LAURA LEE (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 2)

by Lawrence de Maria

  There was the crack of a bat from another game nearby and more cheers. My cell phone buzzed. It was Alice. She couldn’t talk long. She was between classes. But lunch would be lovely. She was in classes all day but had a break from noon to 3 P.M. I took a bite of my hot dog. Decided to have another.

  All was right in the world.

  CHAPTER 15 – A PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATION

  The next morning I sat in on the Norberto Cruz deposition, which was held in the office of the insurance company’s attorney in lower Manhattan at 25 Broad Street. Strictly speaking, my presence wasn’t necessary. The pictures of the “crippled” Norberto’s golfing prowess were damning enough. But the insurance lawyers wanted to show how serious they were.

  I didn’t mind going the extra yard. Happy lawyers generate referrals. I even chatted up Norberto’s counsel, a good-looking African-American woman who knew a losing position when she saw it but would surely remember the ace detective who torpedoed her client. She might need that kind of torpedoing some day.

  It was all very civilized. During a break, I corralled Norberto in the men’s room and got some advice on curing the slice that was bedeviling my own golf game. Later, back in the conference room, his attorney asked to go off the record. With the court reporter out of the room, she cut a deal with the insurance company lawyers. Fraud was off the table and she even managed to get a few bucks for Norberto by threatening to produce a doctor who would claim that a golf swing was not only the single activity that didn’t cause her client excruciating agony, but was also actually therapeutic. Everyone knew it was bull, but we all also knew she could get a doctor. Possibly even one with a degree. There were smiles all around as we left. I slipped my card to Norberto’s lawyer. She was a winner, even when she lost.

  I was scheduled to meet Alice at 1 P.M. for lunch at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill on University Place in Greenwich Village. I took the subway from Bowling Green and got off at Union Square at noon. The West Village is a wonderful place to kill time and there is no better place to do that than the Strand, possibly the best used-book store in the nation. I have a Kindle, of course, but agree with those who believe the 500-year-old technology of “real” books will remain an efficient delivery system for many years to come. I never bought into the buggy whip analogy, which is flawed. Cars are faster than horses but people still ride horses. Just not as many. And you can read a print book just as quickly as an e-book.

  I happily roamed the crowded stacks and found an early edition of Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer, a classic I’d been meaning to get. By the time I left, it had started to drizzle. Nothing that diminished the neighborhood’s charm or couldn’t be handled by walking close to the buildings on the correct side of the street.

  I was drinking a Sam Adams at the Knickerbocker’s small bar watching the rain pick up when Alice walked in, shaking her umbrella. The greeter at the door took it from her and Alice immediately looked over to where she knew I’d be . The world is full of attractive women, and New York has a disproportionate share. But only a handful have what can only be called a “presence” that seems to emanate from them, which people immediately notice. It’s not mere beauty, per se, but whatever it is, Alice Watts had it. As she walked toward me I saw a couple of the single guys at the bar stare at her. Their disappointment when she put her hand gently on my cheek and kissed me was palpable. I’d been alone in enough bars in my life to know the feeling. Tough darts, boys. I asked her if she wanted a drink.

  “I have afternoon classes. I’d better stick to iced tea.”

  The maitre d’ found us a table almost immediately and I ordered the iced tea, and another beer for myself.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  I showed her the Shirer book.

  “He was such a wonderful writer,” she said. “I presume you’ve read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?”

  “Yes. I’m fascinated by the whole period. It amazes me that people were so blind to the Nazi’s. Correspondents like Shirer were reporting on what they were doing, and planning, for a decade before the war. His diary was published in 1940, and it recapped what he’d previously published or broadcast.”

  Our drinks came and we ordered. A grilled sole for Alice and a lamb burger with “mint jelly ketchup” for me. The Knickerbocker kitchen rarely disappoints, but I asked for the ketchup on the side, just in case.

  While we waited for our food, she told me about her day, which included taking advanced graduate courses at the New School’s Department of Philosophy.

  “We’re working our way through the European philosophical tradition, dating back to Plato, Aristotle and St. Augustine, but with a concentration on Spinoza, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Freud, Gadamer, De Beauvoir, Adorno, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva and Irigaray.”

  “I think Husserl was a total fraud.”

  “You’ve never heard of him, have you?”

  “No, but I’ve heard of most of the other dead white guys. I’m glad someone still teaches them.”

  “De Beauvoir, Kristeva and Irigaray are women, and not all those philosophers are dead.”

  “I know Plato is dead. I read his obituary in the Peloponnesian Times. Who is still alive?”

  “Kristeva and Irigaray.”

  “Figures. All you broads live longer.”

  Alice reached across the table and touched my hand.

  “You are possibly the most delightful horse’s ass I know.”

  “That’s quite a compliment, considering that there are more of us than there are horses,” I said, grasping her hand, which was warm and soft. “Now tell me about your classes.”

  Alice could make the phone book sound interesting, so her brief rundown of contingency, necessity, human freedom, tragedy, truth and their relation to unconscious and conscious processes was easier to take than one might imagine, although my second beer came in handy.

  Our meals arrived. The “mint ketchup” was red, thank God.

  “Your turn,” she said. “Anything new about the Olsen case?”

  I hesitated. The Olsens were clients. Of course, both sides on the case, prosecution and defense, knew about the chair. Even the security guard was standing there when we discussed the possibility of fingerprints and had probably blabbed. Hell, the chair and any possible prints might be a dead end. Alice saw my hesitation.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s probably none of my business.”

  After all, we hadn’t seen all that much of each other and only just recently slept together. Then I remembered how I felt when I couldn’t reach her the previous day. I looked at her and just knew. So I told her about the chair and Denton’s sexual proclivities. She listened and didn’t blush. And took my hand again.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For trusting me.”

  She signaled our waiter and ordered a glass of wine. And another before we finished eating. That surprised me.

  “What about school?”

  My voice was a bit hoarse.

  “I’ll cut.” Her voice was hoarser. “I thought of something better to do than listen to a lecture on phenomenology, hermeneutics and epistemology. Let’s go back to my apartment.”

  Alice’s apartment, on Minetta Lane, was only a few blocks from the restaurant, but it seemed to take forever to get there. I thought it would be unseemly to jog. But once there we didn’t waste any time. I didn’t know if it was the fact that I had taken her into my confidence or the graphic description of Denton’s chair sex, but Alice made love with an abandon I suspect is rarely associated with philosophers, particularly women philosophers. After our first bout, I mentioned that.

  “A sexist remark,” she said as her respiration slowly returned to normal. “I forgive you because you just rocked my socks off. I’ll have you know that Simone de Beauvoir was hot to trot. She had numerous lovers, including Jean Paul Sartre. She also slept with underage women students and shared them with
him. Her nickname was ‘castor,’ the French word for beaver.”

  “Do French parents give their kids beaver oil when they’re constipated?”

  “Oh, do shut up,” she said, kissing me.

  A few minutes later she got up and started moving chairs around.

  “I’ve never watched anyone naked move furniture. Are we expecting company?”

  She ignored me and repositioned an ottoman.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “College professors are always experimenting,” she said. “Come over here, your hunkness.”

  Later that afternoon I helped her put the furniture back.

  “Well, I think we proved it’s possible, maybe even practical.” She laughed. “Not that I’d be willing to testify. Did Elizabeth Olsen say anything about the ottoman?”

  “No, but I will ask her tomorrow.”

  “I bet you will.”

  CHAPTER 16 – RED TOENAILS

  I left Alice’s apartment before dawn and caught a subway to South Ferry. On the 20-minute ride across the harbor, still the best free trip on the planet, I called my office and accessed my answering machine. Dom DeRenzi, the athletic director at Wagner College, had left a message asking why I hadn’t been up to his gym for a workout. If he knew about my previous night, he wouldn’t have been so concerned. But he was right. I was neglecting my weight training.

  When I got home I made coffee and boiled some water. I cracked two eggs in a bowl and then carefully slid them into the boiling water to poach as I toasted an English muffin. I buttered the muffins and, using a slotted spoon, ladled the eggs on the muffins. The yolks were perfectly runny and each egg fit nicely on its respective muffin half. Some people use their microwave to poach eggs, but you have to pierce the yolks with a fork to prevent an explosion. Even with that precaution, the inside of my microwave occasionally looked like the spaceship’s breakfast table after the creature came out of John Hurt’s stomach in Alien. Slower is better.

  After showering, I called Elizabeth Olsen. No one picked up the house phone and she didn’t answer her cell. I didn’t leave any messages. Her father was probably at work, a good thing considering what I wanted to talk about. Maybe she didn’t want to answer her phone or was in the shower. I thought about the butler. I didn’t know much about butlers. Did they live in? Or just show up for work? All the butlers I’d seen on TV or in the movies lived in a small room out of sight and spent their free time reading the classics and drinking cheap brandy. What if you rang for a butler and he wasn’t there yet? Did you make a sound?

  Of course, butlers aside, there was another possibility: Elizabeth Olsen finally saw the writing on the wall and was on her way to a non-extradition country. Ankle bracelet and lack of passport notwithstanding, there isn’t much money can’t buy. I had a mental picture of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat sitting on a beach sipping a drink with a parasol in it. Given Elizabeth’s prospects, I suspected it might be a sensible alternative.

  I called Long. He didn’t have a meeting scheduled with her.

  “She should be home.”

  He sounded worried. Having a client flee before trial is embarrassing. I drove up to the Richmond County Country Club. Elizabeth Olsen’s BMW was the only car in the circular driveway, a good sign. I went up and rang the bell. No one came to the door. I rapped the big brass knocker. Nothing. Christ, maybe she really was on her way to the Maldives.

  A car pulled up. Ricks, the security guard got out and walked over.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Rhode. What’s up?”

  “You have a key for this house?”

  He hesitated.

  “Yeah. But I’m not sure I feel right about letting you in if no one is home.”

  “Look. I work for the family. Elizabeth Olsen is not supposed to leave the house. She has an ankle monitor, remember. Her lawyer wants me to check it out. If she has left, we have to know about it. Now open the damn door.”

  He did and stepped aside. I went in. The first thing I saw was the ankle monitor on Elizabeth’s leg. It was at eye level.

  “Holy shit,” Ricks said from behind me. “I guess she did kill him.”

  Elizabeth Olsen was hanging by her neck from the second-floor landing. I looked at her face. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. No bulging eyes and protruding tongue. From the obscene angle of her head it appeared that her neck had snapped. Death would have been almost instantaneous. She looked asleep.

  “Check the alarm, but don’t touch anything,” I said.

  “It’s on. The light’s green.”

  “OK. Leave it alone and call 911. Wait outside for the cops.”

  I walked over to the body. She was wearing a halter top and shorts. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were painted red. The toes on both feet were clenched. Possibly a neurological result of the hanging. I’d heard that men who were hanged often had reflexive ejaculations. Up close I could see a small trickle of blood from her left ear, the direction her head was tilted. Her lips were slightly parted. I didn’t want to touch her and possibly contaminate anything but noticed that there was no stain at her crotch. I couldn’t smell urine. She hadn’t been dead very long.

  I felt sick. I wanted to cut her down but knew I couldn’t. I walked up the stairs. She had apparently tied one end of the rope to the base of one of the banister’s supporting balusters and looped the other around her neck and jumped. I looked at the rope. It appeared to be regular braided manila but I couldn’t tell if it was natural or synthetic. The lab boys would determine that. There was nothing fancy about the knot attaching the rope to the banister and when I looked down at Elizabeth’s body I saw that she hadn’t bothered with a hangman’s noose. Just a couple of double knots, which had been just as efficient. I went outside and made my own calls. Long, Vocci, Cormac. I would have killed for a cigarette.

  It was three hours before the cops cut me loose. No one had turned up a suicide note, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t turn up. And some people don’t leave a note. The house was swarming with cops and technicians and the local media, both cable and print, were camped outside. Konrad Olsen was supervising a project in southern New Jersey and showed up just as his daughter’s body was being loaded in the meat wagon. The cops took him inside, accompanied by Steve Long. I never got to speak to him.

  Vocci, Smith and Mac were chatting by a squad car. I walked over.

  “Anybody ask where the butler was?”

  “Why, you think he did it?” Vocci said.

  “Could have been Colonel Mustard in the parlor,” Smith chimed in.

  “Just wondering.”

  “The rent-a-cop said the butler had Thursdays off,” Vocci said. “Probably why she picked today. How did you get in, Rhode?”

  “Security guard had a key.”

  “Lucky break he was around,” he said. “Better than her father finding her. Look on the bright side. This gets you out of buying me dinner.”

  “Your sensitivity in these matters is touching, Paul.”

  The two D.A. detectives left.

  “Hell of a thing,” Mac said. “Speaking of dinner, it’s lunchtime. Let’s eat.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “So, I have to starve? I’ll eat, you drink.”

  ***

  “So, what’s bugging you, Alt?”

  We were sitting in a Chinese restaurant on New Dorp Lane. Mac had ordered enough food to sustain Mao’s army on the Long March. I was picking at some of it and drinking scotch.

  “If she was innocent, why kill herself?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t innocent,” Mac said, filling a pancake with moo shu pork.

  “I think she might be.”

  “Well, let’s see. There’s you, and then there are the other six billion people on the planet who think she’s guilty. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. She killed herself because she knew she was innocent but was going to be convicted anyway.”

  “She struck me as a tough cookie, a fighter.”

&
nbsp; “Could have been a front. Even if it wasn’t, sometimes the hard cases crack the loudest.”

  “Any word on the prints?”

  “Nothing yet. I doubt if the D.A. will even pursue that now. Case closed.”

  “Do me a favor. Make sure they follow up on them.”

  Mac looked at me.

  “Why? What good will it do? You don’t even have a client. She’s on a slab in the morgue.”

  “I just want to make sure. And I want the autopsy results.”

  He rolled another pancake.

  “You ever been to Palm Springs?”

  I said I hadn’t.

  “Don’t go. Took Irene there on a vacation a few years back. Just outside of town they have these windmill farms, thousands of them.” He took a bite of pancake. “You’d spend all your time tilting at them.”

  Outside the restaurant, Mac turned to me as he got in his car.

  “Prints and autopsy?”

  “Thanks.”

  I liked Elizabeth Olsen. I’d never lost a client to suicide and my normal response after a liquid lunch would be to keep drinking. Instead, I drove to Wagner College. A sign of maturity? Age? I decided I was just angry and needed to punch something without winding up in jail.

  I’ve had the use of Wagner’s spectacular gym for years, thanks to my relationship with the school’s Chief of Staff, an ex-Coast Guard captain named Dave Clapper, and to Dom DeRenzi, the Athletic Director. I didn’t have a private membership but they both looked the other way while I rehabbed from recent war wounds. My financial situation had improved to the point where I offered to pay, but Clapper told me that Spencer Bradley, Wagner’s president, had given me a complimentary lifetime membership.