The turnout was sparse, although bigger than I thought it might be. Many of Dwayne’s ex-teammates were actually there – former Yankees and heroes of mine, whom on any other day I would’ve been thrilled to see in person.
Just not on this day.
Also on hand was Dwayne’s ex-wife, who had left him the same week that he’d been banned from baseball. She was a former Miss Delaware. Alongside her were their two children, now approaching their teens. I remembered reading that she had petitioned for full custody of them during the divorce and won without much of a fight from Dwayne. For a man unaccustomed to losing on the mound, once off it he had clearly known when he’d been beat.
“Let us pray,” said the minister at the front of Dwayne’s mahogany casket.
Hanging toward the back, hunched under an umbrella like everyone else, I felt strange being there. Technically, I’d only met Dwayne once. Then again, I was one of the last people to speak to him.
Maybe even the very last. Who knew?
Certainly not anyone standing around me. As the service broke, the chatter was all about the “man they once knew.” It was as if the poor soul who had reportedly jumped to his death from the terrace of his high-rise apartment had been a complete stranger to just about everyone at his funeral.
“Once he was banned from the game, it’s as if Dwayne stopped living,” I overhead someone say.
Now he’d just made it official.
What wasn’t official yet was the autopsy, but in the intense media frenzy following Dwayne’s death, a leaked toxicology report showed he was high on heroin. Space-shuttle high. That probably explained why he hadn’t left behind a suicide note.
One mystery down, perhaps.
Another still unresolved.
What the hell had Dwayne wanted to tell me?
Weirdly, I felt as though I was also hiding some kind of secret. Courtney was the only other person who knew about the late phone call Dwayne had made to me the night he killed himself.
But as secrets go, mine was minor league. Dwayne’s was a whole lot bigger, and he’d just taken it to the grave.
I walked back to my car, an old Saab 9000 Turbo – my one “extravagance,” if you can call it that, in a city dominated by subways, taxis, and crosswalks.
Closing up my umbrella and sliding behind the wheel, I kept replaying that last conversation with Dwayne in my head. I wondered if I was overlooking something, if there was an important clue I wasn’t catching.
Nothing came to mind yet. Or maybe my memory was a poor substitute for a tape recorder. What I wouldn’t give to have a recording of that last phone call with him.
I was about to turn the key in the ignition when my phone rang.
I glanced at the caller ID.
Now, I’m not a big believer in the notion that nothing happens by accident, but for sheer timing this was stretching the boundaries of coincidence. It was spooky, actually.
The caller ID said “Lombardo’s Steakhouse.”
Chapter 28
“HI, I’M LOOKING for Tiffany.” I said this to the man with the reservation book standing behind the podium at Lombardo’s. I thought I recognized him, but it took me a few seconds to be sure.
Of course. He was the manager. I remembered seeing Detective Ford interviewing him on the afternoon of the murders.
“She’ll be right back – she’s seating someone,” he said, barely looking up at me. He was average height and build, his tone sprinkled with an air of superiority that presumably came with the job. “Are you the man with the jacket?” he asked.
Actually, I was the man without the jacket.
Although not for long.
Before I could answer, I heard a voice over the manager’s shoulder. “You made it,” she said.
She remembered me. I certainly remembered her. “Tiffany,” I said, extending my hand. “Like the pretty blue box.”
She smiled. Great smile, too. “Hi, Mr. Daniels,” she said.
“Please, it’s Nick.”
I followed Tiffany to the coat-check room opposite the bar area. “Your jacket’s over here,” she said with a glance back at me. “We kept it nice and safe for you.”
I nodded. “Listen, I appreciate your calling me. I didn’t even realize I’d left it here.”
“Pretty understandable, given the confusion that day.” She stopped on a dime, turning to me. “Confusion. That word doesn’t really capture it, does it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Tiffany shook her head. “You know, I was going to quit this job the next day. Go back to Indiana where I’m from. I even discussed it with Jason.”
“Jason?”
“The guy you talked to at the desk. The manager.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That this was New York, and I should just suck it up, and I would if I belonged here.”
“What a sweetheart.”
“I know, tell me about it,” she said. “Then again, look around at the crowd of ghouls. I don’t know whether to be amazed or really depressed.”
I could see what she meant. Lombardo’s Steakhouse was even more crowded than usual, if that was possible. Call it the perverse logic of hipness, especially in Manhattan and, I would guess, LA. After serving as the backdrop to three vicious murders, the joint actually gained in popularity.
Tiffany continued on to the coat-check room, grabbing my jacket. “Here you go,” she said. “It is yours, right?”
“Yep, that’s it, all right.” A leather car coat I had gotten for a near steal years back at a Barneys outlet sale.
As I folded it over my forearm, something occurred to me. “Tiffany, how did you know this was mine?” It was a good question, I thought. It’s not as if I had my name sewn inside the collar like some kid at summer camp.
“I went through the pockets. Hope you don’t mind,” she answered. “I found one of those e-tickets for a flight you recently took to Paris. It had your name and a phone number listed. That’s how I -”
She stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
Tiffany’s jaw dropped. I could practically see the wheels churning behind her dark brown eyes.
“Oh my God!” she blurted. “You were here with the baseball pitcher that day, weren’t you? The poor man who just killed himself?”
“Yes, Dwayne Robinson,” I said. It still hurt just to say his name. “I just came from his funeral, actually. Very sad.”
She shook her head slowly. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on the news.”
“You remember him, huh? From when he was here that day?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And from the day before, too.”
I looked at her sideways as her last sentence knocked around in my head.
The day before?
IT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE, none at all. Dwayne Robinson hadn’t been at Lombardo’s that first day. He had stood me up.
But he had been here. At least according to Tiffany.
“When?” I asked. “What time was it? Sorry to bother you, but it’s important to me. I was supposed to do a story on Dwayne. For Citizen magazine.”
“I’m not sure exactly. It was on the early side. Noonish, maybe.”
That had been before I’d arrived, about a half hour before Dwayne and I were supposed to meet. Odd. Crazy.
“You’re sure it was him?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I remembered seeing him only after they showed his picture on TV. I’m not a big baseball fan. I didn’t know who he was until then.”
“Did you seat him?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t even talk to him.”
“What was he doing? Did you happen to notice? Anything at all?”
“I don’t know. I was busy with other customers. I just remember seeing him at one point. He was looking around.”
For me?
Had he thought we were meeting at noon instead of twelve thirty?
I stood there utterly perplexed, trying to think this new mystery through. All I knew for sure was that Dwayne had been at the restaurant the following day at twelve thirty. Courtney had said she’d never bothered to ask his agent why he had stood me up. Could Dwayne have thought I had stood him up? But then why would he have gone to the trouble to meet with me the next day?
For the past dozen years, asking questions has been second nature to me. It’s how I do my job. I ask questions, I get answers, I find out what I need to know. Boom, boom, boom. Simple as that. Especially when I’m really into a story.
But this was different. The more questions I asked Tiffany, the less I understood about what had happened.
“I’m sorry to keep pressing, but is there anything else you can remember?” I asked. “Anything at all?”
She turned her head away, thinking for a moment. “Not really. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Well, he did seem really nervous.”
“You mean, like, he was pacing?”
“Nothing quite so obvious,” she said. “It was more his eyes. He was a big guy, but he looked almost… scared to be here.”
I literally smacked my forehead as a Latin expression from my school days at St. Pat’s came rushing back to me. “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”
I was always so-so at Latin, yet this mouthful I’ve somehow never forgotten. It’s the basis for what’s commonly referred to as Occam’s razor. Translated, the phrase roughly means “entities should not be multiplied more than necessary.” In other words, all things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.
And what was I simply forgetting about Dwayne Robinson?
His anxiety disorder. Of course.
It made total sense now. He had arrived early to meet me for lunch that first time. He looked scared, according to Tiffany. That’s because he was. He was nervous about doing the interview and perhaps just nervous to be in the crowded restaurant, period. People could see him; some of them would definitely recognize Dwayne Robinson.
So he got cold feet and left.
I thanked Tiffany for my jacket and her time and help. I thought she’d thrown me a curveball about Dwayne Robinson, but as I walked out of Lombardo’s, I was convinced I had it all figured out. “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”
Unfortunately, what I didn’t know at the time – what I couldn’t know – was that I actually had it all wrong. Because as theories go, Occam’s razor isn’t foolproof. Sometimes, the simplest solution isn’t the best.
Like I said, I wasn’t terribly good at Latin. Downright horribilis, to tell the truth.