at the hospital?”

“My wife is very sick,” Fleming replied. “If you could wait a few days—”

“I wish I could,” Oberholzer cut in. “But we’re investigating a murder, Mr. Fleming.”

For a moment Anthony Fleming appeared to be on the verge of arguing, but then seemed to think better of it. “Of course,” he said, leaving the desk to usher Oberholzer and Hernandez toward the door. “If there’s anything else, let me know.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Oberholzer assured him.

Neither he nor Hernandez spoke until they were downstairs and out of the building, and even then they waited until they were across the street and halfway down the next block. “Well?” Hernandez asked. “What do you think?”

“I think I go up to the Biddle Institute, while you go back to Costanza’s address book,” Oberholzer replied.

“I meant what did you think of
him
?”

Oberholzer shrugged. “Won’t know til I check out everything he said.”

“I didn’t like him,” Hernandez informed him, even though Oberholzer hadn’t asked. “Something about his eyes.”

“His eyes,” Oberholzer repeated darkly, rolling his own. “Okay, I’ll bite. What about his eyes?”