I sipped my excellent “double decaf mocha extra whipped” and did a mental calculation. The Ferguson plant was at the south end of Lincoln Point, past the Nolin Creek Pines housing project, at least a couple of miles from the coffee shop. I stared down at two identical slices of almond atop my bear claw. Which twin had left the property to come into town for lunch with Oliver Halbert? Or to make a stop at the ’rents house? It didn’t matter, since Lillian had said neither was gone from the factory for more than a few minutes to pick up sandwiches.
I ate the almonds with some delicacy and then took a large bite of the bear claw.
Was Lillian’s memory going, or did one of her boys just lose his alibi?
Either way, Skip should know about my morning. I thought I might as well wait until after I’d done a quick tour in Oliver’s apartment, picked up the room box, then I’d report to both Skip and Susan.
I wondered if Skip would believe that my motive for visiting Lillian was purely neighborly? Probably not. The irony was that I’d learned more when I was merely on a coffee break.
Was this why cops hung around coffee shops?
Chapter 9
I parked in front of Oliver Halbert’s apartment building and dug out the key Susan had given me. I sat for a while, finishing off the rest of the mocha, getting the lay of the land. All around me was another deserted street.
My excursions today put me in mind of my years in New York. Ken and I would take the subway into Manhattan often and marveled that even the city that never slept was quiet once a week—only on Sunday morning, and only if you stayed away from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Maybe it had to do with the angle of the solar system.
I swallowed the last bit of mocha and went to work.
Oliver’s one-bedroom apartment was sparsely furnished, as I imagined most bachelor domiciles to be. A nasty orange couch, two army green chairs, and a coffee table with a slightly slanted top dominated the living room and looked to have been purchased at a church rummage sale. Though freshly painted, the walls were a tired cream color with dull brown baseboards. An ugly paisley area rug was no more tasteful than the furniture. If I received this as a room box, I thought, I’d remodel and preserve only the strip of hardwood flooring around the perimeter of the living room.
I’d entered the apartment relatively easily, walking down a side alley, past several sets of rubbish containers and up an outside flight of concrete steps.
Before entering, I’d put on a pair of rubber crafts-work gloves—there was always a box of them in my car. (You never knew when a mini repair job would be necessary.) I had no idea why it mattered that I didn’t leave fingerprints today, since I could rightly claim that this was a solicited visit from the deceased occupant’s closest relative.
The most attractive feature in Oliver’s living room was the small room box Susan had made for her brother in half-scale (one foot of real space represented by one-half inch in the room box). Susan had modeled the interior of a home construction site, to represent Oliver’s profession. The whole box measured just eight inches long (as if it were sixteen feet in real life), five inches deep, and four inches high.
“If I make it too big, he might just toss it,” she’d said at our crafts meeting, by way of explaining her choice of scale. Since she asked me to take it back to her now that Oliver had passed on, I assumed she knew that her brother had not discarded the gift. The box was the only decoration in the apartment other than a few photographs. The scene was in a prime spot on a scantily populated bookshelf, visible as soon as one entered the combination living room and dining room. I made a mental note to remember to tell Susan how prominently the box was displayed.
Susan had done some of the work on the room box with our group on crafts nights. I remembered how we’d all taken a turn at grating scraps of balsa wood to make sawdust, and at painting and laying miniature bricks (small pieces of foam board painted red) for the unfinished fireplace on the left wall of the box.
I admired the fine detail in the room box scene, from the planks of wood on a sawhorse to the scraps on the floor. A tiny surveying instrument stood on a tripod and various tools lay on the many surfaces. Maddie had been taken especially by the miniature hard hats and the tiny black lunch box, its sections spread open to display a one-third-inch-long thermos bottle.
There was one strange addition that I didn’t remember seeing when the room box was at our meetings—an extra workbench against one wall. It seemed to be made from found objects—a plastic holder of some kind, painted (not very well) brown, served as the top of the table and a cork from a bottle of wine provided the base. The piece was less polished than the rest of the room, and I thought perhaps the cork had special meaning for Susan and her brother. Though I preferred a rich dessert, I knew Susan’s favorite way to celebrate was to “pop a cork,” in her words.
In any case, the structure of the table wasn’t too surprising, since Susan was like me in that regard, using scraps found around the house to make furniture and accessories. We were both markedly unlike the others in the crafts group, especially Linda, the purist, who would never use a toothpaste tube cover or the cup that came with cough syrup for a lampshade, for example.
I hadn’t come here to reminisce about our combined handiwork. Not for the first time, I asked myself—why had I come to Oliver Halbert’s apartment? Why hadn’t I insisted that Susan herself come to get her room box? Had I subconsciously wanted to see the victim’s surroundings for myself?
I heard a noise outside and carried the tiny room box to the small window that overlooked the alleyway. There was still not much traffic, either foot or vehicular, except two young Asian women who might have been nannies pushing strollers with Caucasian babies along the sidewalk.
Directly below me, however, a black car pulled up near the gate leading into the alley. So as not to be conspicuous in Oliver’s complex, I’d parked across the street, but this driver had taken the car as far as he possibly could to the bottom step without squeezing down the alley, crashing into the trash containers, and knocking off his side mirrors.
Two men, one tall and one short, exited the car. I had no reason to think they would head for this apartment, but I sincerely hoped not. What if they were friends of Oliver, come to visit, not knowing of his death? I didn’t want to be the one to deliver the news. I had to admit that wasn’t the only reason I willed the men to be connected to a different address in the complex—I didn’t want to be found snooping, though I had every right to be here.
Something about the way the men walked caused an inexplicable wave of fear to come over me and I felt trapped in the small space, as if I wouldn’t be able to leave without being seen and captured, and I wouldn’t be able to stay without fainting from the bleak décor and the deadly silence.
He did the mash. He did the monster mash.
The music startled me. The sudden sound added to my stressful state and threw me so far off balance that I dropped the room box, which was partway back to its position on Oliver’s bookshelf. I’d planned to take a brief look around the rest of the apartment, then come back for the room box and take it to my car.
The box hit the windowsill and landed on the hardwood floor. I cringed.
He did the mash. He did the monster mash.
The deep voice of Bobby “Boris” Pickett came from my cell phone. Maddie had programmed “Monster Mash” for my cell phone ring of the month of October. After thirty days of “School Days,” the melody for September, I’d been ready for the classic Halloween song.
My hands were shaking so badly, it took both of them to open my phone and take the call. I distracted myself by questioning how eleven-year-olds knew about the hits of the sixties, when their grandparents had still been in high school.
“Hi, Grandma. It’s me.”
I steadied my breathing. “Hi, sweetheart. Are you having a good time in San Francisco?”
I picked up the broken room box as I talked. The end that had hit the wood floor first was slightly
damaged. The side wall had splintered in one spot and several fireplace bricks had come unglued. A calendar with a picture of Rosie the Riveter had fallen from its spot on an unfinished wall. (This was Susan, sending a message to the imaginary construction workers.) The makeshift workbench was intact but loose in its moorings, the painted plastic top looking worse than ever. Susan must have been in a great hurry to have considered it finished.
“First we had breakfast at the Ferry Building.” It was a struggle to remember who was on the phone and who might be climbing the outside steps toward me. “And then we shopped outside where there are arts and crafts. But not miniatures, just earrings and paintings and stuff. Nothing interesting.” Maddie giggled. “Don’t tell my mom I said that, okay?”
“You mean about the paintings not being worth your time, when they’re your mom’s passion and career?”
“Yeah, that. Now we’re walking to Pier Thirty-nine. Aunt Beverly says it’s a long way around the Embarcadero from where we parked, but it’s nice out and we didn’t want to wait for the bus that takes you here.”
“You’re walking and talking?”
“Uh-huh. So is Aunt Beverly. She’s on her phone with Uncle Nick.”
Two people walking side by side, each on her own cell phone—one of the most common scenes on the streets from Lincoln Point to San Francisco. And who was I to talk about multitasking? I was planning the repair on the room box I’d damaged and searching the alley for the new arrivals while I spoke to Maddie.
“Thanks for giving me a report on your day,” I said.
“What are you doing? And please don’t tell me ‘ errands.’ ”
“I’m doing something for a friend. I’m going home soon and I’ll be there to greet you when you get back. We’ll do something fun.” It was nice telling the truth.
“Did you go back to Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson’s house?”
“I may have.”
“Nuts. You have to save something for me to do, Grandma.”
“There’s a lot to do before Halloween. We still have to prepare all the witches and the ghosts for the room boxes and decorate the Bronx dollhouse.” I thought how my real apartment on the Grand Concourse was about the same size as this one that Oliver had lived in.
“You know what I mean. Something to do on The Case.”
Thump, scrape, thump, scrape.
My heart jumped. Footsteps on the outside stairway or walkway, sounding very close. I’d lost track of the men. If I remembered correctly the steps on this side of the building led only to this and one other apartment, with a shared concrete path one level up from the street. I hoped it was Oliver’s neighbors who were having company.
No such luck. The footsteps stopped and I heard muffled voices and the rattle of the doorknob to this apartment. I held my breath and noted the sound of a key in the lock.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I have to go,” I whispered to Maddie. The last words I heard before pushing the power button off and clicking the phone shut were, “Are you somewhere you shouldn’t be, Grandma?” Maddie was the master of the accusatory tone. It was a good thing I was still bigger than my granddaughter; I couldn’t imagine how intimidated I’d have been otherwise.
I stuffed the room box into my tote lest its condition give away my presence. I tiptoed to the back where the bedroom and bath were.
It sounded like two men had entered the living room. I heard two voices and got a whiff of aftershave with an acidy edge to it. The odor, which probably wouldn’t have been offensive any other time, caused my stomach to lurch. I had another unwanted taste or two of my mocha, then of my bear claw. I felt a chill in spite of my sweater and the comfortable temperature in the apartment.
When was I going to learn to keep out of Cases, with a capital C?
“What are we looking for, Boss?” one man asked. A somewhat weak voice.
“Anything that connects us,” the other man said. A strong, deep voice.
“Like . . . ?”
“What do you think?” An annoyed voice. “Papers or notebooks or computer disks, stuff like that.”
“Got it, Boss.”
I had only moments to make a decision. To hide or not to hide? My prospects for staying hidden were looking dimmer and dimmer. The bed was a double futon that took up most of the room and sat on the floor with not so much as six inches to crawl under. I got down on my knees to inspect the area behind the bed, coming in direct contact with the dusty brown baseboards. I saw no space to hide even a pair of slippers.
I moved to inspect the bathroom—tiny, barely large enough for one person to move around in. If anyone opened the door, there I would be.
Oliver’s apartment was even more like our tiny Grand Concourse residence than I’d thought at first. Like our former Bronx home, there was no closet here, but simply a narrow alcove, deep enough for a hanger, with no room to spare, covered by a thin curtain on a rod.
“Take the desk,” the man in charge said. “Make sure you check under the drawers, too. I’m going to look for a computer.”
“The police took it, remember?”
“Maybe there’s another one.”
I stood still but swallowed so hard, I thought the men might hear my gulp. I hadn’t seen a computer in the living room. How did the man know that the police had already been here and taken it? Did he have a connection with the LPPD as I did? Probably not, I decided; he said it because it would be a matter of course these days. What were the chances one or both of the men would look here in the bedroom for a second computer or another desk where Oliver might have kept papers? Very good, I decided.
The door between the rooms was wide open, held there by a brick doorstop. There was no choice other than to make myself known, to act as though I belonged here. I could be part of the cleaning crew, or the landlady. I’d play it cool, as Maddie might have said before she switched to “wicked.” I didn’t want my appearance to be too much of a surprise to the men, so I deliberately made noise as I marched across the bedroom and reached the threshold between the bedroom and the living room.
So much of my attention went into that move that I tripped on the edge of the ugly paisley rug and fell into the living room, knocking my head on the brick doorstop.
The living room, as seen from the floor, spun full circle. Then I tasted loose threads from Oliver’s dingy rug and all was black.
I woke up lying on the ugly orange couch, with a splitting headache, and with what Skip would call “goons” sitting in the awful green chairs, which they’d pulled close together.
Where was Skip anyway? How long had I been here? I didn’t want to know how I’d gotten to this position. The questions poured from my tired brain. Why hadn’t anyone come looking for me? How come when I took a little nap in my own home, everyone missed me, but now that I was virtually kidnapped by two strange men in a strange apartment, no one noticed? The men were dressed as counter opposites: the taller man wore a beige sports coat and tie, the other man wore jeans and a denim jacket. Neither was especially large, but both frightened me.
And thinking of the police, why hadn’t I called Skip before coming to Oliver’s apartment? I could have had him meet me here. It wasn’t as if I were planning an illegal entry. He’d have understood why Susan wanted me to come. My police detective nephew could have been pulling up at the curb right now. My own arrogance (stupidity?) had brought me to this end.
I looked across the room to the window. It was still light out, so perhaps I hadn’t been here that long. When I tried to sit up, the room traveled clockwise, stopped, and spun counterclockwise. My head fell back down on the dirty, smelly orange pillow. I’d fainted only two or three times in my life, so I didn’t have a good measure of when I could expect to be back to normal.
Or if I could expect to leave Oliver’s apartment alive.
I looked at the men, sitting in a relaxed position on the chairs. The shorter one was so relaxed that his denim jacket had fallen open to reveal the butt of a gun.
I felt anot
her wave of nausea and tried to convince myself that if they’d wanted to kill me, they’d had their best chance already. My instinct was to pretend I was still asleep. For how long? Until they left? I knew that wouldn’t work.
“Who are you?” I asked, when I could no longer stand the silence and the fear that had built up in my mind. It wasn’t lost on me that these men could be Oliver’s killers, but someone had to start the conversation. I took it as a good sign that the gun wasn’t actually pointed at me. Maybe it was something other than a gun. A tool of some kind. I could only hope.
“Who are you?” the strong voice, from the taller man asked.
I put together the pieces of what I’d seen and heard before my graceful entry. The strong voice belonged to the man called “the boss.” Good to know the pecking order in a situation like this.
“I’m a friend of Susan’s, Oliver Halbert’s sister.” My throat was dry to the point of hurting. I wondered if I dared ask for a glass of water.
“What are you doing here?” The strong voice again.
I could ask them the same question, but I didn’t want to trigger (so to speak) the appearance of a weapon.
“I came to get some personal items. His sister, my friend, is not up to the task right now, and she wants to be sure the landlord doesn’t throw everything out before she can get here.” I took a deep breath and complimented myself on coming up with a very reasonable story under extraordinary conditions.
“Items?” The boss said the word as if he were sounding it out, about to learn its meaning for the first time. “Like what items?” Again, he pronounced the word “i-tems.”
Interrogation was apparently the boss’s job, questioning a material witness to their break-in. Except, I recalled they had entered the apartment as I had, with a key. I’d heard it turn in the lock before I scuttled back to the bedroom. Did Susan provide their key, also? Did she lack confidence in me and hire others for the same job? I hoped they were getting paid more than I was.
Monster in Miniature Page 11