The Scent of Murder (22 page)

The roof looked bigger than I thought it would. Enclosed by a small wall that was a couple of feet high and maybe six inches wide, the roof's surface was tarred, just like the one on my old apartment building in New York City. A smokestack stood in one corner.

“Amy,” I yelled, while I looked around.

“Yes?” Her voice was high and light.

I turned towards it.

I gasped when I saw where she was.

A
my was standing on the wall of the building. Her head was cocked. The wind was ruffling her hair. She was watching me as if I were some odd, wonderous thing. Then she spread her arms and picked up one leg holding it out into the air, as she balanced on the other. “ 'Bet you can't do this,” she cried, a little girl again, walking a fence in the country. Only this wasn't the country and she wasn't on a fence.

“I bet you're right.” She was teetering now. Any mistake on her part would send her plunging over the edge and, while a fall from a three story building might not kill her—if she were lucky—it sure wasn't something she'd walk away from unscathed. “Just stay right there,” I told her.

“You want to see what else I can do?” She giggled again.

“You'll show me in a minute.” I walked towards her quickly. I didn't want to run. I was afraid I might scare her. “Put your leg down.”

She pouted, but she did what I asked.

“How about getting back on the roof?”

“No.” She stamped her foot. “I like it up here.”

“That's okay.” I did soothing.

“It's fun.” Then she went into her pocket and took out a small piece of bunched up tin foil. “You wanna hit? I have lots.”

Well, Toon Town had apparently been telling the truth about the acid. “When we get downstairs.”

I was almost next to her. “But I'm not giving any to Wally.” It took me a minute to realize Amy was talking about Toon Town. “Because he did a bad thing.”

“What was that?”

“He told Shep where I was. He promised he wouldn't, but he did.”

“Who is Shep?” I asked, as I closed my hand around Amy's wrist. It was tiny. I hadn't realized how fragile Amy was. I was pulling her towards me, when I picked up a faint sound in back of me. It was, I realized, the sound of someone running, someone running towards me. Amy was staring behind me.

I heard her say, “oh oh,” as I told myself to move to the side. But it was too late to do anything except brace myself. A second later I felt a hand between my shoulder blades, I smelled a strong whiff of cologne, and then I was being propelled forward. I bumped into Amy. She yelled, tottered, and fell off the roof.

Because I still had one hand around her wrist, I began to go over too. I fell to my knees and leaned backwards, while I tightened my grip on Amy. I was dragged another foot before I stopped moving. I turned to look and see if whoever had pushed me were still there, but the roof was empty. He'd gone back down the stairs. I was aware of the pain in my shoulder, as I turned back. I had to get Amy on the roof now, because I couldn't hold her this way for long. I knew she couldn't weigh more than ninety pounds, but right now she felt like a thousand.

I leaned forward. “Give me your other hand,” I yelled, as I reached for it. My left shoulder felt as though it was about to be wrenched out of its socket.

Amy began to laugh.

“Give it to me now,” I screamed.

“I'm Peter Pan,” she cried. “Let's fly off to Never-Never Land.”

Oh God. From what I could see, we were already there. As I bent over the wall and grabbed Amy's jacket collar, my eyes fastened on the ground below. I hadn't realized that three stories was so high off the ground. My stomach turned over. Just don't look down, I told myself. I closed my eyes, braced myself, and yanked. Sweat was pouring down my face. My arms felt as if they were on fire. They were beginning to shake from the strain. I could feel the veins in the side of my neck twitching and my face flushing. I pulled harder. Now I could see the top of Amy's head above the wall. Her laughter floated around me, surrounding me with its sound. I moved back a little, worked myself to a standing position, gritted my teeth, and pulled harder. I heard the sound of ripping material, but the top part of her chest appeared above the roof wall. I pulled some more. She was halfway up.

“Help me,” I pleaded.

She giggled.

I moved back two steps and pulled with all the remaining strength that I had left. Amy flopped onto the roof, as if she were a fish I'd just landed.

She got on to her hands and knees, then sat up and crossed her legs. “That was fun,” she said. “Let's do it again.”

“Let's not.” Even though my hands were shaking, I managed to take off my belt, which I'd doubled up because it was too long, put it through one of Amy's belt loops, and wound the end around my hand. It was something I did when I couldn't find Zsa Zsa's leash. I figured the principle was the same. Then I collapsed.

“Why you'd do that?” Amy asked.

“Because I'm old and I'm tired of running.”

I expected an argument, but all she said was, “Cool.” Then she sat back, rested her head against the wall, and closed her eyes, no doubt enjoying her version of home movies.

I just sat there, wondering when I'd get the energy to move, watching the clouds drift across the moon's face, and wondering where the person was who'd tried to push me off the roof. He was probably far away by now. He obviously hadn't waited around to see what happened. Why? I wondered. Didn't he care? Or maybe he just had a weak stomach. Then I realized I'd smelled that cologne before. I just couldn't remember where.

I was beginning to shiver. I looked down. My skin was covered with goose bumps. I didn't have a jacket on, and the cold from the ground was seeping into my legs. “Come on,” I told Amy. I forced myself up and went to pick up the flashlight I'd dropped.

She came along with me. She didn't have any other choice. “Where are we going?”

“Home. We're going home.” And I pushed her in front of me.

We walked down the stairs into the building. The darkness closed over us. I heard a rat scurrying by. I quickened my pace. We had gotten down the last flight of stairs, when I caught the sound of George's voice calling for me.

“I'm here. In the reception area,” I yelled, and I moved towards his voice.

He was standing in the main entrance way. He must have just come in, because the front door was still slightly ajar. “Sorry, I took so long,” he said, as I walked towards him. Amy lagged behind. George's voice seemed to frighten her, and I had to pull on my belt to keep her moving. “But your cell phone was dead. I had to go back to the mini-mart. Then I got put on hold. How's Toon Town?”

“Not very well. He didn't make it.”

George made a popping noise with his mouth. “I had a feeling he wasn't going to.”

Amy moved behind me. “I want to go,” she complained, sounding like a bored little girl.

“Is that who I think it is?” George demanded, narrowing his eyes so he could see into the dark.

“I found her on the roof.”

“Unfucking believable.” He shook his head. “The police are . . .”

“Blue people,” Amy cried, and she began to clap.

Suddenly I could hear sirens in the distance. The police would be here soon.

“She's stoned, isn't she?” George asked.

“Off her ass. And she's got a lot of hits on her, too.”

“Fucking great. How many?”

“I'm about to find out.” I began going through her pockets. I pulled out ten small tin foil packages plus an unwrapped pane. “She's got enough stuff in this pocket alone to send her away for a couple of years.”

George shook his head. “Amazing. Like father like daughter.”

“We could get rid of it before everyone gets here.”

“No good. Not in her condition. First thing they're gonna ask her is what's she's carrying. God only knows what she's gonna say.” George went in his pocket and handed me his car keys. “My car's down the street. Get her out of here.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'll wait. Don't worry. It'll be okay.” The sirens were getting closer. “Go now.”

“Thanks.” I leaned over and kissed him.

He kissed me back. “Just go.”

I grabbed Amy and hustled her through the door.

“But I want to see the blue men,” she protested. “I want to see the pretty lights.”

“Don't worry, you will.” I dragged her down the street. She kept looking back. By now the sirens were loud. The cops were going to be here any second. When we got to the Taurus, I opened the door and pushed Amy in. She started to get out. “Stay,” I said, depressing the lock button. Then I slammed the door shut, ran around to my side and got in. I'd just pulled out and made a U-turn when the cops rounded the other corner.

I drove away slowly. I didn't want to do anything that would arouse suspicion.

I could see three squad cars lined up by the curb. George was standing outside, with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting.

I wondered what he was going to say.

I
t took me about twenty minutes to drive to Amy's house. Along the way, I stopped and dropped the acid I'd taken off her down a sewer grate. Amy thought that was funny and began laughing hysterically, but after a minute, her laughter turned to tears. She wouldn't tell me why she was crying: she probably didn't know herself. I couldn't get her to stop and, after about five minutes, the sound of her sobbing tore at my sympathy and shredded it to pieces. I was glad when I saw the stone pillars that marked the turnoff into Elysian Fields and even gladder to be ringing the bell on Gerri Richmond's door. When no one answered, I started banging and yelling—actually it was a miracle one of the neighbors didn't call the police—and kept at it until I heard “I'm coming” over the din I'd created.

“Who is it?” Gerri Richmond's voice was thick with sleep. “What do you want?”

“Robin Light. I've got Amy with me.”

“Oh my God. Wait a minute. I have to shut off the alarm.” I heard a beep beep and the click of locks being undone. Then Gerri Richmond flung the door open and rushed out. She was wearing a white silk nightgown and robe. She hadn't bothered to belt the robe and it billowed behind her in the night air. “Where's my daughter?”

I pointed to the front seat of the Taurus. “In there. She doesn't want to come out.” Amy had curled herself into a ball and put her thumb in her mouth when I'd stopped in front of her house. “She's taken some acid and she's really not in good shape.” Gerri Richmond's hand flew to her mouth. “I think you'd better call a doctor.”

Gerri ran over and opened the car door. If the ground were cold on her bare feet, she gave no indication of it. “Amy,” she cried. She began stroking her hair. “Amy, can you hear me?”

Amy didn't move.

I touched Gerri on the shoulder. “It would be better if she were under a doctor's care as soon as possible.” I told her about what had just happened and about how it would just be a matter of time before the police showed up at her door.

Gerri Richmond's face became even more drawn as I talked. When I was done, she told me to stay with Amy. Then she turned and rushed into the house. She was back a few minutes later. “They're coming,” she announced. Then she got in the car and put her arms around her daughter.

Amy didn't respond. Gerri Richmond began to cry. I started to say something, but she said, “don't,” so I turned my head away and watched the white cat cleaning itself in the window of the house across the way. Listening to Gerri Richmond's quiet sobs depressed me, so I tried to think about other things instead. Like who had killed Toon Town and what was happening to George and where I had smelled the cologne I'd smelled up on the roof before, and who the hell Shep was.

I was still trying to come up with some answers, when I heard a car coming up the road. A minute later, I saw its lights cutting through the dark. I held my breath, hoping it was Amy's doctor instead of the cops. It was. No flashing lights. I stepped into the road and waved it down. The car screeched to a stop under the streetlight. It was a BMW. I guess the rehab business was booming. Who said drugs don't pay? The only people who don't get rich are the kids that use and the kids that sell. Everyone else makes a bundle—one way or another.

“Where is she?” the doctor asked, after he'd gotten out of his car. Like his car, he looked expensive. Maybe it was the leather trench coat or the five-hundred-dollar-a-pair Japanese glasses or the Rolex on his wrist.

I pointed to the Taurus. “Inside there. She's curled up in a ball.” I told him what had happened and what was probably going to happen.

He nodded as I talked. Then, when I was done, he went over to confer with Gerri Richmond. They talked for about five minutes, after which he gave Amy a cursory examination and a shot. She didn't flinch when the needle went in. She was doing a good imitation of catatonic. Finally, I ended up having to help him carry her over to his car and put her inside.

“She'll be all right,” he assured me.

“I hope so.” Amy was sprawled on the seat like a rag doll. Her eyes were vacant. Her mouth had dropped open.

“She was like this the last time, too.” He got in his car and roared off.

As I watched the taillights disappearing around the curve, I realized I was very cold. I turned towards Gerri Richmond. She was shivering.

“I guess I ought to thank you,” she said.

I didn't say anything.

“Do you want to come in and have a drink?”

“Yes.” I was suddenly aware that I wanted one very badly, so I followed Gerri Richmond inside.

She went straight to the coffee table in the den, grabbed the bottle of vodka, and poured two big shots. “Here's yours,” she said, handing me one. She finished hers before I was halfway done with mine and poured herself another. “What do you think is going to happen now?” she asked.

“I think the police will be here soon. I think they're going to want to talk to Amy.” (And me, I added silently.)

“She's not going to be able to tell them anything.”

“She will eventually.”

“I know.” Gerri downed her second shot.

I took another sip of vodka and put the glass down. “The money Dennis took?”

“What about it?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Where do you think?” She poured herself another shot and started talking about herself. I didn't interrupt. I figured she'd work her way back to answering my question sooner or later. “I grew up in the Bronx. My mom worked as a sales clerk at Alexander's. We never had extra money for anything. Ever. Then Dennis came along. He was my ticket out.” Gerri shook her head. “It was funny. He married me because I was pregnant.”

“Too bad Amy wasn't his.”

Gerri gulped down her third shot. “It should have worked. There was no reason it shouldn't have.”

“But it didn't.”

“In the beginning, it was all right. But then, I don't know. We stopped liking each other. Or maybe we stopped trying. And Amy just got worse and worse.” She rolled the shot glass between the palms of her hands. “And Brad and Dennis started fighting. And that got worse, too. When Dennis came home, he'd be in a horrible mood. He was afraid Brad was going to take the business away from him and give it to Frank.”

“How could he do that?”

“Dennis always thought Brad was smarter, even though he really wasn't. He kept thinking he was going to come up with something.” Gerri put the glass down and leaned back on the sofa.

I could guess the next part of the story. “So Dennis began to build himself a little retirement fund, a fund no one was supposed to know about.”

“That's right.”

“Only things didn't quite work out that way.”

“No.”

“Did Brad suspect?”

“He did, but he couldn't prove it.”

“Why didn't he bring the auditors in?”

Gerri picked up her glass and put it back down. “Frank was involved in an ...” she hesitated, “an accident at the plant about three years ago. He was stoned. Someone was seriously injured and subsequently died. Frank could have been charged with manslaughter. Brad paid a lot of money to hush it up. I think he was afraid if he brought the auditors in, Dennis would go to the police. Anyway, this was family business. They both liked to keep things private.”

“So how did you find out about the money?”

Gerri snorted. “He wanted to buy a Range Rover. I knew we didn't have the money, but he told me not to worry about it. That wasn't like Dennis. I knew something was up. I started searching. It took me awhile, but I found the records—and some cash. He'd made a safe in his closet between two floorboards.”

“So what happened when you told him?”

“He laughed and told me he was planning to tell me anyway. He said it was for our old age.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes, I did. I guess I shouldn't have.” Gerri poured herself another shot of vodka and gulped it down. “That money was mine too. I wanted it.” She touched her pearls. “Amy must have heard us talking about it. I bet that's why she followed him. She thought she could make him give her the money so she could go to New York.”

“That's what she said to me.” I toyed with my glass. “One thing bothers me, though.”

“What's that?”

“You must have been out looking for Dennis, too. If Amy found him, why couldn't you?”

Gerri shrugged, knocked back her fourth shot—at this rate she was going to be horizontal soon—and poured herself a fifth. “I wasn't really looking for him. I didn't care.”

“Why's that?”

“I was glad to see him go.”

“You didn't care about the money? You just told me you did.”

Gerri Richmond drank her fifth shot down. “He drove Amy off. He told her to get out of the house. I should have protected her.”

I studied Gerri Richmond for a minute. She wasn't the kind of woman to just let things go. I leaned forward. “You did find him, didn't you?” I said softly.

Gerri looked away.

“Did you tell Amy where he was?”

She snapped her head around.

“It would be an interesting way of telling him you knew where he was,” I observed.

Gerri put her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled when she spoke. “I wanted what was best for her. She's talented. She deserves to go to art school.”

“You could have afforded to send her.”

“No, I couldn't. I don't have any money of my own. Dennis wrote all the checks.”

“So really, you're better off with him dead. You get the house, possibly part of the business.”

She brought her hands down. “I didn't kill him.”

“Then who did?”

“I don't know.”

“I think you do.”

“Why can't you just leave everything alone?” she cried.

“Because it's gone past that point.”

She got up and stumbled out to the living room. I followed. She stopped in front of the mantel and studied the photographs. “I'm glad I have these,” she said, and she picked up an early photograph of her family and hugged it to her breasts.

I came up behind her. “Who is Shep?” I asked. Gerri's back stiffened. She didn't say anything. “He almost killed your daughter tonight,” I continued. “He's the one that's been supplying her with LSD.” Gerri remained silent. “If you don't tell me who he is, you might as well just put a gun to Amy's head now.” I listened to the silence. “You owe her that much,” I insisted.

“I know,” she said softly. After another minute, she gave me the name.