SoHo Sins (12 page)

“Claudia? What is there to know? That she’s one more slut in Philip’s long roster. One that he’s happened to stick with for a time, that’s all.”

I glanced pointedly at Hogan, and he took the hint to excuse himself for a smoke.

“Sorry,” I said to Angela. “Hogan can be a little tactless sometimes.”

“We all do what we have to, don’t we?”

“I suppose. Even Philip—with that speech.”

Angela’s face hardened. “Yes, isn’t it ironic how nicely the dead are remembered, while the living are forgotten?”

“Like who?”

“Like me for one.” She glanced over at the doorway. “Like Philip for another. That little fool, Claudia, didn’t even protect him from himself up there. She’ll never make a bloody wife.”

I couldn’t decide whether Angela’s words sounded more like a lament or a veiled threat. They kept replaying ambiguously in my head in the wide, echoing stairwell we walked down. Angela chose to avoid Claudia and Aubersson and the others, all nodding and murmuring and shaking hands as they waited in a knot by the elevator. She wanted no sympathy from this crowd, no rote condolences about “our dear Philip.”

Once we reached the ground floor, I asked her if she had ever gotten to know Mandy.

“No, I think she felt too guilty to try to be friends with me. We talked now and then when it was unavoidable, that’s all. I can’t recall the last time I saw her.”

Unfortunately, I could remember all too well my last encounter with the deceased. Philip and I had come back to their Prince Street loft, a little tight, after the reception for a Chuck Close show. We were all supposed to go out to dinner together—Mandy, Philip, myself, and a leggy Brazilian curator I had met the week before at an opening on 57th Street.

Amanda, however, was far from ready. Instead of dressing, she had been pacing back and forth in the apartment. Vainly, Philip was now trying to speed her preparations along.

“Come here, Jack,” he called from her bedroom. “Mandy’s in a snit.”

When I entered the room, he gestured toward his wife and said, “She’s going to make us all late, just because I have no idea how to help her pick a proper outfit.”

Mandy was standing—quaking, really—in front of her wide vanity table, clutching a comb in one hand and a silver-backed mirror in the other. She wore a white bathrobe and her hair had been teased out, forming a ratty aura around her no-longer-young face.

“You want me to behave better, Philip?” she said. “You want me to be less hysterical?” Amanda turned to him with the mirror in her hand, useless as her makeup cracked and smeared, her tears running crookedly, steadily. “You’re screwing another woman. Again. Can you make that any less true? Well, can you?”

Philip fiddled with some jewelry in a tray. “Come, please, Mandy, get hold of yourself. Don’t make a scene.”

It was all he would say.

With my eyes, I signaled Philip to leave, to let me talk to Amanda—or, rather, listen to her—alone in the room.

As soon as he left, she sank to the bed.

“It’s hopeless,” she said. “An aging woman has no chance.”

“Why not just let Philip be Philip?” I said, straining for some form of comfort. “He will anyhow, and this way he always comes back.”

“Yes, he comes back, all right. And I take him in—knowing this affair means nothing, and knowing it will happen all over again.” Her lids lowered, and she seemed to speak only to herself. “What more can a wife hope for these days?”

Looking at Angela now in the Whitney lobby, I knew she must have experienced that marital bitterness, too, and for longer. The difference was that she had never publicly broken down. Long deserted, stuck in a sprawling house up in Westchester, enduring years of despair in those useless rooms, she persevered without outward complaint. She revealed her resentment—if at all—only behind closed doors, by some secret means, to the attentive, quick-witted little Melissa, with no outsiders present.

Before we parted, I asked Angela about her apartment search. The answer was pretty much what I expected, given her desire for enough space to live comfortably, raise a child, and work on her sculpture. Affluent but no longer fabulously wealthy, she was trying to economize because of the new Bradford School expenses. Her budget was not going to buy a Westchester lifestyle in Manhattan. I told her I had a space that might work for her, if she didn’t mind taking a floor-through in my oldest building, the one I lived in.

“In the belly of the art world beast? By all means, as long as the place is safe for Melissa.”

“I’ll be right upstairs, if that helps. Do you think she’d like being a SoHo girl?”

“Oh, in most ways she already is.”

I offered Angela some very attractive terms.

“God, yes,” she said. “I have to tell Missy right away.”

Smiling, she squeezed my left arm, air-kissed me, and headed over toward Lexington to hail a cab.

Walking outside, I spotted Hogan easily in the covey of mourners on Madison Avenue. With a slight tension in his shoulders, he was leaning against the museum’s retaining wall, talking to a cute little intern from, I think, Metro Pictures. His paunch was discreetly sucked in.

I found a spot on the sidewalk, well away from the traffic, and called Don on my cell, telling him to reserve the fourth floor of the Wooster Street building when it came vacant in August.

“Are you sure?” he said. “I’ve got a dozen brokers interested already.”

“Never mind. I’ve found a tenant for it.”

“What’s the rate?”

“Five thousand a month.”

“Very funny. How much?”

“I’m serious. Don’t worry; you’re not on commission.”

“Jack, come on, we’re talking twenty-four hundred square feet.”

“She’s a friend—an artist with a kid.”

“You’ve got more friends than money right now.”

“That’s my problem, not yours.”

Once Hogan saw that I was off the phone, he finished his chat with the girl and sauntered over. Before he spoke, he wiped the sides of his head with a handkerchief.

“It’s a great world you live in,” he said.

“It has its attractions.”

“I mean, basically, it’s hordes of young art babes, some fairies, and you—right?”

“More or less. After a while, the girls get to be a duty, a second job.”

Hogan shook his bright head. “No wonder Philip Oliver can’t keep his zipper shut.”

“Is that what Angela told you?”

“That’s what everyone tells me. Starting with you.”

It took me a second to realize that Hogan had devoted serious thought to Philip’s infidelity. Around SoHo, it didn’t seem like a particularly notable trait.

“Paul Morse followed Philip and Claudia all the way down with his camera,” Hogan reported.

“Paul records everything in the art world.”

“Yeah. Everything to do with Amanda and Claudia, anyhow. I asked some people here about him. He’s the same guy who was working the camera when Mandy barged into Claudia’s group show a few months ago. That kind of thing could make a nice Italian girl angry.”

“You don’t really suspect Claudia, do you?” I asked.

Hogan half-laughed. “I suspect everybody, until I can prove otherwise.”

“Sounds like a swell way to live.”

“You have your burdens, Flash. I have mine.”

“And what about Angela—does she pass inspection?”

“So far, yeah. A few hundred people saw her at that Katonah Museum shindig on the night of May fourth. The nanny had the day off, coming instead for the evening, but the gardener says Angela was definitely at the house in the afternoon. He’s just a little shaky on the exact time he first saw her there. Because of the rain, he was working in the barn. That bothers me some, since the murder was around one, and you can get from SoHo to Westchester, door to door, in about an hour—less, if you push it. Or maybe a little more in bad weather or traffic. Either way, there was plenty of time. But, honestly, if Angela wanted to do Mandy in, I think you’re right, she would have offed the lady a long time ago.”

“Probably so, when the hurt was raw. Not, what?—nine or ten years later.”

“Right,” Hogan said. “Though sometimes hate festers. There are people who enjoy their jealousy, in a perverse way, you know. It pumps adrenaline through them like nothing else—makes them hyper-alert, hyper-vigilant. Believe me, that cheap thrill accounts for half the murders I deal with.”

“Which leaves the other half,” I said. “Have you considered that there’s no love lost between Angela and Claudia?”

Hogan looked at me like I had suddenly become a bit less of a dolt. “What are you saying?”

“Just that Angela might want to frame Phil’s new girlfriend.”

“What would she gain?”

“Satisfaction. Claudia is the second woman, after Mandy, that Angela has good reason to despise. And Angela doesn’t suffer offenses lightly.”

“I thought Angela was a friend of yours.”

“She is. So why did she let me think the nanny was working on the day of the murder? It’s one thing to have friends, Hogan; it’s another thing to have illusions.”

He nodded, his gaze going off somewhere away from me. We both know something about the hidden costs of friendship.

“So what’s up with Angela?” Hogan said. “Showing up here. Is she still carrying a torch for her lost husband or something?”

“Maybe. She wouldn’t give up on him back then, even when Philip wasn’t keeping his end of the bargain. ‘These days, I think I’m married for both of us,’ she used to say.”

“Some women never wise up.”

Hogan paused to exchange a quick wave with the departing intern.

“Working in Homicide gives you the big picture,” he said, turning back. “I’ve seen marriages for money, marriages for social position, marriages for a green card or working papers. Then there are the love matches, the catastrophes.”

“Spoken like a true husband.”

“Well, at least Philip and Amanda were companions to the end—in a way.”

“How’s that?”

“For all their spats and jealousy, they went down the same path. They both took it in the head. One fast, the other one slow.”

I couldn’t laugh. “We’ve got to find the shooter,” I said.

“My guess, this killer was no off-the-street intruder. It hardly ever is.”

“Where do we start then?”

“By keeping a careful eye on Claudia and Angela. I’ve had worse duty.”

“And Paul Morse?”

“You bet. Think close, Jack. It’s usually someone very close to the victim.”

“Probably someone with easy access to the apartment?”

“That’s right.” He gave me a quick slap on the back. “Someone like you, for instance.”

That was Hogan. Always joking around.

On Saturday, Angela came by to look at the rental space in my building. She had Melissa in tow, and the three of us walked the length of the apartment from the tall windows on Wooster Street, back through the broad living area, past the kitchen island, to the three rear bedrooms and the expansive utility space, where I thought Angela could keep a few pieces on hand to show visitors.

“Perfect,” she said as we made our way toward the entrance again. “Melissa, what do you say? Could you have fun here and do your studies?”

“I could if Uncle Jack would help me.”

“I haven’t studied for a very long time, Missy.”

“It would be good for you, then. And you already know how to have fun. Mom told me so.”

With a couple of casual signatures, Angela and I finalized the agreement, and I suggested that we all go to lunch at Félix.

“Lovely idea,” Angela said. “But would the two of you mind going without me? I have to dash off to the Bradford School to finish the paperwork. You can take care of Melissa for a little while, can’t you, Jack?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much practice.”

“Well, don’t be afraid. The little devils can smell fear in a second. Right, pumpkin? Just keep her amused for a couple of hours.”

“What does she like to do?”

“Oh, just feed her and take her shopping. You certainly know how to do that.”

Angela bent down to peer directly into Melissa’s eyes. “Don’t be difficult,” she said. “I’ll be back shortly, and I don’t want to find Uncle Jack tied up and locked in a trunk.”

“Can’t I play any games?”

“Yes, you can play at being a lady.”

“Ugh.”

Angela disappeared into the elevator, tossing a quick “you’re a dear, Jack” over her shoulder, and then quite suddenly I was alone with the child. Melissa turned and sized me up. Without Angela’s moderating presence, I felt like a calf with two heads.

“Where do you live?” the girl asked.

“Just one floor higher. On the top.”

“That doesn’t make you any better than us.”

“No, it just means I’m your landlord. Most people would say that makes me worse.”

The girl and I rode down to the street in silence, cautiously eyeing each other. Melissa was wearing sandals, a pair of white Capri pants, and a striped red-and-white pullover. Her hair was radiantly blond, as only a youngster’s can be.

When we emerged into the open air, the street throbbed with colors from the midday crowd, most of them day-trippers. I tried to get Missy to go somewhere sedate for a salad and quiche, but all she wanted was hot dogs from a vendor’s cart at the corner of West Broadway and Spring.

“I’m not sure your mother would approve.”

“I don’t care. You’re the boss now. Please, please, Uncle Jack.”

Three schoolboys crowded up to the serving window ahead of us.

“Dorks,” Melissa said aloud. “Boys are so creepy.”

They all glanced at her, and one looked back a second time. “Hi,” he said.

Missy—half-turning, granting the kid no response—took my hand.

Once the boys got their food and clomped away, laughing in honks, we ordered four hot dogs and two cans of Coke. There was nowhere to sit. Gently, as we walked along, Melissa helped me handle the lunch items, sometimes taking the elbow of my bad arm while we checked out the windows of the boutiques on West Broadway and the smaller side streets. The girl had very definite opinions about the clothes and shoes displayed at Dolce & Gabbana, Vivienne Westwood, Giorgio Armani, and the other fashion outposts that were steadily transforming SoHo from an art neighborhood into a high-end shopping mart. Allowing for gradations, the major ranks in Melissa’s critical hierarchy seemed to be “yucko,” “cool,” and “totally salsa.”