by Amy Stewart
He thought for a minute. “I might have. What about it?”
“A friend of mine could have been there. Did everyone get out?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, miss. It wouldn’t be a matter for the sheriff over here in Bergen County.”
“But can’t you find out?”
He looked down the hall at the receptionist. “I’d have to ask her to telephone.”
“Couldn’t you, Mr. Morris? Please?”
He laughed, but not unkindly. “Begging doesn’t suit you, Miss Kopp.”
FLEURETTE WAS SURPRISED to see me come downstairs the next morning in a hat and a traveling coat. She was sitting on the floor in the parlor, sorting through a box of buttons to find a matched set for a dress she was working on.
“Where are we going?” she said, jumping to her feet.
“You’re staying here,” I said. “I’m going into the city. I’ll be back by suppertime.”
“The city! Without me?” She stamped her foot and the buttons scattered across the rug. What a child she could be when she didn’t get her way! I swallowed my irritation and bent down to speak to her in a low voice.
“You know I can’t take you. You heard what the sheriff said. No train stations, no strangers, no strange places.”
She pushed the buttons around with her toe. “You’re going to go and get those pictures yourself, aren’t you?” she said.
“I’m going to try. Now, I wish you’d be a good girl and stay here and do what we ask you to do.”
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do!” she cried. “You and Norma and the sheriff. When do I get to do anything for myself again?” She threw herself on the divan and buried her face in the cushion, sobbing.
What now? I only needed a few hours away, but I managed to set off a full-blown tantrum just by walking past Fleurette. I sighed and looked out the window. Norma was out there raking leaves. I knew she wanted to get away, too. It was unpleasant to be confined to the house for so long. We were living such queer and isolated lives out here by ourselves.
I sat down next to Fleurette and put my hand on her back the way I used to when she was a little girl. Into the pillow she said, “And next week is my birthday and what are we going to do about that?”
“It is? Are you going to be fifteen or sixteen?”
She gave me a little punch in the leg. “Seventeen. You know that.”
“Already? Well, you’re right. We should take you somewhere.”
She sniffed and sat up. Her eyes looked like the clear night sky when she cried. “Where?” she asked.
“Anywhere you want to go. As long as the sheriff agrees.”
“You’ll ask him?”
“I will.”
LUCY DIDN’T DIE IN THE FIRE. No one did. It started in the rear corner of the house—I could picture Henry Kaufman and his friends sneaking around with a bucket of kerosene—but the man living downstairs smelled it right away and ran upstairs to wake the others. He must have been the one whose room I’d backed into when I went to see Lucy. It had seemed like such a drab and miserable little room, but the man who lived in it had done something heroic. I wondered where he’d gone. I wondered where any of them had gone. Deputy Morris hadn’t been able to tell me that. With Lucy’s whereabouts unknown, I had no choice but to go to Mr. LaMotte’s myself before he threw the pictures away.
The train got me into New York by noon. There was a tearoom near the station where ladies could have lunch, so I stopped there first and ate a ham salad sandwich and a pineapple ring with a cherry on top. There was coconut cake for dessert. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I’d grown tired of our farm cooking and couldn’t resist something as exotic as coconut. I ordered a slice and drank a cup of coffee with it. The buttons on my dress were about to pop, I’d stuffed myself so. I was glad for the long walk to Mr. LaMotte’s studio.
He was sitting at his desk, looking as if he’d been waiting for me. “Miss Kopp!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet as I walked in. “Just in time.”
I took a step forward and knocked a pile of envelopes off a chair. “Pardon me,” I said, crouching down to retrieve them. The envelopes were blank except for a name written in light pencil on the front of each one: Wapole, Dowd, Kurtz, Wood. They didn’t seem to be in any particular order, so I scooped them up and returned them to the chair.
“Not to worry,” he said. “They have a tendency to leap out at a person. Can’t be helped.” I thought that it could be helped with the employment of a filing cabinet and a secretary to file them, but I didn’t say so.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” I said. “Your letter only just arrived yesterday, so I didn’t have time to reply.”
He cocked his head to the left and looked at me over the tops of his spectacles. “Oh, yes, the photographs. I have them here, and I would be most happy to let you look through them. But first I have a favor to ask of you.”
Before he could continue, the door opened and a mountain of a man pushed his way into the tiny office. He wore the largest wool overcoat I’d ever seen on a person, and a black hat that a small child could have hidden inside. A shadow fell across his face, but I could see an enormous mustache above lips the size of sausages, and two bulging chins. “Is this her?” he asked in a growl that could only come from the Bronx.
Mr. LaMotte rushed around to stand between us. “Mr. Hopper! I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Please let me introduce you to Miss Kopp.”
I extended my hand and found it gripped roughly by something that felt like a catcher’s mitt.
“How do you do?” I said. “I didn’t realize I was expected.”
“You’re not here about the job?” the man grunted.
Mr. LaMotte waved his hands to silence us. “I was just getting around to that,” he said. “Miss Kopp, I wonder if you might do a favor for my associate Mr. Hopper. You see, from time to time, we have need of a girl photographer, and—”
“A photographer?” I said, taking a step back and overturning yet another pile of envelopes. “I don’t know a thing about photography. I’m only here because you said—”
“I said I’d be willing to do you a favor,” Mr. LaMotte said, having regained his calm. “Now I’m asking you to do a favor for me. This gentleman would like you to pay a visit to a hotel for ladies just off Fifth Avenue.”
“Pay a visit to a hotel?” Sheriff Heath had only just warned us to stay away from hotels. “I couldn’t possibly.”
“We only want you to inquire about the rooms and ask to see one with a rear-facing window on an upper floor. They’ll give you a key and send you up by yourself. Just go and take a photograph of the room, and get a picture of whatever you can see from the window. Then return the key to the desk and bring the camera back here to me. I’ll have your photographs waiting.”
Before I could compose an answer, Mr. LaMotte added, “You look like a woman who can handle herself, Miss Kopp.”
“Well, I—”
“Please be assured that we are not asking you to be involved in anything disreputable. The matter we are investigating concerns only a witness to a crime. We must confirm certain details of her story by attesting to the layout of the room and the view from the window. Nothing more. We would go ourselves, but they will only permit ladies upstairs, and I have none in my employment at present.”
Mr. Hopper was breathing in that way that large men breathed, as if fueled by a boiler room instead of a pair of lungs. He still hadn’t removed his hat. I couldn’t get a good look at his face.
“Is Mr. Hopper one of your—”
“Associates. He handles investigations for several of the better attorneys in Manhattan. His reputation is beyond question. He enjoys the high regard of both the police and officers of the court.”
Mr. Hopper made a sound that could have been a grunt of agreement. We both looked at him, but when he said nothing, Mr. LaMotte continued.
“He will accompany you to the hotel and bring you back here as
soon as your work is completed. I assure you it won’t take but an hour, and that is only if you enjoy a leisurely stroll up Fifth Avenue and visit some of our fine shops along the way.”
Now Mr. Hopper chortled—a noise that sounded more like the eruption of a minor volcano—at the idea of enjoying a leisurely stroll with me.
I was too astonished to take offense. Never in my life had I been thrown into so many unexpected situations in such a short time. Mr. LaMotte took my silence for acquiescence and wasted no time in getting a camera in my hands. It was a little box camera that had been rigged to resemble a ladies’ handbag. I admired the soft Italian leather handle and the fine tweed covering the box. This was a well-made instrument. As soon as it was in my hands, I decided that I should have one of my own someday.
“Hold it against yourself, just like that,” Mr. LaMotte said. “There’s nothing to it. This little lever slides across to open the shutter. Just go slowly, until you feel it engage on the other side. Then wind the key until the next number appears. You have eight pictures. Please do use them all. I must develop the film immediately, so a half-used roll doesn’t save me anything. Get as much light as you can in the room and hold the camera perfectly still. Is that all clear? You can do that, can’t you?”
He smiled up at me with genuine fondness, the way one might regard a niece one was bringing into the family business. I couldn’t help but return the smile.
“It is, Mr. LaMotte. It’s perfectly clear. But why are you asking me to do this? Surely if you need a girl photographer, you can find one in this city.”
He stepped back and studied me for a minute. “You look capable, Miss Kopp. You are—forgive me for saying—substantial.”
I saw no reason to take offense at that.
“And serious,” he added quickly. “You seem like you could handle any sort of trouble that might—not that there will be any trouble, it’s just . . . well—”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” With that I slid the camera’s strap over my wrist and looked in the direction of the towering figure that was Mr. Hopper. He hadn’t made a move. He was just waiting. I had a feeling that in his line of work, he spent a good deal of time waiting. “Shall we go?”
Mr. Hopper opened the door and pressed himself against it to make room for me to pass. He smelled of tobacco and wintergreen. Soon we were out in the pale October sunlight, marching toward Fifth Avenue like two soldiers.
He was not a man for conversation, but that suited me just fine. I made a point of not looking in a single shop window so he would not think I was the kind of girl who wanted to fritter away time trying on hats or squealing over bracelets. I don’t know why it mattered to me what Mr. Hopper thought. I had not gone looking for a job as a girl photographer, but now that I had it, I intended to do it right.
When we rounded the corner on Fifth Avenue, a gust of wind caught us and made the going more difficult. The avenues were like canyons, the buildings funneling wind straight through them. I tucked the camera under my coat and buttoned up the collar.
Mr. Hopper only looked back once to make sure that I could keep up. I could.
The hotel for ladies, called the Mandarin, was located across the avenue, along a shabby block in the Thirties. It was just an ordinary six-story building with a pair of glass doors and a green canopy above them. A doorman stood outside under a brass gas lamp.
We walked swiftly past the hotel to the next corner. There Mr. Hopper stopped and told me he would wait for me. He pushed his hat back and looked down at me.
“All right, miss?”
His disposition was not unkind. He had deep brown eyes and a younger, softer face than I had first realized. He was probably the sort of man who terrified people without meaning to.
“I’m just fine,” I said, and I meant it. I strode confidently back to the hotel. The doorman tipped his hat and opened the door.
The lobby was about what I’d have expected for a small hotel catering to a female clientele. The tiled floor was covered in red Oriental rugs. The walls were paneled along the lower half and papered in a pattern of green and gold ferns along the upper half. There were old gas lamps on the wall that matched the one outside, and a mahogany desk staffed by a porter and a prim older woman dressed in a smart blue velvet dress with brass buttons down the front. To the right was a sitting room where the guests could meet their male visitors.
I presented myself at the desk and did what Mr. LaMotte asked. He was right. There was no trouble about getting a key to go and inspect a room before reserving it. There was a room available on the sixth floor with rear-facing windows, the woman told me, and one on the fifth floor with a view to Fifth Avenue. I didn’t need that one but she seemed to want me to consider it, so I took the keys for both.
The porter came around the desk to accompany me upstairs. I tried to make some excuse as to why I preferred to go on my own, but just then I was rescued by a mother and her three daughters emerging from the elevator and demanding the porter’s assistance with their luggage. I smiled, ever the gracious guest.
“Please don’t worry about me,” I said. “I won’t be but a minute.” Before he could say anything I dashed up the stairs and out of sight.
I took a look at every floor as I went, and they were all the same—red carpets, oak paneling, and gold-striped wallpaper. It looked like a clean and decent hotel. On the sixth floor I found the room and let myself in. There was not much to see, just a brass bed topped with a white coverlet, a nightstand outfitted with a mirror and washbasin, and a small desk furnished with an ink blotter and writing paper. In one corner was a stand for luggage and a coat rack.
The layout of the room seemed not at all unusual to me, but I stood in the corner and took a picture. Then I pointed it at the window and took another one while I looked across the alley at the blackened brick coated with decades of coal dust. The gap between the hotel and the building across from it was nothing more than an empty space where people might have tossed their garbage or the contents of their chamber pots. I wondered what the mysterious witness had seen, and what had been hurled into that dark place.
There were only a few windows on the building opposite, just the sort of small utilitarian windows that would be placed in a stairway to illuminate it. I didn’t know what about that view might have interested Mr. LaMotte. I had six pictures left, so I took two looking down, one to the left and one to the right. Then I held it straight out at eye level and did the same thing, and then I pointed it up at the rooftops and once again took a picture in each direction.
I stopped on the fifth floor to see that room, too, even though I had no particular reason to. I could see why the lady at the desk offered it to me. It was a much larger room, more like a suite, and it must have fetched a higher price. It was furnished with a larger desk and two overstuffed chairs arranged around a small tiled fireplace. A pair of wide floor-to-ceiling windows looked across to Fifth Avenue. I went to the windows and the sight of the avenue from above made something catch in my throat. If I wasn’t looking down on the busiest place in the world, I was a few blocks from it. A river of people moved below me, identifiable only by their hats and scarves. An endless parade of buildings marched up to Central Park and down in the other direction to Wall Street. New buildings were going up all around, each in a race to get closer to the clouds, with their scaffolding silhouetted like bare tree limbs against the October sky.
There, in that room, I felt like I was at the center of something. I was someplace that mattered. And that made me feel like I was someone who mattered.
I liked that room very much. I wanted to rent it on the spot.
I returned the key and inquired about the rates for the room on the fifth floor. The woman behind the desk smiled and handed me a rate card. “I thought that one would suit you,” she said.
Mr. Hopper was waiting where he said he would be. I assured him that I’d had no trouble getting the pictures, and we walked back to the studio in silence. When
we arrived, he opened the door for me, but he did not go inside.
“Good day, Miss Kopp. I’m on to my next job. I’ll leave you to yours.”
With that he disappeared into the street.
Mr. LaMotte took the camera from me and set it in his darkroom. He returned with a fat envelope in his hands. “Your wages, miss,” he said. “Take them with you. I’ve got to close shop and attend to matters of my own.” He turned and started rummaging through a desk drawer.
I thanked him and tucked the envelope under my coat. I started to leave, but I couldn’t resist asking him. “Mr. LaMotte?”
He looked up as if he was surprised that I was still there. “Yes?”
“What did the lady see?”
“Lady? What lady?”
“The one in the hotel.”
He shook his head and came around the desk, peering up at me kindly. “Miss Kopp. I’m going to give you a piece of advice that will serve you well if you continue in this line of work.”
“Line of work?”
“Whatever you want to call this little investigation you’re conducting.”
I reddened. “All right.”
“The less anyone knows, the better. If you have nothing to tell, you won’t have to worry about being questioned.”
“I see.”
“I mean it. Put up a barrier between your witnesses, your victims, your investigators, your prosecutors, your attorneys, and your friends and enemies at the newspaper. Don’t let anyone know a single thing they don’t have to know. And do your best to keep them from talking to each other.” He made a series of chopping motions with his hands. “You see? Walls. I am putting a wall between you and the lady in the hotel. If you don’t know about her, you can’t tell anyone if they ask.”
He turned back to his desk. Without looking up at me again, he said, “The fewer people who know what that lady saw, the better. My girl photographer in particular does not need to know.”
I’m not your girl photographer, I thought. But I didn’t say it. I took my pictures and left for the train station. Mr. LaMotte followed and locked the door behind us, hurrying off in the other direction with still more envelopes under his arm.