Too Quiet In Brooklyn (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  copyright

  Dedication

  Summary

  Thursday

  The Tree and the Boy

  Fina Finds a Body

  Detective Jane Templeton

  Pushed by an Unseen Force

  Ralphie

  Caputo’s Bakery

  Getting It Right

  Black Eye

  Teresa’s

  No Kidding Around

  In a Mood

  Ralph Didn’t Want to Do It

  The Clark Street Station

  Meeting Barbara

  Jane and Willoughby

  College Place

  No Blood, Boss

  Blue Mist

  Ralph Remembers

  The Smell of Cordite

  La Piazza

  Heights Federal

  The Fight

  Needy

  The Primary Crime Scene

  A Small Motel

  Ralph and the Lamp

  Marie was the best thing

  My Giving Tree

  A Broken Record

  Friday

  Phoebe Daligan

  A Surprise Visit

  On The Way

  An Incident

  Nanette

  The NJ Connection

  Henry’s End

  Saturday

  The Encounter

  Breakfast In Brooklyn

  Waiting For Results

  Alf’s Car & Truck Towing

  A Roadside Stand

  No More M&M’s

  Surveillance

  Over The Edge

  A Child With Chestnut Hair

  Celebrating Too Soon

  Long Before It Happens

  Sunday

  Sunday Morning Update

  Waiting For The Woman

  Feeling Jumpy

  Like A Meat Grinder

  A Gurgle

  Briefing The Chief

  The Following Week

  Dinner At The McDuffy’s

  Returning The Photo

  The Shore

  Wrapping Up

  Vinegar Hill House

  Characters & Places

  About the Author

  Dear Readers

  Too Quiet In Brooklyn

  A Fina Fitzgibbons Mystery

  by

  Susan Russo Anderson

  Copyright © 2014 Susan Russo Anderson

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Too Quiet In Brooklyn is a work of fiction.

  Names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead

  is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Avalon Graphics

  Copy Editing & Proofreading: Angella Graf

  ISBN: 978-1497361508

  Author’s Website

  susanrussoanderson.com

  Readers, I’d love to hear from you:

  [email protected]

  For Sara Lane & Sophia Grace

  Short Blurb:

  Fina finds a throttled woman in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. She discovers that the dead woman’s young grandson is also missing and begins a hunt for the strangler-kidnapper, Ralph. During the chase, she resists falling in love with her boyfriend, Denny and uncovers secrets about her own past. In the end, Ralph has a deadly surprise for Fina.

  Synopsis

  Twenty-two-year-old Fina Fitzgibbons stumbles upon a throttled woman in the heart of Brooklyn Heights and discovers that the dead woman’s four-year-old grandson is also missing. She begins a wild hunt for the strangler-kidnapper, Ralph. During the chase, she resists falling in love with her boyfriend, Denny, an NYPD patrol officer, steps on the toes of Detective First Grade Jane Templeton, and uncovers secrets about her own past. In the end, Ralph has a deadly surprise for Fina.

  Thursday

  The Tree and the Boy

  Charlie grabbed his favorite book, the one about a tree and a boy, and opened the door to the roof garden.

  “Wait for me,” his grandmother said, cookies and milk in her hand.

  They sat together on the rocking chair.

  Pointing to some branches across the way where the breeze hit the leaves and made them shimmer, she said, “Like angel wings.”

  Charlie licked the cookie and opened his book.

  The sounds of traffic and sirens had long since fled across bridges and into tunnels, streaming along with most adults to their day jobs in the city. In their place, midmorning quiet descended. As she read, the four-year old listened, wrapped up in the world of the story, even though he knew the words by heart.

  “‘Once there was a tree.’” She turned the page.

  “I want to read it now.” He placed his finger underneath each word and read. “‘And she loved a little boy.’” He looked up at his gran and smiled. The woman stopped so the child could gaze at the drawings of the tree and a boy running to play beneath its branches. She began to turn the page.

  “Wait. I haven’t finished looking,” he said, flattening the spread with his hand. “Boy,” he said, sounding out the letters. He pointed to the boy.

  The woman heard feet running in the alley below, muffled shouts, and the hollow ring of a heavy object hitting metal. The air stilled.

  “Nothing!” someone yelled. “It’s a dud.”

  She sat up straighter, cocking her head. Charlie stared at the page, tracing the drawing with his finger.

  A deep voice snarled below. “Get down! S’posed to take a sec.”

  The child looked up at her and she smiled.

  Then it happened—a flash of light, a searing blast that shook the house. The book dropped from her lap and Charlie buried his face in her chest.

  When her senses returned, the woman heard running feet, shouting, laughter, the hissing sound of something hitting the garbage can. She held onto her grandson. “Firecrackers in May?” she said, mostly to herself.

  The boy looked up at her. “Is it over?” He hung onto her arm.

  She stroked the side of his face before picking up the book and asked, “Can I turn the page now?”

  He nodded and settled back in the chair.

  Sunlight flashed off the sapphire and diamonds of her ring as she held the book and read, but the smell of cordite and gasoline began to choke her. The child rubbed his eyes. The woman saw a rising cloud of smoke.

  “Stay here. I’ll just take a little peak.” She walked to the edge of the terrace, leaned against the rail, and looked down.

  “Finish the story,” Charlie said, gulping his milk and stuffing a cookie into his mouth.

  She read a few more pages but stopped when she saw flames licking the leaves across the way.

  “Let’s go downstairs for a moment. Gran has to shoo those nasty men away or they’ll just keep on with their nonsense. They should be working, not disrupting. We’ll be back in a tick, and after we finish the book, I’ll drive you to your favorite park.”

  “What’s a tick?”

  “Faster than you can count to ten.” She planted a kiss on the top of his head and swiped a finger at the milk ring above his upper lip.

  Fina Finds a Body

  Mom would call it a 9/11 morning—no sirens, no fights, and a fresh breeze off the ocean wafting all the street gunk away. I knew something bad was ab
out to happen. The feeling followed me most the day, a stillness setting my teeth on edge. That afternoon when my best friend Cookie and I were walking down Henry Street toward the gym, I could feel the monster rumbling inside me.

  “Is that a sack of laundry in front of your grill?” Cookie asked, pointing across the street to a dark lump in the middle of the sidewalk a few feet from my front gate.

  I’d inherited a brownstone in Brooklyn. Growing up, we had a fine life, living in the parlor and basement, renting out the upper floors, but sometimes garbage cans rattled beneath my bedroom window in the middle of the night. I shook my head. “More like someone’s been rooting through our throwaways.”

  I looked up at the leaves, thick with late afternoon light, sensing whatever it was on the sidewalk might be something of consequence, but I continued walking away from it, hoping Cookie’s curiosity would pass and the creepy feeling on the back of my neck would go away.

  She tugged at my sleeve. “C’mon, let’s go over and take a look.”

  “Forget it. We’ll be late for karate.” I stared at the mass on the sidewalk.

  “Instructor’ll never know. Got his head up his own inner space.” Cookie stepped into the street, pulling me along with one hand while she texted with the other.

  Sirens roared in the distance and I hauled Cookie back to the curb just in time to avoid inline bladers slaloming down the street. The quiet had been broken, but the heap on the sidewalk hadn’t moved. It lay there, squat and foreboding while I stared at its edges, my skin prickling with the knowledge of what I was about to get into.

  I knew whatever lay near my front door was no ordinary debris. For one thing, my curls began pulling at my scalp, a definite sign of trouble. And for another, the pile sat on the exact spot where I’d found Mom’s body five years ago. The lump in my throat was killing me, but I looked around. No sounds except for the pounding in my ears.

  As we drew closer, Cookie’s eyes widened. Covering her mouth, she leaned hard against a tree and closed her eyes.

  It was woman, or a specter dressed as a woman. She lay in a fetal position, neck and head burrowed into an oversized moth-bitten coat like a turtle hiding in its shell. The coat wasn’t hers, I’d bet money on it. It was black wool fading to bilious green, with padded shoulders and a fake leopard-skin collar. On her feet were patent leather flats that looked like they’d cost the better part of five-hundred dollars. Both heels were evenly worn and there were small creases on the toes, so her shoes weren’t new, just nicely broken in.

  My heart pounded. I stepped back, took out my phone, and snapped a few photos. Slipping on evidence gloves, I tapped her shoulder. “M’am?”

  No answer.

  Then I pushed and pulled at the form until she turned onto her back. My forehead was soaked, but I had to know more. I undid the top buttons of the coat.

  “Are you crazy?” Cookie asked. “Don’t touch anything. Denny’ll kill you.”

  The dead woman had blonde hair going to gray, pinned into a loose bun on the top of her head, strands falling out, I supposed from a recent struggle or just from someone shoving her into an old coat. All in all, though, well turned out for having just met a violent end. Hard to guess her age, but I’d say fifty at least. I felt for a pulse, but shouldn’t have bothered. By the startled look in her bloodshot eyes and her purple complexion, to say nothing about the bruising around her neck or her protruding tongue, I knew she was dead, and not from natural causes.

  I felt such pity for her, such anger and revulsion at whoever had done this to her, to any human being, that I thought I was going to lose it. It was obvious to me she had been throttled somewhere else, wrapped in an old coat, and dumped here. But why here? Weren’t there better places in Brooklyn to get rid of a body? I mean, why use a main street in the Heights? I looked at her violated face, bloated but vaguely familiar.

  From what I could see, she wore an expensive-looking black linen suit and, as if dressed for Halloween, yellow rubber gloves, the kind used for heavy scrubbing. I’d come this far, so I removed one of the gloves. Her hand was elegant and veined, folded into itself and fragile like a newborn bird, the fingernails recently manicured but one partially ripped off, a thread or a hair or something dangling from it. In my head I could hear Detective Jane Templeton yelling at me and I wouldn’t blame her, but I couldn’t help it, and anyway they already had my prints and DNA on file from the last time. To my credit, I resisted looking through the woman’s pockets for ID.

  “Stop touching her,” Cookie said. But for all her bluster, she bent over the body and stared at the woman, her attention arrested, her face crinkled into a frown, and her shoulders shuddering slightly. “Who’d want to kill an old lady like that? Did you see the rock she’s got on?”

  I took out my phone and snapped a few more photos of the woman’s face, her neck, and several of her gloveless hand, getting a close up of the ring, a square-cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

  “Whoever killed her didn’t bump her off for the money, that’s for sure.”

  A mom pushing a stroller filled with groceries and a couple of toddlers sideswiped us but didn’t stop or look down. The kids waved flags and smiled. I noticed a stream of pedestrians on the other side of the street, probably a late afternoon discharge from the subway up the street. They passed us without a blink, their minds fixed on home. A biker team sped by, not even giving us a downward glance. But why should they? Normal people were focused on their lives. It explained why a dead body could lie in the middle of a busy block for who knows how long and go unnoticed. Thinking of the passersby, a stab of envy shot through me—I could use a bagful of normal about now.

  Despite Cookie’s bear claws yanking me by the shoulders, I kept gazing at the dead woman’s face trying to place it I squeezed my eyes shut. Pictures of another death steamrolled my mind—the deep jade sucked out of Mom’s eyes. Then I remembered where I’d seen this woman.

  I called 911. “We’ve found a woman lying on the sidewalk. Henry Street between Joralemon and State. She’s not responding. Looks like she’s been strangled.” I texted Denny: “Need u here asap, dead body dumped in front of Lucy’s.”

  I dropped to my knees again beside the battered form and stared at the woman’s face. When I closed my eyes, the shape of her head was etched against the void. “I won’t forget you, I promise. I’ll find your killer, I swear I will.”

  In a moment, Cookie straightened and waved to Denny and his partner as their cruiser pulled up across the street and the sirens died.

  * * *

  Denny sprang out and slammed the door. “Not another one,” he said, grabbing me and hugging me tight.

  I buried my head in his shoulders, the tears beginning to well. But I breathed in deep, smiled at his partner, a black guy two or three years older than Denny.

  Cookie fumbled in her bag for a comb, swiped it through her blond locks, and applied more lipstick. She’s ever the fashion plate around men. She knew Denny was already taken, at least for now, but I watched as she checked out the gold band on his partner’s finger and stowed her mirror.

  I stood back while Denny peered at the dead woman.

  “Touched her, didn’t you?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I moved her, but only a little bit so I could see her face. Don’t worry, I snapped photos before I did, and this time I wore gloves.” I introduced his partner to Cookie. He grinned, excused himself, and went back to the car for tape.

  “Miss Priss on duty?” I asked.

  Denny took off his hat and ran a hand through his light brown waves. “Yup. Just got a promotion, too. Detective First Grade, so watch it. But don’t worry, we could use someone like you and the good ones know it. If Jane’s smart, she’ll listen to what you have to say.”

  “She’ll have to this time. Cookie and I discovered the body.”

  Denny and his partner began taping off the area. I could see a few people watching from the other side of the street, but when a guy appeared inches from
my face, it surprised the bejeezus out of me. He had a beery breath and his clothes smelled like they’d been sprayed with body odor.

  “Happening, do you know?”

  “She must have fallen,” I said.

  “Can I see?”

  I shook my head. “Better stay across the street. Paramedics should be here any minute.” I shot Cookie a look, waiting for the guy to go. Cookie cupped a hand to her nose.

  The guy didn’t budge. Instead he stayed right behind us, so close I began to gag from his stench. I whirled around and gave him my ferocious stare. He was taller than Denny—and Denny’s about six feet. His grizzled face was puffy and he wore an old Yankee cap backwards. His boots were caked with paint and bits of grass, and he had on a T-shirt and a pair of baggy chinos fraying at the knees. His arms were hairy, his fingers thick and dirty. There’s lots of guys in Brooklyn Heights offering to do a little plastering and painting or soffit cleaning, promising heaven for a lowball price. Cash of course. But this one was weird. Something not right about his eyes.

  An ambulance wailed and flashed, stopping a few feet from us, and the guy disappeared. Out of the corner of my eye I looked for him in the crowd swelling across the street, but he’d vanished.

  The mood of the crowd was somber, expectant. A few suits turned their heads as they walked past, folded newspapers snugged under their arms. Traffic cops were now on the job, directing pedestrians and cars away from the scene. Denny’s partner went over to brief the EMTs while they unhitched the gurney.

  “Here come the bunnies,” Denny said, pointing to a police van lumbering into view. At the same time, an unmarked car pulled in front of the fireplug across from us, and two detectives got out, Jane Templeton’s head rising high above the car roof. My adrenaline hitched up a notch.

  I gave Denny the high sign. “Before I get sucked into a conversation with Jane, what time are we expected for dinner tonight?”