“Can I help you, miss?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
He reached down with a strong, callused hand to grab her outstretched one. With his help, and using the nearby subway-tiled wall for support, she struggled to her feet. The man gave her a toothy, but confused smile.
“What were you doing in the tunnel, miss?”
“Got off at the wrong stop.”
“You might want to wait for the next train, if you don’t mind me saying, miss.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
On the twenty minute train ride down to the Battery, Percy had a lot of time to think. She was interrupted only once by a man who got on the train at 42nd Street playing a harmonica. After several tunes, he asked Percy for money. She gave him a subway token, and with an afterthought, made it two.
She’d cleaned up pretty well, all things considered. A visit to the station’s ladies washroom, spotless due to the lack of patronage from the storm and the elderly black man’s hard work, made it easier for her to look presentable.
There was nothing to be done about the rip in her coat or the streaks of soot, but a trip to the dry cleaners would sort everything out. Her hat could be re-blocked eventually. And being dark brown, it showed little of its encounter with the tunnels of the New York City subway system.
As for Percy, two hotdogs with extra sauerkraut and mustard from one of the station’s venders, and a cup of strong coffee made her feel almost human again.
I’ll feel like a truck ran over me tomorrow, but for today, if I keep moving, the soreness won’t set in.
Percy got off at the Battery Maritime Building and made her way to the Whitehall Ferry Terminal. The twenty-five minute ride across the New York Harbor is free to Staten Island, but costs five cents for the return trip. The huge ferry, which can hold nearly eight-hundred people, transported only a handful that frosty Monday morning.
Percy stood inside the ferry’s starboard side, as it glided by the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty, backlit by a startling blue sky, looked spectacular. Tall and elegant in the late morning sun, her crown sparkled with icicles, as if made of diamonds.
The sight brought a lump to Percy’s throat, reminding her of what America was fighting for. Or maybe the lump came from the thought that her son’s father was a man who shirked his patriotic duty to the point of killing someone and substituting the body for his.
Percy had considered enlisting herself, but with a young son and often the sole support of the family, it wasn’t doable. She fought for freedom and right on her home ground, and sometimes it was just as dangerous.
She patted the German Mauser resting beneath her heavy coat in her jacket pocket. She could hardly feel the bulge under the layers.
I have so many bulges, it’s hard to know what is where.
The ride over, Percy stood at the mouth of the ferry building. The snow clearing process was only in the beginning stages. Public transportation, other than the ferry itself, wasn’t available. The other passengers dispersed, either walking to nearby destinations or having private transportation.
Now the lone person, Percy contemplated her options, which weren’t many. The Christensen address was nearly a half a mile from the St. George Ferry Terminal. An easy walk most of the time, it wasn’t something she cared to do in her state. Three feet of unshoveled snow, with drifts up to six feet high didn’t help, either. Her only hope was hiring a cab. She scanned the white horizon for one.
“Hey, you. You!”
Percy turned her head toward the source of the gravelly voice calling out. It belonged to an older woman, bundled up and sitting atop a large but empty wooden wagon, wheels removed and converted to a sleigh. In front, a dark brown horse covered with a plaid blanket stood stamping his feet and pulling at the reins, seemingly anxious to get moving.
The woman guided the horse and rig around to the front of the building and pulled to a stop. She wore a beat-up gray hat tied onto her head by a faded pink scarf. Around her shoulders was a multi-colored crocheted shawl covering the upper portion of her gray coat. Calloused hands wearing brown, fingerless gloves held tightly to the reins. A long black skirt fell to the floor out from which peeked heavy, workman boots. One foot rested on the brake of the sleigh.
Percy’s eyebrows shot up. “Lady, You’re the second thing today straight outa Charles Dickens.”
“Not me. I’m from Castleton Avenue. Lived there all my life. Where you going? Maybe I could give you a lift.”
“573 Benziger Avenue.”
“Going right by there. Twenty-five cents. Gotta feed my horse.”
As if on cue, the horse whinnied and snorted, throwing off two nostrils of mist into the dry, cold air.
Percy let out a laugh, shook her head in amazement, and stepped off the curb to the waiting sleigh.
“You got it. I would have done it for thirty.”
“So give me thirty cents. I’m not proud.”
“How about I give you twenty?”
“How about you give me a laugh, we call it even?”
“Okay.” Percy drew out the word, thinking for a moment. “‘You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough’.”
The woman threw back her head and let out a hoot of laughter. “Mae West, right? You have to love a woman who can say things like that. Climb aboard. Like I told you, I was going by there, anyway.”
“Thanks.”
Percy lifted a leg high, heaved herself up on the running board, and climbed next to the woman. The woman clicked her tongue and snapped the reins. The horse lumbered forward, picked up speed, and went at a nice trot, hot breath ladling the air. It was several minutes before either woman spoke. The older woman turning to Percy.
“No point in traveling in silence. What’s your name?”
“Persephone Cole. My friends call me Percy. What’s yours?”
“Violet Castleton.”
“Any relation to the Castleton Avenue you say you’re from?”
“The very same. Land owned by my grandfather and his grandfather before him, right back to the Revolutionary War.”
“Been meeting a lot of people lately whose grandfathers influenced their lives, for good and for ill.” Percy blew on her gloved hands. “Brother, is it cold. You’ve been here a long time. You know a lot of people around here?”
“Like who?”
“The Christensens.”
“That where you’re going? The Christensens?”
“Yeah.”
“Just the daughter left now. Joined a carnival or some such when she was just a kid. But she come back after her mother died. I don’t know why. The place has indoor plumbing, but that’s about it. Falling down around her ears. And still she sits there, looking out the window most days. That’s when she’s there. She isn’t home much. Leastways, I only see her now and then.” She glanced over at Percy. “There’s some hot chocolate in that thermos by your foot. Clean cup by your hand.”
“Thanks.” Percy removed her cumbersome gloves and poured herself a cup of hot chocolate. She sipped, looking at the vista around her. “Looks like a fairyland around here.”
“Snow covers a lot. Hides the ugliness. That’s a junkyard you’re looking at over there. We’ve been trying to get rid of it for years.”
“And what do you do, Violet?”
“Call me Vi. Violet sounds like a flower and that’s not me. But to answer your question, I harvest, sell, and deliver bales of hay for the livestock around the island. Finishing up a delivery when I saw you. Getting fewer and fewer calls as the years go by, though. Thinking of selling out, going to Florida.”
“You won’t miss your life here?”
“Hell, no. I’m sixty-four years old. Outlived my husband. Lost my boy at Pearl Harbor.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“I thought he’d inherit the place, but there’s nobody now. Might as well get my face warm. Probably take Toby with me.” She gestured to
the horse pulling the wagon. “He’s a good horse. He could use the sunshine. Here you are.”
Vi pulled back on the reins and stopped at the crossroads of Benziger and Bismark Avenues.
Percy sat the empty cup beside her and looked down a narrow street, with several houses spread out on either side. It had a bucolic look, but the houses, even covered with snow, needed maintenance.
“It’s the middle house on the left, down where the smoke is coming out of the chimney. It isn’t much more than a two-room shack. I heard she got hurt at that carnival, fell from a high wire, and walks with a limp. So she should be there. As W.C. Fields says, ‘Ain’t a fit day out for man nor beast’.” Vi went into gales of laughter at her own interpretation of the actor’s words.
“You know your movie stars, Vi,” Percy jumped down. “Here,” she said as she reached into the pocket of her coat and drew out a shiny quarter. “This is for Toby. And thanks.”
“Well, thank you, Persephone Cole,” Vi responded, pocketing the quarter. “The roads are clearer than I thought. You shouldn’t have any trouble walking back. You look like a sturdy girl.”
Percy smiled. “That I am, Vi. That I am.”
Percy watched woman and horse retreat into the distance, the animal’s breath reminding her of the steam engine of a locomotive.
Percy turned and trudged down the street avoiding as many snowdrifts as she could. Her legs burned from the exertion of fighting the ice and snow, as did her lungs, an aftermath of her trials in the tunnel. Even in the fifteen degree temperature, she felt a trickle of perspiration slide down the side of her face. Her coat felt heavy and hot. By the time she arrived at the cottage, she was breathing like she’d run a race.
It was a fairly dismal and neglected looking place. If it hadn’t been for the smoke rising from the chimney, Percy would have thought it was abandoned. Other than the roof, the house was in desperate need of attention. Exposed siding was long overdue for repainting. Raw wood shutters, splintered and swollen, were closed against the few small windows of the house.
A picket fence lined the perimeter of the small yard. On both sides, slats were broken or missing and the gate hung precariously on one hinge. The gate opened with difficulty, the bottom half refusing to slide across the uneven ice and snow. Percy lifted the gate up, almost pulling it off its rusty hinge.
Mercifully, the path had been cleared from the sidewalk to the front steps of the dilapidated porch and scattered salt was melting whatever ice lingered. Percy made her way up the walk, noting frozen clumps of weeds peeking out of the snow here and there within the tiny yard.
Percy climbed the steps with care, two of them shaky from rotting wood. She knocked on the front door, taking in a bent metal mailbox nailed next to the door, missing its flap cover, and the porch light missing a bulb.
After a minute, Percy rapped again on the door with more insistence. She heard an uneven clumping coming closer and closer. The door opened a crack a moment later and a shaky voice called out.
“Who is it? What do you want?” The female voice with its New York accent was thin and high-pitched, almost laughably so.
“I’m looking for Marianna Christensen. I have some good news for her.” Percy spoke into the crack then pulled back, waiting.
“What’s that? What kind of good news? Who are you?”
“My name is Persephone Cole. May I come in? It’s cold out here.”
Wordless, the woman backed up, opening the door wide onto the darkness of the cottage. Percy looked into the gloom, stamped the snow off her feet, and without hesitation, stepped inside.
Chapter Thirty-nine
The air was oppressively hot, made more so by the contrast to the cold outside. Percy removed her hat, her hair falling down to her shoulders. She unbuttoned her coat and loosened her scarf while she allowed her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.
Once she could see in the dimness, she looked around the one room functioning as kitchen, dining room and living room. Aged and peeling wallpaper, the original color no longer recognizable, clung haphazardly to grimy walls. A dark sofa, pillows askew, its legless, right side propped up on magazines, sat in front of two milk crates serving as a coffee table. A lone floor lamp wore a tattered shade tilting precariously to the side. Its low watt bulb gave barely any light at all.
A tapping, almost a scraping sound distracted Percy. At the left rear of the house was a door, probably to a bedroom. The scraping sound seemed to come from the other side of the door.
The woman, young if Percy had her pegged right, stood facing her but was backlit by a fire going in a large fireplace against the back wall of the kitchen. In front of the fireplace, sat a long rustic table surrounded by four mismatched chairs.
The fireplace seemed to double as a stove, as well as heating. Above the crackling fire, a kettle hung on a cast iron hook that could swing in and out of a fire.
The woman took two steps backward, with a pronounced limp.
“What is it, lady? What kind of good news do you have for me?”
The thin, high-pitched voice was hardly more than a whisper. Percy couldn’t see the features of the woman’s face but noticed thick glasses poking out below ragged bangs. Long, unruly, dark hair covered the sides of her face.
“You are Marianna Christensen?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding.
“You have proof?” Percy tried to study the features of the woman, an almost impossible task. Not much more was revealed than a nose.
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I be who I say I am, lady?”
Marianna Christensen turned away abruptly, and limped to the fireplace. She picked up a fire poker and potholder. Using the poker, she caught the hook and swung the kettle out of the fire and toward her. With the potholder, she grasped the kettle’s handle while saying,
“I was about to make some tea, lady. Would you like some?”
“No thanks. You were adopted in 1926 by Adele and Neal Christensen?” Percy came closer, separated from the woman by the bare and roughly hewed kitchen table.
“Yes, they were my adopted parents, but they are both gone. I am alone now.”
The woman turned to face Percy, kettle in hand. The scratching at the bottom of the door increased and a small yip could be heard on the other side of the door. Percy looked from the door into the woman’s face.
“Why don’t we let Poopsie out, Lola Mae, or should I call you Helena Wilson?” Percy drew the Mauser out of her coat pocket and pointed it at the woman who was standing stock still.
“What are you talking about? I am Marianna Christensen. I don’t know who those other people are. You’re a crazy lady.” The voice became even higher in pitch, a thin wail. “I’m going to call the police.”
“Ah! You have a phone. I’ll bet it’s probably in the other room, a room filled with more of life’s niceties. This outer room is just a façade like the outside, right? Staging for a woman who has developed theatrical illusion to a fine art.”
Holding the gun on the other woman, Percy crossed to the bedroom door and opened it. A small Pomeranian dog came bounding out and headed for Marianna Christensen. The woman ignored the dog that yipped a greeting then sat wagging his tail looking up at her.
“I must say, you’ve hidden your shock of seeing me very well. But then, you are a consummate actress. Put down the poker, Marianna, and hang the kettle back on the hook.”
The woman stared at Percy. After perhaps thirty-seconds, she let out a deep sigh, hung the kettle back on the hook, and leaned the poker against the fireplace bricks before she spoke.
“What now, Percy Cole?” Marianna’s voice had lowered to a pleasant pitch with a neutral, cultured accent. She looked at the woman detective and removed her glasses.
“Why don’t you take off the wig?” Percy stepped to her end of the table. “I’ll bet it’s hot in here with it on. I know it feels that way to me.” She pulled the scarf around her neck off, while using the gun in the other hand to gesture for the woma
n to sit down across from her.
“And take a load off. You’ve had a busy morning, Marianna, what with riding back and forth on the subway, and pushing people off of trains.”
Marianna shrugged and yanked at the wig to reveal platinum blonde hair gathered up in a hairnet. She tossed the glasses and wig on the table then turned to the dog.
“I knew you were going to be my downfall, Poopsie, but I couldn’t bear to part with you.”
She bent down, picked up her pet, turned the dog’s face to hers, and nuzzled it. Walking to the table, minus the limp, she sat down.
“You are my Sherlock Holmes and I am your Professor Moriarity. Which one of us will survive the fall from the falls? Every pun intended.”
Marianna assumed an easy, relaxed persona. Percy, however, did not let down her guard, still pointing the gun directly at the other woman.
“That was pretty clever of you, following me around, pretending to be a teenage boy. You had me fooled.”
Marianna bowed her head in acknowledgement with a smile. She then reached down at her side.
“Easy, easy,” Percy said when the girl made the unexpected move. “Don’t try anything cute. I’m a little annoyed with you and might shoot.”
“It’s just a lift inside my shoe that helps me with the limp. See?” Marianna slowly reached inside her shoe and pulled out a piece of thick fabric from the heel. “It isn’t very comfortable, but a limp is a great way of distracting your audience. Well, Percy Cole, I thought I fooled you. As you say, I know the art of illusion. I’ve been fooling a lot of people for a long time.”
“To your credit, you did fool me for awhile. But Sonja Henie was never a gymnast. She was an ice skater and skier. That was a foolish mistake.”
“I was trying to justify my muscles, and Sonja Henie’s name was the first that came to me. I’ve trained as an acrobat and weight-lifter since I was fifteen, but I don’t know many other women who have. And I didn’t want Lola Mae to be tied in with anything like a carnival or circus, like I was. She had to be a helpless southern belle.”
The Chocolate Kiss-Off (The Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries Book 3) Page 17