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

  “What are you talking about?” Willoughby asked.

  Jane gripped the wheel. “I never should have given this case to Fina. She’ll mess it up again. Why did it take her so long to find the vic’s mother? And when she does, their lives are in jeopardy?”

  “Whose lives?”

  “Both of them. And the woman’s landlady, too. Now wipe your mustache—you got hot dog flakes and who knows what else caught up in those hog bristles above your lips.”

  Her mind was fizzing with a bunch of nothing.

  “What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’re getting to be no fun.”

  “It’s the pressure.” She shouldn’t have said that, the bit about the pressure. Willoughby got passed up two years ago when she was promoted. It meant a big raise for her, and she knew he could have used it. For three weeks he hadn’t been able to look at her. His ego was bruised, even she knew that, and she felt ashamed. Ever since then, she’d felt the space between them like a raw hunk of beef she’d swallowed without chewing. Not only that, Willoughby had lost about twenty pounds, weight he couldn’t afford to lose. Something was eating him. Literally. So, compared to his, her pressure was a piece of cake. She had no kids; face it, she had no man. Just a nice, easy life when she got home. And more to the point, what kind of human was she turning out to be?

  He swiped at his face with his sleeve. “Pressure? You’re kidding. We’re better now than we’ve ever been since they hired more men.” He looked at her. “And more women. And the crime rate’s down.”

  “Is not. Going up.” She honked at the lout who slammed on his brakes two inches from her fender.

  “I don’t think pressure’s it. Something else is bothering you.”

  “Funny, I must have missed the meeting where they made you Queen Shrink.”

  They were silent, the car still.

  Jane worried her lip. Damn. He wasn’t her bat boy. “So what do you think it is?”

  “No, no. You’re right,” he said, brushing crumbs off his sleeve. “I shouldn’t have said anything. How the hell would I know what’s going on with you, anyway. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  “Oh, what the hell.” Jane flipped on her lights and yelped the siren a couple of times. The motorist ahead of them looked in his rearview mirror, his car fixed to the spot. He must have seen that it was a woman behind the wheel. Just her luck—she was surrounded by the buzzards. Other cars got out of their way, but not Mr. Belligerent. She got on the horn, flicking it a couple of times before she growled, “Move it, buddy, and fast, or you’ll be obstructing.”

  “Now you’re spilling your shit all over the road, Templeton. Grow up.”

  That did it. Jane continued to worry the car ahead, almost touching the guy’s rear bumper before he folded. When he did, she sped the rest of the way, taking the exit for Bay Ridge and, in the end, making it in record time. One more block and they’d arrive at the address Fina had given her.

  A Madman

  We turned on the hall light and took each step slowly, Stella hanging onto the back of my coat with the grip of a choke-hold artist. I could hear her whispering prayers and felt her fat fingers around my collar.

  “I don’t know, child, if this is—”

  “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  I stood before Karen’s door for a second, wiping my forehead and catching my breath, Stella breathing heavy by my side.

  I knocked on the door. “Karen, are you all right?”

  No answer.

  “Karen?”

  No answer.

  I tried to turn the knob.

  Locked.

  I kicked the door with my feet while Stella fumbled with the keys. By this time her whole body was shaking as she held up what I hoped was the right one.

  I grabbed it and put my ear to the wood. No sound from inside.

  “There’s a killer in there. A madman,” the landlady said, drooling.

  I rapped on the door again.

  Silence.

  I reached in my bag for the pepper blaster Denny had given me. As yet, I hadn’t used it, but he assured me it would work. I held it firmly in my hand, pointing straight ahead, finger on the trigger as I pounded with my foot on the door.

  Silence.

  With one hand I slipped the key in the lock and turned, listening to the fall of the tumblers.

  I turned to Stella. “Flatten yourself against the wall and don’t make a sound.”

  She was shaking, but managed to nod.

  I opened the door, pepper spray in hand.

  Silence. Nothing. It was like I’d entered a perfectly still world.

  I peered down the hall. It was empty.

  I opened the closet door. Nothing.

  Slowly I crept the length of the hall to the living room. An overturned chair. Papers on the floor. Room empty. I called out to Karen, to anyone, and tiptoed through to the kitchen, holding my breath, the sweat sliding down my face. The hair on my neck prickled.

  I opened the pantry door and pivoted inside, pepper blaster pointing. Empty.

  I walked through to the bathroom and opened the closets before I heard a moan and saw a figure sitting on the floor, wedged into the corner of the bedroom, clutching a lamp and shaking. It seemed like hours, but must have been only a couple of seconds while I stood there, mute, the pepper spray pointing directly at her before I realized who it was.

  I rushed to her and helped her up. She was shaking, but I saw no blood. Her neck was red and swollen.

  “He tried to strangle you?”

  Her voice was hoarse. “A man. When I got home. In my apartment. Grabbed me from behind. Choking me. Reached into one of his pockets, back pocket, I think, and … he had a knife.”

  She was trembling too much to say more.

  I called to Stella to tell her to come inside.

  Her eyes popping out of their sockets, Stella lumbered into the room. Karen reached out to her, hugging her, sobbing.

  The two women sat on the bed while I went to fetch water. When I returned, both women were still trembling, but Karen managed to take a few gulps from the glass, holding her throat after she drank.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  She shook her head, speechless, and I had to bite my tongue. I was getting dizzy, so I motioned for the two to make room for me on the bed and, moving the pillow out of the way, sat on Karen’s other side.

  I waited until Stephen’s mother was calmer. In a few moments, she began her story, saying that when she’d gotten home from work about thirty minutes ago—I must have been talking to Stella and we hadn’t heard her arrive—she’d crept up the stairs, stopping in front of her door. It was ajar. She knew something was wrong; she never failed to lock it whenever she went out. But she quickly rejected the notion—she’d been late leaving for work and thought that she must have forgotten to pull it shut.

  “Weren’t you worried you’d been robbed?”

  Shaking her head, she stole a quick glance at Stella. “This neighborhood is safe, not like some of the others I’ve lived in. Robbery didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Been here forty years and never been robbed,” Stella said.

  “So you entered your apartment. Then what happened?”

  “Someone grabbed me from behind. I bit his arm. Twisted. I must have elbowed him in the lower region. He wasn’t prepared for that. He ran out. I heard him going down the stairs.”

  The landlady popped up. “You should have run into the kitchen. From now on keep a frying pan on the stove. That’s what I do. Because it’s safe and all, but you never know.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute. “Did you recognize the man?”

  Karen hesitated a second too long before shaking her head.

  “Anyone who would want to kill you?”

  Again, she shook her head.

  I thought she was lying.

  Karen stared at me. “Who are you?”

  There was a load of horrible news I needed to impart, and I thought I’d bet
ter take it slow. The woman was still in shock from the attempt on her life, and I had no idea what she’d told Stella about her past.

  I showed her my ID and told her I was investigating the murder of someone she knew. “You’re Stephen Cojok’s mother?”

  She nodded, the shadows of a rudimentary knowledge gathering in her face.

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Her eyes rounded. “What do you mean someone I know has been murdered? Who was murdered?”

  I looked at Stella and turned back to Karen. By now, she was trembling again.

  I was about to impart the worst news a mother could bear, and at that second, I wanted to run away. I knew better, I should have told her her son was dead the moment I entered the room.

  “It’s your son. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  The color drained from Karen Cojok’s face and she straightened, a hand flying to her mouth, her eyes seeing nothing.

  “You’re mistaken. Not my Stephen. He’s over six feet. Strong. Nimble. It can’t be true.”

  “Two days ago his body was found in a park near the Brooklyn Bridge. He’d been murdered.”

  She shook her head. She was adamant. “Not my Stephen. I saw him last week.”

  She whimpered, a soft sound.

  I heard the ticking of the clock on her nightstand, the revving of a motor somewhere down the block.

  “My boy. My sweet boy. It can’t be true.”

  Outside, children were laughing; two men were arguing.

  I said nothing.

  Stella, despite what she knew or didn’t know, held onto her tenant, hugging her, rocking her while Karen wailed.

  “It can’t be. We’re going to meet for lunch Friday.”

  I shook my head. Karen Cojok looked like she was going to faint.

  The moment expanded, crept around the room, cold and raw.

  “He was a good boy, but always in trouble. We’d not been in touch for a while. All my fault. Even though, getting around his father was impossible.” She looked at Stella. “You don’t know everything about me.”

  “But I sensed a sorrow about you,” Stella said, “something in your past. No matter what you tell me about yourself, it’s all right, child.”

  “All my fault. This is all my fault. I ruined my life, and now I’ve killed my son.”

  She was beginning to take in the truth of it, but before she went into total shock, I had to question her about her son’s past, about what she knew, about the man who broke into her apartment and tried to kill her.

  I began asking questions.

  “Not now,” the landlady said. “Can’t you see she’s not all here?”

  I couldn’t stop. I asked Karen once again if she knew the man who had broken into her apartment, and again she denied it. I didn’t believe her.

  “What did he look like?”

  She shook her head at first and closed her eyes. Tears seeped from behind her lids. “All right. I’d seen him several times in the restaurant.”

  “Sally’s Place?”

  She nodded. “A regular. Used to come in about ten or ten thirty for a late breakfast. Ordered the same thing each time, scrambled eggs, toast, bacon. Black coffee. Sneered at me and never left a tip. You remember those customers.”

  “Did you ever see him with your son?”

  She stared at me, and I knew whatever she was going to say would be another lie. Slowly she shook her head and looked away.

  “So he always came in alone?”

  She frowned into space. “Once there was a man with him. Tall. Wore a suit. They were talking in low tones.”

  “Friends?”

  She shook her head. “No. I think the man was angry.”

  “Who paid?”

  “The man in the suit. He ordered coffee, but didn’t drink it, and left.”

  “Do you know anything about Stephen’s work? About delivering to a Thai restaurant in the neighborhood?”

  Again she gave me a haunted look. But this time, I was in luck. Something in her relented.

  “Down the block.”

  “Can you tell me more about it?”

  “Just that it was a regular run for Stephen. He’d spotted me on the street one morning, and he knew right away I was his mother. Children never forget.”

  “And the delivery?”

  “I suspected it was drugs.”

  “Stephen was a user, wasn’t he?”

  “But he’d been clean for months. That’s when he began looking for me. Fate brought us together. My son. You can’t blame him. I was no kind of mother.”

  I longed to know more of her story, why she’d left her boy, but now was not the time.

  “I was such a selfish fool. How can a mother leave a son? How could I have been so …”

  “There, child. It’s all in the past,” Stella said. “And you made up with Stephen, didn’t you?”

  She gulped. Shook her head before nodding. “He’s the one who found me.”

  I wanted to lift the burden this woman carried with her every day. I couldn’t think of her as a bad mother, as some kind of horrible monster, a sinner. After all, we are all sinners.

  I gave her my card and told her I’d visit again tomorrow, saying I was sure she had important information about his murder. “But in the meantime, if you think of anything I should know, please call. I need your help.”

  “I can’t think what I’d know.”

  “You know something, all right, you just don’t know that you do.”

  Karen looked at Stella, who had her arm around her tenant.

  “She’ll be staying with me,” Stella said. “And I’ll decide if she’s well enough to speak to you. Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

  The sound of a siren and tires screeching to a halt on the street told me the police had arrived, and I ran into the living room and peeked out.

  Two detectives were folding themselves out of a shiny black vehicle, the strobe idle and sitting on the dash, no doubt spit polished with a Bensonhurst special. Jane and Willoughby.

  A Key Ingredient

  After I made the introductions, Willoughby, tall and lanky and with a mustard stain on his cuff, took statements from all of us.

  Jane interrupted my pithy remarks about how I’d discovered Karen through Benny.

  “Skip the self-praise; we all know how wonderful you are. So let me get this straight,” she said, narrowing her eyes in Karen’s direction. “You know this Benny character?”

  Karen looked blank.

  I crossed my arms, tapping my foot. “You haven’t been listening to a word I said. Benny is a friend of Stephen. Stephen’s mother wouldn’t know him, although Benny knew of her.”

  “I get it.” She turned to Karen. “How long have you been in touch with your son?”

  “A few months.” Karen paled, and I thought she was about to faint. “He’d be alive right now if I never left him. But I did. An unforgivable sin.”

  To her credit, Jane knelt before the woman. “You don’t know that. None of us can predict the future, least of all what our children will or will not do.”

  For the first time, I saw Karen’s face soften. I almost started bawling.

  “And here I thought all cops were bad. I give you credit,” Stella said.

  “In your own words,” Jane said, glaring at me, “can you give us specifics about your son’s work? His employer? His enemies?”

  Karen’s eyes widened. “He was self-employed, working as a deliveryman.”

  “Delivering what? Where? Working for whom?”

  She trembled. “I’m not sure.”

  “And your intruder—”

  “Her would-be assassin,” I corrected.

  Jane shot me a look while Willoughby brushed something off his tie.

  Karen shrugged and admitted to having seen her intruder before, not only at the restaurant where she had been employed but also lurking near Guardian Angels, a home for indigent seniors, where she currently worked as a nurse’s aide.


  “Can you describe him?”

  “I’m doing the questioning,” Jane said.

  “Yes, but I—”

  Willoughby folded his arms over his bony chest, his eyes boring into mine. “Speak English?”

  Willoughby asserting himself? That was something new. The pressure must be on. Whatever it was, it suited him.

  “Matter of fact,” he said, staring at my stomach, “I think it’s time for you to go. You wouldn’t want to be charged with obstructing.”

  “And I suppose you’d like the picture I took of the perp?”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  As I messaged it to her, I told her about the encounter with a tail in the subway, the man I’d seen a couple of days ago in Teresa’s and later on in Henry’s End. I didn’t think she needed to know about the purse incident. “He could be Karen’s intruder.”

  Jane stared at the image I’d sent. “This is the photo of the back of a running man and not a low-hanging cloud with ears?”

  “At least it’s something. Maybe your digital forensics team could enhance it?”

  “Dream on, we’d get it back in two months if we were lucky.”

  “And I suppose you’re going to have Karen watched?”

  Jane said nothing.

  “I’ll be all right,” Karen said.

  The landlady put her arms around Stephen’s mother. “You’ll be all right because you’re staying with me, and I won’t let you out of my sight.”

  Put that way, how could I worry. “I’ll come around tomorrow. By that time I’ll have more questions, and don’t be surprised if I give you both a call tonight. And if you think of something, give me a call. You are a key ingredient in the investigation.”

  Karen Cojok looked at me like I’d gone round the bend.

  “You know more about your son than you think.”

  I wished Cookie had been with me. Cookie with her artist’s eye could have drawn the tail’s likeness in ten minutes. Not for the first time that afternoon, I texted her, asking her to call when she got my message. I was anxious to know what she’d discovered in Rhinebeck. On another note, I doubted Jane would have the manpower to do a surveillance, but I’d ask Cookie to park herself outside for a couple of days: I was sure Karen’s intruder wasn’t finished with her.