Too Quiet in Brooklyn (19 page)

Why wasn’t I surprised. When I finished reading Cookie’s account, I copied down the pertinent names, addresses, and phone numbers.

“If I find Charlie, it’ll be in large part because of you,” I said, amazed that Cookie had gotten so many interviews in such a short time.

And speaking of time, things were getting tight. I looked at my watch—close to eleven, at least twenty-four hours since Mary Ward Simon was killed. I was betting that whoever killed her had taken her grandson, Charlie. What other explanation could there be?

“So what did you really think of her? Barbara, I mean?”

Cookie stopped filing and pursed her lips. “A little too much of a cool customer for having just lost her mother and her child.”

“You didn’t like her?”

Cookie switched her gum around to the other side of her mouth. “Bitch.”

Denny didn’t take his eyes off the wheel, but I felt him jump at the word. His turn to say something. “Who do you think murdered Mary Ward Simon, or is it too soon to ask?”

“Conspiracy,” both of us said.

Denny smiled. “That explains it.” He paused. “But seriously.”

“Too early, really, but I think those handymen had something to do with it. They’d have the strength,” I said. I told them about my asking Barbara if she knew about them. “She stumbled over herself to deny any knowledge of them.”

There was silence until Cookie told me I could really pick clients.

“But that’s not the scary part,” she said. “The scary part is, what do you think they did with Charlie? Why would handymen want a little kid?”

“They could have taken him in the van. There’d be no trace of his body. Don’t forget, they found his book in the tall grass.” Denny said.

I looked out the window but saw nothing.

“Or they could have gotten rid of him easy in the Meadowlands, back there where we saw the carrion flying, for instance.” Cookie turned back to look at me, cracking her gum.

I shivered. “Don’t be so gory, both of you, please, and give me a piece of your gum.” I unwrapped the gum and stuck it into my mouth. “What makes more sense is the ex wanted his little boy back and hired the handymen, only something went wrong.” Crack. Crack. “A piece is missing. Why would Barbara recommend low life handymen to her mother?”

“Maybe she wasn’t the one who recommended them,” Denny said. “Don’t forget, Barbara’s just lost her child and her mother. She’s probably on tranquilizers.”

Cookie continued. “Talking to that Hector guy, they both sounded like scum bags. Claimed one was about as clever as a door and the other was high on something. Doesn’t sound like the type Mary Ward Simon would hire for her yard work, but she’s the one who told him ‘a good friend’ recommended them to her.”

“Lots of pieces missing, as in evidence and motive. We got many people with means,” I said, “and that’s about it. I’ve got questions rolling around in my head and no answers. Why did Mary Ward Simon hire such losers? And if she’s implicated, what does Barbara stand to gain from her mother’s death and the loss of her son?”

My head was reeling. I opened my laptop, plugged it into the Jeep’s backseat power port, and began looking at the reports of Arrowsmith’s mobile. I scanned both incoming and outgoing numbers and highlighted one that appeared several times a day in both categories. Some months it was the only a few calls, but no other numbers were called multiple times.

I wrote it in my notebook and decided to create a list on the back page of important phone numbers and license plates followed by a brief explanation so I could get to them easy, flip to it when I wasn’t doing anything, memorize them.

We were slowing again, the service area looming ahead. Denny dropped me and Cookie off and said he’d meet us near the filling station.

An Incident

The service area was packed, and the line in front of the Women’s Room was out to long term. Cookie was cool about it, but she could afford to be. She took out her mirror, faced the wall, and began examining her eyes.

As we waited and the line inched forward, she said, “Don’t look now, but there’s a guy slouched around the corner, pretending to look at postcards. He hasn’t moved, just staring at us. There he goes. No, he just went deeper into the store and I can see him looking at us. Giving me the creeps big time. Only good thing about it is, judging by the look on his face, two IQ points less and he’d be a tree.”

“So he must not be very cute,” I said using low tones and not turning around.

“This is serious.”

“Describe him.”

“Slouching, so I think he’s tall. Wearing khakis. Got a T-shirt on. Can’t see his shoes. Baseball cap.”

“What team?”

She hesitated. “How should I know?”

“Figures.”

“I can’t see his face too well, but he’s got longish, curly brown hair, maybe matted, like dreads.”

The line inched forward and I felt my eye talking back to me. This morning when I woke up and tried to open it, I felt it hesitate, so didn’t push it. The lashes were stuck together, but the shower loosened them up. Opening the lid did nothing, however, except scare me. So I knew my vision had been compromised. I was having trouble focusing on the near distance, but decided to do something about this creep, at least to keep my mind off the fact that now I was desperate to pee.

“Still there?”

“Yes, he’s got his eyes trained on us. Hasn’t moved. Mouth open.”

“Maybe he’s staring at someone ahead of us or behind us.”

The line in front of the Women’s inched forward.

“Could be, but I’ve got him in my sights. Dead on.”

“Hold my place, will you?” I said it loud so the women behind us wouldn’t think I was butting in when I returned.

“Where are you going?”

“To look at postcards. Yell if he starts punching my other eye.”

“And if he has a gun?”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

It took me, what, maybe all of ten seconds to get to the gift shop. I watched the baseball cap turn and walk deeper into the store, my good eye trained on him at all times, but he must have had a sixth sense, because the closer I got to him, the farther away he became. He disappeared into the crowd. Instead of looking around for him, I decided to get back in line.

“That was quick. Why didn’t you go after him?”

I shrugged. “I would have if he’d been walking with a little boy.”

Cookie said nothing, but was writing in her notebook.

“Good eyes, Cookie. Probably nothing, and anyway, I got to go something dangerous.”

“Put your brain in neutral and don’t think about it. Concentrate hard on something else.”

Leave it to Cookie. She can always be relied on for solid advice.

Nanette

We sat in Woodie’s Café near the window looking out onto Main Street in Allentown waiting for our food. Having beaten the lunch crowd by a half minute, we were seated right away, but the restaurant filled up fast and the sounds of glasses and silverware knocking tables, the customers talking to one another and someone yelling in the kitchen, made it sound like midtown Manhattan.

The view out the window was a different matter, however. It was as if I’d landed on a new planet compared to the only world I knew well, Brooklyn. Across the street was a clapboard post office with blue shutters, the real thing, with smiling clerks and enough time to help you mail a package. They even sold stamps. Next to it stood a church converted to the town’s library. I could see myself sitting there on a Thursday evening reading about the Battle of Monmouth and listening to the clop of horse’s hooves. Allentown, the sign says, was founded in 1706. Washington’s troops had marched down this road looking for the British, or trying to get away from them, one of those. And Ben Franklin probably walked through these fields looking for a good lay.

We exchanged the newspapers we’d bought as we entered the cafe. Each had a picture of Charlie and a two-column story on the front page.
The New York Times
also printed a picture of Mary Ward Simon, featuring various quotes from some of her Heights friends about her work for the Brooklyn Historical Society and her years serving in the women’s ministry of the Plymouth Church. Leave it to the
Times
to dig up the fact that she was distantly related to the first pastor, Henry Ward Beecher, a long winded abolitionist, according to Mom.

When our food arrived, we put down the papers and I took a bite of my bacon cheeseburger, the meat done to perfection, hot and sizzling, the fries crisp, and the juice dripping off my chin.

“So what did you find out, other than Arrowsmith doesn’t live there anymore?” Cookie asked, putting down her burger and wiping her fingers with a napkin.

I took a moment, wondering where to begin.

Earlier, Denny and Cookie waited in the park on Main Street while I knocked on the door of a large Victorian on High Street with Arrowsmith’s last known address on the mailbox. I was greeted by a slight woman wearing heels and a print dress and wiping her hands on her apron. Her nails were recently polished, her makeup was fresh, and her blonde hair didn’t look too artificial, especially if you were looking at her like I was, through one tired eye. Matter of fact, she seemed like she’d just stepped out of a 1980s Vogue. She took two quick breaths, smiled, and asked how she could help.

After I showed her my PI license, I told her I was investigating a missing person and was told James S. Arrowsmith might be able to help with information. Cocking her head, she took in what I said without comment. She told me she was Jim’s mother and invited me inside. I followed her down a long hall, wooden planks and sideboard gleaming. She gestured to the front parlor and asked if she could get me something to drink, offering soda, coffee, or tea. I chose water.

While I waited for her to return, I looked around the room, a stuffily furnished Victorian classic. I say Victorian classic, but I’d be hard put to distinguish Victorian from La-Z-Boy. To me, the room looked immaculate, like a TV set for a fireside ghost story and I expected Bella Lugosi to walk in, sit, and begin his tale.

On one side was a white marble fireplace, ornately carved. Above the mantel a large painting, a landscape of a country scene, was vaguely familiar, no doubt a copy of some pastoral scene in an ornate-type frame with cows and ducks and farmers and barns. Two matching wingback chairs flanked the hearth in a red print pattern, and in back of them were built-in shelves, some kind of dark wood. They held a few books, a few vases, and what looked like family photos, some in black and white. A bay window took up the front wall, and in the middle of the room were two love seats facing each other, a small table in between. I went over to the bookshelf and ran a finger on a few of the shelves. No dust. I looked at the book spines, a few bound in leather without no titles, a copy of Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn and several self-help books, one of which was titled Make Money Quick, another, Learn French In Five Minutes. Hearing footsteps, I sat in one of the love seats and pulled out my phone and began reading my emails.

“You have a beautiful parlor,” I said. I’m such a pseudo.

Her movements were graceful as she brought the glass to me on a tray, water and ice with a lemon wedge in a tall glass, offering me a napkin. Some hostess, I thought. I noticed she was gripping the tray so hard her fingers were red and her hands, although cared for, had calluses. She was trying to keep herself from spilling, not the water.

“My name’s Nanette. Nanette Arrowsmith, and this is more about Jim than the missing person, isn’t it?”

“If by Jim you mean James S. Arrowsmith, yes, it is. Your brother?”

She smiled. “My son.” And she did this thing with her lungs again—she took two quick breaths and held the air for a beat before exhaling and speaking. Mom used to do that. I never figured out why—whether it was voluntary or what—but she did the double breath thing, I noticed, whenever anyone asked her about Dad. A wave of compassion swept over me for Nanette Arrowsmith and for what one day she would probably learn about her son, if in fact he had something to do with the killing of Mary Ward Simon and Charlie’s abduction.

“His name came up in the investigation I was telling you about. We think he might have been doing some handiwork or gardening for a woman who died recently. Now her grandchild is missing.”

Nanette took two quick breaths, held them, and said, “Not the little boy I saw in the newspaper this morning? Abducted from his grandmother’s home in Brooklyn?”

I nodded.

She held her pose for a few seconds. “Jim would never ever hurt anyone. He was in prison, you probably know that, for armed robbery, but it was a setup. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They sent him to prison and the man who planned it and had the gun, got off with a slap on the wrist. But Jim was released early. Believe me when I say, he would never hurt anyone. When I saw the photo today of that child …” She did that the inhale-hold-exhale thing. “After he was paroled, he stayed here. Both my boys still have their rooms. Jim spent most of the time in his room with the door closed and loud music on. Enough to drive me crazy, but I didn’t say anything. I knew he needed time to recover. That was a few years ago.”

“How long did he stay with you?”

“About a year. He seemed … broken. Didn’t go out much or look for a job. He had no energy. Then something changed. One day I came home—I did some waitressing after David died, you know, to make ends meet until we received the settlement—he was sitting in the parlor with a friend, a young man about his age, maybe a little younger. They were laughing and drinking. Soft drinks, of course.”

Of course. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move a muscle. She was so fragile, I wasn’t going to take notes in front of her.

“He said he found a job doing some gardening for someone who owned a horse farm. I can’t tell you how changed he was, just because of a job. Happier than I’d seen him since grade school. They went off together, Jim and his friend, laughing and talking. I can still see him turning to me and waving with the front door open. ‘Bye, Mom.’ Since that day, he doesn’t call me all that much, not like Donald does. His brother. Jim used to call when he needed money. I could tell by the burr in his voice he was desperate, otherwise he wouldn’t have called. He’d stop by, and I’d give him some cash. Not much, just enough to help him until he got another job. But since the day he brought his friend home and told me he found work, I haven’t worried about him, either.”