The Angel of Eden (11 page)

By the time I'd straightened the place up, cleaned the kitchen, fed Loki and taken her out, it was time to leave for my appointment
with Tricia Ross. Loki was still on edge, in no state to stay alone again. I got some treats, wrapped her in a warm blanket, and carried her to the car.

A chicken snack wrap and a large coffee from the McDonald's drive-through at Tenth and Thirty-fourth satisfied my hunger pains. Not my top choice of meal, but I was starving. I offered Loki the last bite but she wouldn't take it. Clearly she had better taste than I did.

Samuel and I had always chuckled at the name of the Long Island town where I was heading—Babylon. A more different landscape from ancient Iraq's ornate seat of power couldn't be imagined. The flat coastal terrain and relatively few trees made everything look stripped down and stark in the fist of winter. Now, in the early evening dark and with no wind, the ocean lay flat and gray; the water lent a salty sweetness to the air. I passed marine yards dotted with the skeletons of old sailing boats, iron hauls and winches, yachts covered with canvas and put to bed for the season, their keels like giant fish fins. It occurred to me how ironic it was that Tricia Ross, a specialist in Near East culture, would choose to live surrounded by water. Perhaps the years she'd spent working in dry, dusty areas had driven her to move here.

Tricia's house on Virginia Road was a cute, folksy, two-story clapboard. It had a stone walk and a garden that I imagined brimmed with flowers and shrubs in the summer but was now only brittle brown stalks. I arrived a little early and was glad to see her lights on and a car in the drive. Before we left I'd given Loki her medication; the sedative had kept her snoozing throughout the car ride. I opened the window a little to make sure she had air. She didn't even lift her head when I got out and shut the door.

Tricia didn't answer the bell. I waited a few minutes and tried again. I remembered she was punctual to the point of absurdity,
known for refusing to let students enter the lecture hall if her class had already started. After another wait, I thumped my fist on the door. Still nothing. It was now almost fifteen minutes past the time of our appointment. I pulled out my phone. When the call connected, I got voice mail.

Samuel once told me that Tricia had fallen and broken her hip in Kuwait a few years before, and that she'd had mobility problems ever since. The accident put an end to her working trips to the Middle East. I worried she may have fallen again.

The lights were on next door. I forded the bushes through to the pathway and rang the neighbor's bell. A tough-looking man in his forties opened the door, glowering, probably because I'd just interrupted his favorite TV program. A heavyset woman I assumed was his wife hovered behind him.

“Hate bothering you but I have an appointment with Tricia next door and even though she appears to be home, she's not answering the bell. I tried calling her too. I'm concerned something may have happened and I'm not sure what to do.”

He looked across the way to Tricia's front porch and squinted. “She's home. I saw her drive in around six.”

“That's not like Tricia, Jack,” his wife said. “We've got her spare key. Why don't I just run over and stick my head in the front—”

“Nope,” he growled. “I'll go. Wait here a sec,” he said to me.

When he returned he grabbed his jacket off a wall hook and motioned for me to follow him. “We'll check the back door first,” he said. “Sometimes she leaves it open. Not much ever happens around here.”

Jack led the way down a narrow flagstone walk running beside the house. I almost collided with him when he stopped abruptly. “That's weird.” He jerked his head toward a small side window. “She's never had curtains on that kitchen window.”

It wasn't a curtain. The window looked to be covered with a bath towel. Jack tried the back door but it was locked. He pulled the key out of his pocket. “Guess it's the front entrance for us after all.”

We'd made enough noise tromping down the walk and fiddling with the back door that she should have heard us—but the house remained still as a tomb. Jack stuck the key in the front door lock. “Tricia will have my hide for doing this. She's very private.” He twisted the knob and opened the front door. We stepped into the living room. Jack called out. Tricia didn't answer. He went through another doorway into what I assumed was the kitchen. I couldn't see ahead because his bulky figure filled the door frame, but I heard him readily enough.

“Mother of God.”

Sixteen

T
ricia was slumped against the kitchen table. Her head drooped on her chest, her ankles were trussed to the table legs, and her arms were bound by a thin cable to the spindles of the chair she sat on. The cable had been tied so tightly her hands were blue. Her mouth was a mass of blood—blood that had spattered onto her white sweater and now dripped from the tablecloth onto the floor. Her glassy eyes stared at nothing. I heard cursing and was barely aware it came from me. My stomach heaved.

“You got a phone?” Jack yelled. “Use it.” He stood over Tricia protectively, part of him desperate to help her, another part seeming to realize she was already gone.

I called 911. I don't know exactly what I said. When my wits returned, I took a quick look around the room. The kitchen hadn't been updated for some time. It had old white appliances, a scuffed linoleum floor. Canisters and an open box of chai tea stood on the marbled Arborite counter. A teacup upturned in its
saucer, crumpled napkins, and something small and round, all blood spattered, were strewn on the table.

I insisted we go outside to wait for the police. Jack agreed reluctantly. When we did, his wife peeked around their front door. “Everything okay, Jack?”

“Stay inside, Mandy.”

Mandy shrugged on a pink duffel coat and rushed over, wide eyed. “What's wrong?” she said, staring at Tricia's front door.

Jack took a deep breath. “Tricia's dead.”

Mandy stared at him in disbelief and burst into tears. Jack held her in an awkward bear hug until we heard sirens approaching.

A cruiser soon appeared around the bend; in its wake, an ambulance sped down the gloomy, empty street. Jack waved to the cops, who parked in front of the house, jumped out of their cruiser, and hurried over. The ambulance braked behind them.

“What's up, Jack?” one of the cops asked. His eyes flicked over me.

“Tricia's in there. Murdered. Some evil fuck beat the shit outta her.”

“Stay with them, Kent,” the cop said to his younger partner. He followed the ambulance attendants inside and returned about ten minutes later. He nodded toward me. “Friend of yours, Jack?”

Jack stepped away as if to disown his acquaintance with me. “Nope. He's how come I found Tricia. Knocked on our door. I let us into her place with the spare key she gave us for emergencies.”

The cop glanced at me again, an appraising look. “Detective Shea,” he introduced himself. “What's your name?”

“John Madison. I made the 911 call. I was supposed to meet Tricia here at seven. When she didn't answer, I got worried and went next door.”

“That your Porsche over there?”

“Yes.”

“Need to see some ID.”

I pulled out my wallet and handed it to him with a sinking feeling. This was not going to go well.

“Jack, why don't you and Mandy get back home. I'll be over as soon as I can.”

Jack nodded and put his arm around Mandy, who shuddered and pulled her coat tighter around her. They walked to their front door and Jack ushered her inside.

More sirens wailed. Two more Suffolk County police cruisers pulled up. Neighbors ventured out of their houses and stood at the top of their drives, gawking with that mixture of fascination and horror that always seems to accompany a tragedy.

A heavyset cop got out of the first cruiser and hustled over.

“Babysit Mr. Madison for me, Jeff,” Shea said, handing him my wallet. “Check him out.” He gave me a quick look. “I'll be back for a talk in a minute.”

“My dog's in my car,” I said. “I can't leave her for too long.”

“She'll keep.”

Jeff's babysitting consisted of frisking me for weapons, taking my cellphone and key fob, and stowing me in the back seat of his vehicle. He got into the driver's seat and thumbed through my wallet. He was parked right behind my car in Tricia's driveway. I could see two front paws, a black snout, and two bright eyes peeping over the front seat. Loki didn't bark. Her vocalizations were more like a yowl. When that didn't bring me running she moved over to the window and started scratching at it with her front paws. By the time this day was over, she'd be so frightened I'd never get her calmed down.

Almost an hour passed. The ambulance attendants left. A white SUV arrived,
SUFFOLK COUNTY CRIME SCENE
printed on its side. A
man in a black windbreaker and pants climbed out, nodded toward the cruiser. He took a bag out of the trunk and went in.

Tricia's murder was such a shock that I hadn't yet wondered who might have done it. Now the implications of Yersan's threatening behavior came home to me. Had he caught Tricia unaware, forced her to reveal that Strauss owned the artifacts, tortured her to extract the information? No one could withstand a beating like that. How long had she held out? My mind raced with terrible images. It suddenly struck me that Strauss, and Bennet if she was still at his place, might be in danger too. I knocked on the Plexiglas partition to get the cop's attention. He shook his head without turning around. “Hey!” I pounded the glass. “Hey!” Still he ignored me.

Shea returned and tapped on Jeff's window. Jeff rolled it down and they exchanged a few words, but I couldn't catch what was said. Jeff handed my key fob to Shea, who used it to pop the trunk of my Porsche. He looked inside, shut it, then opened the back door and slid in beside me. “Let's hear it from your point of view,” he said.

“Before I tell you, someone else is in danger from the man I suspect killed Tricia. I need to call my friend right now to warn him. His number's on my phone.” I expected an argument but Shea handed my phone over straightaway. I called Strauss. His line switched to voice mail so I left a message. I couldn't reach Bennet either but left a message for her too. I prayed I hadn't been too late.

I filled Shea in on what had happened since Bennet first walked through my door, including Yersan's harassment of Tricia, and gave him the shop address in Flatbush. I told him about my place being broken into and my laptop stolen soon after my visit to the shop. Shea listened closely, interrupting only to clarify a point, then jotted down a few lines in his notebook. When he finished, he sat back and sighed. “What time did you get here?”

“Couple of minutes before seven.”

“Anyone see you drive up?”

“Not that I know of, but hold on.” The long wait in the cruiser had given me time to think. I'd anticipated his question and realized I did have proof. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a receipt. “Here. I bought some food and coffee at McDonald's in New York just after six
P.M
.”

He reached for the receipt, read it, and handed it back. “Okay. That's good. Did you see any signs of forced entry when you first knocked on her door?”

I shook my head. “No. And that's when I got Jack next door. He had a key.”

“Okay. How do I contact you?”

I handed over my card, and then he returned my things. “That's it?” I said.

“Yes, for now. You can go. I'll be in touch.”

Loki yelped and leapt into my arms when I opened my car door. I snapped on her leash and let her take a leak before we left. As I backed out of Tricia's driveway, I waved toward Shea. He didn't seem to notice.

Seventeen

February 18, 2005

I
t was after midnight by the time I made it back to my place to find Bennet sleeping on the sofa, one arm thrown around a plump pillow. The eiderdown had slipped away from her shoulders and the tiny T she wore had ridden up, exposing her naked breast. Even in my troubled state of mind, I found that enticing.