The Kills (18 page)

I put my
key in the lock and opened my apartment door. It was good to be home, and I
felt happy with the anticipation of an intimate evening. I removed the jacket
of my suit, slipped out of my heels, and tiptoed into the kitchen in my bare
feet. Jake was thoroughly engrossed in the preparation of what smelled like a
divine
fettuccine alle vongole,
clam knife in hand, struggling over the sink to open a dozen extra cherrystones
for an appetizer. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his neck,
biting his earlobe as I did.

"Can't
you wait until dinner?" he asked, swiveling to meet my lips with his.

"I'm
starving. I didn't take much out of you. How about a squeeze?"

"I'm
covered in clam juice," he said, holding his arms out away from his side.

"I
really don't care, dammit." I lifted the silk shell of my suit over my
head and started undressing in the kitchen. "It's been a long week."

"You
must have kicked ass in court today. You're awfully frisky."

"On
the contrary, I barely got out with my case intact. I may not be in such a good
mood when Peter Robelon finishes cross-examining my witness on Monday, so if
you want some affection, this is the night to get it." I was standing
naked in the middle of the kitchen. "Here, you can't get food stains on
anything I'm wearing. How about it?"

"These
aren't even oysters and look at the effect they have on you," Jake said,
putting down the knife and taking me in his arms.

We
embraced and kissed each other for several minutes before I took Jake's hand
and led him into the bedroom, where we slowly made love.

I almost
succeeded at forcing the day's dark thoughts from my mind as I responded to his
touch. Too many times in the past months I had allowed the sad business of my
work to encroach on the private emotions so essential to our relationship, and
it had made my time with Jake much more difficult than it needed to be.

I rolled
onto my side and let him caress me, fitting in tightly against his body with my
head on his outstretched arm. "Did you hear any news tonight?" I
asked.

"I
haven't had the television on. I picked up the food at Grace's Marketplace and
just started to cook. Why?"

"The
little boy in my case is missing. The police are putting out his picture and
description tonight. I just wondered how it played."

Jake
stroked my hair with his free hand. "We'll have a nice, relaxed dinner,
and then we can check out the local news at eleven. How come you're so calm
about it?"

"Major
Case has the assignment. Battaglia agrees I shouldn't be the one to work it.
The kid's lawyer stopped by to see me after court. He's known Dulles since he
was born, and he told Mike and me that he's a very resourceful boy. That he's
run away many times before, when he lived upstate, and that he always comes
back in a day or two."

"Where
does he go?" Jake asked.

Riding
down in the elevator, Graham Hoyt had told Mike and me that Dulles usually
showed up at a school friend's home before bedtime. When he was living with his
elderly grandmother, he fantasized about being part of a real family. He'd
settle on a classmate whose parents were warm and loving, and where there were
other children in the household, sisters and brothers with whom to laugh and
play and argue. I explained that to Jake.

"How
long do I have until dinner's on the table?" I asked, slipping out of the
bed.

"As
long as you like. Everything's ready to go."

I went
into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub, filling it with scented
crystals. When the steam had clouded the mirrors and the bubbles reached to the
rim, I switched on the jets and climbed in for a relaxing soak. Jake appeared
with two glasses of a chilled Corton-Charlemagne, and I reached out an arm from
within the bubbles to sip it. He kneeled beside the tub, took the washcloth,
and gently ran it across my neck and shoulders, while I described my day in
court.

It was
nine-thirty by the time we sat down at the dinner table, and eleven when we
settled in to go to sleep. "Want to see the news?" he asked me.

"Guess
it's wiser if I don't. Mercer would have called me the minute Dulles showed up
somewhere."

I slept
fitfully, thinking of the child and his whereabouts, and was out of bed by 6
A.M.
I let Jake sleep while
I made the first pot of coffee, struggled with the
Times
Saturday-morning crossword puzzle, and dressed in my
leotard and tights to go to class.

I kissed
Jake good-bye, went downstairs, and hailed a taxi to take me to my instructor's
West Side studio. For the next hour I lost myself in the discipline of the
ballet warm-up and exercises. I concentrated on the movements: stretches and
pliés at the barre, floor exercises, and choreographed routines to
classic Tchaikovsky.

As we
changed clothes in the dressing room, my friends and I chatted about the past
week's events. I declined an invitation to join two of them for a spontaneous
shopping spree to fill in their fall wardrobes, and passed up an opportunity
for brunch at an outdoor café on Madison Avenue. I didn't often envy
them their daily routines, but when my plate was filled with people whose lives
were disrupted by violence, my mind drifted to thoughts of what it would be
like to be as unburdened by tragedy as most of them were.

Mike
Chapman's department car, a beat-up old black Crown Vic, was double-parked in
front of William's building when I came out shortly after ten. He was eating a
fried egg sandwich on a hard roll and had an extra coffee container in the cup
holder on the passenger side for me. "Want half?"

"No,
thanks. I ate before class."

"But
you must have worked up an appetite in there. Have some," he said,
extending his arm in front of my face.

I pushed
him away. "Hear anything about Dulles Tripping?"

"All
quiet. Mercer says everyone's being very cooperative. Mrs. Wykoff, your buddy
Hoyt, the school authorities. Everybody's optimistic. You know the agency
records show he ran away more than a dozen times in the last two years?"

"It's
a lot different to spend an overnight at a friend's house in a small town than
it is to try and find your way around New York City when you've only lived here
for a year, and you're just ten."

"Hey,
there are no signs of a kidnapping, and no reports at any hospitals of an
injured child. So don't fill that twisted head of yours with evil
thoughts," Mike said. He was eating with one hand and steering the car
uptown on Amsterdam Avenue with the other.

He parked
at a hydrant near McQueen Ransome's tenement building. A uniformed cop had been
sent by the precinct commander to meet Mike at the stoop and let us into the
apartment. Half a dozen curious adolescents followed us up the steps and asked
what we were doing at "Miss Queenie's" place. I closed the door
behind us and then opened a window to let some air into the musty rooms, which
had been closed tight since her death.

The whole
apartment was in disarray. I could see more here than the crime scene
photographs had captured. "Was this the way you found it, or is this a
result of all the cops being in here?" I asked. Sometimes the
investigators made more of a mess than the perps.

"This
place was turned upside down by the killer. The landlord was going to give us
another week before he boxed everything up and threw it out. The lady who did
her banking thought there were a couple of nieces down in Georgia who might
come close out the account-there's nothing to speak of in it-and take some of
the furniture and the family photo albums."

The small
parlor inside the front door had a sofa, two armchairs, a television set, and
an old-fashioned record player on a side table, with a stack of 33 RPMs next to
it. Mike turned it on, placing a needle on the vinyl disk that must have been
the last music Queenie heard.

"Edward
Kennedy Ellington. The Duke," said Mike. "Only fitting for
Queenie."

The piece
was called "Night Creatures." The distinctly American jazz sound
filled the room and lightened the pall that the old woman's death cast over us.

The
living room walls had a collection of photographs more sedate than that over
Queenie's bed. Most of them featured Queenie. Several looked to be posed with
family and friends.

"This
must be her son," I said to Mike. She was dressed in a light-colored suit,
the slim skirt covering her calves, and a Mamie Eisenhower-style hat and
handbag complementing the outfit. She had her arm around the boy's shoulder,
and he looked even younger than Dulles Tripping. They were standing at the base
of the Washington Monument.

"You
think this kid is African-American?" Mike asked, looking at the fair-skinned
child with the sandy blond hair.

"Well,
Queenie Ransome was pretty light-skinned herself. Maybe his father was
Caucasian."

"Check
this one out," Mike said. "She's in uniform."

It was
another picture of Ransome on a stage, dressed in khakis designed to look like
an army uniform. She was tap-dancing, it appeared, and her hand was about to
salute someone with a touch of her cap. A USO flag hung from the bunting behind
her. I took the photo off the wall and turned it over.

"Same
year as those nightclub photos you brought to the office yesterday, 1942. This
one looks like she was entertaining the troops."

"Here's
another James Van Derzee portrait," Mike said. "Pretty
spectacular."

It was a
studio shot of the stunning young woman, again signed by the photographer, and
probably taken after the Second World War, when she was still in her twenties.

Set
against the faux backdrop typical of the period, she was dressed in a satin
evening gown, her hair coiffed in a large bun atop her head, reclining against a
marble column.

The
gallery stopped at the far wall, which had a small bookcase across its end.
Every book had been pulled off the shelf and strewn on the floor. I stooped to
pick up a few-popular novels of the fifties and sixties-flipped through their
pages but found nothing loose or stuck inside.

"What
do you give me for a first-edition Hemingway?" Mike asked. "
For Whom the Bell Tolls
."

"Nineteen
forty. That fetches a sweet number today." He knew I collected rare books.
"I think the last one went at auction for about twenty-five
thousand."

"Does
his signature add value?"

"You're
joking. Let me see." I took the book from his hand. The dust jacket was
pristine, but whoever dumped it on the floor had cracked its spine by throwing
it there. "'For Queenie-who is, herself, a moveable feast-Papa.' Take this
one with you and voucher it. Let's look over all the books before we're
done."

"Guess
she didn't only kick up her heels for the boys in the 'hood. Don't you wish
you'd had a chance to meet her?" said Mike, changing the record.
"Just sit in this room and listen to her stories? She must have been
something."

I turned
the corner into the bedroom, flipping on the light. "Any reason I can't
touch things in here?"

"Everything's
been processed," Mike said, following me in.

The
dresser drawers were all ajar, contents spilled out, as Mike had told me. The
black fingerprint powder covered Queenie's old pink leather jewelry case.
"Was there anything in this when you found it?"

"Just
what you see."

There was
a long strand of fake pearls, knotted the way that flappers once wore them.
There were several large brooches that seemed to be made of colored glass, and
lots of dangling earrings in bright colors, made of Bakelite or plastic. Some
flea market vendor would relish this stuff, but none of it had any street
value, and even the pettiest of thieves would have left it behind.