Lady Vanishes (11 page)

“Harry thought I was different,” Venus said, her voice almost a whisper, her eyes shining.

“Venus, when Harry left that day, the last day, was he going home?”

“Yes.”

“And where was that?”

“My apartment. That was our home. He went back a few times a week to the apartment he had shared with Marilyn to check his mail, his messages, take care of things. Even then, he didn’t sleep there. He’d come home late so that he could sleep in his own bed, our bed. He said he never wanted us to spend the night apart.”

I nodded.

“So he was facing south because he was heading south, not necessarily because he’d heard the bike coming toward him on the sidewalk?”

She nodded.

“Did Harry want to announce the marriage?”

“He did.”

“Then why didn’t he?”

“I begged him not to, at least not so soon. I didn’t want his family to think ill of him. Marilyn was gone so short a time. But they say that when a marriage has been happy, people want to get married again quickly. He was crazy about her, Rachel. But how would you explain that to her sister, given the circumstances? You know how families are.”

“I do,” I said.

After she left, I went upstairs to change. Then Dashiell and I headed for the Archives, Venus’s keys in my pocket.

I bought some yellow daisies on the way to the Archives, something to pave the way.

“Venus asked me to take these upstairs, put them in a vase for her, she’s coming back with company,” I said, showing the concierge the daisies and the keys.

This was a new one. He frowned, trying to decide what to do.

“I work for her,” I told him, “at Harbor View. We do pet-facilitated therapy with the residents.”

He leaned over the concierge desk, looked at Dashiell. Then he nodded.

I walked back to the bank of elevators, barely feeling the floor in my new sneakers as I followed the wide, deep lobby around to the left.

We rode up alone, walking down the carpeted hallway until we came to Venus’s door. Opening it, we faced the river through double-height windows looking west. The after
noon sun filled the living room. I walked down the hallway, where a staircase on the left led upstairs. Dashiell took the stairs. I walked through the living room and looked at the view—the Hudson flowing south, New Jersey beyond, no sound of construction up here.

There was a big, soft couch, pale gray, with lots of loose pillows on it, on the north wall of the apartment. An enormous painting hung over it: a worn wooden walk, flowers all around, bursting with color and energy. The coffee table was glass. There were already flowers there, roses the color of seashells in a crystal vase.

I walked into Venus’s kitchen and found another vase. Filling it with water, I arranged the daisies for her. I put these on the dining room table, looking at the fine china in the breakfront, the silver candlesticks, the champagne flutes. Venus had a taste for the things I’d sent to Goodwill for a tax deduction, all the things that reminded me of Jack and a brief marriage that in retrospect didn’t seem brief enough.

Or maybe it was Harry who’d liked the table set with bone china—the way Jack had, everything just so, his wife at home tending to his needs, not having any of her own.

But Harry was different. He didn’t see Venus as the happy housewife. He believed her capable of managing the finances of Harbor View and, more than that, preserving his original intent. He’d put his money where his mouth was, too.

How had they found each other, people who’d worked together all those years, meeting on-line? It was a curious thing, an annoying coincidence.

I turned on Venus’s computer, and while it was booting up, I unscrewed the mouthpiece of the kitchen phone and checked for a listening device, not finding one. Dashiell was
coming down. We passed each other on the stairs. There was no bug in the phone next to the bed either.

I opened the closet, which held half Venus’s things, half Harry’s: suits, sport jackets, slacks, three pairs of loafers, some underwear, I was sure, in Venus’s dresser drawers, too, but I didn’t check.

The bed was big, queen-size, with white sheets and a white cotton blanket—no dog to shed on it, leave his dirty footprints on the pretty blanket, keep Venus company while she read in bed or slept.

Venus’s bedroom was a balcony overlooking the living room, the view of the river even more luscious from up here. There were roses here, too, on one of the nightstands, red ones. A man’s watch was on the other one; perhaps Harry had forgotten to put it on that last morning. And now Venus left it there. I sat on her bed, picturing her here, picking up Harry’s watch and holding it in her hand. I picked it up, felt its weight, warmed it in my hand. Then I got up, as she might have, went to the closet, and pressed my face into one of Harry’s cashmere jackets, for a moment thinking he’d be back, slip it on, take Venus out to Provence for dinner. I could see him then, smiling, his hand dipping into his pocket, the box coming out, that heart inside, lying on velvet.

Back at the computer, I didn’t log on; I fished around the files, the things Venus had downloaded and saved. And found what I’d been looking for: conversations with Harry, and more than I’d hoped for, the answer to how they’d found each other.

Harry’s on-line name was Skipper.

The dog he had when he was a kid?

Or maybe Harry owned a boat?

It would be pretty funny if Skipper had been Harry’s dog, because Venus too had used a dog’s name, which explained everything. Venus had signed on as Lady Day.

Lady Day. Of course, not a dog’s name to most of the world. A singer’s name. It must have made Venus smile, using the dog’s name, both of them covered with dreadlocks, the kids’ hands always reaching out to see what they felt like, Harry reaching out, too, at first, to a name that meant something to him, Lady Day, making everyone feel better, just the ticket, just what Harry needed, too, his wife dying a little at a time, all that money and nothing he could do to save her.

I looked at Harry’s watch, which I’d placed on Venus’s desk. It was late. If I didn’t hurry, I’d miss the movement class, not get the chance to show off Dashiell’s game, help Samuel teach it to the kids. But I wanted to read what Venus had saved, and I didn’t know if I’d get the chance to come back.

I looked at the printer. Then I pressed the button. Running back upstairs to put Harry’s watch back on the nightstand, Dashiell right behind me, I had another thought. The necklace. That would be around Venus’s neck. I wondered if there was anything else.

Maybe I was just being nosy, I thought, not seeing a jewelry box, looking through the dresser drawers, then in the back of the closet shelf. Maybe not. I never knew what would trigger an insight—a smoking gun, a suicide note, a sapphire bracelet.

I was wondering what else Venus hadn’t bothered to tell me.

But she’d given me her key, hadn’t she?

Still, that was because she was scared. She hadn’t stopped to think it through. Like when the doctor says, I see
a shadow here; I’d like to schedule a CAT scan. Fear takes over, does the thinking for you.

Maybe Venus was back at Harbor View now, wondering what the hell was keeping me, knowing her printer was pumping out some private documents she wouldn’t have wanted me to see, thinking I was looking in her shoe boxes—which I was, about to call it quits when I found what I was looking for, in a silk pouch at the back of a sewing basket.

I could feel the loot before I opened the bag. Sitting on the bed, I turned it over, spilling the contents onto the white blanket. A diamond cocktail ring, a really old one, ornate, the way things were made decades and decades ago. A bow pin, more diamonds. A wedding ring. I picked it up and held it between two fingers. It was simple, a gold band; inside, one word was inscribed. Skipper.

The other things, I had the feeling, had been Marilyn’s. Even the diamond heart. He’d probably given that to her first.

The wedding band was new, no patina of scratches on it. Brand-new, because Venus didn’t wear it. But he would have given her anything—emeralds, rubies, diamonds. Had Venus insisted on a plain gold band?

The printer stopped. As soon as I started down the stairs, Dashiell passed me, nearly knocking me over in order to arrive a second ahead of me, turn around smiling, because even the most obedient dog likes to show his physical superiority sometimes, remind you once in a while of the facts of life as he sees them.

Witty, I told him. What’s next, the Letterman show?

I rolled the papers and put a rubber band around them, shut down the computer and the printer, took one last look around—everything in place. Then I closed my eyes, thinking of Venus here with Harry, of Venus here alone.

We dropped the papers I’d printed off at home, then slowly, because even though it was nearly two, it was too hot to move any faster, we headed for Harbor View, wiser and sadder, to see who could learn to play All Fall Down.

I heard it before I saw it; the shrill whooping of the siren coming our way, turning on when the street was blocked and off when the road was unobstructed. At first, my only concern was for Dashiell. I bent over him and cupped his ears with my hands, trying to deaden the painful noise as best I could.

But when the red, white, and blue fire department ambulance passed us, turning onto West Street, I began to run, getting to the corner of Eleventh and West in time to see it stop where I feared it would, in front of Harbor View, two paramedics jumping out, grabbing a collapsible stretcher from the back, snapping down the legs, then running toward the door and disappearing inside. Someone must have been standing there, waiting for them, holding the door open, not a minute to lose.

By the time Dashiell and I got there, there were three more emergency vehicles on the scene, two from the fire de
partment and a police car. I pulled out my keys, wondering what had happened that was more than Harbor View could handle without help—a bad fall, a heart attack, a seizure—thinking how vulnerable the kids were, how easily they got upset, and how dangerous that could be, wondering who it was, my heart pounding.

Keeping Dashiell on leash and right at my side, I unlocked the door. The lobby was empty, and the doors that led to the dining room doors were closed. I opened them just enough to peek inside. Most of the kids were there, sitting around the tables. But no one was painting or singing or eating lunch. They looked almost like mannequins that someone had placed randomly around the tables.

Even Cora and Dora were quiet, sitting side by side in their wheelchairs, for once with nothing to say. Charlotte was sitting alone, her fingers in her mouth. I didn’t see David. And he hadn’t been in the doorway. I looked back to make sure I hadn’t missed him again. Jackson wasn’t there either. I wondered if he was in the garden.

Arlene was off in a corner with her issue, the lovely Janice, the sporty-looking Bailey, looking nearly as blank as everyone else. Only Samuel showed expression, and what I saw scared me. Then Molly came out of the kitchen, holding a glass of water. When she saw me in the doorway, she bit her lip and shook her head, making my stomach lurch.

I heard two more sirens whooping, and I could see the flashing lights outside the dining room windows. Still holding the glass of water, Molly went to look.

I looked, too. From where I was standing, I could see through the sidelight next to the door, where David usually stood, that two more police cars had pulled in and stopped in front of Harbor View. They’d come from Jane Street, driving against the traffic on West Street, and now, double-
parked on the other side of the ambulance, they were blocking off a lane of traffic headed north, everyone slowing down to see what had caused all the fuss, me still hoping this was just the usual overkill response to a 911 call.

I had turned around, looking for a sign of the paramedics, of Venus, of Eli and Nathan, wondering where they all were, my heart thudding, when Dashiell began to pull on the leash. He headed for Venus’s office, his nose going a mile a minute, blowing air out and sucking it in with an urgency that let me know with no uncertainty where the paramedics had gone.

Molly, the glass of water spilling as she went, was rushing toward the front door to let the uniforms in as I ran across the lobby, praying Venus’s door wouldn’t be locked. But of course, it was.

Molly was filling in two police officers, talking softly, their heads bent to hear her, one writing in his notebook, the other ready to call in on his radio.

The door to Venus’s office pulled open then, and Nathan stepped in front of it to hold it ajar.

Standing in the lobby, Dashiell at my side, all I could see was the back of one of the paramedics, kneeling over someone and working on them, though I couldn’t see what he was doing right away.

I wondered if it was Eli, succumbing to all the stress, everything going wrong here, one thing after the next after the next. Most people retire by his age, buy a little condo down in North Miami Beach, wait for the sirens each night, find out in the morning who had died. Not Eli. He was working as hard as he ever had, keeping weird hours, not taking care of himself.

But it wasn’t Eli.

When one of the paramedics reached for the gauze band
ages he’d placed on the desk, I saw who it was. He pulled away the blood-soaked bandage and pressed a clean one to the wound, a cervical collar keeping her head from moving, her dreadlocks hanging over it, matted with blood.

I heard the radio crackle behind me, then the uniform spoke softly into it.

“Ninety-seven H to Vinnie’s.”

I couldn’t make out the response, if there was one; it was as futile as trying to understand the dispatcher’s message when you’re sitting in the back seat of a taxi.

Eli was there, looking ashen, standing on the other side of Venus’s desk.

A cold wind blew through me.

Maybe it was the air-conditioning. With the door open, the cold air was rolling out of Venus’s office like a storm blowing in off the ocean. I’d just been out of doors, running as fast as I could in the unrelenting heat, and Venus’s air conditioner was cranked up, the compressor going, the room frigid, the way it always is in hospitals, especially in the emergency room, sick people waiting their turn to see the doctor, trembling with cold. I wondered if the paramedics had made it this cold, if it would have any positive effect on Venus, slow down the bleeding or help her breathe.

I watched as the paramedic wrapped gauze around Venus’s head, anchoring it under her chin to hold the compress in place, her head all in white, as if she were wearing a wimple.

“Ready?” he asked when he was finished, a middle-aged Hispanic man with a potbelly. No wonder, I thought, always seeing the ambulance parked in front of the pizza place around the corner, at Baskin Robbins, Taylor’s—anywhere where there was food, the richer the better.

On a count of three they lifted Venus onto the stretcher,
carefully tightening the wide straps around her, then covering her with a blanket. It should have been red, I thought, but it wasn’t. It was blue.

“Careful,” Nathan said, stepping forward, one hand holding the door, the other outstretched, as if Venus might tumble off the stretcher, but he’d he ready to catch her if she did.

The two men began to wheel Venus out and get her to the hospital as fast as the ambulance could maneuver through the narrow streets of the way West Village. She was gray, her skin dry, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open. I looked at her chest to see for myself that she was breathing. Like my grandmother Sonya, I was quick to seek something to be grateful for, even in the worst situations.

The younger of the two paramedics, a blond kid with freckles and a cowlick, began running backward, pulling the stretcher toward the door. One of the uniforms held it open. I watched them wheel Venus out, the stretcher leaving parallel red lines in its wake, tracks that got paler and paler as it neared the open door, heading for the ambulance out front.

Careful to step over the trail of blood, I moved into the doorway.

“What happened?”

“A freak accident,” Nathan said.

“A freak accident?”

“She must have gotten dizzy and fallen. It looks as if she hit her head on the edge of the desk.”

“How awful.”

I glanced at the desk.

“Dad has a colleague at St. Vincent’s who he’s already called. He’ll let us know the extent of the injury as soon as he can.”

“Was anyone here? Was she alone?” I asked. “Who found her?”

I tried to make myself slow down, but it was impossible. I was on the job. I felt responsible.

Nathan stepped back and made room for Eli to pass him, then stepped out into the lobby and let the door to Venus’s office close. He looked after his father, who had walked out front to talk to the uniforms. Four of them were standing in front of Harbor View now, one of them taking notes.

Then Nathan took my elbow and led me into Eli’s office, next door to Venus’s.

“She fell and hit
the back
of her head?”

Nathan let the door close.

How come the cops were out there, I wondered, not in Venus’s office? What the hell was going on?

“We have to wait and see what the doctors say,” he said. “She went down hard.”

“No one saw what happened?”

“No one.”

“Well, then, how did you know she was hurt? Who found her?”

“Sammy went to get her, to ask her to join us in the dining room. He found her lying on the floor, unconscious.”

“None of the kids were in there with her?” I asked.

“No, I already told you,” he said, “she was alone. Everyone else was in the dining room. In fact, Sammy used his key to get in.”

“His key? But why would he do that if she didn’t answer his knock, if it appeared she wasn’t there?”

“Because she’d stopped in the dining room a minute or two before. We’d asked her to join us for lunch, and she thanked us and declined. She said she had too much work to do. But then something came up in our discussion, and Dad thought that Venus would be the best person to respond to it.”

“I see.”

But of course, I didn’t. I didn’t know what he was talking about nor how I’d find out. He was already looking annoyed. And none of those others was going to talk to me, tell me about their private meeting. I also didn’t know when I’d be able to get into Venus’s office and see what I could learn on my own, hoping it would be sooner rather than later, hoping it would be before anyone else got in there.

“I think Samuel’s going to teach soon, Rachel. I’m sure Dashiell could help calm everyone down.”

“First Lady, then Harry, now Venus. If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” I said.

“We
are
having a particularly difficult time now,” he said. “But one way or another, it’s never easy around here. You must understand that. You and Dash have been in other institutions of this sort.”

“So you were all here when this happened? You were all in the dining room?”

“We’d decided to have lunch here. It seemed the appropriate place to be, after the service.”

I couldn’t picture the Poole clan getting all excited about eating institutional cooking, but I nodded anyway.

“As I already explained, Rachel, these things happen.”

“But—”

“The only thing that’s important is that Venus gets the care she needs as quickly as possible. Don’t you agree?”

I didn’t answer him. For what seemed like much too long, we stood there, staring at each other, neither of us speaking. That kind of eye contact, had we been dogs, would have led to some serious fur flying. But we weren’t dogs. We were civilized human beings. Nathan broke the silence.

“What would be the point of implicating that poor soul?” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

Time seemed to stop at that moment, and when Nathan continued, it was as if his voice were coming at me through a long tunnel. It sounded hollow and tinny.

“This may be a first for you, but it isn’t for us.”

“What—?”

“Do you think this never happened before?” he asked me. “It’s old hat for us. What do you think happens in institutions such as this? This sort of violence is part of the risk, it comes with the territory. It might not happen again for a year. Or it might happen again tonight. You never know, and if you work here, Rachel, you best be aware of that.”

“But the police—?”

I looked at Nathan again, waiting for the answer to my half-phrased question.

“Our function here,” he said, “is to protect these people, not to turn them over to the police.”

When I opened my mouth, he raised his hand to stop me.

“As I said, what would be the point? None of our residents can be charged with assault, Rachel. Penal law says that in order to charge someone with assault, there has to be intent to cause physical injury. How would you ascertain that in this case, by questioning David?”

“David pushed her?”

“You were told he has a history of violence, weren’t you? I believe Venus tells everyone who works here that.”

“Then why did you tell me Venus had been alone?”

“Because the fewer people who know, the better. Some people quit after the first incident that occurs after they’re hired. Dad and I didn’t want to lose you, Rachel. You and Dash are good with the kids. And that’s—”

“All you care about.”

“That’s why we’re here. For them.”

“Will the Crime Scene Unit be called at all?” I asked,
thinking of the number of people that had already trampled the scene.

“I doubt it, Rachel. It would be a shameful waste of taxpayer money and the valuable time of the unit, coming all the way down here from the Bronx for what? In order to press charges, you have to meet the standard of the law, don’t you? There has to be intention. And what would they do then, take David away from us? And put him where? It’s an aided case, Rachel, call nine-one-one, and you automatically get police along with the fire department ambulance. That’s the law. But it’s not as if we haven’t been through this before.”

“Well, you were just through it, weren’t you?”

“Indeed we were. And you know what happened then, I take it? Some overenthusiastic officer aggressively questioned David until he ended up breaking the window with his hands. They won’t be allowed near him this time. Dad will make sure of that. Not that he didn’t try to stop that oaf who questioned him after Harry died.”

“Where is David now?”

“Upstairs. Sedated.”

“What do you think set him off? I thought he was doing well.”

“His medication was cut this morning.”

“I see.”

“All the kids pick up the stress around them. That’s why we do everything possible to shelter them. However, Uncle Harry’s death has affected all of us, and there’s no way we’ve been able to shield them from our own feelings. They’re too sensitive.”

“Litmus paper.”

He nodded.

“Perhaps Dad should have waited until after the funeral,
but there are unpleasant side effects, and he thought this was the right time. You can’t possibly get it right every time. There’s just no way.”