by Triss Stein
“But the authorities have? That sergeant woman?”
I nodded.
“Well, that is good. I don’t wish her any harm. If only she would come to her senses, we could be cordial neighbors, I’m sure. “
“You won’t be a neighbor for long, right? Maybe none of this matters?”
“In a sense, none of it does. Very true.” He looked calmer now, less disturbed. “Still, I will have to contact NYPD about this new letter. And offer any assistance for Louisa’s situation, too. We must render unto Caesar.”
He stood up, once more the chubby old man with an air of authority oddly mixed with humility. “Sister Joan, I’ll take that police phone number now. And you should walk Ms. Donato to the elevator, please.”
She came in with a pillbox and counted out three multicolored tablets, scolding him softly for forgetting. She poured a glass of water and said, “I’ll wait while you swallow them.”
Then I was quite firmly dismissed. The young lady whispered as we walked, “He scared me there for a few minutes. He was so stressed, and he isn’t well.”
“I noticed you brought him some medication?”
“He isn’t reliable about taking it. Sometimes he forgets.”
“You seem almost as upset as he was.”
“I worry. He’s such a good man, he is so devoted to his work and our beliefs, and he’s dedicated his whole life. But this huge task, getting all the sales completed, is wearing him out. I’m not the only one worried about him, of course.” She looked at me seriously. “He’s so valued and beloved here. So we try to take good care of him.” The elevator bumped.
“And here we are. Come on. The exit door is right around here. And then here.”
She guided me expertly through the corridors and said goodbye. “You’ll find the gate easily if you keep to the right past the next two buildings. Got that?”
I was back in the rest of the world in a few minutes. It was a long walk up the hill that gave the Heights its name, to where I would find transportation back to work. I had to stop and get my breath at one of the benches along Louisa’s street.
I saw Nancy Long down the street, leaning against a fence. She was watching the scene on the street. Just watching.
An instant detour for me.
“Hello, Nancy. How are you? I’m Erica. Joe introduced us a few days ago?”
She nodded. “Yes. At that dreadful party. I hate those kind of people.” She didn’t turn to look at me. She stared across the street and did not say another word.
It’s hard to have a conversation with someone who does not want to converse back, but I was determined to try. I leaned against the fence, too.
“Didn’t you say you do work for Louisa Gibbs? I know her a little. How is she doing?”
“I’ve been at her house today.” I stared, and she finally turned to me. “She’d be doing okay, if only they’d leave her alone. Mind their own business. And yet they go on and on, just to make a little more on their property.” She looked away. “Sorry. I don’t have good memories of that world.” She turned a little pink, as if embarrassed to have said that much, and would not meet my eyes.
“What do you mean? Are you…?”
“Was. I was. This is not a secret. Joe knows, so I figured you must have heard. I don’t talk about it, though. Let the past bury itself is my first commandment.”
“But! But how did you stand working for Louisa all these years?” I just blurted it out. “Right next door to one of their buildings? You said that, didn’t you?” I was sure I remembered it. “That you work for her in spite of the neighbors?”
“Why not?” The stare she gave me was almost as hostile as her words. “Why should I let them take any more away from me? I like her. And her house! How could I resist an old beauty like that?” She said it with a face of stone. “How I do it? I try to pretend they are not there.”
“How’s that working for you?”
She did finally look at me then. “Lately, not so great.”
“You mean because of Louisa’s dispute with them?”
“Well, sure. We’ve grown close, her and me. I, well, I don’t have any family. Not now. And hers are all gone. And she was one of my first little jobs, way before they put up that monster.”
There were more stories here for sure. Maybe not part of my work, but even if not, I wanted to know more.
“But now? It’s gotten hard, with them really harassing her.”
I was taking a chance when I responded, “They would say she is harassing them.”
“That’s what they always say.” Her voice was as hard as her face. “Sometimes it’s even true. There is a long history of that. You could find out. But hell. Sometimes it’s a damn excuse to do whatever they want.” She stopped. “And wouldn’t they be shocked if they heard me using those words? But they’d hear only if they spoke to me. Which they don’t.”
She pointed across the street. “See him?” It was Daniel Towns, emerging from a car and walking into their building. “Known him since I was kid. He walks right past me if we happen to meet on the street.” Her voice changed. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” She gave me another hard look. “That’s Mark 7:6, riffing on Isaiah. An admonishment they conveniently forget.”
“Towns? Is he really that bad? I just talked to him today. He seems to be a hardworking, worried, mild sort of old guy. And stressed about his responsibilities right now.”
“Well, you bought his act.” She wouldn’t look at me. ”He is also hard-hearted and hardheaded, like all the leaders. Only one way is right, and it’s for sure his. Life on the straight and narrow path. No room for anyone who wants some curves.” Her expression grew harder with each word. “He’s worried and stressed? Well, boo-hoo.”
She stood and picked up her bags. “I must be going. Places to be. So long.” She stopped for a tiny second and whispered, “No one deserves stress more than Daniel Towns. Or pain. Or guilt.”
I walked back to the subway and returned to my office with my head spinning. This lunchtime excursion had turned out to be far more confusing than I had expected. I wondered and wondered how much Nancy Long really hated Daniel Towns. Was it more than talk to her?
In my first free minute I called the one person who might actually know something solid. Sergeant Torres was available. In fact she answered the phone herself.
“It’s Dr. Donato. We met when I accompanied Louisa Gibbs to the precinct.”
“Yes, I remember. What can I do for you?”
I told her about my experience with Daniel Towns and my conversation with Nancy Long. She noted the latter and said about Towns, “He’s already contacted us. Naturally, we continue to be concerned.”
“Concerned? Would I be out of line to ask what that actually means? In plain Brooklyn English?”
“I figured you for a Brooklyn girl.” I could hear a smile in her voice. “I’ve wanted to talk to you anyway. You mentioned you researched and wrote about earlier days in Brooklyn Heights, and I asked around about you. We could use some more help on that.”
What could I do but say, “Tell me more.”
“Can you meet with me? This is a little, um, let’s say it’s confidential. “
I could and I would. No way would I resist that invitation.
“You remember where we are, on Gold Street?”
That was in the labyrinth of crowded, low-end commercial streets of downtown Brooklyn, near the entrance to the expressway.
“Yes.”
She named a nearby bar, not a cop hangout. “Private, and obscure. You know?”
I did know the street. I’d find it. Tonight? I agreed, left messages for Joe and Chris. I had a tiny pang about Joe, but I got over it. And Chris often foraged her own dinner even when I was home. This was too strange, really, for me to pass up. And I w
anted to put in a good word for Louisa.
Torres was in the back corner of a corner booth, the most obscure seat in the place, back to the wall, eyes front. She looked as drab as before. A not-uniform uniform, I thought. I sat down, ordered a beer, glanced at the menu.
“I wouldn’t stray from the bar snacks. They don’t exactly cook here.” She flashed an unexpected smile.
I looked around at the greasy, yellowed walls and chipped tile floor and said, “I’ve been in places like this before. I’ll stick to French fries, right?”
Looking serious and even stressed, she laid it out for me. “We could use better information about the feud between the Watchtower Society and Louisa Gibbs. It looks like it might be related to all this mess.”
I was surprised.
“I’ll try to explain what I know. It’s not much.” And I did, ending with, “How is this helpful?”
Torres made a face and only answered, “I can’t tell you, but you can think it through. And to make our lives complete, we were under some pressure about the ongoing disagreements even before those letters and all, even though it’s actually a civil matter.”
“I don’t understand at all.”
She sighed. “Politics. Politicians. Can’t get away from them. These real estate deals involve lots of money, lots of big shots.” She morosely sipped her drink. “In their own eyes, anyway, if not in ours. But it will be our asses if this escalates, that is for sure.”
“But I still don’t see where I come in.”
“We need to know more about Daniel Towns and about Louisa Gibbs. We’ve already checked public records. No arrests, no lawsuits, no legal issues of any kind.”
“Which surprised…?”
“Right. Exactly no one. Both upright citizens all the way. But someone out there—someone!—doesn’t see it that way. Or maybe two someones. Which brings us to those letters.”
“But it all seems so incongruous. Like, hate mail is so…?”
“Junior high?“ She almost, almost smiled. “So I had this idea. What if we go back further? Maybe we’ll come up with something to question or something that helps us make sense of it. What if we’re missing something from the past?”
I almost laughed. “I just had this conversation with Dr. Kingston. We were discussing the threatening letters.”
I could see her frown even in the dim light of the bar.
“What are you talking about?” She took a deep breath before she said any more. “You agreed not to talk about it when you came in the other day.”
“I didn’t. He told me.” I was surprised she was surprised and told her what I knew.
“Damn. Damn! Someone’s been gossiping. Honestly, a cop house is as bad as a hen house. Gabble, gabble, gabble.” I guessed someone’s head would roll for this. She looked grim. “OK. The problem is I don’t have anyone who has the time to dig deep. We’ve got a few other actual crimes to deal with! I’m thinking maybe someone like you would have more expertise in that kind of digging anyway. Ya know?”
“I could look around. I mean, I know some sources, sure. But it could take a while, and it’s a crapshoot. I can’t promise any results. Plus, I have a job, responsibilities. I don’t know how I would squeeze it in.” But my mind was racing. I would definitely find a way to squeeze it in. Of course I would.
She leaned back, considering. “I’m wondering if you would be more susceptible to pleas of civic duty or offers of money.”
“Try both.” I had to laugh, and she even laughed with me.
“Ha. So, don’t you feel you have a responsibility to help solve this problem? Keep the wheels of the community turning smoothly?” She stared into my eyes, checking to see if she was getting anywhere. Then she added “Also, I do have some funds for confidential informants. How’d you like to become one?”
I briefly flashed on my father’s expression if I told him that. Or Joe. I flashed on what they were sure to say, too. And they wouldn’t be wrong either. Or not exactly wrong.
She looked at me and smiled. “You know you want to.”
She got that right, but I said, cautiously, “Can I have overnight to think about it?”
“Fair enough. Give me a ring in the morning, OK?” She sounded confident. “By the way, we know now Mrs. Gibbs didn’t write those letters to Towns. Handwriting wasn’t a match. No idea who did. Not yet,” she added. “We will.”
“And what about the ones she got?”
“They are still working on those. The same person did not write both sets of letters.” She saw my surprised face and smiled. “I know. That would have made it easier.”
She seemed to decide something. “The experts think the Towns letters are someone imitating Mrs. Gibbs’s handwriting.”
“What? No way. Why in the world? How could they come up with that?”
“No idea. But the why might be…”
“I see. Someone trying to get her in trouble?”
“Could be. And I wonder why I have a headache every day! You want to take a look? At both sets? Just to see what they said? Might be that I could arrange that.”
“You know I do.” I added, “Do you ever go fishing?”
She was startled, then she did smile, almost a full grin. “I grew up in Sheepshead Bay. Fishing boats all over. I know how to hook them, yes, I do.”
“I give in. I’m hooked.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I will help you. What do you need me to do?”
“Find out what you can about Gibbs, the property itself, and Towns, as far back as you can go. Everything. Our citizens at the Watchtower Society are not exactly being forthcoming. They feel like we have no right to look at the old records. They are claiming some are missing, destroyed in a flood, blah, blah, blah. Stalling us.”
“I don’t get it. Don’t they want to protect Mr. Towns?”
“They do. And they don’t. Ya know? They are a closemouthed bunch.”
I still wasn’t quite done with the complications.
“One last thing. Tell me the truth, if you can.”
Torres raised her eyebrows at that, but she listened.
“How can you possibly believe Louisa Gibbs is involved in any of this? This craziness? Anything criminal? When she spent her whole life working for the public good?”
“Others might disagree with that.”
“All right, all right. Her belief about the public good, OK? And no one who knows her would think for a minute she is mentally incapable.”
She looked away from me for a long moment. Finally, she nodded, as if making a decision. “Yes. Yes, it seems out of character. That’s what anyone would think. But you must know this—we are obligated to look at everything and everyone. Yes, it seems the handwriting issue on those letters is resolved, though it doesn’t prove she was not involved in the threats some other way. No, don’t bother to argue. It sounds too much like her to convince everyone that she is in the clear.” She stopped again, sipped her beer, sighed. “Anyone who is not you, anyway.”
She swallowed the last of her drink. “Obviously, we are digging deeper into it. Think about it as you look at your information and remember your view might not be the whole one? Yes?”
I agreed to that caveat. I sure didn’t want to, but what choice was there?
Chapter Eight
“I know we don’t have sleepovers on school nights, but, Mom! We have a yearbook meeting before classes. Really, really early, and Mel’s dad said he’d drive us.”
That’s how the next day began. She wanted to spend the night at her best friend Mel’s. I wanted to stick to my rules.
“You know this makes sense. Are you afraid we’re up to something? Going clubbing?” She saw my hesitation. Maybe I did think something like that? Or worry about it, anyway? “Seriously? Would you talk to Mel’s mom already?”
So I did, and the plan as presented w
as true. Parents would be home. Girls would go to school early. What could I do but say yes? I didn’t want to be unreasonable. I encouraged working on yearbook. I didn’t want my daughter to think I didn’t trust her. Even though I didn’t. I remembered my own teen years too well.
And Joe would be home from his job out on the shore. Okay, call me stupid that I didn’t think about that earlier.
I casually wandered upstairs and casually stood in her doorway, watching as she collected her overnight things.
“Joe is back tonight. You won’t get to see him when he gets here.”
Her back to me, intensely examining a nightshirt for her bag, she mumbled, “I’ll see him soon enough.” That’s when I knew this was a setup, part of Chris’s long campaign to play Cupid. It had intensified some, now that she had a boyfriend of her own.
I wanted to hug her, but I could see she wanted to believe her little plan had worked. And later, it did work.
He came home to a table set for dinner, wineglasses out, candles lit, purchased sushi decoratively arranged on a platter. A little celebration. We were so glad to see each other, I didn’t even worry about what it meant. About how deep a part of each other’s lives we had become.
We woke early and made good use of the time, then it was suddenly late, and I dashed out to work. Lucky Joe, who worked for himself. No one would question if he showed up late on a visit to a house in renovation; they’d assume he was delayed at another house. And so he was. At mine.
I slid into my office chair, hoping no one had seen me, switched my computer on, and there it was, a completely forgotten deadline.
Good morning to me. My first email was a reminder that I owed someone a blog post. Who they heck were they? The media outreach team, the one charged with raising the museum profile among media-savvy art lovers. Young ones mostly. Modern museum marketing. Every department had a designated schedule to write something interesting—no, fascinating. Or charming. And recent. Something about behind the scenes. With photos. To add relatability. What a stupid word that was.
I swore. It was my turn and I had completely forgotten about it. Due tomorrow. This was like being back in school, struggling to keep on top of deadlines. I did not need this today.