A Woman Like Her

by Marc Levy

  “I should be able to manage.”

  “So before my carriage turns back into a pumpkin, allow me to bid you adieu, Miss Chloe.”

  He kissed Chloe on the cheek and left.

  Sanji spent the night in the lobby, engrossed in the pages of the book he had picked up from the recording studio.

  At the end of every chapter, he went outside the building, looked up at the ninth-floor windows, and then went back behind his desk to continue reading.

  20

  At eleven a.m. Monday, a policeman appeared in the lobby. Displaying his badge, he asked if a certain Mrs. Collins lived at this address.

  “Did something happen to her?” Deepak asked worriedly.

  The detective’s only answer was to ask which floor she lived on.

  The only time Deepak had ever dealt with the police, he had been thirteen years old, and the memory of being struck with a club had haunted his nights for a long time. In the elevator, the detective noticed how his hand trembled on the handle.

  When Mrs. Collins opened her door, the policeman displayed his badge once again.

  “You didn’t waste any time—it’s barely been an hour since I called you.”

  “Usually people say the opposite,” Detective Pilguez muttered. “May I come in?”

  Mrs. Collins let him pass by and glanced at Deepak, whom she had never seen so pale before. She led the detective to her living room and told him what had happened: when she went to get dressed that morning, she had discovered that a very valuable necklace had been stolen.

  She was almost certain that it had still been in her possession just a few days before, because she had considered wearing it to a party at a friend’s house.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Philomena Tolliver. We’ve known each other for ages. Every three months, she hosts a bridge competition. She’s quite generous with the drinks, so I prefer to spend the night there.”

  The detective jotted down Philomena Tolliver’s name and address in his notebook.

  “Do you spend the night away from home very often?”

  “Once every three months.”

  “Except for your friend and her guests, who else knew the date of this competition?”

  “Her butler, the caterer (Philomena can’t even make scrambled eggs), her super, maybe a few other people … How should I know?”

  “In the taxi that you took to the party, did you mention that you weren’t coming home that night?”

  “I’m no spring chicken, but I haven’t yet reached the point of talking to myself.”

  “During the day, do you go out at regular times?”

  “Sometimes, in the midafternoon.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “What does this have to do with your investigation? I go out for a walk—that’s allowed, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not here to annoy you, ma’am, I’m just trying to draw up a list of people who could have known when your apartment was empty.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll try my best to help you,” Mrs. Collins replied sheepishly.

  “Where did you last see this valuable necklace?”

  “Where I’ve kept it ever since my late husband gave it to me, in my jewelry box.”

  Mrs. Collins’s walk-in closet was a disaster: clothes were scattered on the floor, towels were piled in one corner, and the dresser drawers were half-open.

  “They sure did a number on you,” said the detective.

  Mrs. Collins lowered her head. Seeing her so unsettled, the detective felt sorry for her.

  “A burglary is always more shocking than you expect.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Mrs. Collins murmured. “I’m a bit disorganized. My husband used to always complain about it. So I’m not really sure who’s responsible for this chaos, the burglars or me.”

  “I see.” The detective sighed. “Do me a favor: check that your necklace isn’t buried in this mess. Don’t touch the drawers—I’ll take fingerprints, and I’ll have to take yours, too, to rule them out in case we find anything.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Collins said apologetically. “Could you lend me a hand?”

  “Certainly not! I’ll inspect the locks. Is there a service entrance?”

  “In the kitchen,” Mrs. Collins said, pointing down the hallway.

  He joined her a few moments later. The closet looked no better than before; the mess had just been piled differently.

  “Is the necklace the only piece of jewelry that was stolen?”

  “I don’t know—the others are fake, so I don’t keep track of them.”

  “So your burglar knew what he was looking for. But we still need to figure out how he got in.”

  “I hadn’t managed to bolt the door. Picking the lock wouldn’t be hard for someone who knows how to do it.”

  “There’s no sign of forced entry. It’s a masterful job, unless he had the keys.”

  “Impossible, they’re always on me,” Mrs. Collins declared, opening her purse.

  “And you haven’t noticed anything unusual or anyone following you recently?”

  Mrs. Collins shook her head vigorously.

  “Okay, I have all I need. You’ll have to come sign a statement at the station. Are you insured?”

  Mrs. Collins said she was. The detective gave her his card and asked her to call him back if she remembered seeing anything suspicious.

  Detective Pilguez took advantage of Deepak’s presence in the elevator to question him.

  “You didn’t notice anything abnormal over the last few days?”

  “That depends on what you mean by abnormal,” Deepak mused.

  “I imagine there’s never a dull moment in a fancy building like this. Have there been other burglaries?”

  “Not a single one in the thirty-nine years I’ve been working here.”

  “Strange case,” muttered Pilguez. “Do you have security cameras?”

  “There are three. I guess you’re going to ask me for the tapes.”

  “You guess correctly. Have any strangers come around recently? Guests, salesmen, or workers?”

  “No one, except for two elevator technicians, but Mr. Groomlat and I were with them the whole time.”

  “Who’s Mr. Groomlat?”

  “An accountant who has an office on the second floor. He’s also the co-op president.”

  “Do clients come to see him?”

  “Very rarely. In fact, almost never.”

  “Any delivery people hanging around the hallways?”

  “They can only get into the lobby—we’re the ones who bring the packages up.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Mr. Rivera works at night, and I’m on during the day.”

  “When does your colleague arrive?”

  “He hasn’t been coming lately because he’s in the hospital. He had a bad fall in the staircase.”

  “Well, well. When did that happen?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “Who’s his replacement?”

  Deepak hesitated before answering.

  “It’s not a very complicated question,” the detective insisted.

  “My nephew, as of a few days ago.”

  “And where does your nephew live?”

  “With me.”

  “He has no other residence?”

  “Yes, in Mumbai. He’s just visiting New York. When Mr. Rivera had his accident, my nephew kindly offered his services. The elevator can only be run by a qualified operator, which, in my colleague’s absence, posed certain problems at night.”

  “Your nephew from Mumbai turns up, and he steps in at the last minute to replace your colleague who fell down the stairs. Things happen fast here. Does he have a work permit?”

  “His papers are in order. The union gave us a training agreement, and Sanji is an honest young man. I can vouch for him.”

  “That’s very nice of you, but it’s still not an alibi. Okay, get me those tapes. With a little luck, they’
ll be more informative than you are. And ask your nephew to come see me at the station as soon as possible. I have a few questions for him.”

  Deepak went to get the tapes in the basement and gave them to the detective.

  “This Mrs. Collins … does she still have all her marbles?” Pilguez asked.

  “She’s the most charming of our residents.”

  “Her husband’s been dead for a while?”

  “Mr. Collins passed away about ten years ago.”

  “When do the other owners get home? I need to question them, and I’d like not to make too many trips. This isn’t exactly the crime of the century.”

  “You can find them all here in the early evening,” Deepak replied.

  Chloe was going to make breakfast in the kitchen when she suddenly turned around in the hallway. No note had been slipped under the door overnight. Only when she left for the studio around ten did she discover her book on the doormat and a message scribbled on a bookmark.

  I have a favor to ask you. Meet me at 6 at the corner, on the park side.

  Sanji

  The recording session seemed to go on forever. The booth was hot, and the sound engineer wouldn’t stop interrupting her: she didn’t articulate well enough, she skipped a line, sometimes she read too fast and sometimes too slow. Around four, Chloe decided it was time to call it a day.

  She stopped at home to change and thought Deepak was acting strange when she left the building. She wondered about it as she wheeled to the park where Sanji was waiting for her, leaning against the fence.

  “We could have met in front of my building,” she said.

  “I didn’t want Deepak to see me.”

  “To see you, or to see us?”

  “I’d like to get a present for my aunt to thank her for hosting me. I have a vague idea of what she might like, but I wanted to get your opinion.”

  And since he wasn’t on duty, Sanji offered to push Chloe’s wheelchair.

  “No, thanks, you’re a crazy driver,” she replied. “Where are we going this time?”

  “Just two blocks.”

  “Are you related to Deepak?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “Except we’re both Indian—”

  “It was a dumb question,” Chloe qualified hastily.

  “My aunt is his wife.”

  “So my question wasn’t so dumb.”

  Sanji pushed open the door of a flower shop on the corner of University Place and 10th Street.

  “You need my help to buy flowers?”

  “I don’t know which ones she’ll like.”

  “My favorites are the old rose varieties, like these,” Chloe said, in front of a bouquet of Abraham Darby roses. “But for your aunt, I have a better idea.”

  She led him to a pastry shop.

  “A box of pastries! And Deepak can enjoy them, too.”

  “It’s strange—you seem to know them better than I do.”

  “There’s nothing strange about that. I pretty much grew up with Deepak around.”

  “And what about you? Which kind do you like?” Sanji asked in front of the case.

  “I’d like some tea, if you’ll choose it.”

  Over a pot of Assam tea, they shared two meringues and an awkward moment.

  “I’m not used to this,” Sanji finally said.

  “Buying flowers?”

  “Kissing a woman I barely know.”

  “I kissed you, and it’s out of character for me, too, especially right after a breakup.”

  “In that case, we can just pretend it never happened.”

  “And how would we do that?”

  “By acting like adults, for example.”

  “Says the man who sprinted me down the street the other day and can’t select a bouquet of flowers by himself. But if that’s what you want …”

  Sanji leaned over the table to kiss Chloe, but she gracefully turned away.

  “When Mr. Rivera is better, you’ll go back to Mumbai, right?”

  “If he gets better soon, yes.”

  “If not, you’ll leave even sooner?”

  “Two weeks at the most, maybe three.”

  “Then, yes, it might be better to just pretend.”

  “What’s the distance between us, an ocean and two continents, or nine floors?”

  “Don’t be cruel, do you think a girl like me—”

  “I’ve never met a woman like you.”

  “You said you hardly knew me.”

  “There are so many people who miss out on each other for stupid reasons. Where’s the risk in stealing a little happiness? If the end of the world were scheduled for the day Mr. Rivera recovers, wouldn’t it still be worth it to fully experience the time we have left?”

  Chloe looked at Sanji, a fragile smile on her face.

  “Try again,” she said softly.

  “To convince you to give us a chance?”

  “No, to kiss me, and this time be careful not to knock over the teapot.”

  Sanji leaned toward Chloe and kissed her.

  “It would be very unfair to Mr. Rivera if the world ended on the day he got out of the hospital,” Chloe said as they left the pastry shop.

  Detective Pilguez came back at six p.m. to question the residents of 12 5th Avenue.

  Mrs. Zeldoff quivered with fear upon learning that a robbery had taken place in her very own building. She didn’t provide the detective with any information. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she chose not to mention the suspicions that had recently been cast upon the elevator operators. Perhaps without them, the burglars would have gone after her apartment, too.

  Mr. Morrison had a serious hangover. He hesitated before revealing that he thought he had seen a man of color in his underwear in the living room. The detective tallied up the empty bottles on the coffee table and replied that once, when he was on a bender, Donald Trump had shown up in a tutu and sung a song in his kitchen. It had been one of the most traumatic experiences of his life.

  The Clercs had seen and heard nothing. Mrs. Clerc felt obligated to recount her activities of the last several days in painstaking detail, and the detective, who had little desire to hear the specifics, interrupted her. She was under no suspicion.

  Mrs. Williams was even more talkative. She related what happened when the technicians came to modernize the elevator. In a few minutes, she declared that she had solved the whole thing. The elevator operators had sabotaged the equipment and then organized a breakin to terrorize everyone and make their presence indispensable, so that the co-op would give up on installing the buttons once and for all. The detective doubted that Deepak’s colleague had thrown himself down the stairs at his age just to have a good laugh. Mrs. Williams smelled like medication, a repulsive odor that reminded Pilguez of the camphor ointment that his aunt Martha used to put on her varicose veins. That was enough to make her seem untrustworthy.

  “I conducted my own investigation,” she protested. “Coincidences are rampant in this building. I found out that our new elevator operator is related to Deepak. Don’t you find that strange?”

  “Must have been a tough investigation—he told me so himself before I even asked. My wife’s goddaughter worked the phones at the police station last summer. Call it nepotism if you like, but it doesn’t mean my wife committed a crime.”

  “Well, if you refuse to do your job, why are you wasting my time?” Mrs. Williams challenged him.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth, lady,” the detective replied before slamming the door on his way out.

  Pilguez ran into Chloe Bronstein in the lobby and asked to speak with her in her apartment.

  He told her what had happened and noticed that she was the only one to show any sympathy for Mrs. Collins. The detective inquired about the elevator operators, and Chloe asked him if Mrs. Williams had been spreading rumors again. For a year now, her xenophobia had been out of control. You only had to watch her
husband’s reporting on Fox to understand the depth of her convictions.

  “You all sure get along great in this building,” the detective said wryly. “You didn’t see anything unusual from this window?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason—I just notice things. Something tells me we have that in common.”

  “Noticing isn’t the same as judging, Detective.”

  “Have you encountered the new elevator operator?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Why not a simple yes or no?”

  “He’s a considerate and generous man.”

  “That’s quite profound for someone you’ve only known a short while.”

  Chloe looked at him, perplexed. This detective had a presence that she found reassuring. She had felt something similar when Sanji had lifted her from her wheelchair and put her into the cab. And this feeling had come back every time she had been with him.

  Since she had nothing more to say, the detective left.

  In the elevator, he asked Deepak if he had any idea how the burglar had gotten past him and into the building.

  “It’s a mystery. When we go upstairs, we always lock the lobby doors,” Deepak explained.

  After the detective had left, Deepak remembered the morning when he had brought clothes for his nephew and found him fresh and clean as a whistle.

  “What about my figure!” Lali scolded, a smile spreading across her face. “Why are you giving me these treats?”

  “To thank you for hosting me.”

  “Considering what you’re doing for us, I should run into the kitchen and bake you a three-layer cake.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” Sanji asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

  “Ask it and we’ll see.”

  “How did you find the courage to flee India?”

  “You’re not asking it right. Fear makes people flee. Courage is what pushes you to move forward, to embrace a new life. Courage is hope.”

  “But you still had to give up everything.”

  “Not what was essential. Besides, I didn’t flee, I left with Deepak. I hope you can see the difference.”

  “When did you know he was the one?”

  Another smile lit up Lali’s face—this time, a mischievous one.

  “What’s her name? Oh, please, don’t play coy with me! Asking that kind of question means something is tugging on you right here,” she said, pressing her index finger to Sanji’s chest. “Does she live in Mumbai? No, of course not,” she interrupted herself. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking your old aunt.”