Greg grimaced. “He’s not a person I’d entrust my life to while crossing the street.”
“Me either. Sometimes I think Sebastian should lead him instead of vice versa. All in all, he’s a pretty poor murder suspect.”
Greg began crumbling the edges of his sourdough roll. “He sure is, and I didn’t get anything useful from the other tenants of your building. They are the strangest damned lot.”
“Maybe I’m not around enough to notice it.”
“The next time you are, take a good look. There’s your manager, who evidently packs away beer on a round-the-clock schedule. There’s the guy on the second floor who has a huge statue of a nude woman in his living room — and nothing else except the Murphy bed. And there’s a woman on the third floor who looks exactly like a witch.”
“Mrs. Neverman.”
“Ah, you know her? She greeted me with a gun — the registration of which I’ve already verified — and refused to let me into her apartment because I might be a rapist. She thought nothing, however, of coming out into a dark hallway to talk to me.”
“You, a rapist?”
“Yeah, you never can tell when I’ll turn on you. Anyway, the Neverman woman claimed to be Antonio’s best friend, but she couldn’t tell me a single thing about her that shed any light on her death.”
“She’s probably suspicious of the police. She certainly seems suspicious of everyone else, the way she creeps around there. I don’t believe she’s ever spoken to me.”
“Huh.” Greg pushed his blond hair off his forehead. “Finally, there’s your corner grocer. Ye gods!”
“Mr. Moe? What did you think of him?”
“He’s got to be totally crackers. Kept insisting Antonio had died because of some evil prophecy from her fortune teller, but he couldn’t tell me who this prophetess of doom is or what she said.”
“Oh, he gave you that too?” But Mr. Moe hadn’t seemed to take the prophecy story seriously when I’d talked to him. Had he used it as a smokescreen? “What else did he say?”
“That she was in twice yesterday, once around five and again at seven. It fits with the time of death and the theory that she surprised her killer.”
I nodded. But something about the timing disturbed me. What? “I suppose you ran a check on Mr. Moe.”
Greg took a swig of beer. “Makhlouf? Sure. Why?”
I shrugged. “He’s one of these neighborhood characters that interests me.”
“As well he should. His story is more interesting than most we hear.”
“Tell me.”
“Mr. Moe, as they call him, emigrated to New York from Saudi Arabia as a teenager. His father was reasonably well off, and he bought a grocery store in Brooklyn. After his death, Mr. Moe continued to operate it. He married, had one child.”
“How’d he end up here?”
“The child, a daughter, married and moved here first. Then Mr. Moe’s wife was killed by a mugger — for less than five dollars, all she had in her purse. Mr. Moe sold out and came here to be with his daughter.”
“I never guessed that he had a family. He seems so solitary.”
“He is, now. Tragedy followed him here. The daughter, her husband, and their baby died in that big apartment house fire on Church Street seven years ago. Mr. Moe lived with them, but he was out buying the paper when the blaze started. Several months later, he bought his current grocery store, probably to keep his mind off his loss.”
I shook my head. “Symbolic, in a way.”
“What is?”
“The name of the store: the Albatross. A man with all that tragedy hanging around his neck might choose it for just that reason.”
Greg’s dark-blond eyebrows pulled together. “I doubt he’s all that literary-minded.”
“His record’s clean, though?”
“Reasonably. He’s been hauled in on suspicion of discounting liquor in New York, and there was some indication he’d received stolen goods from time to time, but basically he’s clean.”
“So that’s where your case stands.”
“Yep. Unless you have something else to add.”
“I don’t.”
“Too bad.” Greg crumbled the remainder of his sourdough roll and tossed a piece to a pigeon that strutted nearby.
I glanced up at the ominous cloud of birds that suddenly descended on us. Seeing my frightened face, Greg put the bread down and spread empty hands to them. “Sorry. I forgot you’re afraid of winged creatures.”
“I know it’s silly, but it’s a common phobia. And phobias like that can kill you. I’ve read of people dying of shock from being exposed to perfectly innocent things they feared. So no more feeding the birds, okay?”
“Okay.” He balled up the wrapper from his sandwich and stuffed it into the bag.
I started clearing the other picnic things, my eyes on the blanket. “Greg,” I said, “about the murder weapon...”
“Yes?”
“What exactly was it?”
“A piece of drapery cord. Unfortunately, it was a type of common manufacture.”
“It must have been cut off a longer piece, right?”
“Yes.” A puzzled note crept into his voice.
“So, if you found the other piece, you could match them? By microscope?”
“We could. Why?”
“Just curious.”
He watched me thoughtfully for a few seconds, then stood and folded the blanket. I retreated to the car as he tossed out a few remaining pieces of bread to the birds. We drove back to the Hall of Justice in silence.
When I had pulled up to the curb, I asked, “What do you think of Mr. Moe’s fortune teller lead?”
“It’s interesting. Why don’t you follow up on it?”
“Okay. I’ve got some free time.”
“Great.” He got out of the car and leaned back in the window. “After all,” he said with a grin, “I’d catch hell if I spent the taxpayers’ money on an all-expense-paid trip to Fantasy-land.” He turned and loped off toward the Hall before I could reply.
Dammit! I thought as I watched him take the steps two at a time with his agile gait. Was the man ever serious?
5
By the time I had run some errands and found another parking space near my building, it was close to four o’clock. Anxious to check on Linnea, I hurried toward home, but was arrested by a familiar procession on the opposite sidewalk.
A small, gray man, stooped with arthritis, led a taller, heavyset man by the arm. The big man wore an Army surplus parka to which were attached dozens of brushes — hair brushes, wisk brooms, feather dusters, bottle brushes — each held in place by a wire hook. He carried several brooms. The little man lugged a worn cloth suitcase with bulging sides.
Gus and Sebastian, the brush man, going about business as usual less than twenty-four hours after Gus’s wife’s death. Or were they? What was the heavy-looking suitcase for?
The pair crossed the street toward me, Gus raising a hand in greeting.
“It’s Miss McCone,” he told Sebastian.
“Gus,” I said, “I’m sorry about Molly.”
He peered at me with red-rimmed eyes. The lines of his face and his jowls sagged dolefully. “Thanks, Miss McCone.”
Sebastian shuffled forward and placed a hand on my arm.
“How’re you?” I asked.
His face, scarred and pitted by the explosion that had blinded him, twisted. “Not good at all. This is a terrible day.”
To Gus, he added, “Why don’t you go get the key from Tim? Miss McCone can help me upstairs.”