The Oxygen Murder (34 page)

She looked forward to being able to get back to working on . . .

Lori stopped short. Fortunately no one was directly behind her. She was having too many of these moments lately. This time it wasn’t a bright idea that stopped her.

Billy Keenan was sitting on the front steps of her building.

Lori stepped partway into the doorway of Lou’s Pizza. She squinted and strained her neck to locate the unmarked. The car that had been there at eight thirty this morning was gone, and she didn’t see anything else that seemed likely.

This is silly,
she told herself. How could a cute farm boy be dangerous unless he’d had one too many and a pitchfork in his hand?

She stepped out of the doorway and looked toward her building again.

Her stoop was empty.

C
HAPTER
T
WENT
-E
IGHT

T
he hospital stairway to the street, empty and hollow, painted in shades of gray, stretched above and below me.

Once again, I was alone in Manhattan. How did I orchestrate so many moments of stark solitary confinement in New York City? The next time I heard about the throngs of visitors, the thirty-seven hundred buses (this from Rose), or the urban jungle, I’d have an experience or two to share.

I moved as quickly as I could down the long multilevel flights, ran out of breath, then stopped at the next landing. I was grateful for the large, dark gray numbers painted on the wall to tell me what floor I’d reached, but disappointed to see the
8.
I wasn’t even halfway down. I sat on a step and listened for footsteps.

Nothing. I didn’t know whether to be glad or upset that the stairwell was quiet and vacant.

No hospital sounds got through the thick stairwell doors. No noisy gurneys or food racks or beeping monitors. Not even the heavy smells of medicines and boiled food that had permeated the hospital corridors made it through to my perch.

I was trapped in a solid insulated chamber. Larger than a single elevator car, but no less frightening.
At least this one isn’t sealed shut,
I reminded myself.

I stood up, my knees shaking, but more from the eerie environment, I thought, than the physical exertion. At least so far.

Four more flights, and I barely had feeling in my calves. I was on the fourth floor.
Almost there,
I told myself, struggling to ignore the pain in my chest and the dryness of my mouth. So this was why
people joined health clubs, I mused. To be in shape for this kind of emergency.

Thud.

The sound of a stairwell door closing on a floor above me echoed down the shaft; it was unclear from how high up. I pressed my back against the wall and heard muffled voices. A picture of two goons, the size a private investigator might hire, on their way to kill me came to my mind.

I closed my eyes, unable to move.
This is it,
I thought. It could be weeks before a power outage sent people scurrying to the stairwells where my bloody body would be found.

“Come on, Sheila, no one’s gonna see us.” A deep, urgent voice.

Then a giggle and “I don’t know, Stevie . . .”

“Just relax, baby. You’re on your break, right?”

Lovebirds.
Don’t do it, Sheila. Hold out for a nice hotel.
Or were these two hit men trying to throw me off? I couldn’t risk waiting to find out. I zipped down the last three flights, convincing myself there really were knees and legs under me though I felt neither.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed the door marked
STREET
.

I expected the comfort of daylight and a busy city sidewalk but found myself instead in a narrow alley, dark even at this hour of the day, because the buildings were so close together. The sky was overcast, as gray as the stairwell, leaving the alley bereft of warmth or sunlight.

I was breathing hard and thought of researching an elevator support group.

I made my way to the street where a most wonderful vision awaited, better than sunshine: a line of yellow taxis.

As my cab pulled away, I looked around for signs of the NYPD. Would Dee Dee be arrested once they knew she’d lied to them? Or Zach for whatever was on
CURRY II?
Or me, if Tina alerted the police that I might be hindering their investigation?

I looked at my watch. Oddly enough, I’d be at Zach’s company in a couple of hours. If they’d already posted a job opening for regional
purchasing manager, I’d have my answer and I’d be able to go home soon.

This time I called Matt.

“Where are you now?” he asked immediately.

“On my way to a nice, relaxing lunch with Rose and Grace.”

I heard a combination grunt-sigh. All he really needed to know was that I was safe; he didn’t have to believe I was relaxed.

“What have you got?”

Back on the job. I briefed him on what I’d learned from Dee Dee about her three trips to Lori’s building, starting with the possible Billy sighting on Saturday.

“The day before Amber was murdered, and two days before he says he arrived in town,” Matt said. “I’ll see if anything like that is in the police report from canvassing the neighbors.”

“Do you know where Billy is now?” I asked, hoping they’d convinced him not to go back to Lori’s.

“Buzz says they told him that Lori’s apartment might be a dangerous place to be, possibly the killer is coming back, Lori is moving out also, and so on. I think they offered to get him a room in a Y and take his duffel bag to him. As far as I know, that ploy worked.”

“I’ll bet Billy is all too willing to believe New York is a bad place and no one is safe,” I said.

“It’s not great to have to play on someone’s fears, but whatever works. Back to that Curry video. If Dee Dee’s report is correct, Zach now has a disk that Lori thinks she has but doesn’t?”

“Right. Unless she’s tried to view it. My question is, Why bother doing that? Eventually Lori would see that it was missing.” I wondered if Matt’s explanation would make any more sense than Dee Dee’s.

“They’re just buying time, figuring that by the time Lori discovers it’s gone, she won’t be able to trace back to when she saw it last. It’s amateur, but most criminals are amateurs. I’ll give Lori a call and see if she’s figured it out.”

I started to say good-bye, but Matt interrupted. “I almost forgot. Buzz made me promise I’d tell you this one.”

I groaned.

“Listen,” Matt said, “Buzz doesn’t usually take to laypeople horning in on a case, so count it as a compliment that he wants to send you a message. It’s his way of saying he likes you.”

“In that case, give it to me.”

“ ‘I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.’ ”

“Okay, mildly funny. Aren’t you getting carried away with these baseball quotes? You don’t even like baseball.”

“The Yankees are different. They’re not just a team, they’re an institution. Also, when in Rome . . .”

“Wait. I thought of one,” I said. “Here’s an Einstein quote. Just to show Buzz I like him.”

“Give it to me.” Matt tried to mimic my churlishness.

“From Einstein. ‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’ ”

“Whoa. I like it. Worthy of Yogi himself,” Matt said.

I thought Einstein would have been pleased to hear it.

I made it to the New Vineyard for lunch by eleven forty-two. The restaurant comprised one sprawling new-looking dining room with sparkling glasses hanging from the ceiling over the bar and plants fanning out from the rafters everywhere else. Small Christmas trees twinkled here and there throughout. I breathed in deeply to enhance the smell of zeppole, the fried dough that had been a staple of my youth.

I made my way through the busy area, partially knocking over a top-heavy coat chair in the process, to join Rose and Grace at a back table.

Fortunately Rose’s watch was always fifteen minutes slow, so I knew she’d consider me right on time. When I approached, she and Grace were deep into a conversation about the many specialty shopping areas Manhattan offered.

“I never knew there were so many districts, Gloria,” Rose said, helping me get settled and placing a small zeppoli on my bread plate. “Silver district, diamond district—well, I knew about that one, of course.” Rose wiggled her earlobe with her finger to call attention to the diamond studs Frank had given her when their first child, Karla’s
husband, was born. “There’s even a shoe district, down on Eighth Street. That’s one I need to get to on my next trip.”

“The hat district is still my favorite,” Grace said. She dipped into a green-and-red-striped shopping bag by her seat and pulled out packages of thick felt, colorful ribbon, and several decorative buckles and pins. “It’s
the
place to buy materials for custom millinery.”

Grace had told us at dinner that the hat district was in the West Thirties between Fifth and Sixth avenues, east of the garment district, but still on the West Side. “I thought you were going to shop on the East Side,” I said.

“We covered a lot of ground,” Rose said. “Including a glassmaking store on Madison Avenue.”

Rose and I had visited with the Sassos on previous trips, but usually only for dinner and a performance of one kind or another. Staying in town longer this time gave Rose a chance to indulge her shopping fantasies with a native New Yorker. I wanted to hug Grace for making my friend so happy and not involving me in the process.

I made appropriate excited sounds over Grace’s purchases. Then I noticed that one of the packets of ribbon was coffee-colored.

Uh-oh.

I could see that Rose had been waiting for my reaction: Clearly Grace had been commissioned to make a hat for me for my wedding party, which Rose kept referring to as a reception.

“It’s going to be a tiny, tiny hat, Gloria. No one will even know you have it on.”

“Then why should I wear it?”

“Just for the appearance.”

For some reason this exchange sent Grace into a fit of laughter. For Rose and me it was business as usual.

Rose’s purchases had come from the shops on Mulberry Street, the heart of Little Italy. She had found a gold mine of Italian souvenirs: the long, skinny red pepper that brought good luck, on key rings, pot holders, and T-shirts; and the mal’occhio fingers that kept away bad luck, also on key rings, pot holders, and T-shirts. Something for everyone back home.

I envied Rose and Grace and other people who could get so excited about shops that had nothing that plugged in or required calibration.

I needed to buy something soon, I thought, just to prove I’d been to New York City during Christmas season.

Aware that I had a meeting with Lori at two o’clock, Rose had ordered for me. I accepted a steaming plate of clam linguini from a young blond server wearing a Santa hat, as did the other restaurant staff. He set identical plates in front of Rose and Grace.

I knew Rose preferred the smaller restaurants with middle-aged waiters who lived in the apartments above the establishments and hardly spoke English. After one taste of the delicious clam sauce, though, we all agreed it didn’t matter that the floors were new and shiny instead of old linoleum with wax buildup.

Blip blip blip. Blip blip blip.

My cell phone. I checked the caller ID and clicked it on.

Rose frowned.

“My husband,” I said to her. “Maybe it’s about our wedding.”

Her frown disappeared.

“Is Lori with you?” Matt asked.

The lack of preamble worried me. “No, we’d planned to meet at Curry’s. What’s the matter?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“But?”

“Buzz says Billy is out.”

My stomach clutched. “How?”

“I guess he’s not as much of a country bumpkin as he seems. Apparently he just asked a uniform who brought him a soda if he was under arrest. The cop says no and Billy says ’bye. The good news is that the canvass did turn up a neighbor who saw Amber fighting with a young man on Saturday morning. Between Dee Dee’s claim and this one, they can bring him in as soon as they find him.”

“That’s something.” I swallowed hard. “When they find him.”

“I’m going to hang up now and try her cell again,” Matt said. “I’ll let you know.”

C
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WENTY
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