Death and Disappearance (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 5) Read online

  As it turned out, that was a mistake. Breathing rapidly and feeling dizzy, I looked down at my stomach, vowing to be more careful about my intake especially since my doctor’s appointment was looming. This time I couldn’t cancel. If I’d gained more weight since my last visit, I’d get a lecture. I leaned on the side of a building, taking in the scene until I caught my breath.

  Spying the entrance to the R train, I consulted the app again. If I rode one stop, it would save me time, letting me off only two blocks from my destination, so holding onto the railing, I climbed down two flights of stairs, taking my time. On the platform several people hung out waiting for the next train. There were a few benches, but all the seats were taken, so I leaned against a pillar, wiping perspiration from my forehead and trying to slow my breathing.

  I looked down the track, hoping for a sign of an approaching train, but there wasn’t a glimmer. Two men were arguing a few feet away, and I thought of Denny and our stupid fights, priding myself on how I was handling whatever it was he was going through. My mind was miles away when I felt someone brush my shoulder. I whirled around and saw a crab of a man scuttling down the platform away from me, his head turned back in my direction. He bore an uncanny resemblance to the character in the stale jacket I’d seen in Teresa’s, the one whom Denny had seen sitting in back of us the other night in Henry’s End.

  A cold shiver ran down my neck. I was several hundred feet from the exit. The train was nowhere in sight, and I wasn’t about to stick around. I turned on my heel and walked as quickly as I could manage, head down, back the way I’d come, huffing up the stairs and hanging onto the rail.

  I wished Cookie were there, and then I was glad she wasn’t around—she’d make another remark about the shape I was in. No more sweets. Forget the ice cream. I’d better postpone my visit to the doc for a few more weeks. That would give me enough time to lose a few pounds.

  I turned around and saw the guy following me as I reached the first landing. Luckily there was an elevator a few feet away and I pressed the button. I heard the slow whine of its approach and made it on just in time as the door shut in whoever’s face, the car lurching up and to the side along with my heart. I hung onto the rail, breathing hard, and squeezed out as soon as the doors began to open, ducking behind the ticket agent’s booth just in time to see my tail exit through the turnstile, looking this way and that before disappearing. But not before I got a good look at him. He wore the same seedy jacket he’d worn in Teresa’s, so I knew he wasn’t a practiced tail; otherwise he would have changed his outfit. Tall and bony with a long head, a shock of white hair and ears the size of flying saucers, he reminded me of a stretched version of the white rabbit. If I had been in better shape, I would have stopped him, faced him, hit him in the balls. I mean, the guy couldn’t be armed, could he?

  Outside, I propelled myself the few blocks to the BMW, my eyes flitting right and left. No sign of my snoop, so I sat in my car, sweating bullets and breathing hard. To kill some time, I called Cookie. No answer, so I left a message.

  By the time I arrived at Karen’s address, I’d calmed down. I parked the car, struggled up the high stoop to her two-flat, and rang the bell labeled K. Cojok. No answer. I thought of calling Jane for help. Better yet, I could use Denny for a couple of hours, so I left him a message. He’d be working, but maybe he could spare a few minutes and swing over. Well, more than a few minutes. I rang the bell, presumably to the other apartment, and waited on the stoop, my fingers crossed. No answer.

  The street was deserted as I sat in the car, waiting, watching a mother pushing a carriage with two other children in tow. Three kids at once and the oldest was probably four or five—was that going to be me in a few years? Maybe Lorraine would do the granny thing during the day. Denny and I had discussed it, another of our disagreements, because I didn’t have the heart to ask her. My head began to throb, probably because of all the running around, so I tried to clear the cobwebs and closed my eyes for a few seconds. I must have dozed because all of a sudden I heard a pounding in my ear.

  “Move it, lady, before I give you a ticket.”

  A traffic cop doing his duty.

  “Sorry, Officer.” I showed him my ID and said I was trying to contact the woman who lived in the upstairs flat of the building across the street. He looked at me, not a trace of empathy or understanding.

  “Tall, distinguished looking?”

  No reply. He pointed to the No Parking sign two feet away. “Are you movin’ this car or what? I’m standing here giving you a pass, and you don’t seem to be getting it.”

  I held up my ID. “And you don’t seem to be getting that I need to tell a mother her son’s dead. I’m investigating his murder, and I need to talk to her.”

  He reared back, stuffing his ticket book into a back pocket.

  “She lives in that building, and I’m waiting for her to come home so I can tell her in person.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw my white rabbit crabbing away, so I got out and pointed down the block. “And that bowlegged guy with the ears you see skittering away has been following me.”

  “Yeah, and I’m Governor Cuomo about to write you a ticket, so move your frickin’ car.” He looked down the block at my tail definitely skittering away and softened. “Around the corner I saw a couple of empty places. One might still be there if you hurry.”

  I wedged out of my spot, idling while my cop friend got into his Smart Fortwo and pulled up, hugging my back end, motioning me to move.

  No other option but to go, and as I pulled away, I watched the cop car, its cute little strobes beginning to turn as it sped in the direction of my disappearing tail.

  I circled the block a few times, my eyes peeled for anyone resembling Karen Cojok. Not a sign, but now I was determined to stick around until she or her downstairs neighbor returned. I didn’t care how long it took, except I was starved and had to relieve myself. I left another message for Denny, telling him where I was and asking for his assistance as soon as possible.

  Luckily I’d brought along a folding stool, so after I parked, I returned to Karen’s block, sat behind a tree on the other side of the street, facing the two-flat, and waited, turning pages of a paperback on deer hunting I’d found in the trunk.

  It seemed like hours had passed. The late afternoon sun caught the tops of trees, and I was famished and in dire need of a bathroom. Lots of pedestrian traffic, but no one resembling Karen Cojok. I was about to give up when an elder pulling a shopping cart huffed into view, laboring toward Karen’s building. I crossed my fingers, willing her up the stoop, and as luck would have it, she stopped in front of the building, wiping her face, and began trundling up the steps. Ever the Girl Scout, I crossed the street, asking if I could help.

  Starting, her eyes spotted my stomach and she relaxed, thanking me for the help. “If you could get the cart, I’d be ever so pleased.”

  She was a squat woman wearing a short coat over a striped blouse and maroon cords with an elasticized waist. Her large feet were housed in scuffed sneakers, and she puffed up the steps behind me while I maneuvered her grocery cart. At the door to her apartment, she stopped and turned to thank me. “You’re winded, too, child.” Noticing my condition, she said, “And it’s no wonder. Due any minute?”

  I shook my head, managing to tell her I was only three months along, and she gave me a wild grin. “Twins at least, take it from me.”

  I felt my eyes pop out of their sockets.

  “Step inside and take a load off. I’ll just be a minute. Got to get the ice cream into the fridge.”

  Sometimes a pregnant woman makes instant friends, and so it was with the woman who accepted my help putting away the groceries. We were chatting like old friends as we worked, discussing the price of food and the changes in Brooklyn. Almost leaking, I asked if I might use her washroom, and she gave me a secret smile and muttered something about being glad those days were over. She pointed down the hall and told me to take my time, saying she’d be in the front. To
give the woman her due, the apartment was immaculate, and in a few minutes I returned, refreshed.

  Her living room was large and stuffy, filled with couches and tables and love seats, a pair of wing chairs near a decorative fireplace, the whole done with an early twentieth-century feel. I sat and felt the room spin, so I closed my eyes for a few seconds, catching my breath. I blinked and took a good look at my hostess, thinking I might be seeing myself in fifty years.

  She laughed. “Twins. Not so bad, I had ’em.” She paused and stared at me. “Course with your size, you might be looking at triplets. Rough for the first year until they start entertaining each other.”

  I tried to listen, my brain still caught on her last thought.

  “Well, come to think on it, not so good the second year, either. And the third year was a reign of terror.”

  I took out my ID and told her I was waiting for her upstairs neighbor. She introduced herself as Stella, the landlady. “Stella by starlight, time was. Not anymore.”

  “About your tenant, Karen Cojok.” I was done with lying for the day, so I told her I had some sad news to deliver.

  Stella shook her head, saying there was never any good news these days, and after looking at her watch told me Karen should be home any minute.

  “Works down the block. Old people’s home.” She flapped her arm in a southerly direction. “Where I’m bound one of these days.”

  “You’re still fit,” I mumbled.

  “But each year is a decline. I can feel myself becoming more invisible with each wrinkle.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood. “Getting back to Karen, she was a waitress for a while?”

  Stella nodded. “But it didn’t pay. Her good fortune to find this job. Comes home exhausted most days, but she told me it’s a good tired.”

  I asked if she knew anything about Karen’s friends or family.

  “Not my business, is it? All I know is she’s been good for me. A perfect tenant, no demands, keeps the place immaculate. And a body gets lonely, you know, and she’s always there for me. Best thing that could have happened to me.”

  She was happy to tell me her story, saying her husband had died ten years ago. Not too long after his death, she’d met an old flame and they’d hooked up for a while. “Autumn fling, you might say. One of the twins went all crazy, giving me another topsy-turvy few years.”

  I thought of Denny. “What happened?”

  “He was unhappy with me, to put it mildly, making a fool of himself. Moped and acted out. Almost lost his job. But time passed, and Hank and I continued on, even though Hank was beginning to wear thin. But after one of the twins started acting up, I wasn’t about to dump him, was I? Can’t have your own kid dictating. In time my boy settled down. Men and their fathers.”

  “How did he get over his father’s death? Counseling?”

  She looked out over her sea of furniture, and I waited while she was lost in thought.

  “By this time the twins had moved out, of course. Had families of their own, but a counselor suggested the grieving twin might just need more time walking about in his father’s footsteps, and of course, Hank obliged, made himself scarce, which by that time was mighty fine with me. I was free to lavish attention on my sick boy. Slept in his old room, too, but midnights, I’d hear him walking about, his slippered feet in the kitchen. Let him be, I says to myself, and turned over. Whether it was the extra care or the place itself, or the boy coming to terms with something his father had said, an imagined slight or who knows what—something that stuck in his craw—but a week was all he needed. Right as rain after that.”

  As she talked, I thought I heard movement outside, or maybe it was just the fluttering of new life inside my body, so I said nothing, not wanting to interrupt Karen’s landlady. What the woman was saying about her son’s coming to terms with his father’s death sounded farfetched. But how was I to know, I wasn’t a shrink. In Denny’s case, it might be worth a try, and I made a note to call Lorraine and have a chat.

  Just then there was a scream and a thud over our heads.

  I managed a text to Jane, five words: “Found Stephen’s mother. Need help.”

  I thought fast. I’d seen a broom in the entryway, so I grabbed it and rapped on the ceiling with the handle.

  For a second, there was an eerie silence. My hostess sat wide-eyed in her chair, unmoving.

  Then I heard footsteps running down the stairs, the slamming of the front door.

  I ran to the window, parting the drapes in time to see a figure bounding across the street. I fished my phone out of its holster and snapped in the direction of the disappearing suspect. It could have been my tail, but in the fading light, I wasn’t sure, and in my condition, I wasn’t about to chase after him. Besides, I was more concerned about whoever was upstairs.

  “Stay here.”

  Stella looked like she’d seen her dead husband. She cowered deep into the cushions of her chair. “Don’t leave me, child!”

  I made sure the back door was locked. “Noise coming from upstairs. Got to check.”

  She was blubbering and hanging onto me, pleading with me not to leave her alone while I called 9-1-1 and asked for a squad, telling them about the scream we’d heard and the noise upstairs. I also sent an SOS text to Jane, giving her my location.

  “Come with me. Bring your keys.” I flung the strap of my bag over my other shoulder. It might come in handy.

  By this time Stella was shaking and baffled, in a world of her own.

  “Keys,” I repeated.

  She nodded and pulled out a large ring from her purse. Shaking and making a muffled keening sound, she followed me up the stairs, hanging onto the back of my jacket.

  Jane and Willoughby

  Jane drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and shot a look at Willoughby. Their vehicle inched forward. “Why did I have to listen to you? At this time of day, it’s much faster to take Third Avenue. Could have swung behind the precinct and been in Bay Ridge ten minutes ago. But no, I had to do it your way. I’m such a sucker. Now we’re stuck in traffic and who knows when we’ll get there. And when we do, what will we find? A massacre. I can just see the headlines now. Our favorite detective, hippo pregnant and slashed to death, her guts spilled all over the upper story of a two-flat in Bay Ridge, along with the only lead we have in the case.”

  “Which case is this?”

  “Idiot! Stephen Cojok’s murder, of course.” Sometimes she wondered about Willoughby.

  “I told you to call the Six-Eight, but no, you had to be the heroine.”

  “And miss the chance to solve this whole thing in seventy-eight hours?” Jane touched the pedal and crept two feet. Braked. “I tell you this murder is the tip of the iceberg. At the very least, it’s drug related.”

  “Then get OCDE involved. Should have done that from the get-go, but no, you got to justify that sweet promotion of yours while I, Willoughby the lapdog, pick up the pieces.”

  He began unwrapping the hot dog he’d bought from the vendor on Court Street two blocks ago, begging her to pull over so he could pay the man, losing her momentum and getting caught up in the clog of cars heading for the expressway. Not only that, it was his second all beef loaded with the works. How could he eat so much and stay so trim? Must be all the bed exercise he got. She imagined him humping his girl. She’d met her, too. Sharp chick. How could she fall for him? Must like her meat raw. He’d be on top, that was for sure, and the poor girl would be sweating bullets and fake-moaning underneath, wondering if she could afford the dress she’d seen that afternoon in Bloomie’s.

  Jane got bored with the picture show in her head and switched gears. “I got reports to file, and I got to get on this new one big time, to say nothing of the other four homicides we got this week and the cold case they dumped on us the other day.”

  Willoughby bit into his hot dog. A huge blob of mustard fell onto the sensitive area between his legs.

  “Crap,” he whispered.

  Jane sli
d her eyes over to look and bit her lip. Perfect.

  They were sitting dead still, cars honking, exhausts fuming, engines revving.

  Willoughby brushed the mustard off as best he could, getting bits of napkin on his navy wool slacks and all over the seat and carpet that she’d just had cleaned at her brother’s car wash—interior and exterior, wheels polished and shiny, a Bensonhurst special.

  “So flick on the siren,” Willoughby said. “You’re not the only one with a load. I gotta file my report before I leave, too, don’t forget. And I s’pose you’ll want to meet with the team on this one.”

  “Too early, I don’t know where I’m at yet. We got nothing, except for the coroner’s report. That’s why I’m anxious to talk to this broad. Fina claims she’s the vic’s mother.”

  “What coroner’s report?”

  “Cojok’s, of course. And this is the third homicide this week. There goes my hide.”

  “Cojok. You talking about that guy knifed in the park three days ago?”

  Finally he got it. “And here you sit with napkin all over your parts. Not good for your image, and Sally’ll wonder what you been up to.”

  She frowned at the road ahead swimming with fumes and dust. Inched forward. Stopped. She stared at the Watch Tower slashed with blood from the setting sun. It was squat and full of foreboding, just like her mind. To top it off, she didn’t have a clue on this one, but then was it her fault? She hadn’t heard so much as a peep from Fina the past three days. Jane wondered if she was doing anything on the case, what with her being pregnant and Denny into one of his moods. “Then like a jolt I get an SOS from her.”