Eye Sleuth (4 page)

“Thanks but no thanks,” I told him, wondering yet again about the size of his ego, and I pointedly started shifting the papers on my desk. Allan had to have the last word.

“Knock on the wall when you want to call it a day,” and he headed for his office, whistling cheerfully.

Close to six, when Allan stopped by to re-issue his invitation, I didn’t even lift my head, just shook it and he breezed off. The guy had the hide of a rhinoceros. The college had quieted down in the lull before evening classes and clinics. I shut down my computer for the day, part of my personal attempt to save energy. It was time to make a few notes about the shooting and the warning. I sat and thought about what I’d witnessed. Twinges of panic surfaced. Deep breaths, I told myself, you can’t bring Mary Sakamoto back to life. Right now, try to understand what happened.

New York is a big city, crime doesn’t take a lunch break, my logical side said.

Sighing, I pulled out a notebook. Perhaps the act of writing down the little I knew would take me past this endless wondering. Just then, someone tapped on the door, even though it was open, and I sighed again when I saw Matt Wahr, the college’s business manager. The man positively enjoyed sharing news about budget cuts. Tonight I was definitely not in the mood for a chat about his financial skill. It was a relief when I realized that he, like everyone else, was only interested in the details of Mary Sakamoto’s shooting.

“The police said she lived on the Upper West side, not in Brooklyn. I don’t know her. I called Brooklyn when I got back to the college. Mary Sakamoto wasn’t someone from the neighborhood. End of story.” I didn’t explain I’d spoken to my aunt, who was all the family I had since the death of my parents a year ago.

Determined to try to put something in writing about the shooting, I opened the notebook and scribbled out a list of obvious questions. They were just as troubling when I saw them written down as when they were circling in my brain.

One why, one who and a number 3 that was downright disturbing. I stared at the list. Up to this moment, I’d avoided trying to think clearly about what the danger might be. Perhaps the warning was meaningless. It certainly didn’t mean anything to the police. The phone rang. What now, damn it? I don’t give evening classes, those are taught by senior faculty, though sometimes I’m asked to fill in if a lecturer is sick. Reluctantly I picked up. It was my boss, Dr. Forrest.

“Yoko, the police called. They want to come to the college as soon as it can be arranged to interview Mike and the security staff and anyone who may have seen something. They’d like to talk to you again.”

Irritation and anxiety flared in equal amounts. Was I really a suspect?

“I’m sure this is not unusual,” Dr. Forrest said. “We’re in capable hands, I know Detective Riley, the young man who telephoned. He grew up next door to me and his family’s still there, though Dan moved into the city some years back.”

So that’s how Riley knew about behavioral optometry. My boss was famous for his papers and lectures. He had the unique ability to explain behavioral optometry in ways non-optometrists could understand. I knew Dr. Forrest had a private practice out on Long Island, where he lived. Did that mean Detective Riley ever had vision therapy? Not everyone needs it but for sure he would have known what Dr. Forrest did.

“It’s getting late, you’re not still working?” my boss asked.

I stared at the sheet of paper with the three questions but didn’t mention it. “I’m about to leave,” I told him.

I tore up the list and threw it in the trash. No need to keep the paper, the questions were neon in my mind. Right then I made a major decision. I’d take the warning at face value and not wait for the danger Mary Sakamoto warned was headed my way. Detective Riley might not think I was in danger but I had seen Mary Sakamoto’s eyes right before she died. She’d looked sincere. I’d try to do some detecting of my own. I wasn’t guilty of anything. Science is based on curiosity and I was damn curious––confused, true, but very curious. I’d handle this horrendous situation the way I worked on optometric research, with scientific detachment, one step at a time.

First step, why didn’t I contact Mary Sakamoto’s daughter? Maybe I’d get some answers. I looked in the phone book. Not one single listing for anyone with the last name of Sakamoto. Damn, did the family have a cell phone, not a regular phone? Perhaps the daughter was married and had a different name. I certainly wasn’t going to ask the police for the address. What about Allan? Would he know how to find out someone’s address through their cell phone––except I didn’t have their cell phone number and maybe the daughter’s last name wasn’t Sakamoto? No way would I ask Allan for a favor. So much for my first stab at sleuthing.

It was time to call it quits for the day. On the way home, I tried not to think about the nasty fact that someone with a gun might be stalking me. I forced myself to consider the questions I’d written down objectively. If answers didn’t come, then I’d change my perspective, consider different points of view. I got a kink in my neck from looking over my shoulder, looking for what I didn’t know, wouldn’t recognize if it bit me. I stopped for a hot turkey sandwich smothered in gooey gravy at KK, the little Polish restaurant next door to the rickety old building where I live. The food was lead in my gut. I was exhausted. I needed a good night’s rest. That’s not what I got. I tossed and turned for hours.

I couldn’t get Mary Sakamoto’s warning out of my thoughts. What the hell had she meant? Danger comes in different sizes and shapes. Had someone stolen my identity? Or could it be a case of mistaken identity? Was it possible the woman wasn’t level-headed? Who knew what trauma she’d been through? After September 11, it had been months before I slept peacefully. That night, when I finally dropped off, my dreams were filled with the terrifying image of Mary Sakamoto’s eyes as her life force ebbed from them.

Two

It was not quite 1 PM when I panted my way through the doors of the National Arts Club at Gramercy Park. The morning clinic had run long, as usual, so I’d hurried, not wanting to be late for lunch with Lanny. It was the day after Mary Sakamoto had been shot to death in front of me and I couldn’t wait to vent to Lanny. She was my godmother, a dear friend and the big sister I never had.

“You missed Mrs. Oldenburg by a minute, Dr. Kamimura,” Andy at the front desk told me. “She just went upstairs to the office of the Newswomen’s Club.” He usually calls me Yoko. We’d worked many an evening shift at the club together when I was a college student. Today, Andy was cordially formal because visitors were arriving for the current art exhibit. Lanny, one of the judges for it, had invited me to the opening a month ago but I hadn’t been able to make it.

“Thanks, Andy,” I said and was about to head for the miniscule elevator behind the main clubroom so I’d meet Lanny if she was on her way down, when Andy jerked his head at me in a signal to come closer.

“Word to the wise.” Andy kept his voice low so no one could overhear. “A man I didn’t recognize came down from the show at the public art gallery and passed Mrs. Oldenburg as she was talking on her cell phone. I think he overheard what she was saying because he turned right round and followed her up the stairs and started talking to her. His tone was quite angry but I couldn’t hear what he said. My impression was she was startled by him.”

“D’you think he’s an artist whose work was rejected for the show?”

“No, this exhibit is the work of high-school students, he definitely wasn’t a high-schooler,” Andy said. “I didn’t catch sight of his face but I’m certain he’s not a member.”

“Strange,” I said. “Thanks, Andy.”

I ran up the wide marble steps to the club rooms puzzling over what Andy’d said. People going in to the public gallery next to the private club area stared curiously as I unhooked the red velvet rope barring the entrance to the members’ lounge. As I hotfooted it through the deserted main room to the bar lounge, I calculated it was at least three weeks since I’d seen Lanny, she’d been out of town so much. Perhaps she’d have some insight into yesterday’s strange happening. For sure she wouldn’t be dismissive of Mary Sakamoto’s warning the way the police had been.

The bar lounge was deserted except for a waiter going into the dining room with a tray of drinks. I never cross the bar lounge without pausing for an admiring look at the stained glass ceiling arching over the long sweep of mahogany bar. Crafted by master designer MacDonald of Boston but routinely mistaken for the work of Tiffany, the ceiling’s spectacular vaulted dome dated from the 1870s. What I saw when I looked up stopped me cold. The shadows of two people merged in an embrace were clearly outlined behind the glass of the ceiling. Who could be up there? Strange place for romance, if that’s what it was. For months, the upstairs balcony that ran around the dome had been off limits because the flooring was in terrible shape, rotted almost through.

The shadows swayed from side to side. It didn’t look friendly. Puzzled, I stared up. What was wrong? Then I got it. I was witness to a struggle. Suddenly, one heaved the other over the railing. The only place to fall was onto the dome. Not through it, please not through it. I swear I stopped breathing. The body landed with a soft thud on the dome and it shook, a subtle rippling movement. I definitely stopped breathing, just stood and stared, mouth hanging slack, wondering desperately if the glass would hold.

It didn’t.

The exquisite stained glass ceiling burst with a roar, a nightmare Niagara Falls. Whoosh, a rush of air surrounded me as the dome disintegrated. Three hundred square feet of history rained lazily down, a glistening torrent of lethal shards cascading onto the bar below. The magnificent folly, over a century old, was shattered, much of it reduced to a glittering mound of green glass. I gaped in disbelief. The air grew still and the room was quiet.

Where was the person who’d fallen? I dragged my bug-eyed stare away from the mountain of glass on the bar and looked up at the yawning space where the dome had arched. Incredibly, a substantial part of the dome hung above me still but it was in dangling fragments, tenuously connected by delicate antique leading. Along one edge of the ceiling’s remains, a jagged lacework of metal struts somehow supported a woman. It was my dear Lanny. My adrenaline spiked in total anxiety. She moved ever so slightly and slivers of glass tinkled onto the bar. She muttered and her words reached me clearly.

“Damn it.”

My adrenaline spiked again, this time in hope. Lanny was coherent enough to swear. If she kept still, we might get her down safely.

“Don’t move, Lanny. Help’s on the way.”

I kept my voice calm, like it’s normal to find her hanging precariously from the remains of the club’s famous glass dome. A heartbeat later, I realized someone was standing at the railing glaring down. It was the other shadow, the one who’d attacked Lanny. I didn’t know the man but I know pure rage when I see it. This was one angry guy. We strained to see each other in the dim light then the stranger quickly stepped back out of sight. The warped floor creaked loudly and the pounding noise of his steps sounded down the length of the gallery. He was running away. Hell’s bells! The rotting wood could give at any time and the floor collapse. That didn’t worry me. Let the sorry bastard fall through, all the way down to the basement. My concern was for Lanny. It wouldn’t take much to shake her loose. A fall onto that mound of glass could be fatal. The footsteps faded and it was quiet.

Someone touched my arm and I jumped nervously. When that happened yesterday, a woman had been shot to death in front of me. I was relieved to see it was Val Sangrassio, the club manager. Close behind him was Aldon James, the club’s 16th president. Both stared in disbelief at the glass piled crazily on the bar then their heads swiveled back in unison as they looked up to assess the full damage. Shock replaced disbelief when they saw Lanny in her precarious situation. Val reacted first, pulling out his cell phone and called 911. He signaled to the staff crowding at the dining room doors on the other side of the lounge to warn them to stay where they were, not to cross the bar lounge in case their movements caused vibrations and dislodged Lanny. The wailing of a fire engine came closer and closer and finally it stopped.