The Virtuous Woman (4 page)

“I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”

“Nonsense. You did your job, and besides I’ve got a painting for you.”

“But I didn’t find your daughter.”

“You tried. Come along. It’s in my studio.”

“Just a minute. There’s one more thing.” Tyson hesitated, running his hand nervously over his hair.

“What is it?” Cara said. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Tyson?”

“I don’t know if it’s worth anything to you, but it came to me last night when I saw I wasn’t really getting anywhere. I worked with Rader Investigation Agency for several years. They’re the best of the big agencies. There was an agent that worked for them for a while. He was the best man I ever saw at finding people.”

“Why, then, maybe we could go to the Rader Agency.”

“No, he doesn’t work for them anymore. He quit even before I left, which was about a year ago.”

“What was his name?”

“Francis Key.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He got a case of religion and decided he wanted to do something different. For a while he thought he’d be a preacher, but that didn’t work out. He never felt comfortable with it. We got pretty close. He had always been a literary sort. Better educated than the rest of us. He didn’t tell too many people, but he told me he wanted to write novels with a Christian outlook.”

“Why, that’s wonderful!” Cara exclaimed. “But I don’t think I’ve read anything by him.”

“That’s because he never sold anything—at least not that I know of. You know how it is. A starving artist in an attic somewhere. You went through some of that yourself, didn’t you, Mr. Winslow?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, that’s what Francis did. He quit work and wrote night and day until he ran out of money. Then he came back to the agency and worked long enough to get enough to support himself for a while again. Smartest man I’ve ever met. Intuitive about finding lost people. Nobody knew how he did it. I guess it’s like Beethoven. He wrote symphonies, but I doubt if he could tell anybody how he did it. It was that way with Francis. He’d come up with something that none of the rest of us ever thought of and just wouldn’t let go until he’d solved the mystery.”

“Do you know where we could find him?”

“I have an old address for him. I think he might still be there. He’s a rather strange fellow, but if I had your problem, I’d go straight to Francis Key.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Winslows Find Their Man

As Cara and Phil made their way down Hester Street in Lower Manhattan, Phil pointed up at a tenement building. “I had some Jewish friends who lived in this area when I first came to New York. A man named Paul Jacobs and his family. Lost track of them, but they were good people.”

“Has the street changed much? That was a long time ago, Phil.”

“It hasn’t changed a whole lot. Still full of peddlers. And what I remember most is the wash hanging out on all the balconies.”

The street had not changed all that much from what Phil remembered. Peddlers with trays suspended around their necks approached them, urging them to buy shoelaces, matches, and ribbons. Others shoved pushcarts around, and even in the bitter cold of early March the babble of vendors hawking their wares hung on the air.

“I thought that the city had gotten rid of most of these old tenements,” Cara commented.

“They have torn down a lot of them, but I suppose there’ll always be tenements in New York.”

The two made their way down the street until finally Phil located the building they were looking for. “I think this is it,” he said doubtfully. “Not much to look at, is it?”

The building was gray with age, and as they entered the front door, they were met with the rank smells of cooked cabbage mingled with unwashed bodies and worse. “I remember
this smell,” Phil said grimly. “I guess that never changes.” He looked at Cara and said, “It’s on the fifth floor. You think you’re up to it?”

“Yes, I can do it.”

They climbed up the dark staircase, passing children who screamed as they flew up and down the steps, most of them going out to play in the streets, the only playground they knew. Some of them stared curiously at the couple. An old man, a Hasidic Jew, stood aside to let them pass. “Good afternoon,” Phil said.

The man stared at him, his earlocks dangling as he bowed his head. “God bless you,” he said.

“And you too, sir,” Cara replied.

As they climbed they had to stop once to let Cara catch her breath, and by the time they reached the fifth floor, both were winded. “I’m glad there’s not ten stories,” Phil said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

He led the way down the darkened corridor, which had only a small window at either end, both too grimy to admit much light. He stopped in front of number 507. “This ought to be it.” He knocked on the door, and they both heard a chair being scooted back. “Well, at least he’s home. I’d hate to have to make this trip twice.”

The door opened, and a small young man stood blinking at them. “Yes?”

“My name is Phil Winslow. This is my wife, Cara. Are you Francis Key?”

“That’s me.”

The speaker was no more than five-eight. He was unremarkable in appearance, with brown hair that fell over his horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were gray and penetrating—the only interesting aspect of his pale face.

“Would you like to come in?” Key asked. “It’s a little crowded, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Phil said.

“No problem. Step into my palatial apartment.”

As Phil and Cara stepped in, Key said, “One of you can have the chair, and the other can sit on my bed.”

“We won’t stay long,” Phil said, noticing a second chair that was hardly recognizable under stacks of books and papers. “Cara, have a seat.”

Cara took the empty chair and glanced around the room. It appeared to be nothing but a storage room for books. Handmade shelves lined most of the wall space, each packed with books of all sorts—leather bound, paperback, and oversized ones that lay flat. In front of the cases on the floor were more books in stacks, some waist high. A table with an ancient typewriter on it was covered with papers and books. A cot pressed against one wall, neatly made up with a brown blanket and a single pillow. Squeezed in between two bookcases was a very small stove and what served for kitchen shelves. The room was relatively clean, but it was so full of books that it was hard to tell.

“Alex Tyson gave us your name, Mr. Key,” Phil started.

“How is Alex? I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Doing very well, I take it. But he couldn’t help us with our problem, and he thought perhaps you might be willing to do what you can.”

“You want to find someone?”

“How did you know that?” Cara asked.

“Well, it was what I mostly did at the Rader Agency, but I’m not a detective anymore.”

“So Mr. Tyson told us, but would you at least listen to what we have to say?”

“I can listen, but I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Phil said hurriedly. He sat down on the cot while the shorter man remained standing. The man listened with a steady, almost devouring interest as Phil told their story. He seemed to be recording every word on some
part of his brain. “And so Mr. Tyson thought you might be able to help us find our daughter,” he concluded.

“I’m afraid Alex has an exalted idea of my abilities.”

“But he said you could find people that nobody else could.”

“Well, I did find a few that were difficult, but as—”

Cara stood up and reached out her hand in a plaintive gesture. “But Mr. Key—”

Her words were cut off when a raucous voice screamed, “Prepare to meet thy God!”

Cara saw a flash of brilliant color and an explosion of movement. She flinched as a bird struck her hair. She did not cry out, but it frightened her.

Phil jumped to his feet, but Francis reached out for the bird and set it on his shoulder. “Prepare to meet thy God!” the brilliantly colored parrot said again, its eyes fixed on Cara.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He reached up absently and stroked the bird with his right hand. “She’s very jealous.” A smile touched his wide mouth. “Jealous of women. Doesn’t like them to get close to me.”

Phil laughed. “She’s like all other females, I suppose.”

“She’s so beautiful. What’s her name?” Cara asked.

“Miriam. I’ve had her for a couple of years now. I named her Miriam because Miriam was a prophetess. So I decided to let this Miriam speak the Word of God. Would you like to hear her say a few things?”

“Yes,” Cara said eagerly.

“Miriam, Luke.”

“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish!” Miriam squawked.

Phil laughed again. “That’s the authentic King James Version, I believe.”

“Does she know any more?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Acts, Miriam.”

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” Miriam shrieked.

“That’s really marvelous. I’ve never seen anything like it!” Cara said.

“It really startles people sometimes. I just whisper the name of the book and she quotes the Scripture.” He stroked the parrot fondly and said, “She’ll behave all right as long as you don’t try to touch me.”

Cara sat down again, fascinated by the bird. “She’s very pretty.”

“She’s a rather romantic bird. She lays eggs all the time, but of course they’re not fertilized.”

“Why don’t you get her a mate?” Phil asked curiously.

Francis smiled shyly, which made him look even younger than the twenty-seven or twenty-eight years Phil had pegged him at. “I don’t want to be raising a bunch of baby prophets and prophetesses.” He caressed Miriam’s head while the bird snuggled close to him and gently pecked at his ear. “I really don’t think I can help you.”

“Mr. Tyson told us that you feel God has given you a work to do,” Cara said.

Interest brightened his gray eyes. “That’s right. I do feel that way. Are you folks Christians?”

“Yes, we are,” Cara said, “and we feel that God wants us to do something too. You see, even before our last child was born we named her Grace, and God gave me a promise that she would do great things for Him and be a comfort to us. But when we thought she had died, I lost faith, I suppose. But now that we know she’s alive, we believe that God can complete the work He wanted to do through her. So you see, if you could only find Grace, I feel you’d be serving God in that way.”

Francis stood very still. There was something about him that Cara could not completely identify. Alex Tyson had told them he was the smartest man he had ever known, and she could almost hear his brain cells at work. But there was more to the man than mere intelligence.
As soon as I told him about
God’s promise, he became interested,
Cara thought. Aloud she said, “Please, can’t you at least try to help us?”

He was silent for a moment. “It’s a question of what God wants me to do most. I feel He wants me to write books that will glorify Him.”

“Have you had any success?” Phil asked.

“No, not yet. I think I’ve got the novel God wants me to write in its embryonic stage, but I’ve run out of money, and I need to go back to Rader for a while to earn enough money to live on. Then I can quit again and write the book.”

“If you had uninterrupted time,” Phil said, “do you think you could write the novel God put on your heart?”

“I’m sure of it,” Francis said eagerly, showing a satisfied smile of perfect white teeth. He was not handsome but was appealing in a boyish way. “I know that God wants me to do this, and somehow I’m going to.”

Phil glanced at Cara, who gave him a slight nod. They understood each other very well. “How about this, Mr. Key. You take off from writing your novel and try your best to find Grace.” Phil stood up and paced in the small room, never taking his gaze off the detective. “Do everything you can. Tyson was confident that if anyone could find Grace, you could. We’ll all pray that you find her, but in either case, after you’ve done your best—whether you find her or not—I’ll finance a six-month period for you in a better place than this. Go wherever you like where it’s quiet, and I’ll foot the bill.”

“Please try, Mr. Key,” Cara begged. “It would mean everything to us.”

A silence fell on the room, and Cara almost held her breath. She felt certain that God had led them to this man.

Finally he whispered something to Miriam, who instantly screamed, “Put out the light! Put out the light!”

“Oh, Miriam, that’s Shakespeare, not the Bible.” He thought for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I’ll do my best—with God’s help.”

Phil and Cara both felt relief wash over them. Phil put his
arm around her and drew her close. “I believe we found our man, Cara. Thank you, Mr. Key.”

“Please call me Francis. Everybody does.”

CHAPTER FIVE

On the Trail

As Francis Key entered the prison, the smell assaulted him and brought back bad memories. He had always hated prisons, but this one seemed worse to him because only women were incarcerated. He thought of Miriam and hoped that she would be all right. His landlady would stop by to feed her, but Francis knew the parrot would be lonely without him.
Hang in there, baby,
he thought. He followed the guard down the corridor, feeling the cold steel and the blank gray concrete walls closing in on him. Ever since he had agreed to try to find Grace Winslow, he had felt overwhelmed with the impossibility of the task, and now it seemed more hopeless than ever.

“Right over there you’ll find Father Mazzoni,” the burly guard said as he pointed.

“Thanks.”

Francis walked across the yard, pulling his coat closer against the cutting north wind. He hated cold weather and dreamed of going south. The warm breezes and gleaming hot sand of the southern coast of Florida looked pretty good to him about now.

Reaching the small greenhouse in the corner of the prison yard, he saw a figure inside shrouded by greenery. He tapped on the glass and the door opened at once. A tall priest smiled at him. “Can I help you?”

“Father Mazzoni, I’m Francis Key. I’d like to have a few
minutes of your time. I need to speak with you about Bertha Zale.”