Murder and Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  The tunnel is a length of rough concrete walls and ceiling, and a floor that’s a little smoother. Desmond leads the way until we come to an old-fashioned spiral staircase made of iron, its steps covered in fraying red carpet. Aloysius Sloan thought of everything, including carpeting the stairs to muffle the sound of feminine footsteps as the ladies made their secret climb to a rendezvous with the master of the house.

  There’s a door at the top of the stairs. Desmond takes a set of house keys from his pocket, selects one, unlocks the door and switches a light on in the vestibule ahead. I follow him through. I realize I’d seen this door before. I’d thought it was a closet door, but it’s a door from the tunnel into the vestibule fronting Eve’s vault of treasures.

  There’s another door to my left. A door I’d also been through before. I open it and walk into Eve’s office. It’s dark except for the luminous dial of the clock on the desk, and quiet except for the clock’s tick. Both give me a chill.

  The clock reads 9:20.

  Desmond turns on the torchiere in the corner near Eve’s desk. The lamp throws a soft light around the room and onto the floor. The sprawling red-brown stain of Eve’s dried blood and the cops’ chalk outline of her corpse uglies the carpet.

  I wander around, get a feel for the scene, imagine James Atchley coming through the door from the tunnel and then through the vestibule door into the office. I imagine the knife in his hand, imagine him stabbing Eve Garraway in the back. I try to see his face, but can’t get a lock on it, can’t see his expression of revenge or hate or desperation or whatever it was that could drive him to murder.

  Desmond’s at Eve’s desk. He leans against it, almost limp, like he’s using the desk to prop himself up. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand again. “Sorry, Cantor. It’s just hard for me to be here, you understand, seein’ that blood and that outline of Miss Garraway’s body on the rug.”

  “Sure,” I say. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Desmond says, “Let’s go back downstairs and have another drink. Maybe it’ll wash away the memory of Miss Garraway lyin’ there.”

  “In a minute,” I say. I’m back at the vestibule door. The vault’s in front of me, its fortune of treasures locked away, out of my grasp. If I could get into that vault, I could get the stuff out through the tunnel. It’s a perfect setup. I think of Mom Sheinbaum’s idea of getting my hands on the stuff and fencing it through her. We’d be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and our dreams are pretty wild. Mine are, at any rate.

  Too bad I didn’t catch the combination when Eve turned the tumblers. I give a thought to coming back sometime with a stethoscope, give a shot to listening to the lock’s tumblers while I turn the dial. I haven’t cracked a safe in a long time, and Eve’s vault door looks like one of the latest modern jobs, a lot tougher to crack, even with sharp ears and delicate fingers. But the fortune inside that vault door could set me up for life.

  The scenario of that tempting opportunity slips out of mind because another, more immediately relevant thought replaces it. “Desmond,” I say, “how would James Atchley know about the tunnel?”

  “Oh, he’d been to the house before, came around to try to pressure Miss Garraway out of her designs on the Atchleys’ banking stuff.”

  “So he was here. So what? It hardly seems likely she’d show him the tunnel. Why would she?”

  “Well, maybe he heard about it from his dad. That’s probably it. Y’know, Dad had been pretty chummy with Miss Garraway. Maybe they had some spicy playtime in there.” He gives that a laugh, a breathy rasp with a vulgar edge that might’ve gotten him fired if he was still a butler.

  But he has a point. Eve might’ve showed Brooks the tunnel. You share all sorts of things when you’re in love, things that come back later to haunt you, or kill you.

  Desmond says, “That Sergeant Adair grinned from ear to ear when we came in here from the tunnel. He was one very happy cop. First time in my life I ever made one of those devils happy.”

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “cops like things neat and tidy and all wrapped up in a bow. Even if the bow isn’t tied right.”

  “What do you mean, not tied right?” Desmond says with a snap of impatience. “Adair says he has it all wrapped up. James Atchley has a date with the electric chair. Good riddance, too. What more do you want?”

  “Nothing, I guess. All right, let’s get that drink.”

  “Now you’re talking.” He starts for the office door.

  “Mind if we go back through the tunnel, Desmond? I’d like to have another look.” There’s no sense wasting the chance to give it a good going-over. Who knows? Maybe I’ll come back with that stethoscope.

  “Suit yourself,” he says. He turns off the torchiere.

  The room goes dark except for the light from the vestibule and that eerie green glow from the desk clock. I follow the silhouette of Desmond out of the office, close the door behind me. Desmond opens the tunnel door, locks it behind us after we step through.

  We make our way down the spiral staircase, then walk along the tunnel. I try to get a picture of James Atchley making his way through here, knife in hand, vengeance in his soul.

  I remember that knife. Remember it sticking out of Eve Garraway’s back. I remember that fancy carved ivory handle. It’s the sort of weapon that was good for murder in, say, medieval Baghdad. It was an antique.

  Thoughts suddenly tumble through my head, snatches of things said since Eve’s death, things said by Desmond, by James, by cops, even by Judson. The tumble of thoughts congeal into just one. “Desmond, I guess you made your peace with Eve and John Garraway after what happened to your daughter.”

  The guy stops walking. He goes as ashy gray as the rough concrete walls of the tunnel. He has that “caught naked” look, as if his pants fell down in a crowded room and everyone sees his festering sores. After a moment of licking his lips, he says, “She didn’t mean it. Miss Garraway . . . didn’t mean it. It was an accident.” He stumbles through every word.

  “That’s mighty big of you, Desmond. If someone killed my kid, and then their powerful daddy got it hushed up, I’d be mad as hell. I sure wouldn’t want to work for them. Have you been mad for twelve years, Desmond?”

  He raises his arm, wags his finger at me, fast and sharp, like he wants to slice me. “You got it all wrong, Cantor. I was mad at first, sure, but I’d been working for old John since Miss Garraway was a baby. She was as much a daughter to me as my own Fiona.” He’s not wagging his finger now. He’s rubbing his eyes again. “I saw how upset Miss Garraway was. She was . . . she was—”

  “She was what? Guilt-ridden? Tearing her hair? Rending her garments? Seems to me she went right on living as daddy’s little girl.”

  “Why are you asking me about all this, Cantor? That’s water under the bridge.”

  “Because that water might drown James Atchley. Maybe it’s drowning the wrong guy.”

  “No, they got the right guy. That arrogant son of a so-and-so hated Miss Garraway.”

  “Funny, just today he told his father he even felt sorry for her for the way Brooks Atchley treated her.”

  “Is that so?” Desmond thrusts his hands in his pockets, ambles around, shakes his head. “He didn’t sound so sorry for her when he tried to get her to stop acting against the Atchley banking business. The guy was seething with vengeance. Vengeance is a very powerful thing.”

  “Yeah, it can fester for years, can’t it, Desmond.”

  “Well, it sure festered in James Atchley. You should’ve heard him, Cantor. He wasn’t exactly making polite conversation with Miss Garraway. He’d even grabbed her. I told you yesterday, remember? Left a bruise on her arm. Now, if you’re finished with this nonsense, let’s get that drink.” He claps me on the back like we’re drinking buddies again.

  “Not so fast,” I say. “Something else is bothering me, Desmond. The knife that killed Eve.”

  “What about it? That Adair fella
said James recognized it. It was Atchley’s knife.”

  “Yeah, was,” I say. “The knife was an antique. Not the first weapon you’d pick out of the drawer to commit murder. It was an antique that the Atchley family auctioned off along with a number of other things. And you know who bought those things?”

  “Wait a minute, Cantor. What the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Eve bought that knife when she bought the Atchley auction lot. Sounds to me like she was digging into the Atchleys every which way she could, even buying up their hand-me-down antiques. The knife came along with the other stuff. It wasn’t a high-priced item. Maybe Eve left it lying around in the office. Maybe she kept it as a symbol of what she had in store for the Atchleys. Maybe she even gave the knife to you. You said she was generous to you. What I’m saying, Desmond, is I’m starting to think it wasn’t James Atchley’s revenge that killed Eve Garraway. It was yours.”

  After an accusation like that, you’d think the guy would be angry, or even scared. But Desmond’s smiling. The smile gets wider, wilder, until it becomes a giggling laugh scraping through his old man’s wispy voice. “You really have got it all wrong, Cantor. I didn’t feel any revenge. I knew my Fiona could be a handful. She had her mother’s quick temper, and nasty sometimes, too. I’d seen her nearly scratch her friends’ eyes out. There were times I wanted to— well, never mind. That don’t matter.” His laugh grows darker. There’s no humor in it, just bleak whimpers. “What matters is I loved Miss Garraway like she was my own.”

  “So why did you kill her, Desmond?”

  He digs his hands deeper into his coat pockets. His whole body shrivels around his bones. His eyes get teary again, only this time he doesn’t bother to wipe the tears away. He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out, just a gag trying to block a deep pain. It takes him a minute to swallow it and finally speak. “Because she told me I was fired. That’s right, after you left the other day, she told me I was getting too old, that I’d dropped too many things lately, that I was forgetting things. She told me I had to clear out by the end of the month. Then she turned her back on me. Me, who’d been loyal to her dad, who’d supported her, stood by her even after she murdered my Fiona. She was throwing me out into the street. And that knife, that knife—” He’s talking faster now, his body tensing, his tears faster. “You’re right about that knife, Cantor. Miss Garraway used it as a letter opener. It was on the desk. And after she told me I was fired, I grabbed it and I—” His hand is out of his pocket. He’s holding the bronze sconce, making a stabbing motion with it, his face scrunched up in a horror movie grimace, but with tears in his eyes.

  And then his eyes find mine as he swings the sconce against the side of my head.

  I hear his breathy, “Good-bye, Cantor.” I see his face fade behind white sparks in front of my eyes. The sparks flame out. There’s nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I think my eyes are opening, my lids lifting slowly. At least that’s what it feels like. But I don’t see anything, just darkness, a thick, black, smothering darkness. There’s a pain on the left side of my head. It slices like razors through my skull. Something warm and wet slides down my cheek. The floor’s hard and cold. The air’s gritty.

  All these sensations swirl like a windstorm inside my brain and finally fuse together into awareness. I’m in the tunnel of the Garraway house. The warm, wet stuff on my cheek and oozing into the corner of my mouth is blood dripping from the wound made by the sconce Desmond smashed against the side of my head.

  Standing up is no easy business. My legs can’t make up their mind if they’re made of soft rubber that won’t straighten or brittle sticks that might snap. Somehow or other, using my hands to push against the wall at my back, I manage to stand up. My legs aren’t happy about it. My head’s not thrilled about it, either.

  I know what I have to do. I know because it’s not the first time I’ve been knocked around. It comes with the life I lead, the dangerous way I make my dough. It comes with the fists of bully-boy cops or society’s snarling straight-backs. I know that I have to take long, deep, slow breaths to stop the dizziness. I know that I have to ignore the pain in my head, push it out of consciousness. And I know that I have to get out of here.

  I fish around in my pockets for a book of matches. No luck. I’ll have to make my way in the dark. I remember Desmond turning on a light switch at the street entrance to the tunnel. I remember there’s a door at the top of the spiral stairs. But I’m in no condition to climb a spiral staircase in the dark. I’ll have to make my way to the front of the tunnel.

  But which way is the front? There’s no left or right, front or back in pitch dark.

  Only one way to find out. I start walking, keep one hand along the wall to help me stay on my feet.

  Wrong way. I’ve just bumped into the stairs.

  I turn around slowly to keep the dizziness from coming back. Little by little I traipse through the darkness, one hand against the wall, my other hand stretched out in front of me to tell me when I’ve reached the front of the tunnel.

  My hand bumps against the stone door. I’ve made it.

  I reach over to the side, find the light switch and flip it on. The world rights itself.

  I check to see if Desmond might’ve made off with my wallet, my lockpicks, or my gun. They’re all there. The old thief must be slipping, or maybe he thought I’d never be found until I was a desiccated corpse some future resident of the house stumbled across. Or maybe his long-ago outlaw instincts to make a fast getaway got the better of him, and nothing else mattered.

  There’s no visible lock on the door, no flower petal to push. There’s got to be a way to open the brownstone blocks; otherwise, there’d be well-dressed skeletons of Mr. Sloan’s ladies of pleasure lying around. But after pushing and pressing several spots on the stone and getting nowhere, I forget about it. I stand a better chance upstairs at the vestibule door.

  The spiral staircase isn’t helping to keep the dizziness away, so when I reach the top I stand still and take a few deep breaths to keep the world from spinning.

  When the world settles back into place, I take out my lockpicks, make quick work of the lock on the vestibule door, open it, and turn on the light. A moment later I’m through the door to Eve’s office. I make my way across the room by the light from the vestibule, don’t bother to turn on any lights in the office. I’m not interested in the office. There’s nothing to see here but Eve’s blood and the chalk outline of her corpse. I don’t feel like lingering with either.

  Outside the office I open the other doors surrounding the mezzanine, look around in bedrooms and storage rooms. I figure Desmond is long gone, but I check anyway. The guy’s old. Maybe he tripped and fell. Maybe he’s out cold on the floor. But I don’t find him anywhere.

  It’s the same story downstairs. Desmond is nowhere in the house.

  A mantel clock in the living room surprises me with the news that it’s a few minutes past ten o’clock.

  I look around for a phone. There isn’t one in the living room, but I find one across the hall in the library. It’s on the massive walnut desk, the kind of desk where big plans are made. I bet Boss John Garraway hatched more than a few political deals and dirty tricks in this room.

  I make my first call. The officer tells me Sergeant Adair’s gone home for the night. I tell the guy it’s important, tell him it’s life and death on one of Adair’s cases, and to have him call me back at this number, pronto.

  There’s a liquor cabinet behind the desk with a selection of libations. I pull out a bottle of Chivas, don’t bother with a glass. I need a long draw, fast, to keep the world steady. It does the trick.

  I make myself comfortable in the desk chair, a cushy oxblood leather number where I imagine little Eve sitting on her daddy’s knee while he instructs her in the ways of power. I imagine daddy’s daughter listening and learning. This charming fantasy is interrupted by the ringing phone. “Adair?”

  “Who
’s this?”

  “It’s Cantor Gold. Listen, you’ve got the wrong guy. James Atchley didn’t kill Eve Garraway. Desmond Mallory did. It was Mallory who knifed her in the back.” So much for Desmond’s story about respecting the underworld’s code of an honorable murder.

  There’s silence on his end, just the sound of his uneasy breathing. I can almost see his nostrils flare and his lips tighten. “And you know this how?” he finally says.

  “He told me.” I give him the story.

  He says, “I’ll bring him in.”

  “First you’ll have to find him.”

  “He’s an old guy. He can’t get far.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” I say. “Check your department records. You’ll see the guy was a pro in the old days. Did time, but got away with a lot of stuff before they nailed him. They say he killed someone years ago, too. He knows the ropes and the roads. Good luck finding him, sergeant.” I hang up.

  I take another pull on the Chivas while I think about making another call.

  Of course I make it. It’s the deal we made.

  When I get Sig on the line, I give him the same story I gave Adair. All Sig says is, “Thank you, Cantor.” The phone feels like ice in my hand.

  • • •

  By the time I get back to my apartment, I let go of the idea of a night at the Green Door Club. Twirling around the dance floor would kick the dizziness back into play, and the bloody wound at the side of my head would probably put off the lovelies. It might also cause a snicker or even a lecture from Peg. She might even push one of those magazines in my hand, like the one she gave Rosie, and tell me to read all about how I don’t have to fight my battles alone.

  Well, maybe she has a point. I suppose I should give it some thought. Battles aren’t won by an individual soldier; it takes a whole army. If nothing else, the sisters and brothers of my romantic persuasion would certainly make a colorful army. Sharp suits and sequined gowns clashing with cops. I have to admit it has its appeal.