Toured to Death (21 page)

M
arcus climbed the stairs from the kitchen to the bedroom level, a cup of coffee in each hand. “Light, no sugar,” he called out. “Right?”

By the time he reached the top, he could hear the shower running hard. On the far side of the bathroom door, Amy was singing. It was a cheery rock song from a million years ago about making love in a Mexican cantina.

Placing the steaming cups on a nightstand, he picked up his watch and slipped it on. He glanced around, then tiptoed to the center window of three and pulled down a slat of the venetian blind, just enough to see through. As always, except for a few hours twice a week, on the street cleaning days, Barrow Street was jammed with parked cars. But there weren't any here now that hadn't been here last night. Two grade school boys were running toward Seventh Avenue, dressed in uniforms and laughing. Other than that, the street was deserted.

He grabbed the moist bath towel draped over a bedpost. Toweling off his hair with one hand, he used the other to grab his phone and press a speed dial button. His roommate picked up on the second ring. “Terry? Me again.” Marcus tossed aside the towel and began to reach for his trousers, folded over a straight-backed chair. “Did they come back?”

“He was here a minute ago, just the one guy.” Terry's voice seemed too loud, much louder than his own. Marcus cocked an ear—the singer was still on the floor of the Mexican cantina—then cupped a hand around the phone. “I can get into trouble, Marcus. He wants you to come in for questioning. That's all.”

“Sure. That's why he was waiting at my door at ten thirty last night. For questioning?”

“You're going to have to come home sooner or later. I mean, if you don't . . . that's like being a fugitive.”

“Not if I don't know about it. Did it sound like he was going to arrest me? Did he have a warrant? They can't force me to come in without a warrant, can they?”

“How should I know? On TV the police bring people in. Stuff like, ‘You can answer my questions here or at the station house.' It sounds like they can force you.”

“I don't think so, not without a warrant.” Marcus cradled the phone in the crook of his neck as he slipped on the black trousers, followed by the black silk shirt from the other bedpost. He glanced around and was able to find only a small antique wall mirror. “She must be the only woman in America without a full-length mirror.”

“You're in someone's apartment? Where are you?”

“It's better if you don't know.”

Terry sighed. “What a mess.”

Marcus sighed back. “Maybe I should have stuck around. But when I saw his car out front, I panicked. I've already spent a week in jail. It's no fun.”

“Did you have an okay night?”

Marcus glanced toward the bathroom door. The water had stopped, and so had the singing. “I had a very nice night.” He lowered his voice even more. “What did he say this morning? Same as before?”

“He asked if you came home at all and if I'd heard from you. His patience was pretty thin. He asked if you had a girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Someone named Amy. Is she the one who came over?”

“Damn. He must be on his way here. Gotta go.”

By the time Amy, wearing only a towel and fogged-up glasses, emerged from the bathroom, Marcus was dressed and combing his hair. Amy came and kissed him shyly on the forehead. “Oh, coffee.” Marcus watched as she strolled over to the nightstand, her face so open and warm and pleased. “Great. No sugar, I hope.”

“We should go. We'll be late.”

Amy eyed him over the rim of steam. Why was he acting like this? Was it just the awkwardness of the morning after? “Plenty of time to sit down with a cup of coffee.” She smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “Don't you think? Traffic out to Long Island shouldn't be bad.”

“I have to get home first, to change.” And before Amy could object, he grabbed his coffee, still untasted, and his wallet and headed for the stairs.

Amy caught him by the arm, and a small wave of brown liquid sloshed out and onto the rug. “Sorry. Did it get you? Uh, I just wanted to say . . .” She had rehearsed this several different ways but never so rushed. “I'm glad you came over last night. I thought, after I dropped you off in front of the deli . . .”

“I told you. I needed milk.”

“I know. But I thought . . . I assumed it was just an excuse not to ask me up. Anyway, thanks for changing your mind. When I looked out the window and saw you ringing the bell . . .”

Marcus kissed her lightly on the cheek and headed once more for the stairs. “I'll be downstairs talking to Fanny.” It was a phrase designed to get Amy moving.

“Okay, I'm coming. Just a minute.”

Fanny Abel was in the third-floor kitchen, Amy's kitchen, filching the last of the coffee.
Stronger than normal,
she thought curiously. The sound of footsteps made her look up, and her eyes widened in momentary shock. A second later and all was normal, as if handsome men in black descended every morning from her daughter's bedroom.

“Fanny, there's no time to explain.”

“Explain? Sweetie, explain what?”

“No, no. This is an emergency.”

The doorbell buzzed, a tinny blast exploding from the intercom beside the stove.

“Damn. Okay, okay.” Marcus threw his hands to the sides of his head, as if physically trying to hold in his thoughts. “Okay. Quick. Yell upstairs. Tell Amy you'll answer the door.”

Fanny barely skipped a beat. “Amy,” she crooned in her piercing piccolo. “Don't answer that. I'm expecting Bernice Crenshaw. She hits your bell by mistake.”

“Fine,” came Amy's voice down the stairwell.

Fanny turned to Marcus. “Who is it? What do I do?”

“It's the police,” Marcus said, biting his lower lip. “They're looking for me.”

“Do they have a warrant?”

“I think it's just Frank Loyola. But Amy and I have some important things . . .”

“No need to explain.” Fanny pushed a button on the intercom. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Police,” a voice squawked almost indecipherably.

Fanny glanced up the stairs. “Bernice? Hello. Be down in a second.” And before the voice could respond, Fanny released the button. “I'll get him into my living room. You and Amy take the stairs down. . . .”

“He may have another officer outside.”

“Good point.” Fanny began fixing her hair in the refrigerator chrome. “I know. Have Amy take you out through the garden. I saw Mrs. Pelegrino. She'll let you go through her house to Grove Street.”

“Um.” Marcus bit his lip. “I don't want Amy knowing about the police. You know how she gets.”

“I do.” Fanny paused. “Tell her you want to see the garden. Then say hello to Mrs. Pelegrino. She'll be there as soon as you poke your head out, the old snoop. Admire those dreadful cabbage flowers. Then ask for a drink of water or something. You've got an imagination, dear. Use it.”

“Fanny, you're a wonder.” Marcus bent down and kissed her on the cheek with more enthusiasm than he'd used on Amy just a minute before.

With the stairs tripping under her feet, Amy came racing down. She arrived just in time to see her mother scurrying down the next flight to her own half of the house.

“Bernice, keep your blouse on!” Then, with a halt and a quick pivot, “Marcus, dear, would you mind closing the door? No reason you two should eavesdrop on a couple of old biddies.”

Amy waited until the kitchen door was firmly shut. “How did she take it?”

“Take . . . Oh, you mean seeing me come downstairs? She didn't mention it.”

“I'll bet.”

“You know, I think we do have some time, after all. No need to rush.”

“Sure.” Amy looked pleased. “How about more coffee? Damn. Fanny took the last of it, didn't she?”

“Oh, well.” Marcus's air of disappointment lasted a second. “I know. Let's go out to the garden. I've never seen it by daylight. Do people here plant things in the fall? You know, like mums? Or those little purple ornamental cabbages?”

Amy's face lit up. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Mrs. Pelegrino. Come on. I'll show you.”

M
arcus was enjoying this too much.

There was no other way to do it. They needed Doris Carvel to look at a photo and wanted to be together to gauge her reaction. This had been the most logical plan of attack. But Marcus was enjoying it too much.

“So romantic, you two meeting the way you did.” Doris beamed up at Marcus on her left, then up at Amy on her right. The three of them were strolling arm in arm in arm along the banks of the Long Island Sound, at the edge of the lawn. Yellow and brown leaves crunched under their feet. “You'll have to let me throw a party.”

“No, we can't let you do that.” Amy twisted the ring on her finger and felt guilty about the whole sham.

“I insist. A small affair. A few of Marcus's friends from his days with us.”

“That's not necessary.”

“Sweetie, why not?” Marcus smiled and threw Amy a playful wink. What the hell did that mean? Was this hilariously funny somehow? He had already told Doris in exaggerated detail about how he'd proposed just a day after getting out of an Italian jail. And now he could barely keep from laughing. Was it really so comical to think that he could be in love with her, that the two of them could be engaged?

“Honey, it's too much trouble.”

“It's no trouble at all,” Doris interjected.

“You see?” Marcus agreed.

Amy stood her ground. “I don't want to make a fuss. Such busy people, like, for instance, Stu Romney . . .” Emphasis, emphasis. “He wouldn't be interested in spending an afternoon with me. Face-to-face?”

“How modest.” Doris chuckled. “Stu would love to meet you. We spoke just the other day.”

“Ah, yes.” Marcus's grin faded as the memory of Amy's encounter with Stu clicked into place. “Maybe you shouldn't bother, Mrs. Carvel. Though it's a lovely thought.”

“Nonsense.” Doris was disappointed, but her mind had already turned elsewhere. “You know, it's funny, your mentioning Stu. He called the other day. I guess I said that. This woman, it seems, came into his office, claiming to be an old friend.”

“Claiming to be?” Marcus asked. “You mean she wasn't?”

“I don't remember her at all. Amanda Steiner. She said her mother had been a friend of mine back in San Diego. I don't recall any Steiners. Of course, this was ages ago.”

“Very strange,” Amy said. “You don't remember her?”

“What did she want?” Marcus asked in a much more natural tone.

“Stu didn't say.” Doris sighed. “It's so horrible, forgetting people. I mean, what do we have left after all these years but memories?” She let go of Marcus's arm and rearranged a shawl around her shoulders. “No. There wasn't any Steiner family. Why would she do that? Pretending to know us.”

“I don't think you'll hear from her again,” Amy said, meaning every word.

“Maybe she was a friend of Mrs. Gray's,” Marcus proposed.

“Mrs. Gray?” Doris looked puzzled. “You didn't know her well, did you?”

“Barely. Mrs. Gray was the cook,” Marcus explained to his fantasy fiancée, who already knew. “Tiny woman in black. Kept to herself.”

“Kept very much to herself,” Doris said. “Even in her young days in San Diego. The idea of her having friends . . . I suppose it's not impossible.”

If there was one thing Marcus could do, besides lie, it was manipulate a situation. In some ways he reminded Amy of her mother, a comparison she preferred not to think about. “Maybe this Amanda character knew Mr. Gray,” Amy suggested.

Doris looked uncomfortable. “There never was a Mr. Gray. Mrs. was just what we called her. Gray was her maiden name, although that's hard to believe, since she was Italian.”

“Grigio,” Amy translated. A fairly common name in Italy.

Marcus tilted his head to one side, as if dropping a half-forgotten memory out of his ear. “Didn't Mrs. Gray have a son? People used to talk about her son.”

“Young folks like you. Is it so odd, having a child out of wedlock?” A sly smile crimped the corners of the old woman's mouth. “We called her Mrs. Gray for propriety's sake. We cared about propriety, God knows why. I'm not sure anyone ever knew who the father was. It was one of those things you didn't ask.”

“You still don't,” Marcus said.

Doris laughed, a vocal eruption more shrill than Amy would have expected. “How did we ever get on this subject? Discussing the help, for heaven's sake.”

“We were speculating,” said Amy. “How did this Amanda woman get to know so much about your family? If Mrs. Gray is still here, she might be able to tell us. . . .”

“Oh, no. She's long retired. About a year after . . .” Her face clouded over. Like many widows, Doris marked the passage of time with the date of her husband's death. Things happened so many years before or so many years after. “A year after Fabian left us,” she continued, “I seem to recall her moving back to Italy. At least that was my takeaway.” Doris glanced up, her eyes meeting Amy's. For a second, her face had a soft, gamine quality, the way it might have looked before life and her own personality had irretrievably imprinted themselves. “Fabian used that expression. Takeaway. ‘What was your takeaway from the meeting? ' Like it was packaged in those little Chinese containers.”

In the distance, by the solarium, Kevin the butler had appeared. He was walking toward them. A purposeful walk, a “Please excuse us” walk.
Damn. One more minute,
Amy silently begged. That was all she needed. They might not get another chance.

Marcus sensed it, too. “You want to see a photo from our Italian trip?” Even as he spoke, he was fumbling frantically in the large pockets of his jacket.

“Oh, I love vacation photos. Is Georgina in the picture?”

“Yes,” Amy said. “It is one of the last pictures taken of her.”

In another second, the photo was out of its paper sleeve and crammed into Doris's arthritic hands. It was a six-by-nine shot of the captains, a “Here we are” photograph taken in front of the Rome finish line, enlarged from Amy's camera.

“Who are these people?” Doris asked.

The Irish butler from Boston was getting closer. Only his butler-like manners prevented him from interrupting them from a distance.

Marcus moved a foot to his left, positioning himself firmly between Kevin and his employer. “Those are some friends from the tour. See? There's Georgina.”

“Georgina,” Doris echoed sadly.

“Me. Burt Baker. He's a judge. Jolynn Mrozek, from New Jersey.” As Marcus named them, Amy shoved a fingertip toward each, making sure that Doris had time to register the individual faces. “Frank Loyola, a policeman. Martha Callas from Dallas.”

Doris followed the finger but was clearly losing interest. “Very nice. Very nice group.” And then it came, an almost inaudible “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Amy had been alert for this, a glimmer of recognition flashing in the widow's eyes. “What is it?”

“Mrs. Carvel?” Kevin had arrived, just on the other side of Marcus's roadblock.

Amy held her ground. “Mrs. Carvel. Do you recognize one of these people? You look like you recognized someone. Another friend?”

Doris pursed her lips and emitted a noise, like a little grunt. “Uh, no. I thought for just a second . . . Silly me.”

Kevin raised his voice and a hand. “Mrs. Carvel?”

“What's silly?” Amy asked. “What is it?”

Doris Carvel lowered the photograph and finally saw the butler. “Kevin?” She sounded almost relieved.

Marcus took back the photo. “Did one of these people look familiar?”

“What is it, Kevin?”

“Excuse me,” Marcus insisted. Using both hands now, he thrust the six-by-nine once again into her line of sight. “Mrs. Carvel, please. If you do know one of these people, it's important. It could help solve your husband's murder.”

“Solve my husband's . . .” For a woman who always tried to avoid the worst of life, such a claim had to be unsettling. “Is that why you came here? Fabian was killed by a mugger.”

“Maybe he wasn't,” Amy said evenly. “Is one of these faces familiar?”

“Please.” Marcus was begging. “It would help me so much.”

Doris considered it for a second, then raised her eyes and shook her head. “No, I'm sorry. I thought . . .” She seemed embarrassed by all the fuss. “I was wrong. My eyesight isn't what it used to be. Kevin?”

The butler spoke into Marcus's roadblock. “There's a police detective here to see you.”