The Deadliest Option (29 page)

“What was that?” Smith rasped.

“Shshsh.” Wetzon shook her head vigorously.

There it was again. A rattling sound, as if someone were trying the front door.

She turned to Smith, who had come up behind her and was clutching her arm with clammy fingers. The sound stopped. They both took a breath and fell into each other’s arms, giggling. “We’re stupid,” Wetzon whispered.

But there it came again—only different.

Someone was unlocking—
unlocking
—the front door. Wetzon tiptoed out to the living room, Smith at her heels, barely breathing.

Who was it with a key? Certainly not the EMS or the police. Someone like David Kim? The murderer returning to the scene of the crime? Who?

Smith’s cold hand clasped hers. They stood just beyond the doorway to the kitchen, listening.

The outside door opened. A dull thud as of something heavy that was dropped. Then a yell. “Hi, Mom, I’m home.”

S
MITH RELEASED
W
ETZON’S
hand, and Wetzon’s first thought was,
What is Mark doing here?
But this wasn’t Mark. She shook her head trying to clear her thoughts.
Ellie had a daughter.

“Mom?” Rapid footsteps came closer. The floorboard creaked.

Tell her, tell her.
Wetzon propelled herself into the doorway. “Please don’t be frightened,” she said. The figure in front of her stopped. “We’re friends of your mother—” She motioned to Smith.

A girl of about eleven or twelve came into the room, puzzlement distorting her features, her long red hair in the intentionally wild, unkempt fashion of the day. “Where’s my mother?” she asked, looking around.

Wetzon exchanged concerned glances with Smith, who said, “I’m Xenia and this is Leslie.”

“I’m Melissa.”

“Well, Melissa—” Wetzon stopped short. She felt a lump in her throat yea big.

“Come sit down, Melissa,” Smith chimed in. “You’re a bit of a surprise.”

“I know.” Melissa brushed her hair from her face in a gesture reminiscent of Ellie. “I said I’d be home tomorrow, but I got a ride.” She was wearing shiny blue short tights that ended about midthigh, red ankle-high Reeboks and a trimmed cotton shirt that rode off one skinny shoulder. Lolita.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, dear,” Smith said. She looked at Wetzon.

“Melissa ... oh, God.” Wetzon swallowed. Smith put her arm around Melissa and nodded for Wetzon to continue. They stood awkwardly near the archway entrance to the living room. Melissa’s eyes traveled beyond them to the open draperies.

The doorbell rang again.

“Melissa,” Wetzon said, thinking she’d seen Melissa before somewhere, or a picture of her. “Your mother’s been in an accident.”

The girl’s face blanched. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

“Hold on to me, sugarplum,” Smith said with unusual gentleness. She steered Melissa to the sofa and sat down with her.

Pounding came from the door. “Police. Open up.”

Wetzon raced down the hall, almost tripping over the huge canvas duffel bag and leather knapsack near the door. “Just a minute, I’m coming,” she called, and yanked the door open.

A uniformed policeman—short, thick-waisted, and sweating— stood in the vestibule, two EMS attendants behind him. Beyond them on the street, competing, were the whirling lights of the squadcar and the blinking lights from the EMS van. His eyes took in her snarled hair, puffy eyes, bandaged knee. “You are Ms. Smith?” His mustache covered his upper lip; his nametag read KALISH.

“I’m Leslie Wetzon. Ms. Smith is inside with Ellie Kaplan’s daughter.” Wetzon stood aside to let them in, kicking the baggage out of the way.

A plaintive howl came from the living room, and when Wetzon followed the traffic down the hall, she saw Melissa struggling to get to the garden, Smith trying to pull her back to the sofa.

“Please, miss, stand aside,” Kalish said, firmly. “You don’t want to be out there. It’s best to let the EMS guys handle it. They know what to do.”

Melissa crumpled, and Smith helped her back to the sofa.

A lanky policewoman, her dark skin shining with sweat, appeared. She took off her hat and wiped her face with a big white handkerchief, and looked around, puzzled.

“They’re outside,” Wetzon said, standing near the windows. “In the garden.”

The policewoman replaced her hat and went out to the garden.

Dazed, Melissa was sitting bolt upright, her hands twisted together in her lap. Smith looked sick.

Wetzon knew the place would soon be swarming with detectives, technicians, and medical specialists, not to mention someone from the D.A.’s office. This was no place for a child. It was no place for anybody.

Abruptly, the EMS attendants trooped back through the living room and left the apartment. There was nothing anyone could do for Ellie anymore.

The policewoman stepped into the living room and closed the door to the garden. “Where’s the phone?” The tag on her breast said ANDREWS.

“It’s in the kitchen, but the wire’s been cut,” Wetzon said.

Andrews shrugged and thumped down the hall and out.

Melissa had all but disintegrated in Smith’s arms, and Smith didn’t look too copacetic herself.
So much for the pleasure she had felt about being involved
, Wetzon thought. Agitated, she walked down the hall and stood in the front doorway. The siren blast from the EMS van filled the air for a minute as the van pulled away from the curb, then silence, broken from time to time by radio static from the squadcar. A small, curious crowd, had gathered. Another squadcar pulled up where the EMS van had been, and a cop methodically began to put up a barricade in front of the entrance and string yellow tape around. He hummed off-key as he worked.

Sweating and shivering simultaneously, Wetzon pressed her forehead against the cool doorjamb. Ellie’s daughter. Why had she never mentioned—?

An unmarked car arrived and two detectives got out. They stopped to speak to Andrews, who sat in her cruiser talking on the radio. She pointed to Wetzon. A second car disgorged technicians and equipment. A third car pulled up with a screech of tires and Silvestri and Weiss got out of the front, Metzger from the back.

Wetzon watched all the gold shields flash at each other and choked back a giggle. Then she stepped aside and let them all troop by, Silvestri hanging back last. “Why are you always at the murder scene, lady?” he said over his shoulder.

She followed him. “That’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it?”

“What’s that bandage for?” This time he didn’t bother to turn around, just kept walking.

She caught up with him. “It’s nothing—a scratch. Silvestri, it was awful.” She felt as if her face were melting, eyes drooping, cheeks slipping into her jaw.

He turned and slipped his arm around her shoulders.

“Out here,” Weiss said, poking his head in from the garden.

Wetzon looked around the living room. Smith and Melissa were gone. Had they taken the girl out to see her mother? God. No. No one would be that cruel. “Where—”

“I told the woman and the kid to wait upstairs out of the way.” Weiss dematerialized.

Silvestri took in the staircase, then surveyed the rest of the room. He noted the broken glass, the open drawers. “What time did you get here?”

“About seven-thirty, quarter to eight.”

She told him about Ellie’s call and about coming in with Carlos and finding Dwayne. He listened, nodding. “Go on upstairs,” he said. “Try not to touch anything. “

“Couldn’t I just hang around here for a while? I’ll stay out of the way.” She sat on the sofa. “See.”

He shrugged and put his head in the kitchen. “Why should I think this time you’ll listen to me?” It was another rhetorical question.

“Smith and I had coffee after she cleaned up my cut.” She caught his frown. “We didn’t know there was anything wrong. I mean, we knew there was something wrong, we just didn’t know Ellie was dead. We thought she was at the meeting—”

“What meeting?”

“The one Neil mentions on the answering machine. Oh, God, I’m sorry. There are two messages on the answering machine in the kitchen.”

“Jesus H. Christ, Les, everything is always so complicated when you’re involved.” He went out and yelled for one of the uniforms. “I want someone in here to inventory the kitchen,” he said when an older, stout giant appeared.

Wetzon let her head loll on the back of the sofa; she was exhausted. Her eyes followed Silvestri into the entrance to the garden, already strung with CRIME SCENE tape. The small spot was crowded with cops and officials. No one paid any attention to her. She got up and climbed the stairs. No one was in Ellie’s room. She found Smith and Melissa curled up together, both asleep on Melissa’s frilly bed.

Sighing, she went back downstairs. She was very tired. She kicked her sandals off and settled into the womb of the overstuffed sofa. If one didn’t know better, the activity in the garden looked as if there were a party going on.

Wetzon leaned back and closed her eyes. What, she wondered, would become of Melissa? Did Ellie have an ex-husband around somewhere? She conjured up the child’s face. She looked like Ellie ... no, she didn’t ... yet she looked familiar.

She was becoming drowsy; her eyelids felt weighted; the sofa was so soft. Who ... Wetzon felt herself sinking into sleep, but she knew.

Melissa looked like Twoey.

I
T WAS SNOWING
a confetti of little bits of paper, but this time she knew she was dreaming because no way would it snow during a New York June heat wave. She awoke all tangled in the top sheet and quilt, tense and sweaty. That was it for fitful and disturbed sleep. She didn’t need it.

The white box of her Sony clock beamed five-thirty at her. She turned off the alarm, which was set for six-thirty, and put her feet on the floor. A burning pain shot up her leg. Blast! She’d forgotten about her cut, which a doctor at Roosevelt Hospital had cleaned, stitched up, and lightly bandaged in the wee hours. It had been about two-thirty when she’d finally crawled into bed. And then she’d lain there trying to wipe the chilling image of Ellie Kaplan out of her mind.

Silvestri hadn’t come home at all. He seemed to make do very well with much less sleep than she needed, she thought resentfully.

She did a messy bath in the sink because she was not supposed to get her stitches wet and ended up with a swamp, water everywhere. Her mirror reflected back at her a haggard witch of a woman.
You’re not going to be young and cute forever, at this rate,
she told herself. She filled her glass with water and threw it at the reflection.
Take that, you old bag.
Her reflection dissolved into rivulets and she laughed.
You’ve lost it, Wetzon.

In the kitchen, hobbling, she did her coffee routine with her ancient Melitta, then checked her answering machine, which was blinking.

“Dwayne is okay, but is giving Lenox Hill his bod for the night,” Carlos said. “Birdie? Are you there? Where are you at this hour? You’re obviously not there. Well, I’m where I’m supposed to be. So ta-ta and all that.”

The other, infinitely more intriguing message, came after the next beep. It was from Doug Culver. Just his name and phone number in that soft drawl of his.

She dawdled over orange juice and her line-up of vitamins, then took her mug of coffee into the dining room, eyeing the barre, which she didn’t dare use lest she open the stitches. Something in particular was prodding her, something that had troubled her sleep. Confetti. Scraps of paper.

She found the scraps of paper she’d filched from Ellie’s blue makeup bag in her coin purse and spread them out on her dining room table, turning them this way and that, to position the pieces with writing face up. Some of the pieces were blank on both sides. She stared at what she had and shifted the pieces again, and again. Some pieces had to be missing because ... it was like working with a complicated jigsaw puzzle. Uh-oh ... wait one fine minute here.

Across the top she pieced together a heading:
Memora ton Ash.
What followed looked like a list of names and addresses, with numbers after the names on the right-hand side of the paper. Social Security numbers? No, not enough digits. She frowned. This was a photocopy, not an original. And Ash may or may not have written it on his stationery.

She found a piece of her own gray stationery. Rolling a bit of transparent tape around her finger, she mounted each scrap the way one preserved a stamp collection. Once the mock-up of the note was complete, she made a tube of it and slipped it in a baggie, then put the baggie in her briefcase. Silvestri would take it the next step, if a next step were warranted.

At seven she called Smith. “Did I wake you? How’s Melissa?” Melissa Kaplan had spent the night with Smith, at Smith’s insistence, in Mark’s room.

“No, you didn’t wake me. Gail Munchen woke me. And Melissa’s in shock.”

“Neil’s wife? How did she know where Melissa was?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Why don’t you ask how I feel?”

“How
do
you feel, Smith?”

“Beat up, thank you very much. She’s coming for Melissa in about an hour, after her tennis class.”

“Gail?”

“What’s the matter with you, Wetzon? I’m being perfectly clear,” Smith snapped.

“Gee, I’m sorry. I didn’t have the same experience you had last night, did I?”

“Oh, for pitysakes! Why are you being so sensitive? I can’t worry about you and your feelings right now.” The whistle of a teakettle shrilled. “Gail said Ellie would have wanted her to take Melissa. I’m making tea.”

“I’ll come over and have breakfast with you.”

“Bring some muffins and some milk—and coffee, if you want decaf. I’m out.”

When Wetzon arrived with a bag of groceries from Zabar’s, Melissa was sitting at Smith’s dining table staring at a tulip champagne glass of orange juice. She looked wan and heartbreakingly younger than her twelve years. The doctor had given her a sedative the previous night. Now smudges bled from under her eyes into her pale cheeks. Her jaunty outfit from the day before managed to look droopy and inappropriate for the morning after her mother’s violent death.