Death Angel (20 page)

“The other man, Verge,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know his name.”

“No, lady, I don’t.”

“That’s right, you’re bad on names.”

He caught the edge in my voice. I started to turn away, but he reached out and grabbed the sleeve of my blazer.

“But I’ve seen him before. I met him years ago. And every now and then I see him again.”

“That’s good to know, Verge,” I said. “How do you know him?”

“I told you I worked at the garage, helping my daddy,” he said. “From 1960 to 1980. That man recognized me from all that time back. Said we used to talk some and that my father was good to him.”

“Where’s the garage, Verge?” I asked. It sounded like he was bluffing me again—and I was just off my own bluff to Jessica Pell, so I didn’t want to fall for it. “Maybe someone there can help us figure out who the man is. Figure out whether the dead girl had something to do with your angel.”

“Amsterdam Avenue, near 77th Street, like I told you. It’s an old stable, actually, that was made into a garage,” Verge said. “It’s the Dakota Stables. Called that after the apartment building it was built for. The Dakota Stables.”

“What do we do with this guy in the meantime?” I asked. “I don’t know if he’s crazy as a fox or telling us the truth.”

Mercer, Mike, and I were in the lobby of the rustic cottage, home to one of the last public marionette companies in the country. The cheerful décor of the children’s theater was a sharp contrast to the serious subjects we’d been discussing.

Verge had gone outside in the company of four of the Park’s anticrime cops who had helped Mercer find him early this afternoon.

“You can’t lock him up, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mercer said. “Florida’s got no hold on him, and he’s not in any trouble here.”

“But he knew the dead girl and he actually spent time with her. His little carved angel was found not far from her body,” I said, struggling to put all that together. “He’s got no idea where he was when she died.”

“We don’t know when she died, Coop,” Mike said. “How can you expect him to alibi up?”

“The man has no home, his family doesn’t trust him enough to want him. And our girl wasn’t gay, even though she was with Jo and her friends. Let him go, and we’ll never see him again.”

“That’s a little over-the-top,” Mercer said.

“A convicted sex offender with a long history of hitting on teens?”

“A few hours ago you thought he was Angel’s protector, when Jo was talking about him. He’s sixty-three years old. He’s probably aged out of the molesting business, courtesy of Florida’s castration meds.”

I started listing the offenders we’d handled together who had still been sexually violent in their senior years, some of them turning to blunt force or strangulation when they’d been frustrated by an inability to complete the physical act.

“Besides, the parkies who trusted him didn’t realize Verge had a rap sheet, Mercer. But now he knows we know about it.”

“You think the city will put him up for a night or two in a hotel?” Mercer asked.

“We’re not quite at material witness status. I’ll push McKinney to let us do it, if you think he’ll stay.”

“Let me ask him.”

“Ask him about the Dakota Stables, too. Have you ever heard of them, Mike?” I asked.

“Never did. But it’s my next stop.”

“I’m with you.”

We walked out the door of the cottage. Verge was entertaining the plainclothes cops with stories about the Park. He was holding a large object in his hands, but his back was to us and I couldn’t make out what it was.

Mercer called out to him and he turned around.

“What the hell is that?” Mike asked.

“Damn,” I said. “It’s one of the marionettes, from the theater. It was in a box on the floor near the door when we went inside.”

Verge was dangling a puppet that was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. The cops were laughing with him as he made up his own version of the fairy tale, the two-foot-tall doll bouncing from the strands of string that controlled her movement. He was talking about walking her through the desolate Ravine, past the three waterfalls, when she was approached by the wolf.

“Where’d you get that, Verge?” Mercer asked. It seemed as though he didn’t like the fact that the disarming nature of our “simple” friend could be so deceptive.

“I’m telling a story,” the man said. “The police officers are my friends.”

“The doll. The puppet. Where’d you get it?” Mercer knew the answer to my question as well as I did.

“Red Riding Hood? She was a gift to me. The people inside—the people who work the show—one of them gave it to me.”

He was as straight-faced now as he had been when he responded to our questions just minutes ago.

“There’s nobody inside the theater. You’re not telling the truth, Verge,” I said. “Who? Who was it?”

His head was weaving from side to side. “You know I’m not—”

“Good with names,” I said, taking a step closer to him, holding my hands out to ask for the return of the puppet. “That doesn’t work with me.”

He jerked his right arm and Red Riding Hood flew up in the air, missing the side of my head by inches.

“Give it back, Verge,” I said.

He was laughing hard now, spinning the marionette so that the strings became twisted around one another. “She’s mine.”

I turned to reenter the cottage.

“Where are you going?” Mike asked.

“To get someone from the theater. They’ll be missing this doll. If he’s not giving it back to me, there must be someone here who can reclaim it.”

Mercer was trying to keep one eye on Verge Humphrey and follow my activity. “I’ll get it from him, Alex. Don’t knock yourself out.”

“Do you get my point? Do you see that he just told a big fat lie, Mercer? So how can we believe anything he says?”

“He’s mentally challenged, Alex.”

“I can deal with that just fine. But what’s the challenge? That’s the issue. Is Verge just slow, or does he have problems telling the truth? How do we get him evaluated, Mercer? ’Cause he’s useless to me—”

“To all of us.”

“If he’s a pathologic liar. And a serial sex offender.”

“No signs of violence,” Mercer said. “Not recently.”

I went into the cottage, walked through the vestibule past the empty box in which the marionette had been resting when I first arrived. There was a door to the side of the stage, and I knocked on it. A young woman in jeans and a T-shirt, a paintbrush in her hand, opened it and asked what I wanted.

“I’m with the police officers who were just in here,” I said. “One of your puppets was in a crate near the front. I’m just wondering—?”

“Red Riding Hood? She’s fine there, thanks. We’ve got someone from the doll hospital coming to pick her up shortly,” the woman said cheerfully. “She’s got a broken arm, and we need her back for the Saturday matinee. Is she in your way?”

“Not at all. I just wanted to make sure she—uh—that she belonged here. We’re leaving in a few minutes and I didn’t want her unsecured, in case you thought we’d be hanging around.”

“She’s a definite crowd-pleaser. The surgery’s on rush. Thanks for your concern.”

So Verge had a problem with truth telling, perhaps a greater challenge for us than for him, especially since Mercer was in his corner.

I let the door slam behind me as I walked to rejoin the group. Mercer came toward me to cut me off. “Seems he’s rejected your kind offer of a hotel room.”

I tried to look around my friend’s broad shoulders, but it was impossible to see Verge, who was still entertaining the cops and swinging the wooden puppet from side to side.

“That stinks. What’s your plan?”

“These plainclothes guys say they can keep tabs on him for the next few days.”

“24/7?”

“Be reasonable, Alexandra. They’ve got better things to do now.”

“He’s a liar. Flat out. Now, get the puppet back, please. Nobody gave it to him, and she’s got to be picked up for repair.”

“Understood,” Mercer said, keeping himself between the old man and me as he walked over to ask for the marionette.

“C’mon, Verge,” Mercer said, beckoning with his curled-up fingers. “We’ve got to put the doll back where she belongs.”

“Not right yet,” he said, starting to lope down the path leading away from the cottage. He was swinging Red Riding Hood like a cowboy showing off with a lariat. “She belongs to me.”

One of the young cops started after Verge. “Hey, Pops. You gotta give back the doll.”

“She’s got a broken arm,” I called out, thinking he might have a soft spot for the injured doll, like the way Jo described him responding to her friends. “She needs to get fixed before the kids come to the show this weekend.”

“That can happen to little girls that go into the woods,” he said, walking backward as he told the cop to stay away.

His laughter no longer struck me as the humor of a simple man. The tone had become more sinister.

“Stop right there,” Mercer said.

Verge flipped the large doll over his shoulder, and when it landed—as he turned again to walk off—we could all see that she had become completely entangled in the long white strings that were suspended from the hand controls.

There was no point in my opening my mouth again. Mercer was on his way to reclaim the doll.

“Hand it over, will you?”

Verge lifted the marionette as though he was going to return it to Mercer. With a sudden movement he grabbed the doll’s head between his hands and twisted it so hard I could hear the wood crack.

“She’s beyond repair now,” he said, smirking at me. “I think I just broke her neck.”

“Calm down, Coop,” Mike said. “It’s just a doll.”

“But he’s demented. I know Verge didn’t kill anybody just now, but that was a sick thing to do, wringing the puppet’s neck.”

“There’s got to be a psych history on this dude, Mercer. You looking?”

“I am now. I’ll start with his sister in Queens and see what we get.”

Mike had replaced the marionette—with her multiple fractures and a completely snarled set of strings—in the crate for pickup and repair. I watched with dismay as Verge Humphrey walked away from us, headed off the path into a grove of trees, and disappeared.

“I hate that he’s roaming around on his own,” I said. “Between him and Tanner, I feel like driving through the Park and scooping up all the girls who are out there tonight, thinking it’s a safe place to be.”

“Hold that thought. I don’t think social work’s your strong suit.”

“Are you going to the garage?” Mercer asked Mike.

“Yeah. It’s just a few blocks over.”

“Taking Alex?”

“Yup.”

It was after five o’clock. “I’m starving,” I said. “And tired. Let’s do that and make a plan for tomorrow, and maybe I’ll have an early night.”

Mercer wagged a finger at me. “Not so fast. How about dinner?”

“With you?”

“With us.” He looked over my head to Mike and nodded.

“Something up?” I asked. It was one thing if Mike wanted to spend the evening alone with me, and if not it would be a smart idea to get some rest.

“It’s a good time to organize where we stand,” Mercer said, “what we need to do with the weekend approaching.”

“Come to my place for takeout?” They both usually liked that idea. The bar tab was cheap, the digs were comfortable and private, and they could watch the Yankee game while we ate.

“We can do better. Call me when you’re done at the garage. I’ll get us a table.”

Mike and I walked out of the Park and across 79th Street till we came to Amsterdam.

“You want to talk?” I asked him.

“We’re on the clock, Coop. On the job.”

“So it’s going to be
that
way?”

“Course it is when we’re working.”

“You have any second thoughts about last night?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“You just don’t want to—?”

“Discuss it right now,” he said.

“I don’t either.”

Mike turned his head to me, bit his lip, and laughed.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m easy.”

“Highest-maintenance broad I know, and you’re suddenly easy? Sweet.”

“So how do we make sense of Vergil Humphrey?”

“Let Mercer figure him out,” Mike said. “I just want to understand why so many of these roads are leading back to the Dakota.”

At the southwest corner of 77th Street and Amsterdam Avenue we came up to the drab old building bearing a beat-up sign:
THE DAKOTA GARAGE
.

There was a man in the ticket booth and two attendants, one young and one who looked older than Verge, sitting on wooden chairs with their feet up on the metal railing that separated the one-room office from the rows of parked cars.

“Mike Chapman, NYPD.”

He had the attention of the younger fellow, but the older guy still stared straight ahead, gnawing on a toothpick.

“There’s no trouble,” Mike said. “I’ve just got some questions about the building.”

“What do you want to know?” the kid asked.

“How long have you worked here?”

The older man spoke without glancing at us. “That’s not about the building, is it?”

The kid answered anyway. “Me? Only eight months. Abe’s been here fifty years.”

“Fifty-six. But if you’ve got no trouble, why are you asking?”

“You must have started working before child labor laws,” Mike said.

“Dropped out of high school, wiseass. One of our cars gone missing?”

“Nope. Maybe one of your horses.”

Abe stood up and stretched. “Long before my time.”

“That’s what I want to know,” Mike said. “Was this really a stable?”

“Certainly was. From here to 75th Street was called Stable Row. See those portals? Each one was an individual stall,” Abe said, pointing his toothpick toward the warm orange brick arches that lined the long room. “This place was built to hold more than a hundred horses, and space for three times that many carriages on the second floor.”

“But the Dakota apartments—they’re a couple of blocks away,” Mike said. “Why would the stables be built this far west?”

“Did you ever smell the likes of a hundred horses and all the slop that goes with them?” Abe asked. “This here couple of blocks was close enough to be convenient to the staff, but far enough away for the odors and the sounds of the animals not to bother the rich people who lived over on the Park. I have all that from the old-timers that worked here when I came on. Once upon a time, when it was built, the Dakota had horses right in the courtyard, and a special entrance in the rear so hay could be delivered without bothering anyone. But that’s all ancient history now.”

“When did this become a garage?” I asked.

“By the 1920s, I think.” Abe’s toothpick broke in half. He took both pieces and tossed them in a trash barrel.

“Do you know the name Lavinia Dalton?” Mike said.

“What’s the problem now? The chauffeur claiming I dented one of the cars? I didn’t think you guys were insurance adjusters.”

“We’re not.”

“So if there’s no trouble, what’s the trouble?” Abe asked.

“I’m curious is all. Miss Dalton can’t answer questions herself. Some property went missing from her home, and I’d like to look in her car, just to satisfy my boss we checked everywhere.”

“Cars. Five of them. Suit yourself,” Abe said. “I’ll take you upstairs.”

The elevator creaked its way to the second floor. Abe limped as he made his way down rows of automobiles until we reached the farthest corner of the building. An entire section was roped off, and four of the five machines in it were covered with blankets that appeared to be designed for each.

“These all belong to Miss Dalton,” Abe said. “The Mercedes sedan here, that’s not covered, that’s the one her chauffeur uses. Does all the errands in it, takes her out to the doctor when she needs to go, and sometimes ferries guests back and forth.”

“You mind if I look?”

“Don’t belong to me. Do anything you’d like.”

Mike opened each of the doors, looking under the seats and in the glove compartment, finding nothing except the registration and insurance form. He opened the trunk, but it was as clean as a whistle, with only a spare tire and a lap blanket folded neatly to the side.

Abe pulled the covers off the other cars. There was an SUV, two smaller sedans, and then an enormous car that looked like the stuff of royalty.

Mike let out a low whistle.

“The Dalton Daimler,” Abe said. “A 1965 four-door saloon. A rebadged Jaguar Mark 2. You know cars? This one’s a real beauty.”

Mike was taking in every inch of the vintage luxury vehicle. It was the color of champagne, with black trim, a fluted grille, distinctive wheel trims, and a gleaming black enamel steering wheel.

“Good as it gets,” Mike said as Abe opened the hood to show him the works. “Two-point-five-liter V8.”

“I was just a kid when Miss Dalton bought this. My boss never let me touch the damn thing, but late at night I used to climb in and sit behind the wheel, just pretending.”

“Not a bad fantasy,” Mike said, looking at every interior inch, as well as the boot. “How often does the Daimler go out for a spin?”

Abe patted the roof of the car. “You know about Miss Dalton’s grandbaby, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“This is the car Miss D had used to go out to her fancy ladies’ luncheon the afternoon the baby was snatched. She’s never allowed it to be driven since,” Abe said. “She probably doesn’t realize the chauffeur has to take it out every now and again—that it isn’t good for it just to sit. And it has to be inspected and all that. But as far as her using the car? Time seemed to stand still once Lucy disappeared.”

“The police,” I said, “did they talk to you back then?”

Abe, with help from Mike, replaced the covers on the cars and then he slowly limped back toward the elevator.

“That would be too polite a way of saying what they did. We were all guilty, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wasn’t a living soul who didn’t think it was an inside job—the kidnapping, I mean. Any of us who had any contact with the grand lady’s staff, we were made to look like lowlifes and thugs. Questioned and then questioned again. Rousted out of our beds in the middle of the night if anyone in the Dakota said they knew us. Half the cars parked here came out of those apartments. ’Course we all knew folks who lived there.”

“Did you know Lavinia Dalton?” I asked.

“Never laid eyes on her. She liked to be picked up at the front door of the building and dropped off there as well. I doubt she had a clue where her cars were garaged.”

“Did you know anyone on her staff?”

“I saw the chauffeur—sometimes two of them worked for her—just about every day. That one is dead now. Had a stroke ten years or so after the snatching. Been a few since. Good people.”

“Any of the women in the household?”

“Not as I recall.”

“Did you ever go to the Dakota apartments?” Mike asked.

We were out of the elevator, heading back to the ticket office. “Not Miss Dalton’s. But certainly I went to the building from time to time. Some folks liked their automobiles brought to them right there. Sometimes I went to pick up a rent check or give a person bad news that I’d dinged a fender. You gonna lock me up for that?”

“No, sir,” Mike said. “But that reminds me, Abe. You ever know a guy who worked here way back called Vergil Humphrey?”

Abe snorted at the sound of the name. “Verge? He was nuttier than a Snickers bar. His father was one of the supervisors here when I started. We could tell every time Verge got himself in a jam because the next day he’d wind up helping out with us.”

“What kind of jams?” I asked.

“Verge couldn’t keep his privates in his pants, if you understand me. Liked the girls a little too much.”

“Young girls?”

“Hell, I don’t know. He was a teenager then and so were they, from what I remember. I don’t think he ever hurt anybody. Verge was slow. Got made fun of a lot. Guess that’s called bullying today. His father liked to keep him around the cars ’cause we got so full of grease and sweat none of us had much time to think about girls.”

“Was Verge working here when the Dalton baby was kidnapped?” Mike asked.

Abe thought for a minute. “Sure he was. Had a harder time with the cops than I did, probably ’cause he was black and ’cause he couldn’t think straight or talk straight. Nobody ever knew when to believe Verge Humphrey.”

“Did he have anything to do with Lavinia Dalton and her cars?”

“His father was too smart for that. Verge might have been the only person working here who had no connection to the Dalton staff. Wasn’t allowed near the cars, you can be sure.”

“Other young men,” I said. “Would he have made friends working here?”

“More than any of us cared to have,” Abe said. “These cars were like magnets for every kid in the neighborhood. Finest makes and models sitting here all shiny and clean and sparkling. Kids were always hanging out, eager to take a rag and help us polish them up.”

“Any of them connected with Lavinia Dalton?” I asked.

Abe gave me an exasperated sigh. “You’re pushing me now, young lady. Sure, Miss D had a staff the size of a small army, and a few of the ones who were married had sons who’d hang out around here. All the boys did. Could I name ’em now for you? Not a prayer.”

There were three cars lined up at the entrance, waiting to be parked. The other attendant was calling to Abe to help him out.

“Did you ever hear of Seneca Village?” I asked.

“What’s that? An Indian reservation?” Abe said. “One of those gambling casinos?”

“Not important.”

“Have I answered all your questions, then?”

“Yes, you have,” Mike said. “Thanks for your time.”

“You keep Verge away from me, now, will you? Man never made a lick of sense. If you’re relying on him for help, you’ll be sorry.”

Mike was quiet as we made our way back toward the Park, where he had left his car.

“That was a dead end,” I said.

“Seems to be. I actually asked the lieutenant to send for the case file on Baby Lucy.”

“Not enough on your plate, I guess.”

“I’m just interested in the whole picture. It’s odd they never were able to solve it after all this time.”

“Start off with they never found a body,” I said. “That didn’t help.”

“Most people who followed the Lindbergh kidnapping figure Bruno Hauptmann couldn’t have pulled it off alone. Would have taken two guys—one to hold the ladder while the other took Charlie from his crib and out the second-story window.”

“You’re never been a conspiracy theory kind of guy,” I said.

“I’m not. But Lindbergh’s case just screams out for a mastermind behind Hauptmann.”

“I guess there’s always someone coming along to take a second look. Might as well be you.”

Mike pulled out his phone to call Mercer. “Coop and me, we’re ready to bag it. Everything in place?”

I wondered what Mike meant by that as he waited for an answer.

“Okay, that’ll work. See you in fifteen minutes.”

“What was that about? What did he put in place?”

“Mercer’s the man. Scored us a table at Rao’s.”

“No wonder the secrecy,” I said, high-fiving Mike for the good news. “How’d he do it?”

“The big man has his ways.”

We got in the car and headed east. There was no place in New York like the fabled eatery in East Harlem, a tiny building on the corner of Pleasant Avenue and 114th Street that was run more like a private club than a restaurant. Reservations were harder to come by than tickets to an inaugural ball. The owners, Frankie and Ron, didn’t even list the phone number, and if you were lucky enough to get in their good graces, they would tell you when to show up—it was impossible to pick a date and reserve it.

Mercer was waiting for us in the first booth—there were only twelve tables—opposite the bar where Nicky Vest, whose nickname came from the 136 colorful jackets he owned, mixed the meanest drinks in town. Some regular had turned in his table for the night, and Mercer’s persistence had paid off.