New York Nocturne (5 page)

Drained and limp, I simply stared out the window and watched the city unfold around me. What glided past us, as the big car sailed down Broadway, was a surreal kind of summary of what I had seen and where I had been during the previous week—Times Square, Madison Square, Union Square, Wanamaker's department store. But everything—the trees, the buildings, the pavement, the crowd—was different this morning. What had been thrilling and genial was bleak and alien now. Even the sky had changed; it had become morose and overcast, the color of lead.

We drove farther south, past Houston and Prince and Spring streets, and then turned left at Broome Street. Three blocks later we turned right, onto Centre Street. We slid past the broad, arched entrance of an enormous stone building where four or five men in shoddy suits lounged along the broad set of stairs, sucking on cigars and cigarettes. Another hundred feet on, we came to a stop beside a smaller door in the same building.

Becker turned to me. “Here.”

He opened his door, and I opened mine. We stepped out onto the sidewalk.

I looked up. The structure was as imposing as the Dakota, but it was darker and more somber and much, much longer. Four gray stories tall, festooned with grim Baroque columns and pilasters, it seemed to stretch off, left and right, into infinity.

“This way,” said Becker.

I followed him up the narrow stone steps and through the door. Inside, the tight corridor was painted a pale green. The air smelled of disinfectant and acrid old cigar smoke.

We tramped down this corridor, then another, and then through another door and up a cramped wooden stairway. The dark green steps were scuffed, their centers worn down to the bare wood. The air held more smells: varnish, dust, hair oil. We saw no one.

One flight up, we passed through yet another door, out into yet another corridor, this one broader and carpeted. Like all the others, its walls were pale green, the air spiked with the stink of old cigars. Men strode along the carpet as though they knew exactly where they were going and planned to get there very soon. Some wore uniforms, some did not. Most of them, passing us, nodded respectfully to Becker and glanced at me, but none of them said anything.

By this point, I had no idea which direction was north or south or east or west. I had no idea where in the building we might be, or where we might be going.

We arrived at another door. Becker came to a halt and held up a hand, signaling me to stop. He reached into the right pocket of his trousers, pulled out a small ring of keys, searched through it until he found the one he wanted, and then used it to unlock the door. After pushing the door open, he stepped in, flicked a wall switch, and waved me forward.

It was a small room, windowless, smelling even more strongly than the hallways of pine disinfectant. The walls were, once again, pale green. The floor was dark green linoleum, in the center of which was a screened circular drain, about six inches wide, like a wider version of the drain in a standard shower.

I wondered about that drain. Why install a drain in a room like this?

On the far wall was a wooden table that held a dented metal pitcher and a flimsy-looking metal cup. On one side of the table was a single wooden swivel chair, and on the other side were two more.

Becker said, “Take a seat.” He nodded to the single chair.

I walked over to the table then turned back to him.

He was watching me, his face still expressionless.

He shrugged, lightly, almost invisibly. He said, “Breaks of the game, kid.” His voice was flat.

It might have been an explanation; it might have been an apology. But as an explanation, it left a lot to be desired. And as an apology—well, I did not believe that Lieutenant Becker was capable of apology, to anyone, and least of all to me.

He turned, walked out, and drew the door shut. I heard the key click in the lock, the sound punctuating the moment like the period at the end of a sentence.

Chapter Five

I discovered that all three chairs were bolted to the floor. So was the desk.

I swiveled the single chair around and sat down. I placed my purse on the table. I checked the metal pitcher. It held about a quart of water. I poured some into the cup and tasted it: warm, flat, and rusty.

I had nothing to read, nothing to look at but the empty room around me; nothing to do but to wonder what Lieutenant Becker had meant—the breaks of the game?—and to remember my morning, remember the sight of my uncle, bloodied and battered on the far side of the library.

My hands and feet were cold. I realized I was shaking very faintly. I wrapped my hands around my upper arms and held onto myself, as though I were afraid I might shatter into pieces that would go spinning across the room.

Very soon, perhaps only five or ten minutes after I arrived in that room, I began to cry.

I cried for John, so handsome and so elegant and so wickedly brutalized. I cried for my parents, so good, so compassionate, so far away.

And then, of course, as in the end we all do, I cried for myself. Cried long, quivering sobs, choking on loneliness and loss.

I was leaning forward, my head resting on both my arms, which were folded along the table. A key clicked in the lock, and I jerked upright. My eyes were dry; I had cried myself out. But my nose was still stuffy and red.

The door opened, and Lieutenant Becker stepped into the room, big and craggy and grim, his fedora gone, his hands in his pockets.

He was followed by a jolly, heavyset man in his fifties. Like Becker, the man wore an expensive gray suit, but his was vested, and a thick gold chain hung across the vest's smug round belly. Except for gray muttonchops and a few thin gray hairs that seemed to be shellacked across his shiny pink scalp, he was bald. As though to make up for this, his eyebrows were bushy and his mustache was thick and carefully brushed. His puffy cheeks and bulbous nose were curlicued with the broken veins of a serious drinker. He was grinning at me happily, and behind a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses, his warm brown eyes sparkled with good cheer.

Lieutenant Becker said to him, “This is Amanda Burton.” He turned to me, his face still blank. “This is Police Commissioner Vandervalk.”

Mr. Vandervalk smiled heartily and held out his plump red hand. “Hello there, Amanda,” he said enthusiastically. “How are you doing?”

I shook his hand. His was dry, but mine wasn't. “I'm all right,” I said. “Thank you.”

He nodded as though he had expected no less. “Sorry we couldn't get to you before this, but it's been a madhouse here today.” He grinned cheerfully at Lieutenant Becker. “Run, run, run, eh, Lieutenant? No rest for the weary.”

Becker just stood there, watching me.

Commissioner Vandervalk turned back to me. Behind the wire rims, his eyebrows rose. “Is there anything you need, anything we can get for you?”

“May I use the bathroom, please?”

“What? Oh. Of course, of course. Come along.”

I glanced at Becker. He still stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching me.

Outside the door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, stood a thin, middle-aged woman in a starched black uniform. She was rather alarming, with pinched eyes and a bitter mouth. Behind her narrow, corded neck, her gray hair was clenched into a ball as tight as a fist.

“Mrs. Hadley,” said Mr. Vandervalk, “take young Amanda down to the WC, would you?”

Without a word, the woman led me down the hallway. She smelled of talcum powder and peppery old perspiration, and she jangled as she walked—attached to her thin black belt was a short chain and a ring of keys. When we came to a wooden door, she knocked on it and waited. Nothing happened. She opened it and gestured for me to go inside. I entered into the reek of old cigars and older urine.

It was a men's toilet, and I had never before seen a wide porcelain trough like the one that ran along the entire wall. I would be happy, I decided, if I never saw one again.

Before I left the room, I rinsed the salt from my face and tried to wash the red from my eyes. I looked around. The towels hanging on the wooden racks were grimy, streaked with black. I shook my hands in the air, then dried them, or attempted to, along the back of my dress.

I looked at my watch: one o'clock.

Silently, Mrs. Hadley led me back to the room, knocked on the door, pushed it open, and looked down at me. After I stepped into the room, she pulled the door shut behind me.

Mr. Vandervalk and Lieutenant Becker were sitting in the two adjoining chairs. In front of Mr. Vandervalk was a large notebook and a fountain pen. He nodded to me. “All right now,” he said. “You just take a seat over there, Amanda, and we'll get this over with as soon as we can, eh?”

I walked around the table and sat down in the single chair, opposite them.

Lieutenant Becker's hands were on the table, his long, thick fingers interlaced. Blond hair, like bristles of thin white wire, grew on the skin between the knuckles. He looked at me now as he had looked at me from the very first, without even the tiniest flicker of interest.

Mr. Vandervalk had uncapped the pen and opened the notebook. He smiled at me again and adjusted his glasses. “Now, Amanda,” he said. “First of all, why don't you tell us where your mom and dad are right now. Are they here in the city with you?”

“Tibet,” I told him. “They're in Tibet.”

“Tibet?” he said merrily. “My goodness! What are they doing in Tibet?”

“They're traveling. They've always wanted to go there.”

“Well, good for them,” he said. “Well, travel is broadening, I always say.” He looked down to write something in the notebook. I thought it was the single word
Tibet
. He looked up at me. “And when will they be getting back to the USA? Do you know?”

“In September or October. It's a long trip.”

“It is, indeed,” he said and smiled again. “It is, indeed.” He wrote something in the notebook—
September
, probably—and then adjusted his glasses. “Now. Tell me. Do you have any other relatives?”

“My brother. In Boston.”

“Here in the city, I meant. Here in New York.”

“No.”

“No.” He nodded. “All right. Fine, thank you.” He wrote something else in the notebook. Then he sat back and clasped his hands together on his lap. He made his face go serious. “Now suppose you tell us just exactly what happened.”

I had nothing to gain by pointing out that I had already told my story to Detective O'Deere. Lieutenant Becker knew this, and so, probably, did Mr. Vandervalk. The police were still dotting their
i
's and crossing their
t
's.

“Where should I start?” I asked him.

“Why don't you just start with last night? You and your uncle went out to dinner, I understand.”

The only way he could have known about that was from Detective O'Deere. If he had heard that much from O'Deere, then presumably he had heard the rest of it, too. But he wanted to hear it again, so I recounted it all—Chumley's, El Fay, the Cotton Club—and then the events of this morning.

Neither Mr. Vandervalk nor Becker asked questions. Mr. Vandervalk occasionally scribbled something into his notebook.

When I finished, Mr. Vandervalk smiled at me again. “Very good. Thank you, Amanda.” He turned to Becker. “Lieutenant?” he said.

Becker looked at me, and for the first time, he produced a smile. It was brief and bleak. “We've been in touch,” he said, “with the police in Boston.”

“Yes?” I said politely, and I felt the skin of my back prickle, as though a chilly breeze had curled across it.

Becker said, “This isn't the first time you've bumped into a dead body, is it?”

I wondered who among the Boston police had told him. It didn't matter, of course. Any of them could have known, and any of them could have told Becker. Although the murder had been committed outside of Boston, in a small town along the shore, for a time it had been Big News in all the city newspapers.

“No,” I said. “It isn't.”

“Your mother,” he said.

“My stepmother,” I corrected him.

“And she was killed with a hatchet, wasn't she?”

“That's right. Yes.” I glanced at Mr. Vandervalk. He sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, his lower lip pushed out. He was looking at me with concern. He narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Becker said, “No one ever did figure out who did it.”

I corrected him again: “No one was ever arrested.” In the end, the local police did actually know who had done it. But for various reasons, the identity of the murderer had been kept secret.

I turned to Vandervalk, my one ally in the room, my one ally in the city of New York. “You don't really think I killed my uncle.”

He smiled again, a friendly, kind smile. “Amanda, all we're trying to do here is get to the truth.”

“But I've told you the truth. I don't know who killed him.”

Becker said, “It's an amazing coincidence, isn't it? One little girl finds two dead people. Both of them killed with a hatchet.”

“I was only thirteen years old then.”

“Old enough to hold a hatchet. Old enough to use it.”

“Yes, but I didn't.”

Mr. Vandervalk waved Becker gently away. “Now, Amanda,” he said softly. “Listen to me, dear. We're not ogres here. Lieutenant Becker and I are trying to help you.” He leaned toward me, his smile friendly beneath his mustache. “You know what? I'll bet you had a good reason. An excellent reason.”

“Excuse me?”

“It happens all the time. We know that. A good-looking young girl. An older man living alone. There's an attraction. Perhaps, at first, it's even mutual. We can understand that. Believe me, we can. But then the older man, well, he takes things a little bit too far. He demands more from the girl than she's prepared to give. He reaches out, and he touches—”

“
‘Touches'
?”

“If your uncle touched you, if he—”

“
‘Touched' me
?”

“If your uncle touched you, if he—”

“That's
crazy
,” I said.

But I knew that it wasn't, not entirely.

In a sense, Mr. Vandervalk was right. Mutual or not, there
had
been an attraction. I remembered the way I had looked at John while he was reading or writing or sitting beside me watching a show; I remembered the way my glance—tentative, always ready to dart away—had caressed the clean lean lines of his face. I remembered the flecks of gold floating in the blue of his eyes. . . .

“It's natural, of course,” said Mr. Vandervalk. “It's inevitable. But then one night, things went a little too far—”

“Things never went
anywhere
.”

“Maybe he
didn't
touch you,” said Becker. For the first time, he smiled at me. Slyly. “Is that it? That's why you hated him? That's why you killed him?”

I shook my head, not so much to deny the idea as to shake it away, to shake away the nightmare that was beginning to settle around my shoulders. “This is . . . crazy. This is absolutely crazy. I didn't hate my uncle. I admired him.”

“Of course you did,” said Vandervalk, nodding again, encouraging me. He smiled, and all at once I realized that his smile and his concern were both utterly false. He was as convinced as Becker that I was responsible for John's death. Or convinced that I should be.

“Of course you did,” he said. “You admired him. You respected him. And then he did something that frightened you. Something you could never forgive. One night when you were sleeping, he came to you and—”

“That is just not true,” I said. I turned to Becker. Of the two men, he had suddenly become the less unpleasant. His hostility, at least, was open. I said, “I'd like to talk to a lawyer, please. I have a right to talk to a lawyer.”

I sounded enormously grave to myself, but clearly I amused Lieutenant Becker. “Where'd you hear that?” he asked me.

“It's in the Constitution of the United States.”

“Yeah?” he said. “The Constitution of the United States? Does that say anything about minors? Because that's what you are,
little girl
.”

The words were spoken with such easy contempt that for a moment I was stunned. My throat clamped shut, and I felt a swelling behind my eyes. I blinked, swallowed painfully, and took a deep breath. I would not cry in front of this man. I would not cry in front of either man.

Sensing my vulnerability, I believe, Vandervalk leaned forward. “Look, Amanda,” he said, sincerity purring in his voice, “we're trying to help you. Believe me, no jury in the world would convict you if they knew the truth.”

“But that
isn't
the truth.”

He sat back, sighed, and shook his head, vastly disappointed in me.

Becker attempted another approach. He said, “Did your uncle lock the door when you two came back last night?”

“Yes.”

“How many keys are there?”

“Pardon me?” I said.

“Was that a complicated question? How many keys to the apartment?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure. I had one. Albert had one.”

Becker turned to Vandervalk. “Albert Cooper. The butler. We talked to him, he's alibied.”

I realized that until that moment, I had never heard Albert's last name. I wondered how Becker had learned it.

Becker said to me, “And your uncle's key—it was in his pocket. That makes three.”

“There could've been more,” I said. “Someone else could have come in last night. Anyone.”

“Who?” said Becker.

“I don't know. But—”

“The door was chained shut,” he said.

“Pardon?” I said.