Lady Vanishes (18 page)

As soon as Charlotte had calmed down, I called to Dash and went back inside, heading for Venus’s office. I unlocked the door, let him in, then closed the door behind us, merely turning around to see what I was after. But it was gone. Instead, there was a piece of the door exposed where it had been, smack in the middle of all the other art Venus had taped there, the way proud mothers put their kids’ pictures up on the refrigerator.

I looked down. It had fallen off before. Nothing.

But I wasn’t ready to give up. I looked on Venus’s desk. Homer had put fresh flowers there. There was another vase with greens on the top of the storage cabinet beneath the book shelves. But the drawing I was after wasn’t there.

Then I saw it. It was on top of one of the file cabinets in a wire basket, lying on top of whatever Venus had put there to deal with later. It had probably fallen off again, and Homer, too harried to tape it back on the door, or planning
to do it later, had dropped it there so that it wouldn’t get stepped on.

I picked it up and looked at that funny ground line. Only that’s not what it was. It was a leash. And had I been able to see all the way to the other end, I would have seen Lady. But, of course, I didn’t, because there was another funny-looking line in the picture. This one came down on the right side of the drawing. It was part of the doorway, and Lady was already outside—not in the garden where she usually went, off leash, but out on West Street, headed for God knows where.

At least now I knew who to ask: the man in the portrait, Samuel Kagan, listening to his music as he stole the dog who had stolen the hearts of all the kids and most of the staff.

I checked my watch. He’d be here after lunch. In fact, I was due here then, too, for a second round of ring-around-the-rosy, with me and Dashiell in the lead. I had a couple of hours, and more than enough to do to fill them.

On the way home, we cut across on Greenwich Street to Tenth, stopped at Action Pharmacy for shampoo and toothpaste—if I remembered correctly, I was running low—and crossed Hudson, heading past the Blind Tiger Ale House toward home.

I fed Dashiell, took my purchase upstairs, and while the tub was filling, put Venus’s necklace in the top desk drawer for safekeeping and then checked my answering machine. There were four messages.

The first was from Nathan, telling me that the staff meeting had been canceled.

The second was from Marty Shapiro, telling me to drop in and see him when I had a free minute.

The third was from my sister. It didn’t say much of any
thing. Typical, I thought. She was acting like a smitten teen. I wondered how long that would last.

The last call was from Chip. I erased the first three and saved that one, playing it again as I got dressed just to hear his voice.

I made some phone calls, took some notes, then stopped at the Sixth on my way back to Harbor View. When I opened the door to the bomb squad, Marty got up and joined me in the hall rather than asking me in.

“I got something for you, kid,” he said.

“Really? Great. What is it?”

“It’s about the bike.”

“Yeah?”

“We found it.”

“No kidding? How?”

“Perspicacious detective work. You impressed?”

“You bet. Both with the fancy footwork and your astonishing use of the English language.”

“I thought you would be.”

I was ready to punch him.

“So?”

“Here’s the thing. The driver of said vehicle doesn’t have an astonishing use of the language. In fact, he probably only has enough use of it to make change.”

“No joke.”

“Which means—”

I bit my tongue.

“That someone borrowed said murder weapon whilst a hungry family was paying for their egg foo yung.”

“Brilliant. But does that mean you can’t tie the thief to the bike, because of all the time that elapsed and the number of people using it?”

“The lab is still trying, but the bike was out on the street all this time, including in the rain.”

“Still, it’s remarkable—”

“Footwork.”

“This is true.”

“You come up with anything on your end?”

“I might know who took the dog.”

“It figures,” he said. “So, hey, you’ll be sure to keep us posted on that, kid, right? The captain, he’s dying to know what happened to the dog. It’s way up there on his list of concerns.”

“I promise I’ll call,” I told him. “Or even better, I’ll drop in. As soon as it’s confirmed.”

I still had at least an hour. I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. I walked down to Hudson Street and hailed a cab, telling the driver to take us to St. Vincent’s and not spare the horses, falling against Dashiell when, a few blocks later, he made a right on Twelfth Street, taking me at my word.

Willy was first behind Dashiell and me, carrying the pillow from his bed. Charlotte was wearing her earmuffs, but not the red gloves. She had a piece of paper that might have been from her drawing pad crunched up in one hand. Cora and Dora were off to the side, sort of clapping to the music. And half a dozen other people were circling around, waiting for Dashiell to drop so that they could fling themselves to the floor, too.

Jackson, in the middle, had his arms stretched high, his red fingers wiggling like leaves of a Japanese maple blowing in the wind. Fortunately, Dashiell didn’t see him as a tree. He kept his cool and kept his mind on the game. Mouth open, tongue lolling out, concentrating on the words so that he wouldn’t miss his cue, he ambled slowly in a large circle, his tail wagging, his new friends trailing after him, as best they could.

He was a dog. It was all the same to him; cross-eyed,
mute, lame, forgetful. He loved them all. When he got the word, he crashed loudly to the floor. Cora dropped her head as if she were praying. Dora covered her eyes. Willy, clever thing, placed his pillow carefully on the floor in front of him and lay down. Charlotte lay on her back. Staring at the ceiling, or at nothing, she smoothed out the drawing and let it rest on her chest as if it were protective armor. Who knows? Maybe it was. Jackson reached for the sky, and I noticed that the paint had dripped down his arms since I’d last looked. My friend Jackson was having a bad day.

After two rounds of Dashiell’s new game, he and I sat off to the side, and Cora and Dora joined the group. Samuel pulled the chairs in a circle for everyone else and started tossing a big, light ball from person to person, trying to get them to catch it and toss it back in time to the music he was playing.

Pretty ambitious, I thought, watching the ball hit Willy’s shoulder and land on the floor.

Dashiell and I had gotten to the ICU without a glitch. We looked familiar now. No one questioned where we were going. But when we walked in, I saw that the curtain around Venus’s bed was open, the bed stripped. Suddenly my mouth tasted sour, and the room seemed to be moving on its own.

“She’s awake.”

I’d turned to see Nurse Frostee standing right behind me.

“Down this hall, third door on your left. Pinch your cheeks first, woman, you’re as white as he is.”

She bent and scratched Dashiell’s head.

“Therapy dog,” she’d said. “There’s days I could use some of that myself, that and a good hot soak for my feet.”

So I took a few breaths and headed for Venus’s room, to see what she could remember.

“Two of them were sitting along the wall opposite the
desk,” Venus had said, propped up in bed, her hair so black against the smooth white hospital sheets. “I’d just turned around to get Jackson a paper towel. David was standing at the window, looking up at the light coming in through the leaves of the tree out there.”

“What about Jackson? Could he have—”

“No.”

She stared right at me, defying me to accuse Jackson, to point the finger at any of her kids.

“Not Jackson. And not David either?”

“Rachel, David didn’t hit me. I was looking right at him.”

“Did you hear the door open?”

“No. I had the radio on for them and the air conditioner going.”

“But the door was locked?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes when the kids are in with me, I unlock it. They have trouble opening it when it’s locked. But I can’t say for sure.”

“When did they move you?” I asked. She had a room to herself now, a window with a view of Eleventh Street.

“This morning.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I’m so happy to see you’re doing better.”

Dashiell’s tail thumped against the floor.

I wanted to say something about Lady, but I didn’t. I decided to wait until I knew more—specifically, where she was now.

If
she was, now.

“I have your necklace safely at home,” I told her, holding her hand, reluctant to leave.

She reached up and touched her neck.

“I guess it got twisted or something when you fell.” I didn’t think this was the time to tell her how I’d found it. “I
have to go. Dashiell’s up for a heavy round of ring-around-the-rosy.”

She smiled.

“I’ll be back later.”

I turned to go, then turned around again.

“Venus, did the hospital inform Eli that you’re awake now?”

“The doctor said he was going to call right after his rounds, share the good news.”

I nodded. And on the way back to Harbor View, I’d called my old boss, Frank Petrie, to send someone over to sit with Venus, just in case whoever hit her was dissatisfied with the outcome of their efforts.

Samuel was still tossing the ball. This time it landed on Cora’s lap and, through no effort on her part, stayed there.

“Good job,” he told her, waiting in vain for her to toss it back.

Anyone else would have looked over at me and shrugged, giving it the old one-two, but having a little humor about how it wasn’t proceeding. Not Samuel. He kept at it, giving it everything he had, as if midway through the class some miracle might occur, and Willy and Charlotte and Jackson would be lobbing the ball back to him like pros, trying out for the Knicks or the Yankees in a week or two.

When the class was over, he carefully put the chairs back, settling Willy in front of a toddler’s puzzle, whispering something to Cora, then Dora, watching as Charlotte returned to where she’d been sitting, her pad, colored pencils, and sharpener where she’d left them.

I got up and followed him out into the empty lobby.

“Dashiell’s game went well,” he said, disappointed that the ball playing had been a bust. “Not everything works out, but I always try. Dad says that in some places people are just warehoused, fed and clothed, but not stimulated at all.”

I didn’t respond. Something else had gotten my attention. It was Dashiell, vacuuming Samuel’s pants, then moving his attention to the shoes, leaving little wet marks where his nose and lips were pressed to the leather, reading the news.

“I guess someone forgot to scoop,” I said.

“What?”

I pointed to his shoes.

“Dog poop. You must have stepped in some.” I looked up, and so did he.

“They say it’s good luck,” he said, smiling his crushed little smile.

“Not in your case it isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re going for a little cab ride, you and me. And Dashiell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to Brooklyn, Samuel, let Dashiell get the smell he discovered on your pants firsthand.”

He stepped back and looked around to see if anyone else was there. I reached for his arm and pulled him back to where he was.

“Listen carefully,” I told him. “We’re leaving here now. We’re going to your apartment to get Lady, bring her back where she belongs.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

He tried to pull off looking indignant, but I wasn’t impressed.

“And on the way,” I said, “you’re going to tell me why you killed your uncle Harry and tried to kill my friend Venus.”

Are you crazy? I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt Venus. David did. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to.”

I pulled out my cell phone.

“Who are you calling?”

His shirt was soaked with sweat, a lot more than he’d worked up in class.

“The Sixth Precinct,” I said. Dead calm. “Of course, I know you. We have a relationship. I know that whatever you did, you had your reasons. Or maybe something happened and things got out of hand, you couldn’t help yourself. I can understand that, Samuel. I care about what you feel. But the cops”—I shrugged my shoulders—“hey, they have different pressures than I do. They just want to find someone to hang this on. They just want to close the case, be done with it. Why? Why doesn’t factor into it. Why gets you no sympa
thy there. Why only counts right here, Samuel, so make up your mind who you want to talk to. And don’t take too long, because if the answer is no, you don’t want to talk to me, then I have this call to make. And afterward I’m going to walk across the lobby and knock on Daddy’s door, have a few words with him, see what he thinks about all this.”

“No—don’t do that.
Please
don’t do that. He’ll believe you. He’ll think I did it, all of it, everything. And more. Whenever there’s a fuckup, he always thinks it’s me.”

Harry’s death, a fuckup?

“You’ve got to help me, Rachel. You like me, don’t you?”

I waited, eyes hard, enough adrenaline pumping to pick him up like the sack of garbage I thought he was and toss him out into oncoming traffic, the asshole.

“I have her,” he whispered. “Lady. But I didn’t touch Harry or Venus. I swear to you.”

He waited.

I let him.

“Can’t you say you found her at the shelter? She could have gotten out, got picked up. It’s possible. He’d believe
you
. Couldn’t you say that?”

“Only if you tell me the truth.”

“I
am.
This
is
the truth.”

“Excellent. In that case, let’s go get Lady.”

Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I indicated the front door with a tilt of my head and followed Samuel out.

“You’ll see, I took good care of her. I never hurt her. I only wanted—”

“Let’s
move,
” I told him. “I don’t want to hit rush hour, and we have to drop Dashiell off first. We’ll never get a cab with a dog this big. Did you take Lady to Brooklyn in a cab, Samuel, the night you walked out with her?”

He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at his shoes,
maybe at the spot where Dashiell had pressed his nose, the moisture in his breath condensing, leaving a dull spot when it dried.

“I didn’t have enough money with me. I took the subway. Nobody said anything. Anyway, she’s a therapy dog, so she’s allowed.”

“Going to and from a gig, Samuel. Not being stolen. When you steal a dog, you’re supposed to use a car. Or at the very least, a taxi.”

We headed over to Washington Street, toward the sound of construction, then kept going east, toward Hudson Street.

He could have slipped out after his daytime class, taken the bike, killed Harry, come back for his evening singsong, Mr. Innocence, Mr. Helpful. I wondered if he’d cried when he heard the news.

And wasn’t he the one who’d found Venus?
Found
Venus. Right.

Blaming David. Or had that been Nathan’s idea? Was it his brother he’d been protecting all along?

“Okay,” I said, “I’m ready for the sad story of your life.”

He took out a handkerchief that looked as if it had been out too many times already and wiped his dripping face. It was hotter than Hades. Maybe he ought to get used to it, I thought, because as far as I could tell, that was where he was headed.

“Lady,” I prompted. “Start with Lady.”

“I told you, she’s
fine.
”

Petulant. Not looking at me.

“Why did you take her, Samuel?”

“It wasn’t fair.”

Four years old.

“Tell me about it.”

“Everything she did, every stupid little thing, everyone
k’velled about it. Dad and Harry and Venus, even Molly, they kept saying she was the best thing that had ever happened at Harbor View.
She
was the best, a life saver. Not a word about me, about everything
I
did there, day after bloody day for coolie wages. I thought that if she weren’t there, maybe Dad would see—”

And then he began to cry, great oceans of water running from his eyes and monsoons of mucus leaking from his nose. He drooled a little, too. It wasn’t a pretty sight, a grown man bawling like that in the street because he was jealous of a little dog.

I put my arm around his shoulders, feeling how wet and hairy he was underneath his shirt. I could think of about seven thousand things I’d rather be touching. But none of them would pay the rent. Or get Lady back to Harbor View.

“I took good care of her. I meant to bring her back. After. After Dad appreciated
me
for once.”

“Did it work?” I asked. Like a courtroom lawyer, I knew the answer before he responded.

“What do you think?”

Sullen now.

“I think it didn’t, Samuel. I think your father and Harry and Venus were too wrapped up in what was helping the kids to think about your feelings. But everyone needs a little appreciation. It’s only human.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

Jesus.

“I do,” I told him.

“That’s all I did,” he said, his voice nearly inaudible. Then he looked at me for the first time since we’d left Harbor View. “I’m ashamed of what I did. I truly am. But I didn’t hurt her. I took good care of her. And I meant to return her. I really did. I only wanted—”

“Of course you did. Anyone would.”

“But I never hurt Uncle Harry. Why would I?”

“Wasn’t he the one paying you those coolie wages?”

I watched his face.

“Wasn’t that a pretty big slap in the face, working so hard for so little money? It’s not like the old bastard didn’t have it. He was loaded. What was he planning on doing, taking it with him?”

“No, no, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t do that. He’s always been—”

“What, Samuel? What’s he always been? Arrogant? Cheap? Unappreciative? It was always about his sister, never about you. What, he felt guilty he was normal and she wasn’t, he had a life and she didn’t? It made him hard, didn’t it? Hard-hearted toward
you,
not loving, supportive, appreciative.
Uncle
Harry, my ass. Why, the man should have been treating you like family. Instead, he treated you like a servant. How many years were you supposed to take it? Forever? Who
wouldn’t
have wanted to kill the cheap son of a bitch?”

“Is that what people will think, just because I took the dog?”

When we got to the corner, I yanked on his arm. “Hurry up. We can make the light.”

We stayed on the north side of Tenth Street. He didn’t see the precinct until we were almost on top of it.

“You said—”

“I lied,” I told him.

The door opened, and a uniform came out. Samuel waited until he’d walked up the block, toward Bleecker Street, so much equipment hanging off his pants it was a wonder they didn’t fall down.

“But they’ll think I killed Harry. They’ll think—”

“They’ll think you stole a bike from one of the Chinese delivery men taking a nap in the Westbeth courtyard and rode it full tilt into
Uncle
Harry. Were you trying to kill him, Sammy, or just trying to get his attention?”

Samuel’s mouth hung open. Any moment now, and he’d start drooling again.

“What was the fight about that afternoon, you and Harry screaming at each other? Did you ask for a raise, more compensation for your little classes? Is that what it was? Well, you showed
him,
didn’t you? Pretty soon, everyone will know what you’re made of, what a big man you are. No one’s going to ignore you now, will they?”

But he didn’t answer me. He just stood there, blinking, as if the sun was more than his eyes could bear.

“And that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to try to kill Venus, too, clobber her with a bookend, make a hole in her head. Well, she’s awake now, Samuel. And she’s talking. The charade is over.”

“But—”

“Give me your keys,” I said, holding out my hand.

“What?”

“Your keys. What do you want me to do, leave Lady at your house without food and water and someone to walk her while you rot in jail?”

“I thought you were going to help me,” he said, his face as wet and crushed as a used tissue. It was about as appealing, too.

“I thought you
liked
me,” he whined.

“Keys,” I said.

He mustered an ounce of backbone. I could see it coming, right between the panic and the rage.

“I don’t have to listen to you. Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?”

“You might want to think that over.”

“Why? Why should I?”

“Watch him,” I said.

Not getting it, he turned around. There was no one behind him, just the closed door to the precinct.

When he turned back toward me, he still didn’t get it. I pointed to my dog. He was facing Samuel, looking alert.

Okay, not alert. Menacing.

“Keys,” I repeated.

Samuel looked like a balloon with a leak. He reached into his pocket and handed me his keys.

We went inside. After explaining my visit to the desk sergeant, I waited while he called upstairs. In no time at all, two detectives came down, thick-necked guys with
Try me, asshole
expressions.

I walked off to the side with one of them—Matthew Agoudian, young guy with a big nose, dark eyes, good listening skills—told him what I knew, then stood there until they’d walked Samuel to the stairs, listening to him protesting his innocence, first to one detective, then the other. Bet they never heard that before.

Back outside, I ran across the street, got some cash from where it was cleverly secreted in my top desk drawer under my checkbook, then headed toward Bleecker Street to catch a cab.