It was the same kind of ancient Parker my father had, the one he had used until he died.
“What’s that you’re writing?”
He looked up. “Just the name of a song I’ve been thinking about. We better go inside now. You look cold. You’re feeling pain from that blow to the head you received?” He got up and opened the door to the shed. “Get some rest, Artie. And if you need anything, come on by. I’m a pretty good doctor. Come sometime when Celestina is out, and I’ll play you a record. Lily says you like jazz music, is that right?”
“Yes.”
He held up his notebook. “Tune called ‘Blood Count.’ Billy Strayhorn, last thing he wrote when he was dying. Ellington recorded it. I met Strayhorn right over at the Hospital for Joint Diseases around that time. Friend of mine worked there-when was it? It must have been ‘67-and he told me about the tune. Tell Lily to play it for you. I gave her a copy,” he said.
“I’d like that.”
He tapped his cigarette pack. It was empty. “I better go get myself some smokes before Celestina decides she has to lock me in again. Silly woman. Bitter. But you’re not interested in my domestic arrangements are you, Artie?” Hutchison left the shed and I followed him outside, where he crossed the roof toward the door to the building. He paused, turning to look at me. “What you’re really after is knowing if I killed Marianna Simonova, isn’t that right?”
CHAPTER 25
A round the perimeter of the roof was a yellow-brick wall about four feet high. One area was damaged, bricks missing. KEEP AWAY read a handwritten sign. Plastic sheets marked the area. There was snow on the roof. I saw my own footsteps in it
Hutchison had gone downstairs now. I was alone on the roof. I went and looked at the work area and my foot slipped on the wet plastic. I backed off. I was dizzy. It would be easy to topple over, fall from the roof, land in front of the Armstrong on Edgecombe Avenue where there was snow thick in the bare branches of the trees. I crossed the roof, found more broken wall, looked out, this time over the parking lot back of the building. You’d go over, and just fall, fucking splat, a mess of broken bones, dead.
My head hurt like hell. The Oxycontin I’d taken for the pain was making me wired, out of control. I needed more. I hated the side effects. What the fuck did Hutchison spend his time up here for?
I liked the old man. I didn’t believe he had killed Simonova, no matter what he’d said. But he had been with her when she died. He’d been in her apartment.
I went back to the shed, looked around, but there wasn’t anything, no sign Hutchison had been here except for a few cigarette butts on the ground. I reached in my pocket for the painkillers. Put the bottle back. Realized I still had Lionel Hutchison’s lighter.
Regina McGee was lying on a gurney when I got to the fourteenth floor. I’d emerged from the stairwell, and she was there, lying on the thing, medics pushing her toward the elevator. She half opened her eyes, saw me, and tried to smile, but couldn’t. She was trying to tell me something, and I leaned over, but she couldn’t speak. She looked frightened.
“Hold the door, will you, man?” said one of the medics, gesturing at the elevator.
“What’s wrong with her?”
He shook his head. “She’s old, man.”
“Trouble breathing,” said the other medic. “We got her on oxygen.”
I looked down the hall. Nobody was around. I looked at McGee. Was somebody else going to die here, die from lack of oxygen, die from something nobody could quite pinpoint?
“Lady said she had chest pains, couldn’t breathe, we gotta respond,” said the first medic as the elevator door opened and I held the button for them. “You a friend?”
“Yes.”
He leaned closer. “Ask me, it’s just dehydration, but better safe than sorry, you know?”
As they maneuvered her into the elevator, I looked around again, surprised nobody was in the hall. People on this floor were always alert to new sounds, movement, people coming and going. Now, nothing. The elevator door slid shut. Again, I wondered: Was Regina McGee another victim? But what of? Of living in the Armstrong?
When Mrs. Hutchison answered her door, she looked at me, my hair and clothes wet from snow, with disdain. Or was it contempt?
“She was wearing a heavy tweed jacket, a man’s jacket, too big for her. Around her neck was a woolen scarf, and on her head, the same yellow cap I’d seen her in before. The jacket had a button missing.
“I have your husband’s lighter,” I held out the Zippo.
“Do you?” said Mrs. Hutchison. “You shouldn’t encourage him.” She didn’t offer to take the lighter. I held on to it for the time being and stood in the doorway, hoping she’d invite me in. I wanted a look at the Hutchison place. I gave her my best smile.
“Cold today,” I said by way of small talk. “Is the doctor here?”
“He’s gone out. He came back from his smoking-with you, I imagine-and said he had to nip out. Cigarettes, I’m sure. I don’t like it the way he wanders about. Just do not like it, but never you mind,” she said. “Will you come in? I haven’t much time. I only came back from my sister’s to change my clothes for the party this evening. I must remember to pack my little bag, as I shall stay over with my sister afterwards,” she added. “Well, don’t just stand there, come in.”
I went into the hall, which was lit by a huge hanging chandelier, half the bulbs missing.
“Can I offer you some sweet tea?” said Mrs. Hutchison.
Taking off the yellow cap, she smoothed the few remaining strands of hair on her bald head, then put it back on. Her face was small, the skin taut and deep brown. The dark eyes peered at me, they took in everything, but they also held a barely suppressed fury.
I followed her into the living room, hardwood floors, old Turkish rugs, the same high ceilings and moldings as Simonova’s. The ancient floorboards were scrubbed and polished. The place smelled of pine oil. There was a small Christmas tree on a grand piano. The piano keys were yellow and broken.
The dog bounded in from another room.
“Ed, say hello to Detective Cohen,” said Mrs. Hutchison. “Do you know that silly girl, Marie Louise, is frightened of him? Who would be frightened of my lovely Ed? She had the gall to tell me he is possessed by some kind of evil spirit. She’s a backward one, that girl, but that’s Africa for you.” Mrs. Hutchison played with the dog’s ears. “Now your Lily, she’s a lovely girl. She appreciates my Ed. Very caring, that girl, at least so far as it goes. Interested in us old folk up here. You were her boyfriend.” It wasn’t a question. Clearly, there were no secrets in the Armstrong. “You should marry her, Detective Cohen.”
I kept my mouth shut.
“I know she’s been seeing the Radcliff boy, but he’s too damn young for her, and if you ask me, like should marry like. Wouldn’t you say? You think I’m blunt, well, as one of my sisters says, ‘Celestina, she takes no prisoners.’ What about that tea? Or would you prefer some whiskey?”
I said I’d like the tea. I called her Mrs. Hutchison, but she said to call her Miss Cellie. I wanted to get under her skin, but it was tight, that old skin, and hard to get under.