Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

Angel pronounced each word with deliberation. “I saw the shoes when he ran around us that one time, don’t you remember?”

“Course I do. Quite right, dear, whatever you say.” Madeleine Liam looked at Lorraine and winked. “What did you say your name was again? My mind’s not what it used to be since the moths got hold of it. They eat brains, you know, and they’re immune to medication. Lorraine, isn’t it? See? I never forget a face.”

“One more question. Would Brandy run away? Did she ever talk about leaving?”

“What kind of question is that?” Madeleine Liam asked. “Get me my purse, blast it, Angel. Brandy would never leave. She has everything, discounting the mother. She’s got friends, a wonderful father, a granny who dotes on her.” Madeleine Liam, her face still huffed, hugged the bag to her chest.

“Now, Maddie,” Lorraine began and elicited a look from the old woman, but she was listening. “We’ve been asked by Mitch to find his daughter, and we need Brandy’s phone number. He said Brandy gave it to you, but he specifically asks that you give it to us.”

“Angel, where’s my book? This nice woman from Star of the Sea needs Brandy’s number.”

After we left, I compared the phone number to the one Trisha gave me. It was the same. Then I felt my phone vibrate and saw the texts from Cookie.

Chapter 32

Fina. Morning Two, On The Promenade

Lorraine wanted to get back to the office because she and Minnie were going to fix lunch, and she still had a pile of reading to do. So I left her, asking her to keep in touch.

As I ran to the Promenade to meet Cookie, a black unmarked car barreled into view, screeching its tires and stopping inches from the back of a sanitation truck. Jane and Willoughby emerged. In the middle distance, I saw Cookie and a patrol officer standing next to a garbage can. When I got within earshot, I heard him saying something about picking her up at seven. Things were looking up for her, I could tell by her grin. In characteristic fashion, she tried to hide behind her mirror while, with feet splayed and head down, Jane walked toward us, Willoughby trailing a few feet behind.

Cookie filled us in on what she’d seen outside the Liam home—a Brite messenger, Phillipa’s movements, but most interesting of all, a runner weaving in and out between Trisha Liam’s house and the Promenade.

At her mention of a runner, I wondered if he could be the same one Madeline Liam and Angel saw talking to Brandy. My stomach did its elevator thing.

Cookie continued. “I know he was wearing a hat when I first saw him. He overtook a group of other runners and headed toward the Promenade. Not five minutes later, I saw him rounding onto Columbia Heights again, this time minus his hat. He must have figured it was too conspicuous, and it was, one of those old-fashioned painter’s hats. That’s why I decided to start looking in the Promenade waste bins for the hat, and that’s when Clancy saw me.”

I smelled romance in the air and fear all over Jane. Once again we’d scored, and she was coming up with nothing.

“We’re a team,” I said to Jane. “What would you like us to do?”

“I almost forgot,” Cookie said, tearing out three pages of her notebook. “I made these sketches of the runner, one with the painter’s hat on his head, one without.”

As I looked at the sketches, I saw white spots before my eyes and I felt my heart pumping in frantic mode. “I’ve seen this guy, I know I have.”

Jane grabbed Cookie’s sketch. Holding it out, she said, “Doesn’t ring any bells, but this drawing is amazing.” She spoke to Cookie. “You should be a court artist. I’ll arrange it.”

“No, you don’t. Cookie works for me,” I said. “And we have a new employee, Lorraine McDuffy, paralegal.”

“Lorraine, that’s Denny’s mother,” Willoughby said. “Does his dad know?”

“I’m leaving that detail to Lorraine. She’s reading briefs of Trisha Liam’s old cases—Mitch’s too—trawling for suspects.”

Jane showed Cookie’s sketches to Willoughby. He swore he’d seen the guy running on the bridge.

“How could you? You’re not a runner.”

“I don’t know, but I’ve seen him.”

“Get copies made. I want the team canvassing the Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, all the way down to Carroll Gardens. Hit all those tight landlords with locked wallets, the ones that slice rooms into thirds and rent them out by the month,” Jane said. “Ask them if they’ve ever seen this guy—on the street, in a deli, the supermarket, a funeral parlor. If they rent to him, they’ll tell us.”

“And don’t forget to ask them about the van,” Cookie said.

“Good point.”

“We’ll plaster the sketch of this guy up and down Court Street and on telephone poles, even on the front of row houses if they’ll let us,” Willoughby said.

“No!” I yelled. “We want this hunt low-key for now—he’s a person of interest, maybe with a van.”

Jane nodded. “Stress that, Willoughby. And I don’t want anything leaked to the press other than we’re pursuing some credible leads from the public.” She turned to me. “I don’t want to hear the phrase ‘person of interest.’”

“What if we find someone who knows the runner, say, a landlord who rents to him or a next-door neighbor with a key to his apartment?” Willoughby asked.

Jane rolled her eyes. “Think, Willoughby. The usual kid gloves apply. I don’t want anything thrown out because we went searching through some runner’s apartment without a warrant. And we’re far from having probable cause.” Jane pursed her lips at me. “We spoke to the grocer’s wife, and she’s not changing her story. For the record she saw the wriggling tarpaulin on Joralemon.” She turned to Cookie. “The grocer lady told me the same thing she told you.”

“Why didn’t she call the police when she noticed a squirming roll of cloth? I would have,” Willoughby said.

“Really? I’m not sure it was that obvious. Besides, she was on her way to work, probably had a zillion things on her mind, you know how it is. Anyway, she didn’t think anything of it at the time. Saw two men, one with dark curly hair. She doesn’t remember what the other one looked like. Both of them were struggling to shove a tarpaulin into a van. In that neighborhood with all the odd job fixit guys plastering nineteenth-century ceilings, it probably didn’t seem odd to her, like part of the normal scenery, and for all we know, it was.”

“You’re going through footage like mad. Any pics of vans?” I asked.

Jane nodded. “Found some frames that show an olive green van pull out of a space on Joralemon across the street and down a ways from the school about the time school starts. Funny color green for a van. It shouldn’t be too hard to find, but so far, nothing.”

“I take it you haven’t picked up the tags.”

Jane shook her head. “We’ve got squads looking all over Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan for an olive green van. We’ve checked footage on all bridges and tunnels leading into and out of the city, sent copies of the clip to the FBI, who by the way, have given us nothing. The van’s just vanished.”

“Maybe it’s all cozy sitting in someone’s private garage two blocks away,” Cookie said.

I could see fear oozing out of Jane as she nodded. “We’ll see what we pick up when we canvass the area.”

It’s a little late, I thought, but didn’t say it. Instead, I decided to make the most of one of Jane’s softer moments. “What’s the chance of sending me a pic of the van?” I hated to beg, but in two seconds, I had the image on my cell. I thanked Cookie for making us look so good, told her good luck with whatever, cranking my head back and forth in Clancy’s direction. I excused myself and ran the sketches back to Lucy’s, where I scanned them into the computer, sending one set to my phone and another to Jane.

“I’ve skimmed through everything you’ve given me,” Lorraine said when I asked her how she was getting on. “Haven’t read any of it yet, but after I do, I hope I’ll have more to tell you later today or tomorrow.”

Better Lorraine than me, but she looked like she was enjoying herself. Come to think of it, reading briefs must be more fun than waiting on Robert McDuffy.

Lorraine continued. “But chew on this: Trisha Liam takes no prisoners,” she said, biting into her sandwich.

I wasn’t surprised.

Minnie handed her a cup of fresh brew.

My lucky day meeting Denny, who had secret treasures like his mother.

“And here’s another thought,” Lorraine said. “In Mitch’s briefcase, I found a handwritten list of all his cases for the last five years. I recognized some of the names—you can’t help it if you’ve been a legal secretary in Brooklyn for twenty-five years. Nothing concrete yet, but whenever the mob needed a good lawyer, Mitch’s name must have come up. At least it looks that way, because he’s defended a lot of them, most of them so small time they were only dimly aware of what they’d done.”

“You mean—”

“I mean underlings, soft in the upstairs department, barely aware of what they were doing. But some of the men he defended were pretty high up in the Gambino food chain, not that they weren’t also soft in the lantern. After each case, Mitch put a plus or minus, I take it his mark for whether the jury found for the Feds or the defendant. Looks like the prosecutors were getting better at winning or Mitch was losing heart at defending, and if Mitch recused himself from a case and then died suddenly …” Her voice trailed off. “This is a jump, I know, but his death looks suspicious.”

“What does Mitch’s death have to do with Brandy’s abduction?”

“Nothing on the surface, but when did you ever get to the truth by looking on the surface?”

She had a point.

Just then my phone started flashing. “It’s Trisha Liam,” I announced and took the call.

Chapter 33

Fina. Morning Two, The Alibi

With Cookie by my side and looking like she’d just been assumed into heaven, I banged away on Trisha Liam’s door until Phillipa answered my knock. “I have a few more questions,” I said.

The housekeeper had the startled look of the caught, and panned from me to Cookie before she showed us into the conservatory. It was the first time Cookie had seen the view of New York harbor from that room, and both of us were taken up into its splendor for a second. The green lady sparkled before us, and Manhattan’s old seaport with the tall buildings of Wall Street winked back at us, but they seemed to have no effect on Phillipa. She was into God knew how many paper towels. Her nose seemed raw as she motioned for us to sit.

I got right to the point. “What were you doing on the Promenade this morning? I thought you said Trisha doesn’t like you to leave the house.”

Phillipa seemed like a lost child. Her eyes darted from me to Cookie, narrowing as she took in Cookie’s outfit. “But I was gone for all of three minutes.” Paper towels partially covered her mouth. “Do you need to say anything to Trisha?”

“Answer the question.” I hate being a hard-ass.

“All right.” She inched to the edge of her chair. “I was late paying this month’s rent. I had to wait for a small annuity deposit. It comes at the beginning of the month. My landlord is understanding. She’s a nice woman, patient, unlike my boss, but she had bills to pay, too,” she said, swiping at her forehead. “She owed the gas company, had just paid taxes, so she was short herself. She said she’d meet me at the Promenade. This morning was the only time I could manage it, so I did. I ran out and met her and paid her, and that’s what I was doing.” She twisted on the edge so that I thought she might fall off.

“You have a receipt?”

She reached into her pocket and showed me a slip of paper. It was a handwritten note, a simple receipt for $875, two months’ rent, signed and dated by a Gladys Delucca.

“Who’s Gladys De—”

“My landlady.”

“And the runner?” Cookie asked.

Phillipa stared at us, her face blotched all red and yellow. “What?” Her mouth trembled.

Just then we heard the front door open and footsteps approach.

“That’ll be Trisha,” Phillipa said, twisting the paper napkin in her lap. “Please don’t tell Trisha about the Promenade. Please don’t. I’m never supposed to leave. It was the only time I’ve left. Ever. Don’t you see? I don’t know what would happen if I lost this job. It’s getting to be too much, all too much.”

Phillipa’s fear expanded, seemed to fill the room. She was breathing hard now, like she was taking in fetid air left over from the plague. Her lungs worked like squeaky bellows, inflating, deflating, and I watched her chest heave. I thought she was going to faint. Resolute footsteps grew louder.

When Trisha Liam entered, Phillipa stood up like a shot.

Chapter 34

Fina. Afternoon Two, The Note

“What’s all this?” Trisha looked at us as if we were garbage littering her conservatory. “Unless you’ve got my daughter with you or news that she’s coming home soon, I need you out of my office. Now. You can finish up with Phillipa in the kitchen or parlor.” She turned to the housekeeper. “And I’m starved. Fix me something. I don’t care what it is, bread and cheese, an apple, but I want it cored and cut in quarters. No mayo, strong coffee—that new kind, whatever it is—no sugar, a little cream. No, make that milk.”

The housekeeper didn’t move. Cookie rolled her eyes.

Know what? The lawyer could keep her money and her rooms overlooking the green lady. I felt like walking away, and if it weren’t for Brandy, whom I’d gotten to know by reading her diary, I would have, you bet I would have, but the kid tugged at me so hard I was about ready to bleed.

“I came to talk to Phillipa, but I was hoping to catch you at home.”

“I was in court, or did you forget?”

I ignored the dig. “We were able to lift enough DNA from the Ugg slip-on I showed you early this morning. They’re preliminary results, but it matches the DNA from Brandy’s comb.”

Trisha’s skin took on the pallor of the haunted. “I want real news. I want my daughter back.”

I knew Jane had called in favors to speed up the lab, and this was the lawyer’s gratitude. “We’re doing everything possible to find her, along with the FBI and NYPD.”

Phillipa shifted the wad of paper towel from her mouth to her apron pocket. “A messenger delivered that.” She pointed to a dark blue object on the desk and left the room.