44 Charles Street

by Danielle Steel

  “Stupid kid” was all he could bring himself to say. He was angry and sad all at the same time. And if it hadn’t been Eileen, it could have been his wife a dozen times. She had just been lucky so far, but one day she wouldn’t be. One day she would wind up like Eileen, only with a needle in her arm, and Ian would be heart broken. He hated them for the risks they took, the people they hurt, the hearts they broke, all the tears that were shed for them. Francesca cried herself to sleep in his arms that night. He lay on the bed next to her, and held her as he had Ian so many times. And in the morning, Francesca got a call from the police. They had Brad. They had run fingerprints on him and from the scene. The prints matched. It was him. They would do DNA tests, but all the puzzle pieces fit. The evidence was conclusive so far. Brad had killed Eileen.

  Chapter 14

  FRANCESCA WOKE UP feeling groggy and confused, unsure if what she thought had happened had been a dream. She had fallen asleep in her clothes on the bed next to Chris in the room she had taken at the Hotel Gansevoort. As she opened her eyes, she turned to look at him. He was still lying next to her, and he was awake.

  “Did I dream it?” He shook his head. It wasn’t possible. That couldn’t happen. It wasn’t fair. Eileen was dead. Her Internet insanity had killed her. But it was more than just that, it was Eileen’s appalling judgment, her addiction to bad men, and her lifetime familiarity with abuse. All of that had contributed to her sad end. They all knew lots of nice people who had met each other online, fallen in love, and gotten married. But mixed in with the good ones were terrifyingly bad ones, and Brad had been one of those. And Eileen had become too addicted to him and the abuse to save herself. She had gone back for more one last time. One time too many.

  Chris had checked, and Brad was still being held on suspicion of her murder. They wanted Francesca and Chris to identify him in a lineup, and then they would arraign him the next day. They had already started the DNA tests from his skin, to match traces found under Eileen’s nails. They would have partial results in three days. Her body was at the morgue, and after the autopsy she was going to be cremated, but not for several days. With her heart in her shoes, Francesca couldn’t help asking herself now what did any of it matter. Whatever they did, she’d still be dead. She was such a lost girl. She kept thinking of her making papier-mâché puppets with Ian, and as Francesca thought of the scene the day before, and identifying her, she got up and went to the bathroom and vomited again. She was kneeling on the bathroom floor, as Chris rubbed her back, and held her hair, and then handed her a wet towel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face with the towel.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry for her. Abusive relationships are a terrible thing. Psychological abuse is almost as bad and just as addictive. I think people stay in it, or go back, so they can turn it around, and convince their abuser that they’re nice people and don’t deserve it. They always get blamed. And sometimes they get killed. She just wasn’t strong enough, or healthy enough I guess, not to see him again.” They both knew it happened all too often. Francesca went back to the bed and lay down. The thought of getting up was too much for her. She wanted to lie there forever, as Chris sat on the bed next to her and stroked her hair.

  * * *

  Marya and Charles-Edouard had just come back from a walk in her garden, and were starting to make breakfast when Chris called on Marya’s cell phone. It was sitting on her desk, and she didn’t rush to get it. She wasn’t expecting any important calls, she wanted to enjoy Charles-Edouard, and she was still in vacation mode. She didn’t recognize the caller’s number when she picked up her phone, but she answered anyway, and was surprised to hear Chris’s voice.

  “Hi, Marya,” he said in a hoarse, somber voice. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, and had watched Francesca for most of the night. She had woken several times in tears. He was tired and sad.

  “What a nice surprise,” Marya said happily. “How’s Ian? Where are you both? I’m still in Vermont.” She hadn’t spoken to him since they’d all left New York for the summer.

  “I’m in New York with Francesca,” Chris said quietly, as Francesca listened. She had asked him to make the call. “Ian’s at the Vineyard. I’m going back for him in a couple of days.”

  “Is something wrong? Is Francesca okay?” It seemed odd to Marya that he would be with her, or said it that way, and he sounded upset.

  “She got back yesterday, and I’m sorry to call you, but something terrible happened at the house. Eileen was killed a few days ago, probably by Brad.”

  “Oh my God, how awful.” Tears instantly filled Marya’s eyes, imagining it. She was such a sweet, silly, innocent young girl. Charles-Edouard was watching her and was instantly concerned, with a question in his eyes. “Did Francesca find her?” She hoped not. She couldn’t imagine a more traumatic scene than that.

  “She thought something was wrong when she walked in. She called me, and I told her to wait outside and call the police. They found her. She was dead in her room. He strangled and beat her. They have him in custody now. We have to identify him today.” He didn’t tell her that Francesca had identified the body the day before. Francesca was lying on the bed, listening to their conversation, with her eyes closed, deathly pale, and he was holding her hand. They were two very sad friends, and he was glad to be there with her.

  “Do you want me to come down? We could be there in a few hours.” He noticed the “we” but thought she was confused, with all the strong emotions of the terrible news about Eileen.

  “There’s not much you can do. We’re okay.” He said it, but neither of them felt it.

  “Are you staying at the house?” The idea of that was shocking, and she wasn’t sure what they would do.

  “We’re at the Gansevoort,” he said calmly. And the police had given them the name of a service that specialized in cleaning up crime scenes. Once they had all the evidence they needed, and had taken photographs, the service would come in and strip any evidence of the crime. It would take a few days. If necessary, they would repaint the room. That happened more frequently when there were gunshots involved. It sounded like a grim job to him. “Everything should be in order by the time you get back.” But in order or not, Eileen would never be there again. Francesca had already decided that morning that she didn’t want anyone else in that room. She never wanted to see it again herself, it would make her too sad. She had genuinely liked Eileen, despite her foolishness with men, and had taken her under her wing and into her home. And now she was dead.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marya said again. “I don’t want to bother Francesca, but if there’s anything I can do, call me. I’ll get in the car and be there in a few hours if it will help. I’ll try to come back in a few days. Did someone call her parents?”

  “The police. They’re cremating the body after the autopsy, to send the ashes to her parents. There’s no funeral in New York.”

  “Maybe we can have a little service of our own,” Marya said vaguely, too shocked to think of anything right now. She reminded him to send her love to Francesca, and they hung up.

  “What happened?” Charles-Edouard asked her with a look of concern when she hung up.

  “Eileen, the little girl on the top floor whom you met, was killed at the house. Beaten and strangled.”

  “By a burglar?”

  “They think it was by a man she went out with. They have him in custody and are charging him with the murder. He beat her up very badly twice before.” Marya looked sick. She sat down on the couch with a distant expression, and Charles-Edouard sat down next to her and put an arm around her and held her. It was a sad beginning to the first day of their new life. Beginnings and endings, the birth of a relationship and the death of a young woman. The bittersweetness of life. And this was very bitter. Marya looked up at him and then sank into his arms and cried.

  * * *

  The lineup at the police station for the Sixth Precinct on West Tenth Street took forever to begin, and they were a mo
tley group of men as they were led out. There were two tall ones, a short one, and three of medium height. All had tattoos. One had long hair. Three were being held on other charges, one was an undercover cop, one was on parole, and one was Brad. They both recognized him instantly as he stood in profile and full face as he was directed. The men in the lineup stood there shuffling, on the other side of a two-way mirror, and Chris and Francesca confirmed the identification without a doubt. It was him. And then the men were led out. It was over. And he would be arraigned the next day. After that, Chris and Francesca were free to leave.

  They walked back to the hotel and needed the air. Ian called Chris while they were walking, and his father said everything was fine, and Francesca sent her love. He had told him he was going to New York to do some work, and to help Francesca at the house. He didn’t want him to worry that something had happened to his mother in jail. Ian was always worried about her, with good reason. But now she had been charged with manslaughter. And Chris doubted that her father would get her out of this one. And no one had been able to stop, sway, or save Eileen. Women who were bent on destroying themselves usually did, as Chris knew too well.

  The police had told them that the house should be cleaned up by midweek. They were planning to stay at the hotel till then. Chris had taken his own room before they left for the lineup. And he didn’t care if he used it or not, this way he had the option, and if he sat in a chair in Francesca’s room every night, he didn’t mind that either. That’s why he had come from the Vineyard, to do anything for her that he could. They steered a wide berth of the house on their walk, and Francesca wasn’t sure if she wanted to see it again. She wondered if this would haunt them forever, or if they could live there in peace now. She wasn’t sure.

  She hadn’t eaten since the day before, and Chris finally convinced her to go to Da Silvano for some pasta. They gave them a table outside in the usual hustle-bustle of the popular restaurant, and she couldn’t touch her food. All she could think of was Eileen. They walked back to the hotel after that, went to Francesca’s room, and Chris turned on the TV. There was a baseball game on, and as he watched it from a chair next to the bed, she fell asleep. She stirred several times, had nightmares once or twice, and got up to go to the bathroom, and other than that, she slept until morning. He slept in the chair, fully dressed, with the TV on. But they both felt better the next day.

  They ordered room service, and Marya called to see how they were. She talked to Francesca this time, and they both cried for Eileen. It made Francesca miss Marya more than ever. She hadn’t said anything about the new developments with Charles-Edouard, their good news didn’t seem appropriate now in the face of their collective grief.

  “Do you want to come back to the Vineyard with me for a few days?” Chris suggested over breakfast, but Francesca didn’t.

  “I don’t know what I want to do,” she said, still looking dazed. “I don’t want to see people. I have to open the gallery and get back to work.” She was grateful for the distraction. She could also stay at her father’s house in Connecticut, if she needed to get away. He and Avery had just returned from Aspen.

  She called Avery that afternoon and told her what had happened. She was horrified.

  “Maybe roommates weren’t such a great idea after all,” Avery said quietly. She was so sorry for Francesca, and wondered if the house would be forever tainted for her now. Francesca was mulling over the same thing. She wasn’t sure. She’d have to see how it felt when she went back. “What are you going to do now? Sell the house?” It seemed an extreme decision, but living in a house where a young woman they liked had been murdered wasn’t going to be easy either, for any of them. And Francesca had a lot of sad memories in that house now. Avery suggested that maybe it was no longer worth the struggle to keep it. She asked if Francesca had called her mother.

  “Not yet,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not sure I will. She doesn’t need to know. She’ll just hound me about it, tell me she was right all along about what a bad idea this was to keep the house and have roommates, and pressure me to sell. I need to figure that out for myself, if that’s what I want. I just don’t know yet.”

  “You will, at the right time. It’s too soon, unless you’re sure you want to sell it.”

  “I’m not. I still love the house. I just hate what happened there. I keep wondering if there was something else I could have done, or been stronger with her. But I was her roommate, or landlady, not her mother. I couldn’t forbid her to see him. All I could do was tell her she couldn’t have him to the house, but she did anyway when I was gone. And I kept begging her to get help, and stop picking up guys on the Internet. I think she was a lot more complicated than she appeared, with a bad history of abuse from her childhood. Maybe she was drawn to people like that, and she would have found a Brad anywhere. She didn’t need the Internet to do it. We all have our secrets and our problems and our issues. I’m still trying to get over Todd, Marya the death of her husband, Chris is dealing with his heroin addict ex-wife and trying to keep his son safe. We all have our struggles, and I guess things aren’t always what they appear. They weren’t with Eileen. And look what happened to her.” Francesca was crying again when she said it, she had really liked her. And no one she knew had ever been murdered. It seemed like such a terrible way to die, strangled and beaten in her own bed. But he had given her plenty of warning that he was a dangerous man, and she’d still tried to turn it around, instead of running as fast as she could in the opposite direction, which would have been the sane and healthy thing to do. Eileen just wasn’t healthy, and she had been addicted to Brad and his abuse, and had paid the ultimate price. Avery reminded her that the statistics on abusive men and abused women were horrifying. Seventy-five percent of men who threatened to kill the women they were involved with actually did. Now Eileen was just one more statistic instead of the sweet freckle-faced girl upstairs. Her dating games with total strangers and her lack of judgment about them had been her downfall.

  Chris went back to the Vineyard the next day to pick up Ian and promised to return as soon as he could. Francesca insisted she was all right. She opened the gallery, and kept her room at the Gansevoort. Her suitcases were still in the front hall of the house from when she arrived, and she had them brought to the hotel. And she told Marya that she didn’t need to rush back either. There was nothing for them to do. Eileen’s room was being stripped and steam-cleaned and repainted, the furniture removed. Her things were being boxed and sent to San Diego after the police went through them and took what they needed as evidence. And then Francesca was planning to close the room and lock it. She didn’t even want to go in there. She was eliminating the top floor of the house for the time being. She couldn’t imagine anyone who would want to live there, knowing someone had been killed in that room. It meant that she would be paying half the mortgage payment, instead of a quarter, with four of them there. It was what she had paid when she lived with Todd. But she couldn’t figure out any other way to do it for now. She didn’t want another tenant to replace Eileen, just Chris and Marya, and of course Ian. They were adults, used good judgment, lived sane lives, and put none of the others at risk, nor themselves. She couldn’t go through the trauma of someone like Eileen again, no matter how much she liked her. And you just never knew what people did in private. Neither she, Marya, nor Chris even had relationships or partners. They were three adults on their own, and one small child, whom they all loved. Eileen had been too immature and too damaged to be responsible, and Francesca blamed herself for not understanding it sooner, before something like this happened. Maybe in another living arrangement, she wouldn’t have been killed. They had all been gone all summer, and she had been easy prey for Brad.

  The police informed her that Brad had been arraigned and bound over for trial. He had pleaded not guilty, on the advice of the public defender who represented him. He wanted his day in court, although they said he might plea-bargain in the end. But there wasn’t much they could do with co
ld-blooded murder. The initial DNA tests had linked Brad to the murder. They said it would take about a year to come to trial, and he would be in jail, without bail, until then. It reminded her of Chris’s ex-wife, who was still in jail, pending her trial too. They were trying to make a deal for her, but the district attorney wasn’t letting her off the hook. She was responsible for the addict she had shot up with, and to whom she had supplied the drugs. It was an ugly scene. And poor Ian had watched while he died, and then his own mother nearly died. And he had told Chris that he had seen them shoot up, just as he had before. Chris was planning to use it all as evidence in the custody case. He didn’t want his son living with a woman who did drugs in front of him, even if she was his mother, and had unsavory people around, like drug dealers and other addicts. And he was going to ask for supervised visits when she got out of jail. He didn’t want Ian alone with her ever again. And he had no hope she would clean up. She never had, despite all the fancy rehabs she had gone to for years. Her parents wanted her to clean up, and so did he, but she never did. She was too much of an addict to care. All she wanted were her drugs, at whatever price. Just as Eileen had wanted Brad. He had been her drug of choice, as lethal as heroin had been to Ian’s mother’s friend. Now they were both dead.

  Chris called Francesca several times from the Vineyard, concerned that she was alone. She had moved back into the house. She sounded down, but reassured him that she was doing all right. She didn’t admit that she would be happy when he and Marya got back to New York, and that it was upsetting being there by herself.