Murder at the Falls (31 page)

Though the question of who had stolen the painting had now been answered, there was still the question of who had murdered Randy. No matter what angle Charlotte looked at it from, she kept coming back to the aprons. “No ideas but in things,” Williams had written, and the things that this case revolved around were two long, white restaurant aprons. That night, she dreamed about them: white aprons hung on a clothesline, white aprons sailing through a cloud-studded blue sky, white aprons swirling on a dance floor. The figure in her mental picture of the scene was clear: a man hurriedly going through the kitchen cabinets in search of something with which to tie up the body. But the face was a featureless blur.

The next morning, Vivian brought Charlotte her coffee and cinnamon toast in bed, along with the newspaper. The woman took care of her like an old-fashioned nanny: when she wasn’t bullying her, she was spoiling her rotten. As Charlotte drank her coffee and ate her toast, she read about the damage inflicted by Clyde: five million dollars’ worth of property damage in Montauk, and a record of twelve point nine inches of rain dumped on the metropolitan area over the course of twenty-four hours. Reading about the rainfall made her think of the Falls. Her walking-tour guidebook had said that they were most spectacular twenty-four to forty-eight hours after a storm. She had yet to see them in their glory: not only had the flow on her visits been less than usual because of the August drought, up to a quarter of that had been diverted to the hydrolectric plant. If the Falls were magnificent when the flow was reduced, what must they be like when it was heavy?

There was nothing like coffee in bed with the newspaper to start the day off right, Charlotte thought as she finished. Setting the tray aside, she hopped out of bed and quickly dressed.

Then she headed out to Paterson.

At the Falls View, she took a seat in the usual booth and ordered the works: two eggs over easy, home fries, bacon, rye toast, orange juice, and coffee. Vivian’s coffee and cinnamon toast had been great, but they weren’t enough to hold her for the rest of the morning. Neither Patty nor her mother were there, and Charlotte missed them. To say nothing of John hunched over the grill, arms windmilling with his fancy grill work. Somehow the diner didn’t hum along at quite the same even pitch without the Andriopoulis family. Her breakfast arrived instantaneously, and it was delicious. Bacon cooked to the perfect degree of crispness; home fries made from real potatoes, and not too greasy; eggs with yolks that weren’t overdone or runny. Breakfast was such a simple meal, but so few restaurants got it right. As she ate, she planned her day. After breakfast, she would take a look at the Falls. Maybe take some pictures; she had brought her camera along. Then she would go over to Voorhees’ office, and see if he had anything new. Not that he would tell her if he did, she thought.

No sooner had this thought occurred to her than she noticed Voorhees himself getting out of a car in the parking lot. He was wearing casual clothes—it must have been his day off—and he was accompanied by a pretty teenage girl: blond, with his own strong jaw.

A few minutes later he entered, and, spotting Charlotte, came over to say hello. He introduced the girl as his daughter, Demetra: “Demi, for short.” The girl smiled sweetly, and shook Charlotte’s hand in a very adult manner.

“I didn’t know you hung out here,” Charlotte said.

“Everyone from Paterson eats here,” Voorhees said. “But not everyone from New York. What brings you here today?”

“The Falls. I thought I’d see them in all their glory.”

“They should be something,” he agreed.

“Would you like to join me for breakfast?” she asked.

“Thank you,” said Voorhees. He directed his daughter to the seat opposite Charlotte and then slid in next to her.

For a few minutes, they chatted about a diving competition in Atlantic City, where Voorhees and his daughter were headed. But once their food arrived, Voorhees left his daughter to her pancakes and turned to business.

“Armentrout has a ticket for Paris,” he said. “The FBI has been keeping an eye on the airports in case he tried to leave. He’s scheduled to take off tomorrow morning. He’s dropping by the Koreman to pick up his money first.”

“What about Diana?” asked Charlotte.

“She’s not going, I guess. He only bought one ticket, and the airlines don’t have any record of a reservation in her name. Maybe she’s going later. If she doesn’t show up with him, we’ll pick her up here later.”

“But she told Tom and me that she was going. She’s closed the gallery.”

Voorhees shrugged. “Maybe they had a falling out.”

“Or maybe he’s double-crossing her. Any new leads on the murder?”

“Only that the M.E. had identified the body that he thought was Spiegel’s: a wino who had been missing since early last spring.”

“I have a new lead,” said a voice. It was Patty. She was serving the customers at the adjoining booth. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Just give me a minute here.”

Voorhees nodded a greeting, and then returned to his eggs, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of talking to John’s daughter.

A minute later, Patty sat down next to Charlotte. “First I want to show you these,” she said, pulling some photographs out of her pocket. “They’re pictures of my father’s gravestone. They made it over at Ippolito’s.” She nodded at the monumental works across the street.

The photos showed a gravestone of dark gray polished granite. Above the name John K. Andriopoulis and the dates was an engraving of the Falls View, complete with “Open 24 Hours,” and “Try Our Famous Hot Texas Wieners” written under the name.

“John would have been very happy,” said Charlotte. She passed the photos to Voorhees, who gave them a cursory glance and then gave them back. “What’s your lead?” she asked as Patty pocketed the photos.

Patty addressed Charlotte: “Remember when you stopped by on Tuesday? You asked me if Randy had ever inquired about the aprons?”

Charlotte nodded.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time. There
was
someone else who inquired about the aprons: it was Jason Armentrout. He wanted to give some to Randy as a present. He thought Randy would like them because he was such a nut about diners.”

“Patty, your order’s ready,” Carlos yelled from behind the counter.

“I’m coming,” she shouted back.

The blurry face in Charlotte’s mental picture now had features: a handsome, sharply angled face with vivid, deep set blue eyes, and graying hair pulled back into a ponytail.

She locked eyes with Voorhees.

He took a drag from his cigarette, and then stubbed it out in the red metal ashtray. “I don’t think we’ll wait until he gets to the airport to pick him up,” he said as he gulped down the rest of his coffee.

“Are you leaving, Daddy?” asked Demi.

Voorhees leaned over to speak with his daughter: “I have to go to work now. I’ll give Jenny’s mother a call and ask her to pick you up here. Sorry I won’t be able to be there for you, sweetie.”

“That’s all right, Dad,” she said with a smile.

Patty nodded at her son, who was playing with some toy trucks in the last booth. “She can keep an eye on Johnny for me until her ride comes.” She looked across the table at Demi. “Would you like that?”

Demi nodded. “I’d like it,” she said.

“Thank you,” Voorhees said to Patty. After wishing his daughter good luck, he kissed her goodbye, and then stood up to go.

Standing up herself, Patty scanned the detective’s face anxiously. “Then it
was
important,” she said.

“Yes, it was important,” he said.

“Wait, Marty,” said Patty, laying a hand on his arm. “I just want to tell you something. We got the autopsy report back. Daddy’s coronary arteries were blocked, even the ones from the bypass surgery. He would have died anyway.”

Voorhees looked at her with relief.

“But that doesn’t mean that he should have gone to the grave without his good name,” she added. “I want his name cleared.”

“I hear you,” said Voorhees. “
Philotimo
.”

“
Philotimo
,” said Patty.

Leaving her car in the parking lot, Charlotte joined Voorhees in the police cruiser. She hadn’t asked if she could tag along; she had just done it, and he hadn’t objected. If it weren’t for her, he would never have known that the aprons were a present from Jason. He could hardly deny her the fruits of her own efforts. As they headed down Spruce Street, Voorhees radioed the dispatcher and instructed him to have Martinez ask Demi’s friend’s mother to pick her up at the diner. As Charlotte was listening to this exchange, she spotted a thin man with a ponytail approaching the gate in the wire-mesh fence at the beginning of the path leading to the grounds of the hydroelectric plant. As the car passed, she turned around for another look, and saw him enter.

“I think I just saw him!” she said.

“Saw who?”

“Jason Armentrout. Or somebody who looks like him. He just went in the gate to the grounds of the hydro plant.”

Voorhees swung the car over to the side of the road, and parked. After radioing for a backup, he leaned over and removed a set of handcuffs and a gun from the glove compartment. Charlotte had no idea what kind of gun it was, but it looked menacing: it wasn’t your everyday .38 calibre service revolver. He tucked the gun into a shoulder harness, and slipped the handcuffs into his jacket pocket. “I want you to stay out of the way. Do you understand?” he said.

“Yessir,” she replied emphatically as they got out of the car.

By contrast with its desultory appearance of the preceding weeks, the raceway that paralleled the road now deserved its name: the water was over-flowing the dam behind the old gatehouse, and rushing downhill, barely contained by the retaining walls. Charlotte thought of all the debris—the shopping carts and old umbrellas and broken washing machines—that would be washed out into the river.

“Another couple of inches and the water would be over the top,” she said as she joined Voorhees on his side of the car.

“I’ve seen it that way,” said Voorhees. “I’ve seen it flowing right over the road: four or five feet deep.”

The Falls also looked much different. Instead of individual sheets of water separated by rock outcroppings, it was now a solid white cascade, nearly three hundred feet long. The roar was deafening, like the sound of an express train passing by within a few feet, and the spray billowed high into the air. They could smell the swampy odor from across the street.

“Let’s go,” said Voorhees. He adjusted his shoulder harness and they set off.

The gravel lot just inside the gate of the hydroelectric plant was empty. But once they reached the footbridge spanning the intake reservoir, they saw Jason. He was heading toward a woman who was standing on the observation bridge, taking pictures. Charlotte recognized her from her short-cropped black hair and long, elegant neck.

As Diana lowered the camera to rewind the film, she spotted Jason, and, with a wave and a smile, turned to join him.

Voorhees laid a restraining hand on Charlotte’s arm, and they stayed where they were, concealed behind the wire fencing that enclosed the footbridge.

For a moment, Jason and Diana talked. Then they started heading back out toward the road. As they reached the knoll at the edge of the chasm, Jason seemed to be bumping Diana with his shoulder. At first, Charlotte thought it was accidental. But then she realized it was deliberate. Diana must have too, because she turned to confront Jason, her face confused and angry. Seconds later, he had her in an elbow lock and was pushing her toward the precipice.

“He’s going to push her over!” Charlotte exclaimed.

“Fuck!” said Voorhees.

As Charlotte and Voorhees raced toward the couple from one direction, a motorized wheelchair was racing toward them from the other. It was Spiegel: a knight in shining armor on his motorized charger, with a camera around his neck. He must have been taking pictures on the other side of the chasm. With one hand, he squeezed the lever that propelled the vehicle forward, and with the other, he brandished a crutch as if it were a jousting lance.

Charlotte and Voorhees were running, but it was Spiegel who reached Jason first. He slammed into him with the Amigo, and then tried to hit him over the head with the crutch. Releasing Diana, Jason turned to Spiegel, and wrenched the crutch out of his grip. Then he pulled out a gun and hit Spiegel over the back of the head with the butt. When Jason looked up, he was staring Voorhees in the face.

“Drop the gun,” ordered Voorhees. He stood in a combat stance, with his legs spread apart and both hands gripping the handle of his revolver.

Jason complied.

Voorhees instructed Diana to move around to where Charlotte was standing, and then gestured to Jason with his gun. “Now, step away from in front of the wheelchair,” he ordered. Removing one hand from his gun, he reached into his pocket for the handcuffs.

What happened next took only a few seconds, but each fraction of that time was engraved in Charlotte’s memory as if it had lasted a hundred times as long. As Jason stepped away from in front of the Amigo, removing the barrier to its forward motion, the Amigo resumed its course. Spiegel’s white head, now stained with blood where he’d been hit with the butt of the gun, was bent over the handlebars, and his hand was still squeezing the lever!

As they watched in horror, the Amigo raced toward the edge like a runaway horse. Turning away from Jason, Voorhees fired at the Amigo’s motor, hoping to knock it out. But the Amigo raced on. For a second, it looked as if it might get hung up on the downed fencing at the edge of the precipice. It strained futilely, rocking to and fro with the effort of bucking the impediment to its forward course.

Then, just as Voorhees got off a second shot, it lurched forward, and disappeared into the swirling spray that boiled up from below. Diana screamed, but the sound was drowned by the roar of the Falls.

As Voorhees turned his attention back to Jason, Charlotte rushed over to the edge and peered over. There was nothing to be seen except the broken branches of the scrub trees that had found a root-hold in the wall of the cliff, and the foaming chartreuse waters below.