Murder at the 42nd Street Library: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Book) (30 page)

“Easy, Mike. She’s fine. I couldn’t tell you—” Ambler turned to see Denise standing in the doorway to his bedroom. He turned back to Cosgrove and caught his large meaty fist full in the face. Staggering backward, he heard Denise’s scream, “Dad!” His head cleared in time to avoid the next couple of punches, by sinking and turning, finally pushing the winded Cosgrove off balance onto the couch.

“I know,” Ambler said, breathing hard. “Cops see the worst, think the worst.”

By now, Denise stood beside Ambler. “I hate you,” she screamed at her father. “You’re an asshole. He took care of me to make sure nothing happened to me.”

“Denise—” Cosgrove said. “Denise.”

She put her hands over her ears. “I’m not going with you. I’ll run away again. Have me arrested. I’d rather be in jail than go home.”

Denise pouted and yelled and cried. But in a while, she went back into Ambler’s room to get dressed. Cosgrove, sitting among the bedclothes on the couch, looked up at Ambler. “What was I supposed to think? You didn’t tell me.” His eyelids drooped over his bloodshot eyes.

“Worse things happened,” Ambler said. He told him about Emily Yates’s murder.

Denise hugged Ambler when they were leaving. She held him for a long time. He kissed the top of her head.

Cosgrove seemed to want to say something but was unable to get it out. Finally, he said. “After I drop her off, I’ll talk to Ed Ford. Find out what there is about the murder.”

“I’m going to find Adele,” Ambler said.

Chapter 26

Max was getting stranger and stranger, turning into Macbeth, paranoid and delusional. Laura Lee didn’t trust him around anyone other than herself. It was as if he’d run into Banquo’s ghost.

“You’re acting like a little girl.”

He hugged the Beefeater bottle like it was his favorite doll. “We need to leave here … travel until my sabbatical runs its course.”

“What about the book?”

Dominic called him a couple of days ago, out of the blue, first time in years. Since then he’d been ducking around corners, about to dive under the bed when the doorbell rang with the Chinese food delivery. In the library, he hid in one of the reading rooms or the stacks, changing locations every hour or so like he was in the witness protection program. He’d started carrying that stupid gun, which she told him was a felony in New York.

The strangest thing was Dominic calling him, rather than calling her, and neither of them telling her what it was about. Sleep with your brother’s wife maybe. But the family secrets—especially that family—stay secret. Max seemed to have forgotten she was there. You’d think that would be a blessing, rather than his usual panting after her. Yet, strangely, she worried about him. Then, the other night, out of the blue, he told her he was going to Atlantic City for a couple of days, so he could relax. Whatever was going on, someone better tell her soon. Left to their own devices, those two were disaster bound.

Dominic ignored her calls. Not something she couldn’t get around. Her last message on his phone was simple: “Let’s get together at the Liberty Inn. Max won’t be back from Atlantic City until tomorrow afternoon.” Whatever else was happening, Dominic wouldn’t miss a chance to bang his sister-in-law.

“You look good,” he said when he opened the hotel room door. Wearing light-colored slacks and a tight-fitting black T-shirt that accentuated his muscular arms, powerful shoulders, he looked good, too. He groped for her but she slipped past him and ducked into the room.

“Anything for a girl to drink?” She never fooled herself that Dominic’s interest in her was anything other than lust. He sometimes pretended to an interest on a level above the animal. When he did, she played with him, as in this instance, if she wanted something. It was akin to getting a dog to do tricks and withholding the treat until he did.

Dominic took the champagne bottle from the ice bucket, twisted off the top and filled a flute glass for her.

She took the glass and said, “Come sit down here beside me and tell me about this hush-hush stuff with brother Max.”

“You don’t want to get into that—”

“Yes I do.” She smiled.

Dominic took a deep breath. “You know what’s up, Laura Lee. Or you should.”

“Let’s say I’m naïve.”

“I’m not going to say anything out loud. Maybe you’re wired.”

Laura Lee laughed. She stood and began to unbutton her black blouse. “Well, I can put your mind to rest on that.” Dropping the blouse on the bed, she reached for his hand. “Come. Feel.” She pressed his hand against her flat stomach, sliding it along her midriff and over her black bra.

He leaned his face against the bra and reached behind her back to undo the hooks.

“Find anything?” She pushed his head away from her breasts, holding him at bay. “It might be in my pants—”

He reached for the waistband of her skinny-leg jeans, sliding along the bed as he reached, so that he was almost on the floor as he worked to undo a button. She lifted her knee and turned slightly so that he slid to the floor at her feet.

“You’re panting, Dominic.” She walked to the far side of the room, undoing her jeans as she walked. “Now, tell me what this is about, so we can have some fun.” She took off her shoes, and pulled her jeans down. In her tiny black underpants she did a pirouette, dropping the panties to her feet. “See, no wire.” She kicked the underpants toward him. “You can spill the beans while I blow you.” She walked toward him.

He pulled himself onto the bed. The expression on his face as he undid his pants made her laugh. Pushing his hands aside, she undid the buckle herself. “Well. Well. Look at that! Now talk … and you better tell the truth. If I think you’re leaving something out, I’ll bite.” She bent down to him.

“It was about Emily—”

*   *   *

“It’s nice of you to walk with me,” Adele said. “You don’t have to.”

“What I have to do is get my head examined,” McNulty said. “You shoulda let that cop take you home, with your key missing and a murderer on the loose.”

“I didn’t like him.”

“Good reasoning.” McNulty rolled his eyes but she didn’t catch it. Adele was grieving. He didn’t know what to say to comfort her, didn’t have the words to get across what he felt, much less the words that might make someone who was grieving feel better. He thought about putting his arm around her but didn’t know what good that would do either. He did anyway, so she leaned against him, her eyes glistening with tears when she looked at him. They walked the final two blocks like that.

Her apartment was on the fourth floor, the elevator tiny, slow, and groaning. She’d gotten the key from the super—the second super they’d woken up that night. McNulty listened to the tumblers click as she turned the key in the two locks, one after the other. Thinking he’d watched too many private-eye shows on TV growing up, he touched her shoulder and moved her aside, so he could enter the apartment first.

He looked left and then right. The hallway ran straight through the small apartment and lined up with a window on the far wall of the kitchen. Some faint light beyond the window formed a lighter gray backdrop to the darkness of the kitchen. Against that lighter backdrop, a silhouette darted across the darkness.

Instinct took over. The light in the doorway behind them would make him and Adele targets, so he pushed her out into the hallway. Adele being Adele, she bounced right back. Without thinking, he headed into the darkness; first, he moved gingerly, flattened against the wall in the short hallway; then, he made a dash for the kitchen. Catching a glimpse of the silhouette, he threw himself at it, squeezing his eyes closed, waiting for the explosion he expected would be the last thing he ever heard.

Instead, he barreled into a human form that crumbled as if from a blind-side tackle. The small body beneath him made an oomph sound but nothing else. He drew back his fist to smash whoever it was, but held back because the form beneath him was small and not struggling. Adele switched on the light and he saw he’d tackled a boy.

“Johnny!” Adele cried.

*   *   *

He’d made a fool of himself in front of Ray, and embarrassed his daughter. Denise didn’t speak to him on the drive back to Queens. He knew better than to speak first, except to say he was sorry, but saying it, he knew being sorry didn’t change anything.

When he stopped the car in front of his sister’s house, he said, “I know I was wrong. You think there’s no way I can make it up to you. I’m still going to try. Promise me you’ll stay with Aunt Mary. Promise you won’t leave.”

She turned to him as she opened the door to get out. He waited for the promise. “I know about Anne,” she said, climbing out and slamming the door.

So that cat was out of the bag. Anne’s husband knew. Now Denise. If Sarah didn’t know, she would soon. Or maybe she already knew and pretended not to. Why not? Why wouldn’t she let them go on being trapped in their misery?

Jammed up in traffic, merging onto the 59th Street Bridge ramp, he thought it might be good to forget about his family for a while. Hard to believe tracking down a killer could come as a relief. Light rain fell, hard enough for windshield wipers; the road glistened. He called Ed Ford, who filled him in on Emily Yates’s murder. When he disconnected, he headed for 49th Street. Even if the apartment had been cleaned up, everyone gone, the show over, he needed to see where the murder happened. Like a bloodhound, he’d go to the beginning to get the scent.

A patrol car sat outside the building, so the apartment was sealed. He slipped under the yellow crime-scene tape. In the half light from a window that opened onto an airshaft, he took in the apartment—gloomy, a threadbare rug in front of a worn couch. Not a tidy place, nothing on the walls, no photos or knick-knacks, nothing welcoming or comfortable about it. It reeked of sorrow, as the rooms where murder happens often do.

As usual, he didn’t know what he looked for. The lab team gathered in anything that might be evidence: hair samples, stains, glasses, cigarette butts. Ford had gone through the place, drawers and cabinets, clothes and bookcases. Remnants of the dust from the fingerprint kits remained on a windowsill and the coffee table. What he looked for was something different—something that would tell him why this person died at this place at this time. What he saw was a lair of unhappiness.

He found a briefcase someone must have not thought important. Letters and papers. Ford should have taken that along. But he was called away to a different homicide. Someone slipped up. He took a handful of papers from the briefcase and sat down with them, instantly gripped by what he read—the sexual history of a teenage girl. Reading, he couldn’t help but think about Denise.

*   *   *

McNulty was on the floor eyeball-to-eyeball with the kid, who didn’t blink. Neither did either of them speak. McNulty figured he was owed an explanation and didn’t think he needed to ask. He didn’t know what the kid thought. For all the expression on his face, he might be waiting for a bus. But something in that expression was familiar. He’d seen those eyes before. Who was this kid?

Adele moved things along by rushing over and trying to pull him off the kid, something he was willing to do, get off the kid, as soon as he got his legs under him. Diving across rooms and tackling someone, even if it was a kid, was not something he trained for, so he wished to make sure all his moving parts were working before he put himself in gear. He attempted to explain this to Adele.

“Get off him, you lug. You’ll squash him.”

McNulty rolled to the side. “The youngster, I think, is better equipped to roll around on the floor than I am. I need a moment to take inventory. The missing boy?” He cocked his head toward Johnny. “You okay?”

The boy nodded.

“Wanna go another fall?”

The kid’s eyes widened and then he smiled.

Adele knelt beside Johnny and helped him to his feet. When he was up, she hugged him. The kid looked dazed but held onto her for dear life. He probably didn’t know about his mother. Adele would have to tell him—and how do you do that, tell a kid his mother is dead? Tears trickled from her eyes. Not from the kid’s, though. She wasn’t telling him anything yet but in a quiet voice asking him what happened. He sat down across from them and waited.

As the boy talked, McNulty tried to fight back waves of sadness but didn’t do so well. He thought about his son, Kevin, being told he was dead. Tears welled up behind his eyes. He stifled them. Bartenders don’t cry. When they’d been in the apartment only a short time, the downstairs bell rang. It was Ray. McNulty opened the apartment door for him, and Ray stood in the doorway watching Adele and the boy for a minute. No one spoke and then the kid got up and ran to bury his face in Ray’s midsection. Ray looked at Adele. There was a good deal going on in both their faces.

For a while, the three of them sat on the couch, the kid in the middle. The kid had told Adele what happened but he told it again to Ray.

A man was coming to the apartment, the kid said. Mom said he was going to give her money. Whoever he was, Mom was scared. She told Johnny to go before the man got there. He didn’t know where to go, so he grabbed Miss Adele’s keys and her phone and took off. He passed the man on the street and watched him go into the building. He didn’t think the man saw him come out of the building. He couldn’t call Miss Adele because he had her phone and he didn’t know how to call Mr. Ambler. He remembered where she lived from the day they went to the zoo, so he went there. When she didn’t answer the bell, he went up to her apartment and opened the door with the key.

That was it. Sitting across from them, McNulty felt pretty much forgotten. Which was okay, he didn’t have anything to say to anyone. Still, it didn’t seem right to leave. Adele and Ray had to tell the kid he didn’t have a mother anymore. What do you say about that? People came to bars sometimes when they were grieving. More than a few times, a guy’s halfway through his third drink and pipes up that his father had passed, or a good buddy threw a seven the night before.

It happened with Ray the night after the writer Yates was killed. Ray stayed longer and drank more than was his wont talking about the guy. He never knew what you said when someone started talking like that. He guessed the job was to listen, let the guy kill his snakes. Nothing could comfort him when he was a kid and his mother died. She wasn’t murdered. Her dying was slow. He got to watch her waste away until the time came when she didn’t get out of bed, when she was skin and bones and hardly awake at all. Everyone knew, even him, she’d be dead soon. He knew it and couldn’t imagine it. Until it happened. She was dead. Gone to return no more. He went numb. His dad woke him up in the morning, put food in front of him, sent him to shower, took him to school. He didn’t think. He was empty. Thinking back now, what he remembered was darkness.