Murder at the 42nd Street Library: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Book) (28 page)

He rang the bell for the apartment, on the third floor of what was once a tenement, above an art gallery. Right away, someone buzzed the door open. No intercom. When he reached the apartment, he took a deep breath and knocked.

A male voice asked who was there, naturally enough. The tone was calm, easygoing, a kid’s voice, not someone who had an argument with the world.

“Mike Cosgrove—” He was about to explain who he was to the closed door, when the lock clicked and it opened.

“You’re looking for Denise?” He was a normal enough looking kid, no shaved head, no tattoos, no rings in his nose. His eyes met Cosgrove’s; his expression was earnest.

“Is she here?”

The boy shook his head. “She called. When I first met her, I didn’t know how old she was.” The boy had trouble holding Cosgrove’s gaze. “I never went out with her … just hung out. Someone told me she was thirteen, so I stayed away after that.” His gaze steadied. “She was nice to talk to, smart. When she called, I told her she couldn’t come here. I’d get in a lot of trouble. I told her to go home. She wouldn’t, so I told her about a runaway center near Port Authority.” He looked at Cosgrove. “I went there once, years ago when everything was crazy in my life.”

Cosgrove took out his business cards and handed one to Danny O’Neil. “I’m sorry about your dad. If I can ever do anything, you call.” He turned and left.

*   *   *

“I promise, Denise,” Ambler said to the slim, pretty girl in front of him. She seemed older than thirteen when he first saw her. But when she began to talk, her eyes shifting away from his, her voice quiet and uncertain, she seemed a shy young girl. “Let me buy you dinner. I won’t call your dad until you tell me it’s okay.”

She’d remembered him, of course. They’d been pals when she was younger, when her dad took her to a Knick game or Yankee game with Ambler. He hadn’t seen her much in the last couple of years. She’d outgrown ball games with her dad.

As they walked up Eighth Avenue, Ambler suggested a couple of places they passed, Chinese, Indian, a French-style bistro; she held out until after a few blocks they found an all-night Greek diner. With a laugh and a little dance, she asked, “Can we go here?” holding her hands together, a playful supplicant. “Dad goes to these hoity-toity gourmet places. When I was little, he took me to the diner in the neighborhood and I loved it. I know exactly what I want.”

When she relaxed and smiled and chatted, he remembered her cheerfulness and chatter when she was a youngster at the ballpark or the Garden. The sullen, taciturn girl he’d come upon at the runaway center was hard to like. The high-spirited girl with her head buried in the giant plastic menu, cheerful in spite of herself, was cute and likeable. He for damn sure wasn’t going to turn her loose on the street again, not until she said “uncle” and he could return her to Mike.

*   *   *

“What are you doing?” Emily screamed at Dominic.

He’d grabbed Adele as she ran for the door. She’d done it instinctively. Now, his hand over her mouth was rough and smelled of stale cigarettes and something else repulsive. It constricted her breathing as well as muffling her screams; his arms were strong and hard, sinewy, so it hurt when she struggled, like banging against a fence post. She tried to kick at him but couldn’t stand well enough to get any power into the kick, and he’d push his hand harder into her face and mouth and squeeze her arms tighter with his other arm when she tried.

“Get me something to put in her mouth.”

“Let her go,” Emily screamed. “Leave her alone.”

“Get me something to put in her mouth, God damn it, or I’ll put her lights out—” He tightened his grip on Adele. “Stop screaming or I’ll smack you—”

“She’ll stop. Leave her alone.” Emily went up close to Adele. Her breath smelled sour, too, of vodka and cigarettes. “Shut up,” she said. “Shut up for a minute.”

Adele did. She stopped screaming and stopped struggling. Dominic didn’t let go, but he relaxed his grip. All three of them were breathing hard.

Emily moved up face-to-face with Dominic. “What’d you do that for? Why’d you grab her like that? We were talking.”

“You’re an idiot. She’s onto you. We got to do something with her.”

Emily closed her eyes and shook her head. “You aren’t going to hurt her, you fucking asshole! No sir. You can’t hurt her.”

Dominic balled up his fists at his side, twitching from head to foot, looking first at Emily and then at her like he’d batter each of them in turn. He snorted through his nostrils like a horse.

Hearing something, Adele turned and saw Johnny, small and white in his pajamas, his eyes ovals of wonder, watching from the doorway of his room. Her movement must have alerted Emily. She turned also.

“Look what you’ve done.” She half pushed, half punched Dominic in the chest and moved toward Johnny. “Go back to bed!” He looked helplessly at Adele and turned back into the darkness behind him.

“Okay. Okay.” Dominic shoved Adele onto the couch. “Stay put. If you get up, I’ll drop you before you get to the door, so help me.”

Adele measured the distance to the door. He’d caught her once, faster on his feet than she thought he’d be. In a strange way, it felt better doing what he told her, safer, even as she feared what he’d do.

He pushed Emily toward the kitchen, standing in the doorway where he could talk to Emily and watch Adele. Grimacing, gesturing, he spoke heatedly in a sort of growling whisper, so Adele couldn’t understand what he said. She didn’t hear Emily’s voice at all. She looked at the door, her escape, and waited. Strangely, she was calm, believing something would happen that would tell her what to do next. She didn’t think making a run for the door was it.

Whatever happened in the kitchen was over quickly and Dominic and Emily were back in the living room. Dominic looked like he wanted to rip her apart but he didn’t come any nearer. Without any change in his menacing expression, he nodded toward the door. Her heart jumped. What was he telling her? She didn’t dare to hope.

“Get out,” he said.

*   *   *

“I don’t care what your fucking rules are.” Cosgrove spoke through gritted teeth. He knew he was wrong, abusing his authority, but couldn’t stop. “This is my daughter.”

“I know. All I’m willing to tell you is she was fine and she left,” Benny said.

“You’re a fucking librarian, not a social worker. What the hell do you know?”

“I’ll get the social worker.”

Cosgrove shook his head. Benny was easier to deal with than a social worker. With him, he might have some leverage. “Look. I know what you think about why kids run away … their families, abuse and neglect and— This isn’t like that. Denise is rebellious. Her mother gets on her. They fight.”

“Kids run away for a lot of reasons.” Benny’s tone was sympathetic. “Right now, she’s not ready to go home. I can tell you she’s safe.”

“Do you know where she is?” Before he answered, Cosgrove knew he did. “Let’s say you do know and you won’t tell me. I can bring you in for harboring a runaway.”

“I don’t think so.” His answer surprised Cosgrove. He didn’t know what the law was on runaway centers; he should’ve asked Ehnes. “And if that’s what you need to do, okay. It won’t do you any good. She’s safe. I hope she’ll call and tell you that much. I asked her to. But she’s mad at you, so she might not.”

Cosgrove considered his options. There weren’t many. Standing in front of Benny, his hands balled into fists, he felt a wave of exhaustion and something else, something weird happening with his eyes. Benny began wavering, bigger, smaller, closer, farther away; the room was spinning, shimmering walls … a confused sound of voices, nothing he could understand.… Darkness.

Chapter 24

“Dad used to say baked chicken in a Greek diner was one of the best meals in the city.” Denise was chattering away about anything that entered her head. They’d finished eating and walked along 42nd Street without a destination in mind. He wanted to take her to Adele’s, but Adele wasn’t answering her phone. The first time he’d called she’d answered—or someone answered—and when he said her name, the phone was disconnected. Now when he called, he got her voice mail.

“I’m hoping you can stay with a friend of mine until you decide what to do next, but I can’t get her on the phone.” They waited to cross Sixth Avenue, Bryant Park and the library in front of them, traffic charging up Sixth Avenue.

“I’ll be okay,” Denise said. “You don’t need to find a place for me.”

“Oh? And where would you go?”

Her smile faded. “I have friends … I haven’t been able to reach them. That guy at the center said I could crash there, but it’s sort of creepy.”

He stopped to look at her and realized she was exhausted. The burst of energy from dinner was gone. She yawned. Her eyelids drooped. Her face became a child’s again, a child about to drift off to sleep. He hailed a cab.

“Where are we going?” She hesitated next to the cab door he held open for her.

“To my apartment. You can rest until I reach Adele.”

Her face lit up, not gleeful, but close, as if she’d gotten something she secretly wished for. “Are you sure I won’t be too much trouble?” she asked politely, stepping into the cab.

*   *   *

Searching through her pockets as she ran down 52nd Street toward Ninth Avenue and the bright lights, Adele realized she’d left her phone in Emily’s apartment. She wanted desperately to call Raymond. She’d thought he’d follow her up to Emily’s apartment and didn’t understand why he hadn’t. She’d gotten away because Emily insisted. That wouldn’t keep Dominic from coming after her again when Emily wasn’t there to hold him back.

She looked for a pay phone, something she hadn’t done in years. Apparently, no one else had either. They seemed to have disappeared, like typewriters. She headed toward her apartment, not that far away—she could call Raymond from there—until a realization stopped her. She searched her pockets with a growing sense of dread. Her phone and her keys were in the same little bag she’d dropped on Emily’s couch when she tried to slip out the phone while Dominic was in the kitchen with Emily. And the photos of her mother were on that phone, the last photos she’d taken, last summer at Gravesend before her mother got sick. She should have downloaded them before and she hadn’t. Now they were lost.

She reached into her jeans back pocket. Thank God, her credit card was there. She flagged down a cab. She could try Raymond’s apartment. It was unlikely, but he might have gone home. A better possibility was the Library Tavern. Maybe he went there to wait for her. If he wasn’t there, McNulty would help her.

*   *   *

Ambler watched Denise falling asleep on his couch. She’d taken a shower and he’d given her a pair of pajamas to wear. For a few minutes, she pretended she wasn’t tired, but her eyes closed as she talked, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Now, she lay curled up on the couch, swallowed up by the pajamas, a sheet, and a blanket, her features relaxed, eye shadow and liner and lipstick scrubbed off in the shower. Her pink, scrubbed face was peaceful and pretty, in repose.

Sitting in an easy chair across from her thinking about children growing into adults, he remembered his son John, a small boy growing into a bigger boy, and one day a stranger, neither man nor boy but a creature, ungainly and uncertain, in between. The most shocking changes weren’t physical. It was that this person you once carried in your arms and bounced on your knee, whose dependence for so long was absolute, had grown into someone independent of you.

The phone rang.

“Where have you been?” he said when he heard Adele’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“Where have you been?!” she shot back. “I need you to come with me right now.”

He explained why he couldn’t.

“You’re in your apartment with a runaway thirteen-year-old girl. Are you crazy? Have you called her father?”

“I told her I wouldn’t until she said it was okay. I was waiting for you. I tried to call. Why didn’t you answer?”

“No reason, really … except maybe I was being murdered!!” She told him about Dominic at Emily’s apartment. “I think he wanted to do away with me. She wouldn’t let him. I swear looking into his eyes was like staring at death.”

“You got out of there, right? You’re safe.”

“Yes. But I have to go back. My mother’s photos are on my phone, Raymond. I have to get it.”

“You don’t have to get it now. You can get the phone later when this is over.”

“What if they’re not there? What if the phone gets lost or broken? They’ll be gone forever.”

Ambler tried calming her. She grieved for her mother. She was impulsive to begin with and now she was irrational, at least about her mother. She wasn’t to be dissuaded.

“I need to go. If you care so much, you’ll come with me.”

“I can’t. I have Denise here.”

“Send her home and come and help me.” She sounded panicked.

He felt panic rising in him also. He looked at Denise. “You come over here and stay with her. I’ll go get Emily and your phone.”

“No. I have to go. Let me talk to the girl.”

“She’s asleep on my couch.”

“It doesn’t look good anyway, Raymond. What are you doing alone in your apartment with a young girl?” Her tone was nasty and suggestive.

He ran his hands through his hair. “Let me think for a minute, Adele.”

“No. I’m going to go.”

“Don’t go alone.”

“I’ll ask McNulty.”

“Please wait for me.”

“No.”

*   *   *

Sometime later—he wasn’t sure how long—his phone rang. It was Benny.

“Your friend, the cop, the girl’s father, is here. He knows she was here. He passed out but won’t go to the hospital.”

“Did you tell him Denise is safe?”

“I did. Not good enough.”

“Tell him Denise is with me.”

“No. She told me she doesn’t want to go home. Sometimes, home is the worst place for a kid. You don’t know why she left. If the kids can’t trust us, they can’t trust anyone, so then what happens to them?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Let me talk to him.”

“If you tell him without asking her, you’re violating her trust. You shouldn’t have taken the responsibility if you were going to do that.”