Shadows Still Remain (18 page)

On Thursday morning Muster's Amazonian receptionist unlocks the oxidized steel door, and O'Hara, knish and coffee in hand, follows her into the fascistically minimal waiting area. O'Hara is desecrating an art object table with her breakfast grease when Muster arrives for work in a six-thousand-dollar bespoke suit and three-dollar Canal Street sneakers.

“What happened to you?” he asks. “
Queer Eye?
You look fabulous.”

O'Hara flips him the bird, with Brooklyn nonchalance, and leaves it flapping in the breeze until Muster keeps stepping. A couple of minutes later, Christina trudges through the door. O'Hara follows her to her cube, where she collapses in her Aeron and lays her head on her desk.

“Remind me one more time,” says O'Hara, “why you're working for this asshole.”

“I've got very little experience and not much work of my own to show. If Juergen wants me to pick up his lunch and listen to him getting blown, and apparently he does, my choices are to deal or crawl back to my parents in Los Angeles. Believe me, I'm not doing that.”

“See, that's why I'm here. Without you, Muster has no alibi. Considering everything he's holding over you, can I really believe you two were here all night?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Every girl draws the line somewhere. I draw mine between having to listen to someone cum and providing them with a phony murder alibi.”

 

Instead of a cube, Naomi Delfinger is sequestered in a ten-thousand-square-foot postmodern in a leafy neighborhood in Stamford, Connecticut. It's on a private cul-de-sac where every third house is a teardown, the original fifties-era homes razed to make way for bloated suburban palaces. The new ones, like Delfinger's, tower above the tree line, as naked and out-of-scale as the Atelier.

Unlike her house, Naomi Delfinger is homely in a modest way. She is petite, small boned and plain, with faded brown hair and oversized tenebrous eyes. After O'Hara tells her she's an NYPD detective investigating a murder, Delfinger walks her through a two-story entrance decorated with studio portraits of her three daughters, and brings her into a huge kitchen with two of everything—ovens, dishwashers and refrigerators. They sit at a sunlit table looking out on a tarp-covered pool.

“Your girls are precious,” says O'Hara.

“They were such a gift, particularly at my age.”

Delfinger, who looks to be in her early forties, pours coffee and puts out cookies, which despite the double set of appli
ances, look and taste as if they're missing several crucial ingredients. “My husband told me about your visit,” says Delfinger, and O'Hara tries to conceal her disappointment.

“Not many husbands would.”

“Daniel said she was an exceptional young woman with a bright future. He told me you spoke to everyone at his office.”

“Did your husband say what Pena did for the firm?”

“He said she was an intern and that she had planned to apply to law school in the fall.”

“She was a call girl, Mrs. Delfinger. Your husband met her through an escort service called Aphrodite.”

Since her first glimpse of Delfinger's wife, dwarfed by her immense front door, O'Hara saw her as a woman hanging by a thread and prescribed pharmaceuticals. Now Naomi Delfinger's eyes harden with resolve. “You drove all the way out here to tell me this? Is this how you get your kicks? If not, I don't see the point, because other than making me very unhappy, it doesn't change a thing. It certainly doesn't change the fact that my husband got home early Wednesday afternoon and didn't leave the house all weekend.”

“When did he arrive?”

“About two. But I'm sure he told you that already.”

“Was there anyone here other than you who can confirm that?”

“No, only my husband and me.”

“No houseguests?”

“It was just the five of us, and quite wonderful,” says Delfinger, enunciating each syllable with painful precision.
“Daniel is a very hard worker. Having him home five days in a row is a rare treat.”

I bet it is,
thinks O'Hara. “Your husband told me the place was packed with relatives—your parents, your sisters, their husbands and children.”

“Detective, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Being kicked out of kitchens by lying women is getting tiresome. To buy a little time, O'Hara sips her coffee and reaches for another tasteless cookie. A photograph of Delfinger, the chubby teen in that Coney Island playground morphed into a patriarchal dweeb, smiles at her from one of the refrigerators, three young daughters in his arms.
Only the rich and the poor still breed this indiscriminately,
thinks O'Hara. The oldest looks four, tops, the youngest about a year, and the way everyone is bundled up against the cold, the shot had to have been taken recently. O'Hara looks at the smallest child again and estimates her age between eight and ten months. If it's the smaller number, she must have been born close to the date Delfinger met Pena.

“Your youngest looks like a real firecracker,” says O'Hara. “I'm guessing an Aries.”

“Very good, Detective,” says Delfinger. “And according to anyone who knows anything about astrology, Tovah is the classic Aries, through and through.”

Naomi Delfinger smiles, in spite of herself.

“Mrs. Delfinger, would you like to hear the date of your husband and Pena's tryst?”

“What I'd like is for you to leave. I've asked once politely. Now I'm asking again. Please.”

“April eleventh,” says O'Hara. Delfinger's face freezes, as if she's just been struck. O'Hara keeps talking, anything to stay in the room a little longer. “When I had my son, I didn't even know who I was yet. I was barely sixteen. I got kicked out of high school and was branded a fool and a slut, the perfect combination. It was quite the little scandal, even in Brooklyn.”

“You have no reason to remember this,” says Delfinger, “but April eleventh was a gorgeous spring day. New York Hospital had given us the loveliest hospital room I've ever seen. It looked straight over the East River. And Tovah was so easy, nothing like the first two. Dr. Shwab said ‘push,' and out she came, as if she couldn't wait another second. My goodness, what a precious little girl. Daniel was so happy and proud. But of course he had to go back to work. At least that's what he said. The next day he gave me a ring from Tiffany's. Pena must have been his gift to himself.”

“Me, it took thirty-six hours to squeeze out Axl. I haven't worked that hard since, and don't plan to. That's right, getting knocked up wasn't the only harebrained thing I did. I also named the kid Axl, after the singer for Guns N' Roses, who turned out to be such a knucklehead. If I wasn't going to name him something reasonable like Matt or Joe, I could at least have gone with Slash.

“People said I should put him up for adoption. It's not like I couldn't see their point. I was sixteen and running wild, going
out and getting boxed every night, and in the nine months since I missed my period, I'd barely given the gink a single thought. I wore big blouses and put it out of my mind, pretended it wasn't happening. Like they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt. But when the time came, I found out giving away my kid was not something I could do. Surprised me as much as anyone else.”

Delfinger shakes her head as if she knows where this is going and it doesn't apply. O'Hara keeps right on talking. “I'm not saying I'm a hero. To be totally honest, my mother raised Axl far more than I did. The point I'm trying to make is that you think you can't get through something, and it turns out you can. In fact, it can be a blessing.”

Naomi shakes her head again, but much more feebly. To O'Hara, it looks like she's disintegrating.

“Axl got me kicked out of high school, disgraced my family and got all my girlfriends on the pill. He was also the best thing that ever happened to me. Maybe the only really good thing.”

“That not what I mean,” says Delfinger, staring at her hands. “I mean, no, Daniel didn't come home Wednesday night. Wednesdays he works late, stays in the city and rents a room at the Harvard Club. I assumed the night before Thanksgiving would be an exception, but I was wrong. He called that afternoon and said that if he didn't stay late, he'd have to work the weekend, then called again about eleven p.m. and said he was too tired to drive. He didn't get here until Thursday morning. You want another nice detail that says a lot about my devoted, sentimental husband? Guess what room he rents at the
Harvard Club—411. I thought it was because it was Tovah's birthday. Detective, I have three kids under the age of four, I'm forty-one and never had a job. What am I going to do?”

 

It's midafternoon when O'Hara backs out of the driveway and maneuvers through the obstacle course of bumps and gates that keep drivers to the posted fifteen miles an hour. Once past the white gates and sentry box, she finds a classic rock station playing ZZ Top and Alice Cooper. She cranks it full blast and sings along, shouting out the choruses as if her life depends on it. When that station turns to shit, she finds one just as good at the other end of the dial and sings along to vintage Mary J. Blige until tears stream down her face.

In the city, she parks near the Ninth Precinct again on Fifth Street, and although it feels disloyal to her overworked counterman, detours to a Polish diner on Avenue A for beef stroganoff over egg noodles. For dessert, she has a couple drafts at the dive bar next door.

Back in 303, she's calmed down enough to leave a long exhilarated and largely coherent message on Krekorian's cell. She catches him up on Consuela's tattoo and her visit to suburbia and the admission by Delfinger's wife that her husband was lying and never came home the night of the murder. “It was one lie after another from that cheeky fuck. He said the house was full of relatives, total bullshit. And after his whole little charade about tossing his online E-ZPass statement and then magically finding it in his recently deleted mail, it turns out he drove all the way up to Riverdale and went through the
toll just to cover his tracks, then turned around and came back downtown on Broadway to avoid the toll. I swear to Christ, K., I'm so close I can taste it.”

O'Hara hangs up, and she feels the full weight of the exhaustion she's held off for days. Without pulling the covers, she stretches out on the HoJo's bedspread. When the phone rings five hours later, she's shivering and the sky in the window is black. It takes several rings for O'Hara to realize she's not at home in Riverdale.

“Dar,” says Krekorian. “I got bad news. They just found McLain's van in long-term parking at Newark Airport, and the mattress in the back is covered with Pena's blood. Lowry is on his way to Orchard Street right now to arrest him.”

O'Hara's silence worries Krekorian. “Lowry had a whole department working for him,” he says. “You had me.” When O'Hara still doesn't respond, he adds, “I'll go to bat for you with the review board. Every guy in the Seven will. What room are you in?”

“303.”

“Promise me you won't go anywhere. I'll come over as soon my shift ends. “

“I can't believe I lost to that blowhard fuck.”

“You're lucky you didn't have to watch him parade around here with a stogie in his mouth,” says Krekorian, relieved O'Hara has finally said something. “The guy thinks he's Bill Parcells.”

“Close but no cigar. That's me in a nutshell.” She wonders if some people can be so competitive that they don't have a chance to win.

“Lock the door and stay in your room. We'll figure something out. It might be as simple as you coming in tomorrow and eating a giant plate of crow.”

When Krekorian hangs up, O'Hara takes the back stairs to the street. She heads a block down Houston to American Apparel, where she buys leggings, socks, a T-shirt and panties, then
walks briskly uptown. There's a New York Sports Club on East Fourth between First and Second avenues, and in the ground-floor window, a dozen treadmills are lined up side by side, a woman running on each. Peering into the brightly lit interior from the street reminds O'Hara of that Hopper painting of the diner she finally saw in person last summer. The women on the treadmills are like the customers at that diner. Although they're only inches apart, each is stuck inside her lonely city head.

O'Hara's discount Riverdale membership doesn't apply in Manhattan, but the manager cuts her a break. After changing into her new leggings, O'Hara climbs onto a Lifecycle, sets the machine on 3 and starts chugging. Despite the discovery of McLain's van and the bloody mattress inside, O'Hara doesn't buy McLain as the killer. Someone in town three weeks doesn't dump a body in East River Park. There are people living here their whole lives who don't know it exists.

After a couple of minutes, O'Hara's cheeks and the back of her neck turn beet red. Then she starts to sweat. Ten minutes later, her hair and T-shirt are soaked, and she still doesn't see McLain as the perp, although she concedes to herself that if Pena had trained in the park, McLain could have found out about it from her. She bumps the setting on her bike to 6, then 9, then 11. By the time she hits 14, her thighs are on fire and sweat rolls off her nose.

When she gets back to her motel room, the hysteria is gone, sweated out like a fever. Still dripping, O'Hara sits at her desk and stares at the timeline on her worked-over piece of HoJo stationery. The only white space on either side is in the
upper-left-hand corner of the back page. She uses it to write herself a three-line note.

 

Don't worry what other people think.

Finish what you've started.

You've earned the right to believe in yourself.

 

Twenty minutes later, O'Hara sits in her Jetta on Forty-fourth, and stares through her windshield at the red awning of the Harvard Club. She calls the club from the car, and a Pakistani-sounding voice picks up at the front desk. “Got a question,” says O'Hara. “I'm making a delivery first thing in the morning. How early does your service entrance open up?”

“Six a.m.”

“Thanks, Captain. And where is it exactly?”

“The building runs from Forty-fourth to Forty-fifth. The service entrance is on Forty-fifth, just east of a restaurant called Yakitori Taisho.”

O'Hara drives through Fifth, turns up Madison, then back on Forty-fifth. She double-parks in front of a steel black door and waits. When a uniformed porter steps out and lights up a cigarette, O'Hara gets out of her car, and when he rubs out the sparks beneath his shoe and steps back inside, O'Hara reaches the door before the lock can catch. She holds it barely open for a minute, then steps inside.

O'Hara takes the service elevator to the fourth floor and walks down a quiet corridor whose light green carpet and striped wallpaper look like they haven't been replaced in decades. Room
411 is at the southern end of the building, near the guest elevator. A cart loaded with soap, towels and toilet paper is parked beside the open door. O'Hara knocks lightly and shows her gold shield to a frightened rail-thin maid. According to the big white pin attached to her uniform, her name is Yvonne. She speaks very little English.

“Did you clean the room this morning, Yvonne?”

The woman shakes her head. “Estelle,” she says.

“Is she here tonight?”

The woman nods and points at her feet.

In the basement, a female crew of international refugees stand beside an industrial-sized dryer, warming themselves as if around a campfire. Estelle is big and blond and eastern European. “I clean fourth floor every Thursday for year,” she tells O'Hara.

“Did you see the man staying there this morning?”

“No.”

“You sure? He used to come here with a young girl. She was nineteen, slim, short black hair, very pretty. You ever see her?”

“I never see her
or him.
”

“What time do you get here in the mornings?”

“Six a.m. Work eighteen hours and never see them.”

“They don't spend the whole night?”

“Nothing to clean. The man buys room but never stays. He is perfect customer. I want more like him.”

 

O'Hara tries to reach Naomi on her cell but gets voice mail, and doesn't feel she can risk calling the house if there's a chance that Delfinger is there. For the third time that day, O'Hara
crosses the Triboro and gets on 95, and an hour later rolls back through the white gates of Delfinger's private neighborhood. She parks a couple of houses beyond his and walks back to his driveway. Compared to the city, the suburban night is three shades darker and ten degrees colder.

O'Hara stops at the top of the driveway between Delfinger's Mercedes and his wife's Lexus. From where she stands, she can see the top and bottom of the staircase in the two-story entranceway and has a direct view of the lamp-lit living room, which looks like an idle stage set between acts. Because the single light is at the back of the room, it takes O'Hara a minute before she sees Delfinger, no more than twenty feet away, standing at the window. For more than five minutes, Delfinger, a glass of red wine in his hand, doesn't move. He just stands there and stares out at the night, and O'Hara, having seen no evidence of anyone else in the house, starts to panic.

What if Delfinger found out about O'Hara's visit this afternoon or her call to Naomi an hour ago? If he killed Pena, he could kill his wife too. To O'Hara's relief, Naomi Delfinger enters the living room. Cradled in her arms is one of her daughters, and the comfortable way she stands beside her husband convinces O'Hara that Delfinger is not aware of her visit or phone call. Naomi takes her husband's glass in exchange for a sleeping toddler, and Delfinger carries her out of the room and up the stairs. When they disappear down a second-floor hallway, O'Hara calls Naomi's cell again. From the other side of the bay window, she watches Naomi jump in alarm and rush into the kitchen.

“Naomi, it's Darlene O'Hara.”

“I know who it is,” whispers Naomi. “Stop calling me.”

“I'm in your driveway. I need to talk to you.”

“Are you crazy? Daniel is upstairs. You can't do this to me.”

“It's very important. You got to think of a reason to get outside. Quickly, he's coming down the stairs now.”

From the driveway, O'Hara sees Delfinger reach the bottom of the staircase. Through his wife's phone she hears his footsteps on the wooden floor of the foyer and the tiles of the kitchen. “Naomi, it's eleven o'clock,” he says, his voice as loud and clear as if he's talking into the phone himself. “Who calls this late?”

“Andrea,” says Naomi into the phone. “I doubt you left them in my car, but I'll run out right now and take a look. I insist. It's no trouble at all.”

Crouched between the two cars, O'Hara sees the side door open and Naomi run out in her slippers. Even in the dark, Naomi looks different. She's angry and she's scared, but not like she was during the afternoon. There's a glint in her eyes. “You won't be happy till you get me killed?”

“I'm sorry to be doing this,” says O'Hara. “But there's something I need to know. Does your husband keep a place in the city?”

“Yes,” says Naomi, her breath turning to steam in the cold. “I always knew he was cheating. Finally I hired an investigator. He found the place six months ago. Daniel still doesn't know I know. But I think he realized he was being followed.”

“Why didn't you tell me about the apartment this afternoon?”

“I already told you too much.”

“Naomi, I need that address.”