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

  There was a glimmer in Lake’s eyes. She moved her head. “Maybe it’s not Stephen. How do they know for sure?”

  “Did he have a small tattoo of a heart on his right hand?”

  A fresh bout of tears while she nodded. “Oh, Stephen, how could you? I told him not to make those late runs, but he didn’t listen. Told me this was the very last one, that he’d bring home rent money and then some, but I knew it wasn’t true. Anyway, he left in the middle of the night. I couldn’t get back to sleep. The more I tried, the more I tossed. Toward dawn when he didn’t return, I knew something had happened. Just felt it. I must have fallen asleep because a loud noise outside the apartment woke me. The police. It was just beginning to get light when they knocked on the door.”

  “Back up. When did he tell you he had a job?”

  “About eleven last night, that’s when he got a call.”

  She stopped talking, so I prodded. “And?”

  “It must have been from that man.” Lake almost spat out the words. Her eyes darted around the room.

  I was dying to know the man’s name but said nothing, hoping she’d elaborate. I waited a few seconds more, but since the ball of tissue in her hand was beginning to pill on the couch, I looked around the room for a fresh box. Finding none, I walked through the hall, passing the bedroom, and found the bathroom. I returned with a wad, which I dumped into her lap.

  “When you say late runs, was he delivering something?”

  She nodded. “He had a mechanic’s job in Bensonhurst. Got it through his dad, but he lost that long ago. Now he’s a deliveryman. Does odd jobs for lots of people, mostly one-offs. He has his own van and uses it to haul whatever. Does a lot of small jobs for people around here, especially in the spring when it’s time to plant their backyard gardens. Gets soil for them, rosebushes, that sort of thing. But I don’t know any of his clients. Well, some from way back, and there’s a Mrs. Stuart down the block. Every spring he gets potting soil for her. And he used to work for the Daily News. Lately, he worked for some man who lives in Dutchess County, and don’t ask me his name. Maybe it’s Sam. Now that I think of it, the man’s name sounds like Sam, but I know that’s not his name. Not snobby enough. Anyway, I hate him, really hate him.”

  She was talking fast and I was trying to keep up. “Mind if I take notes?” Before she could nod in the affirmative, I pulled out my little black book and scribbled while she explained that Not Sam From Dutchess had hired Stephen off and on for a few years, well, ever since they’d been married. Maybe even before that, she thought, but she couldn’t say for sure. Mainly, she said, when he worked for this man, Stephen moved art objects from a gallery near the man’s country home to his gallery somewhere in Manhattan or to other galleries on the Upper East Side.

  “What kind of art objects?”

  “Stephen wasn’t into art, but what he described seemed like paintings and sculpture to me. Maybe a few vases. Beyond that, he couldn’t tell me. He just packed them up in crates and hauled them off.”

  “And he worked alone?”

  Lake thought for a moment. “Once he mentioned working with another man. He called him the boss’s assistant.”

  “Someone who helped him with heavy objects?”

  Lake frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I got the impression he was more of a suit. Sometimes he rode with Stephen.” She stared across the room. “Now I remember, he told me the guy carried a gun underneath his suit jacket.”

  I felt a juddering in my chest. To protect art objects? “Usually art movers have special, high-class trucks.”

  She shook her head. “No, his boss insisted he needed someone with his own van.”

  “So Stephen used his own van?”

  She nodded.

  My mind raced.

  “Do you know where they dropped off these art objects? Any addresses?”

  Lake began crying. She apologized for knowing so little about Stephen’s work.

  I couldn’t quite believe her. Matter of fact, her ignorance was beginning to gnaw at me. Then I thought about me and Denny. Other than that he was a cop, he didn’t share particulars with me, so why should I expect Lake to know more about her husband’s work than a general “he made deliveries.” I asked her again if she knew the man’s name. Not only did she not know the man’s name or the names of his galleries, but she didn’t know where he lived, other than that his home was someplace in Dutchess County.

  “All I know is he’s a snob.” She threw the ball of Kleenex on the floor, and out of nowhere, a cream and white cat appeared. He bounded at the ball and pawed it, at one point throwing it into the air, a balletic interlude.

  Lake went over and picked up the cat and held it to her face. “Oh, my sweet Blue, what will happen to us?”

  Blue? I wasn’t going to ask, but she must have seen the question in my face because she looked up from the fur and almost smiled. “My first cat was a bluish gray shorthair. His name was Blue. When he died, I cried for six months and then got this one, and from the get-go, his personality was so like Blue’s …”

  She was silent again, lost in her grief while she hugged the animal, a sweet-looking creature. The cat purred while tears ran down Lake’s face. “For all I know they were stolen goods. The art world is so cruel, so cruel.” I watched as she set Blue down and dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand.

  “So you don’t know this man’s name, but you know he’s a snob?”

  “He’s an art dealer; all of them are snobs. Stephen was proud of my work and must have talked about me. About a year ago, he arranged for an associate of the man, another art dealer, to come out to my studio—it’s a loft on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. Basically the officious little man acted like his visit was such a privilege—the likes of him coming all the way out to Brooklyn. He was in my studio for all of five minutes, late of course, pursing his lips and brushing imaginary dirt from his sleeve. After introducing himself, he asked to see my work even though he was staring at two of my paintings. Hard to miss them: I paint in big squares, four by four, five by five. I’d love to paint huge, but I can’t afford it. My studio would have to be gargantuan; some months I have to give paintings to my landlord instead of paying the rent. And then there’s the cost of the paint—I only use the finest. As it is, some days, I run out of a certain color and have to go with what I have. Anyway, this so-called dealer paced up and down before two of the canvases, almost cringing, declining to see any more although I told him I had two racks full of them. In the end he turned to me and, giving me his card, told me to call him when my work had matured. ‘What do you mean, matured?’ I asked. Granted, there was something pleasing about the line, the angle, he admitted, the simpering little turd. Then he asked me what my annual income was, and when I told him, he laughed. He told me he might be interested when my income was closer to a million.”

  “Dollars?”

  “He took one more look and put on his hat. Didn’t even say goodbye. Impossible. They have no idea how they hurt artists.” Her lower lip protruded, and she banged the couch with her fist.

  “Do you have any of your work here?” It was my excuse to have a look at the rest of Lake’s apartment.

  We walked around the kitchen, Lake showing me all her shiny utensils, and I remembered she’d been into cooking in high school, I mean, way into cooking, like French cuisine. I remembered her at an assembly, a chopping contest with the top Home Ec students participating. All the seniors watched as five of our classmates, Lake included, chopped veggies on stage, their cleavers sounding like horses’ hooves on blocks of wood while they minced carrots and peppers and onions. We clapped for the winner, a guy who opened up his own restaurant last year. Lake came in second. I came back to the present, staring at her kitchen counters holding professional-looking mixers and matching bowls, a set of knives, copper pans hanging from the ceiling, plus a row of cookbooks. Denny, who’s the foodie in our family, would have been
jealous.

  I reminded her of the Home Ec contest. “You never thought of going professional with your cooking, maybe opening up a catering business? You could make big money.”

  Her face reddened. “I’m a painter. Cooking’s just a thing I do.” She must have been good at mind reading because I was about to ask how she could afford all the fancy gadgets when she told me her mother helped with her studio rent and, for her birthdays, bought Lake expensive cookware from Sur La Table.

  She led me through to the back porch, where two of her paintings hung on opposite walls. Great shapes of competing color filled large canvas squares, their mass seeming to spill over onto the floor and walls, the furniture, into my mind. I wished Cookie could see them because I’m no judge of pictures at all, but Cookie—she’s an artist. I do know this: they made me feel, I don’t know, lighter, despite my stomach. No, that wasn’t it: they made me feel like I could conquer the world and it was a world worth conquering. The paintings made the room boundless, so full of life, and made me experience the joy of a world devoid of senseless killing. The friend of my high school days, her enthusiasm, her joy, her pranks, came back to me: I’d missed her. For a minute, I didn’t know what to say, but Lake must have sensed my awe. She came over to me and put her arm around me.

  “Thank you. You’ll find out who killed him, won’t you?”

  “But you’ve got to help. First of all, I’d like to finish looking around the rest of your apartment.”

  “I don’t think I made the bed.”

  “No worries there. Got a desk?”

  “The one in the living room’s just for show.” She led me into the bedroom, and I could hear claws pattering on the hardwood behind us. The room was small and dark, airless, with one window, a worn and crooked shade pulled all the way down. I walked over and lifted it, letting in light and air. Lake began straightening the bed covers.

  “Leave everything for a second. You should see the state of our house.” I told her about my study and the pact I’d made with the devil never to clean it. “Denny’s afraid to walk in there. Once I lost my cat and found him two days later sleeping underneath a pile of dust and old pizza boxes.”

  I stood in the middle of the room, taking in the view. A nightstand stood on either side of the bed. His and hers, and what a contrast. On what I assumed was Lake’s table were a crucifix and lamp. No dust. And on Stephen’s, books, crumpled papers, pencils, and a frame holding an old black and white competed for space. I picked up the photo and stared at it. A woman, tall and shining, held a small boy who was staring at whoever snapped their picture. Stephen and his mother when the world was simpler. A wave of sorrow for their lost joy washed over me. I was dealing with the murder of a man who was once a child, at peace and full of promise in his mother’s arms.

  “Stephen and his mother?”

  Lake nodded.

  “You know her?”

  She shook her head. “She left long before I met Stephen.”

  “I don’t think I met her at your wedding, did I?”

  “His father didn’t want her there.”

  “So Stephen didn’t keep in touch?”

  Lake was shaking her head, then stopped herself. “From time to time, Stephen tried to find her, especially when he was out of a job and sober or whatever you call it. Six months ago when he was drying out, he said he’d been in touch with his feelings—the hospital was good with that. He said he was close to finding her.”

  “And did he?”

  She shrugged.

  “Mind if I take the photo?” I asked as I threw it in my bag.

  The shock of Stephen’s murder was hitting Lake, making her thought process slow, so there were silent spaces, big ones, in between her words. I told myself to be patient.

  “A few weeks later he was late. I paced, of course, thinking he’d had a slip, but no, he came back. Excited. Said he’d found his mother. He’d talked to her.”

  She sat on the bed, but she was far away. “He was radiant. He saw her two or three times after that, and once he received a letter, I think from her. I got the mail that day and was so tempted to open it, but I didn’t. Strange to get mail these days, don’t you think?”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Might. If he kept it, it would be in his nightstand.”

  I dumped the contents of the drawer on the bed. It was a hodgepodge collection of papers and notebooks, all of them empty, pencil stubs, even an old subway token from way back when we still used them.

  “That’s it.” Lake held up a cream-colored envelope with careful script. It was empty and had no return address, but it had been franked in Bay Ridge.

  I took a picture of it and asked again if Lake had ever met her mother-in-law. She replied in the negative.

  “Mind if I take the envelope and the photo?”

  I put them in my bag.

  On the far wall was a desk. Nothing in the middle drawer except a few pads of paper, some folders, and a checkbook. I held up a set of keys. “Yours or Stephen’s?”

  “Mine. The keys to my studio.”

  I continued opening drawers. “Did Stephen have a laptop?”

  “He hated them. I have one. I use it to find galleries and exhibits. You’ve got to show up at openings. You never know who you’ll meet. It’s all by word of mouth.” She grunted while lifting one side of the mattress, stopped making the bed, and straightened. “Painting is my only work. I’m lucky if I sell one a month; and now that Stephen’s gone, I’ve got to make it, I’ve just got to.” Her eyes darted around the room. “And we’re late with the rent. I don’t have it and …”

  She began rapid breathing and I felt the elevator in my stomach jerk up to my mouth, wishing Lorraine were here. She’d know what to do. So I did the only thing I could think of—I went over and hugged her and talked low to her, saying things would be fine, I knew they would. We sat on the bed and I told her a little of my story, of how my father walked out on us a few years before my mother lost her job. “Big high-paying job in a bank. Vice-president and all, but all of a sudden, she was falsely accused of embezzlement. It broke her. She could never find respectable work again. I was just a kid, but I knew I had to do something or we were going to lose the house, so I started a cleaning service. We survived. If I can do it, you can, too, and you have such talent.”

  My words seemed to calm her and she looked at me, a brief smile in her eyes.

  “Getting back to electronics. I suppose Stephen had a smartphone?”

  Lake shook her head. “Just an old-fashioned cell. Most of the time I had to remind him to charge it.”

  “And of course he took it with him last night when he left?”

  She felt underneath Stephen’s pillow and picked up a slim metal object. “His phone.”

  “I’ll take that, and speaking of phones, do you have a landline?”

  “Stephen’s the only one who uses it. It’s in the dining room.”

  “Do you know the number?”

  She shook her head and led the way. After I lost myself for a second in another one of her paintings, this one over a chipped and rickety buffet, I picked up the receiver and dialed the automatic number announcement, jotting it down. I made a note to call my FBI buddy and beg, this time to give me a list of the calls to and from Stephen’s phones. He didn’t owe me, but I knew how to give guilt.

  “One more question. You said Stephen worked for a shop in Bensonhurst. Do you know the name?”

  “Al’s Auto on Sixty-Fifth Street, but it didn’t last. He told me he quit. He hated the owner and the other mechanics. But I know different. Stephen was fired.” She hugged herself.

  As I was about to leave, I had an idea. “I’d like to see your studio and I know Cookie would, too. The three of us have some catching up to do.” We made tentative plans for the following afternoon, and as I was leaving, I blurted out the usual if-you-think-of-anything-else line.

  We were interrupted by the buzzer followed by the heavy tread of approaching
footsteps.

  “My mother.” Lake started for the hall. “Please stay. I’ll need to tell her about Stephen, and I don’t know how she’ll react.”

  Ina O’Neill

  The door opened and a woman stood breathless on the threshold. No knock, she must have had the key.

  “Darling, I just heard! My poor child.” Her electricity filled the room.

  She smelled of expensive French perfume. As she jinked toward her daughter, Ina O’Neill extended her arms, the long strands of her curly hair jerking in the opposite direction. My hair kinks something fierce when I’m excited, so I shouldn’t talk, but hers coiled like suspended snakes. Don’t get me wrong, I admired her for everything she’d been through, the tragic death of her husband killed several years ago in a meat-packing plant accident, her hopes dashed with her daughter’s marriage to Stephen Cojok. And she’d been one of Mom’s best friends, standing by her even after the rumors started and the rest of the world shunned Carmela Fitzgibbons. Take it from me, Ina O’Neill was no slouch. After her husband’s untimely death, she began working at a tile and ceramic store in downtown Brooklyn. I remember it well when we were in school, a shell of a place on a deserted block, but I guess by the force of her personality and some clever marketing, she built it up and then bought it, and Mom told me how the bank had stretched to extend her credit. Still open today.

  But today was a different matter. Her clothes were disheveled, her face flustered, her eyes distraught as she smothered her daughter with kisses, her care so exuberant that both of them tripped into the couch. A fresh bout of weeping was interrupted by the sound of my throat clearing.

  “Mrs. O’Neill?” I held up my ID.

  It took a moment for her to register.

  “I’m here to investigate your son-in-law’s murder.” Not even one word of condolence? What kind of a friend was I? I felt Lorraine McDuffy’s disapproval even though she was miles away.