The old lady’s rheumy eyes widened, then blinked. My heart nearly stopped beating, that’s how taken aback I was by my own impudence, but then she handed me the ragged gardening gloves she’d been holding, took the bottle, and twisted the cap.
“Thank you, my dear. As you can imagine, it’s been quite a time.” She turned to the policewoman. “This thoughtful young lady is one of our newer neighbors. Some people I’ve known for forty years have brushed right past me, without a word.”
The policewoman made a clucking noise at such a lack of manners and then relaxed against the building once again. I squatted next to the gardener while she took tiny sips from the Dasani bottle.
She recapped the bottle and leaned back in her chair.
“Did you ever meet Mr. Rheingold? Top floor, full terrace? He was a blustery, winter kind of man. In all the years he lived here, the few times he broke his silence, it was with a snarl or a roar. Not the nicest of neighbors, but at least he didn’t come home stumbling drunk like 5D or beat his wife like 3F. All the same, now he’s dead.”
“He had a wife? How terrible for her.”
“A wife of sorts. She flits in and out of the building, covered in jewelry and wearing one flashy outfit after the other. Where does she go, in her revolving-door life? Clara from the sixth floor said she once saw Linda Rheingold get into a snazzy yellow car waiting at the hydrant around the corner. The driver was a young man. A very young man.”
She gave me a knowing nod. Abruptly, the events on the roof overtook her.
“I heard the shot. Big, loud bang. I thought it was the maintenance crew. You know how noisy they are when they clean or fix things.”
I nodded vigorously.
“I tell you, when I saw Mr. Rheingold push through the roof door, clutching his chest, blood everywhere, my first though was that the missus and her young man decided to hurry him along his path to heaven. Not that it’s likely he’ll wind up there.”
She reopened the water bottle and took a quick nip.
“Fell right at my feet. It was too late to help him. He said something, sounded like Cladder, you know, ladder with a C in front. Like that. Then his eyes glazed, just like my second husband’s eyes, down at the veterans’ hospital on Twenty-fourth Street.”
I watched as her whole being rolled back to her second husband’s death, be it last week or decades ago.
She shook off the memory.
“I told the police to look for the young man Linda footsied around with. I bet his name is Cladder or something like it.”
Not Cladder. Claddagh! The old Claddagh village in Galway City. Casey Rheingold’s dying word was connected to our heritage, if only I knew why.
I leaned on the back of the old lady’s chair, hoisted myself up, and offered to go to the corner store to buy her something to eat.
“You’re a good girl, but I’m too excited to be hungry. When the excitement dies down, stop by to see me.” She stretched out her right hand. “Mildred Stresky, apartment 2D.”
I shook her hand with a warm two-handed clasp designed to cover my evasive answer. “I’m Rynne Bannon. I promise to visit soon.”
A police siren was coming ever closer. I saw the print reporters and film crews gathering. Perhaps DCPI had finally sent a spokesman. I stepped away from Mrs. Stresky and, morphing from caring neighbor to freelance journalist, I joined the crowd bunched around a makeshift podium. A dark-haired, middle-aged man, wearing black horn-rimmed eyeglasses, stood at the podium and held out his hands to quiet us. He clearly announced his title as captain, mumbled his name, and then droned on about the day’s events.
“Responding to a 911 call at 18:20 hours, that’s 6:20 p.m., two patrol officers assigned to the Twentieth Precinct found the body of Casey Rheingold, aged fifty-two. Mr. Rheingold was a senior partner in the law firm of Stoddard and Weiss. He expired on the roof of the building where he lived.”
Captain Mumbles pointed in the general direction of the address plate above the entryway.
“FDNY emergency medical technicians pronounced him dead at the scene, probably from a gunshot wound to the chest. Mr. Rheingold’s body has been removed to the office of the medical examiner.”
A voice from the crowd intruded.
“So, it’s murder, right, Captain? Oh, yeah, and could you spell your last name for us?”
“We expect the medical examiner to declare this death a homicide and are investigating accordingly. My name is Morales. M-O-R-A-L-E-S.”
For nearly three centuries on two continents, I keened for thousands of O’Conor deaths caused by old age or illness. The Famine, accidents, and some wild and bloody fights took their toll as well. This war or that war piled the numbers higher. Still, I always knew the reason.
Many’s the time my mother, Roisin, Banshee Queen of Connaught, would argue with me. “It doesn’t matter why they die. Dead is dead.”
But I’m my father’s child as well. After each awareness, I would savor the intimation, be it hospital bed or battlefield, which helped me to let the O’Conor rest in peace.
Not once in thousands of deaths over hundreds of years, have I suspected murder. How can I close the banshee scroll, knowing that Casey Rheingold’s death was not a result of the natural order of things?
The press conference ended, and people were starting to drift away, when a buxom woman, in an ultratight leopard print sweater, stepped from a cab, drawing every eye. She moved toward the building door. Sitting on the edge of the rear seat of the cab, a sweaty young man ran one hand over his retreating hairline and then recounted a fistful of currency.
The doorman hurried forward, touched his cap, and offered the woman his arm. He addressed her by name, causing the reporters to regroup and circle her like vultures waiting for the last gasp of breath.
“Mrs. Rheingold?”
“Hey, Linda, anything to say about your late husband?”
“How does it feel to be widowed by a murderer?”
Linda Rheingold spun on the tips of her open-toed, three-inch high-heeled shoes. Her white-blonde hair whipped from side to side as she spat the words like sour milk. “How the hell do you think it feels?”
She looked past the crowd. “Jeremy, let’s get inside.”
The young man threw another bill at the cabbie and reached Linda Rheingold at the same moment as Captain Morales. Together, they swept her inside.
I didn’t believe the new widow would bring her secret lover home, but I had to be sure. I pushed my way through the press crowd to Mrs. Stresky, who was standing with both hands resting on the folding chair.
“I’m free to go upstairs. They’re even taking down the yellow tape. Things will look normal again in a few minutes. I could use a small sherry. Would you care to join me?”
Of course I would. A perfect opportunity for a chat.
“Rynne, dear, would you carry the folding chair to Ivan, please?”
It was a long, blank moment before I realized that Ivan was likely the doorman. With the chair in one hand and Mrs. Stresky leaning heavily on my other arm, I passed unquestioned through the crowd of police, reporters, neighbors, and spectators.
The doilies and antimacassars covering everything in sight gave an inkling of what Queen Victoria’s sitting room must have been like. It would be generous to describe the old furniture as antiques, but even so, every piece was buffed to a high shine.
I settled in a high-backed velvet wing chair. Mrs. Stresky stood at a lace covered sideboard pouring sherry into microscopic stemware resting on a silver tray.
She served me elegantly, set the tray on the coffee table, and took her own glass in hand, raising it in a silent salute.
I touched my glass to hers, brought it to my lips, and then nearly choked when Mrs. Stresky asked, “Who are you really? Not a reporter, I hope. I know you don’t live in the building. Why did you stop to talk to me?”
I took a deep breath. “I came here to keep an appointment. Then I saw all the fuss and noticed you, looking exhausted and with a police guard and all. I just wanted to see if you were all right.”