As it grew later, traffic picked up at Van Winkle Court, and more lights came on in the brick-faced boxes, but no one came up the basement stairs. While I waited and watched, I thought about my conversation with Ned.
He’d been surprised to hear from me- it had been eighteen monthsbut he knew from my tone that I hadn’t called to chat. He listened quietly as I explained that David had become involved in a murder investigation, that the victim was a woman David had had a sexual relationship with, that David- or Stephanie- might become a suspect in her death, and that if there was an arrest, the press coverage would be vast and voracious.
The news shocked him- how could it not? — but Ned hadn’t risen to the top at Klein amp; Sons by being panicky or dumb, and he didn’t start then. He’d asked smart questions, and had neither pressed me on the ones I wouldn’t answer nor pushed me into wild speculation on the ones I couldn’t. I heard him taking rapid notes throughout. He asked about lawyers, and something relaxed a little in his voice when I told him that Mike Metz was representing David.
“How is David doing?” he asked.
“That’s why I’m calling. I have to go out, but I don’t want to leave him alone. He’s been drinking.”
“Steph isn’t there?”
“No, and I’m not sure when she will be. Or if.”
“Jesus Christ.” He sighed. “I’ll send Liz up.”
Ned rang off and an hour later my older sister had arrived. I met her in the foyer. She wore a black coat over a black suit, and her blond hair was swept straight back from her forehead. Her heels were low, but tall enough to bring her to my height, and her green eyes were narrow and uncertain. Her usual detached cool had deserted her, and her strong, handsome features were set in a mask of worry. On Liz it looked much like anger, and it reminded me uncomfortably of our mother.
“Where is he?” she asked. She spoke in a husky whisper.
“Asleep, on the sofa. With any luck, he’ll stay that way for a while.”
“And what should I do with him when he wakes?”
I shrugged. “Hang out. Give him something to eat. Keep him from doing anything stupid.”
She shook her head. “That’s apparently easier said than done. Will he be surprised to see me?”
“Probably.”
“And pissed off?”
“Definitely.”
Liz shook her head. “Excellent. Ned said he’d been drinking.”
I nodded. “Try not to let him do that anymore.”
“Am I supposed to restrain him?”
“Do the best you can.”
I pulled on my coat and Liz caught my arm. “Jesus Christ, Johnny, this is dramatic even for you. We don’t hear word one for over a year, and all of a sudden you’re in the middle of a murder-and with David, of all people. What the fuck is going-”
I cut her off. “What can I tell you? Shit happens. Right now I’m trying to keep it from happening to David.” I tried to get my arm back, but Liz held on.
“ ‘Shit happens’ isn’t good enough. How did he get himself into…all this?”
“There’s no short answer to that,” I’d said, “maybe no answer at all. But you can try asking David when he gets up.”
There was movement on the basement stairs and I picked up my binoculars. I saw a flash of orange: Kenny Hagen in his big parka walking carefully along a footpath. There was something under his arm, and it took me a moment to make it out. It turned out to be two things: a carton of Marlboros and a box of doughnuts. He walked two buildings south and went down another flight of steps and fished his key ring from his pocket. He fiddled with the lock and went inside. He was in there for twenty minutes by my watch, and when he came out he was empty-handed.
He was descending the stairs to his own basement when a battered brown Ford rolled past me and into the Van Winkle parking lot. Two people got out, and I didn’t need the binoculars to recognize McCue’s aggressive gut or Vines’s cropped blond hair. They headed right for Kenny Hagen’s building. Half an hour later, Vines came out. She got into the Ford and started the engine, but didn’t go anywhere. In a minute or two the windows fogged, and she became a hazy silhouette behind the wheel.
She sat there for fifteen minutes, and emerged again when a Tarrytown police cruiser pulled into the space beside hers. A uniformed cop got out and shook hands with her, and a minute later another crappy sedan pulled up. A big guy who might have been one of the cops in David’s apartment that morning climbed out. He spoke with Vines and the Tarrytown cop, and the three of them walked toward Kenny’s basement. And then the big guy bent his head and said something to Vines. She stopped and turned and he pointed at my car, and Vines began to walk- then jog- toward me.
I fired the engine, shoved the car into R, and prayed that no one was coming up the street. The Nissan swerved and slid as I popped out of the space and onto the road, and I saw Vines sprint across the Van Winkle parking lot. Her coat was open and she was reaching inside and I flicked on the car lights and hit the brights. Her hand went to her eyes and I tapped the gas. For one sick instant my wheels whined and spun and rooster tails of sandy brown snow flew up. Then the car shuddered and slewed, and I was gone.
I called Mike from the Saw Mill.
“I don’t think she made me, though I’ll find out soon enough if she did.”
“And Coyle?” Mike asked.
“He’s gone, but not far, and I’m pretty sure Uncle Kenny knows where. I’ll give it another go tomorrow, assuming McCue and Vines haven’t beaten me to him or yanked my license by then.”
“Not too early tomorrow, though,” Mike said.
“Why not?”
“David finally got in touch with Stephanie. He told her what happened this morning, and explained that there are questions she has to answer. She said she’d come back to town tomorrow morning, to talk.”
“It’s about time,” I said, “but what does it have to do with me?”
There was a long silence at Mike’s end, and then he cleared his throat. “She says you’re the only one she’ll talk to.”
30
The maid met me at the door. Her lined face was empty of expression, but her blue eyes were anxious and more than a little curious. I knew how she felt. She led me through the foyer and down a hallway, and left me to wait in a khaki-colored room. The walls were mostly bookshelves, and the furniture was low-slung and leather. The views were of the park, a wedge of the Guggenheim, and blue, blue skies. It was ten-thirty, and traffic was contentious on Fifth Avenue, but no street sounds intruded on the apartment’s thick quiet.
David, I knew, was at work, though from the message Liz had left me, I doubted he was working well.
“He started drinking at around six, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I stayed until eleven, at which point he passed out and I went home. He’s a bad drunk, and the whole thing left me wishing I was an only child. You and Ned owe me, and an explanation of what the hell is going on would be a good start.”
Around six: that would’ve been after he’d spoken to Stephanie. I could only imagine how that conversation had gone, and reaching for a bottle wasn’t an incomprehensible reaction. And what had he made of Stephanie’s insistence on talking only to me? Mike had repeated it twice, and I still didn’t get it.
I shook my head and wandered around the room. The bookshelves were filled with slender, buff-colored volumes of identical dimensions. They were all about modern architecture and all in Italian, and to the best of my knowledge David was ignorant of both. Of course, I’d learned lately that when it came to my brother- and his wife- the best of my knowledge wasn’t very good. Maybe he was fluent in Italian, and had a thing for I. M. Pei, or maybe Stephanie had. Maybe it was just the decorator. What did I know?