Murder Off the Page

by Con Lehane

  While Andrea gazed out the window, Ambler skimmed the first few pages of a few of the journals looking for mention of Dillard Wainwright or mention of Sandra. He didn’t come across anything, except to discover Galloway had been careless with dates in the diaries he glanced at.

  “I have an idea,” Andrea said. “Why don’t you begin a list of what you’re going to take, while I’ll go down to the village and get us something to fix for lunch. I can check your list or copy it when I get back.”

  She was gone almost an hour and came back with the wherewithal to make chicken salad sandwiches, along with tea and some little cakes. While she was gone, Ambler designed a key of sorts to identify the different kinds of notebooks and journals, partial manuscripts, and correspondence. Among piles of unopened mail, he found four opened royalty statements containing checks amounting to hundreds of dollars, which he gave to Andrea. She was fine with the inventory system and after they ate a quick lunch she helped list the documents and notebooks he was taking to the library.

  At one point, Andrea stopped, holding an open spiral notebook in her hands, and looked at Ambler. “I know it’s terrible to speak badly of the dead. Yet it’s difficult for me to think kindly of Sandi’s mother. She did desert Sandi. A child doesn’t recover from that … and now poor Carolyn. Her mother has deserted her now, too.”

  Ambler took a moment to tell Andrea about Johnny, deserted by his mother who also died in tragic circumstances and by his father, Ambler’s son, who was in prison, a desertion also.

  “The poor boy. His father in prison is as much or more punishing him as it is punishing the father.”

  Ambler liked Andrea Eagan immensely. Sandra Dean was lucky to have had her for a friend and it was fortunate that Carolyn would have Andrea in her life. “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Dr. Dean … Sandi?”

  Andrea quickly looked away from him, embarrassed for her friend. After a silence during which Ambler left her to her thoughts and continued with the inventory, she asked, “Is it true, what Simon said, that she was with a man who killed her, and she’d been with other men when she went on trips that we all thought were conferences for her work?”

  Ambler told her about the man murdered in her hotel room, about her journal, and the other men she’d been with. When he got to McNulty, he told her the truth. “The man she was with, who’s accused of murdering her is a friend of mine.”

  Again, despite her guilelessness, Andrea put things together quickly. “Is that why you’re here? To find something in Sandi’s life, through her mother’s journals, that points to someone else who killed her?”

  Ambler started to speak before he knew what he’d say, acting on an impulse to deny. But before he said anything, he caught himself and waited for her to continue her accusation.

  No accusation came. “I’m so bewildered … and hurt. To be so close to someone and not know an entire part of her life. I feel like a woman whose husband is arrested as a child molester or a serial rapist and she had no idea. Since Sandi died I’ve wondered if you ever really know anyone.”

  Ambler put down the journal he was skimming. “I suspect most people have secrets. It may not always be a bad thing.”

  “And there’s Carolyn. Sandi was determined Carolyn would have the mother and father she didn’t have.” Andrea spoke softly. “Sandi tried so hard to please everyone. How could someone murder her?” Andrea began to cry. Instinctively, he moved toward her, and—he guessed instinctive for her, too—she moved toward him. She bowed and leaned her head against his chest.

  After a moment, she lifted her head and stepped back from him. “Thank you. You must be kind. I think I felt that when I first met you.”

  They continued listing the journals and notebooks, with simple designations for writing journal, diary, financial records, correspondence, and miscellaneous. Ambler had brought file boxes with him from the library; in some of the boxes they put photos, postcards, Christmas cards, and such. Ambler designated one box for Andrea to use for anything she wanted to save for Carolyn.

  Holding up one of the journals, Andrea said, “This one’s more like a diary than the others that are ideas for books.”

  “Mrs. Galloway did both, sometimes in the same notebook. She used what happened in her life as raw material for her books.”

  “You know, Sandi kept diaries, too. She had journals she wrote in by hand, keeping secrets, like little girls do.”

  When they were nearly finished and the sun was declining over the lagoon and a kind golden amber sunlight filled the room through the large windows over the desk, Andrea asked him why McNulty was accused of murdering Sandi and why Ambler thought he didn’t kill her.

  He told her McNulty had been with Sandra from the time of Ted Doyle’s murder in her hotel room in the city until she was murdered in Stamford. That was so far the evidence against him. “He tried to protect her from herself.” Ambler softened his tone. “Sandra whom I knew as Shannon put herself in dangerous situations. I don’t know why. She was reckless in the way someone who’s self-destructive risks hurting themselves.”

  “Why? Why was she like that?”

  Ambler didn’t know. He shook his head and picked up one of the file boxes to carry to his car.

  Andrea picked up a box and walked along with him. “My husband’s a psychologist. I know what he’d say. Sandi did something—or something was done to her—that she felt she should be punished for. It might have been her mother leaving her. She might have felt that was her fault. It’s not actually that simple. But it was something like that.”

  When they’d finished loading the file boxes, they stood awkwardly between the cars. It was as if a bond had grown between them. Ambler asked about Carolyn.

  “She’s staying for now with my husband and me. Simon’s a wreck, wrapped up in his own misery and not so aware of anyone else’s. Carolyn didn’t want to go back home yet. She doesn’t want to go to school yet either. We play with her and hug her a lot, trying to let her talk when she wants and not talk when she wants to be quiet.”

  Before Andrea got in her car, she hugged Ambler. Then, as she opened the door, she turned and said. “I hope you find out your friend didn’t kill Sandi.”

  Ambler nodded. “Does the name Dillard Wainwright mean anything to you?”

  Andrea shook her head. “Should it?”

  “I don’t know.” Ambler closed the car door behind her.

  Chapter 18

  Ambler dropped the file boxes at the library’s loading dock on 40th Street and returned the rental car to the garage on 31st Street near Eighth Avenue. He thought about going back to the library to sift through the diaries but went home to see Johnny instead. On the way back from Long Island, he kept thinking about Carolyn and how awful it was for her, which brought him to thinking about Johnny.

  Not for the first time, he thought involving himself in homicide investigations put him in danger of becoming a homicide himself. The danger was remote, yet more likely than if he had another avocation, like bowling or bird-watching. It was okay for him to take that chance for himself. He wasn’t sure it was okay for him to take the chance that Johnny could lose another person he put his love and trust into. Of course, Johnny would have his grandmother, such as she was, and he’d have Adele, as Carolyn had Andrea. Still … Ambler realized he wasn’t rushing home so much because the boy needed him—he was fine with Denise—but because he needed the boy.

  Denise met him at the door. He stopped short when he saw her furrowed brow and her pretty green eyes darkened with worry. “Someone called because someone had a heart attack and is in the hospital.”

  “Who?” Ambler pushed past her.

  “I wrote it down and the number.” She handed him an envelope on which she’d written Kevin McNulty and a phone number.

  The phone number was a cell phone for Brian McNulty’s son, the younger Kevin McNulty. His grandfather was in the cardiac care unit at Maimonides Medical Center.

  “They admitted him and no
one will tell me anything about his condition,” the young man said when Ambler called him back. Kevin tried to sound calm and confident but his voice shook. “I’m on my way to the city now. I should be there in a couple of hours.”

  McNulty had asked Ambler to look after his father and his son. He hadn’t expected something like this. “What about your dad?”

  Young Kevin hesitated. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk on the phone.”

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Maimonides was in Borough Park, an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the middle of Brooklyn. He asked Denise to stay with Johnny for a few hours and told Johnny he was going to visit McNulty’s dad in the hospital. The hospital was near a D train stop, so the subway would be faster than a car service. He arrived before Kevin Jr. and wasn’t allowed into the CardioThoracic Intensive Care Unit because he wasn’t a relative. He thought about arguing but stopped when he was told Mr. McNulty’s sister was with him at the moment. He could speak with her when she finished her visit.

  “Sister?” Ambler didn’t know the senior McNulty had a sister or McNulty an aunt. It was a surprise when Ambler discovered McNulty had a father and a son. Nothing else he could do, Ambler sat down in an antiseptic hallway to wait for the son in question, who arrived about an hour later.

  “They wouldn’t let me in,” Ambler told the breathless young man. “Your father’s aunt is in there now.”

  Kevin Jr.’s eyes sprang open. “His what?” He recovered quickly, cast a quick look behind him at the nurses’ station, and nodded at Ambler. He lowered his voice. “Aunt … Fay, right? I guess I can go in.” Kevin headed for the nurses’ station but before he reached it, a matronly figure pushed through the closed doors marked CTICU and came toward him, grabbing his arm and propelling him back toward Ambler.

  “How do you do?” the matronly figure said to Ambler. “I’m Kevin’s sister Bridie. My brother is holding his own but would prefer to not have visitors for the time being. Let’s go where we can talk. I cased the place when I came in. I didn’t see any police. But you never know.”

  By this time, Ambler caught on. “Your father really did have a heart attack, right?”

  McNulty shot a sidelong glance at Ambler. “Do you think I’d take a chance on coming into the city if he hadn’t?” He cuffed his son on the shoulder. “Go flag down a livery cab and have it wait around the corner.” To Ambler, he said, “We’ll walk out together in a couple of minutes, hold my arm like a dutiful nephew or whatever.”

  “Precautions are good,” Ambler said. “My detective friend, Mike Cosgrove’s daughter is with Johnny. She knows I went to the hospital to see your father. She knows the name. She might mention it. If she does, Mike will add things up.”

  They met the livery cab on the corner. McNulty’s apartment might still be watched. If Mike suspected Ambler went to meet McNulty, Ambler’s apartment would be watched also. On the bright side, it was unlikely they were being followed. “Maybe we should go to Adele’s apartment for now, and get you a hotel after that.”

  “Brooklyn’s changed,” McNulty said, watching gentrification unfold out the livery cab window.

  The three of them felt like a crowd in the living room of Adele’s small apartment. She made them coffee and sandwiches and they crowded into her combination living room–dining room. McNulty told them his father had had triple bypass surgery and was recovering.

  “It’s going to be a long haul,” he said. “He’s going to need someone to look after him.” He stared off into space for a moment. “It should be me. I owe him that.” He turned to Ambler. “I don’t suppose you found out anything helpful.”

  Ambler told him about Sandra’s mother’s death and Sandra’s car in her mother’s garage.

  “We stopped there. Part of Sandi’s plan … as much of a plan as she had. You think Sandi’s mother was murdered? The cops think I did it? Now I murder old ladies?” He glared at each of them in turn, including his son.

  “Not so old,” Ambler said.

  McNulty nodded. “No offense.”

  “The police don’t think she was murdered, so no one’s accusing you … yet.”

  “There’s a break.” McNulty told the ceiling. “What about the names I gave you?”

  “Mike Cosgrove’s interviewing them. I asked him to.”

  “Would he tell you if he found something?”

  “He’d tell me some things, maybe not other things. If he finds something, he’ll follow it up. At the moment, there’s a what he’d call person of interest. Did Sandra ever mention a Peter Esposito? He’s one of the men in her journal.”

  “She didn’t much talk about that part of her life. Except she’d run into men who’d become obsessed with her and it scared her when men were like that. I told her it was because she was pretty and charming. She said it wasn’t that. Men like that wanted to own her. They cared about what they wanted from her, not her.” McNulty was quiet for a moment. “At least one of the men scared her. She never said which one. That’s why I gave you the names in her journal.”

  “Did she ever mention Dillard Wainwright?”

  McNulty raised an eyebrow, heightened interest. “The guy her mother ran off with? Sandi knew him, all right.”

  Despite asking the question, Ambler hadn’t expected that answer. “His name was in her journal, but she didn’t write about him in the section of the journal you gave me.”

  “They emailed.”

  “Did she stay in touch with any of the other men she—”

  “He’s the only one I know of. They weren’t love letters they sent each other.”

  “Did she have her laptop the night she was … Did she have the laptop the last time you saw her?”

  The silence in Adele’s living room was as brittle as ice. “She had it in the hotel room the night she was murdered.”

  “Do you know what happened to it?”

  McNulty’s face was expressionless. “The murderer took it or the cops found it.” He met Ambler’s gaze with sadness in his own. “I don’t have it if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “If the police found it, they might still have it or they gave it to her husband,” Ambler said. “Mike could find out. But how could I ask him without letting on I’ve seen you?”

  “Ask her husband.” McNulty said.

  “He doesn’t get along so well with Raymond,” Adele said.

  She didn’t say why but McNulty understood. “He thinks you have a horse in the race, eh?”

  McNulty left with his son soon after that, telling Ambler and Adele they were better off not knowing where he was going. It turned out to not to make much difference. Ambler stayed talking with Adele for a while.

  “Why don’t you ask your new friend Andrea Eagan to get the laptop for you?” Adele said. “She’s made quite a hit with you. And maybe you with her?” Something about Adele’s tone wasn’t right.

  “She helped me get Jayne Galloway’s journals and diaries. I like her.”

  “I can tell. You spent a pleasant afternoon together on Long Island. How nice. I’m sure you’re anxious to see her again.” Adele rattled together the small plates and cups she picked up from the table and dropped them with a clatter into the sink.

  Ambler caught on. His enthusiasm for Andrea came through too strongly when he described the afternoon he spent with her. “Oh my God, no, Adele. It’s not like that. She’s young. She’s married.”

  “Oh?” She stood with her hand on her hip in the doorway to the kitchen. “Sandra Dean was married, too.”

  Ambler felt a kind of pleasurable warmth. Adele was jealous.

  “What are you smirking about?” Adele went back to rattling the dishes in the kitchen sink.

  When Ambler got back to his apartment, he and Johnny walked Denise to Third Avenue and put her in a cab to go home. He kissed her on top of her head and asked how things were going at home. Family stuff hadn’t been going well for her for a while.

  “Not so good,” she said. “Mom and Dad are getting a divo
rce.”

  “Oh?”

  “That’s not so bad. What’s bad is Dad moved out and I have to stay with my mother. I’m not sure I can stand it.”

  “Oh,” said Ambler again. He tried not to talk to Denise about her family. His sympathy was certainly with Mike; still, he didn’t want to say anything against her mother. There were always two sides to these stories. “Where’s your dad staying?”

  “He’s staying with a couple of friends, two other divorced cops. A real bachelor’s pad. Beer cans and dirty dishes. He’s trying to get his own apartment so I can stay with him, at least some of the time.”

  “Poor Denise,” Ambler said, and kissed her on the top of her head again. “Things will get better.”

  She looked at him, her eyes large with bewilderment. “You’ve said that before and things haven’t gotten better.” She let that sink in but then cheered up. “Anyway, I’m happy to babysit anytime.” She caught Johnny’s truculent expression. “I don’t mean babysit. You know what I mean. Hang with Johnny if you need to be out somewhere. I can cook, you know. Make dinner. I can stay overnight if you have…” she dramatically cleared her throat, “… somewhere you want to be. If Adele needs a hand some evening … or something.” Denise tried to suppress her giggles but couldn’t.

  Ambler gave her a gentle shove into the cab and closed the door on her giggles and winks.

  “What did she mean, if Adele needs a hand some evening?” Johnny asked as they walked back to the apartment.

  Ambler was at a loss for an answer. His cheeks burned.

  “I can still stay at Adele’s anytime I want, right?” Johnny looked up at Ambler, worry crinkling his eyes.

  “Of course you can.”

  “We can both stay there sometime, right?”

  Ambler smiled. “Maybe.”

  Chapter 19

  Ambler awoke the next morning to a phone call from Mike Cosgrove. “We locked up your bartender friend,” he said by way of greeting.

  The world crashed around Ambler. He didn’t ask the particulars. “Where is he?”