Lady Vanishes

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  “Then, in a perverse way, it makes sense. Look, Venus, once someone walks away from what’s considered normal, the pattern of their thinking changes. Sometimes they believe they are forced to do the horrible things they do, that the victim asked for it, or left them no choice, or that they had to teach the victim a lesson.”

  “A lesson!”

  “I know it’s bizarre.” I shook my head. “My sister used to love to scare me when we were little, and one time she read me this story, maybe it was Poe, I’m not sure, about some guy who got walled up by his father, I think. Because the old man wanted to teach him a lesson. I couldn’t get that out of my mind, the insanity of it, because as each brick was put in place, he knew, and I knew, he was going to die there. Some lesson.”

  “He took Lady to get the positive attention he thought he deserved and that she was getting. And when that didn’t work, he killed Harry?”

  “Maybe it was the lesser of two evils.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That he couldn’t kill the person he was really mad at.”

  “His father. So Harry was—”

  “A stand-in. I told you it wouldn’t make sense.”

  “And me? What was I?”

  I reached out and put a hand on Dashiell’s back. He looked at me and wagged his tail.

  “I wonder if he thought that if all the people who were appreciated at Harbor View were gone, his father would have to notice him,” I said.

  “That’s pathetic.”

  If it were true, wouldn’t this still be the beginning? Who would be next? Molly? Me? Even his brother.

  “Thank God he’s at the precinct.”

  I wondered how far he would have gone to get the attention he was after.

  The door opened, and Olive Oyl popped her round head in. “Time to go,” she said. “Doctor’s coming.”

  “I’ll just say good-bye.”

  Venus took my hand.

  “What about Lady? Is there any special way I should introduce her back to the kids?”

  She was quiet a moment. “No matter what you do, there’s going to be some confusion. It’s the nature of the beast, so to speak. If you go without Dashiell, Jackson will be upset. Dashiell is the dog that moved Jackson.”

  I thought about the bookend, but I couldn’t talk to her about it now. Olive would be back in a minute with Doctor. Anyway, given the circumstances, I guess it could wait.

  “Some of them will be puzzled, seeing both dogs, but that’s okay. That’s the way to go.

  “You’re not thinking this is wrapped up, are you, Rachel? There’s still the problem of the will. We’re not out of the woods yet. I still need you. And Lourdes.”

  I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I don’t leave until you tell me to leave.”

  Out in the hall, I thanked Lourdes and asked her to stay at least two more days. The doctor was down the hall, coming this way. The nurse was trailing two steps behind him, carrying a clipboard. I turned the other way and headed for the stairs.

  CHAPTER 35

  You Need His Keys? I Asked

  On Twelfth Street, outside St. Vincent’s, I began meandering west, toward Harbor View, taking my time so that the dogs could read the news of the neighborhood, post their own messages, be themselves before going back to work.

  But as I got closer and closer to the way West Village, I found myself going even more slowly, like Dashiell when he wants to stay out and sees I’m heading home.

  So I turned south, toward the cottage. I was feeling funny and wanted to be home, even if it was just for an hour. Maybe I was just hungry. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a real meal. So I crossed Hudson Street and stopped at Pepe Verde, getting some pasta and chicken to go, a mixed salad, too, and some of their wonderful bread to go with it.

  After unlocking the gate and letting the dogs in first, I picked up the mail, several days’ worth, stopped in the garden, and sat on one of the benches, watching the dogs flirt and play. Then, without going inside, I opened the bag of food and started eating my salad with the little plastic fork, feeling how empty I was, and how tired.

  What was the rush? Surely tomorrow would be a mess, the Pooles and the Kagans finding out about the new arrangements for Harbor View. No more Venus this and Venus that; she’d be pretty much running things as soon as she got out of the hospital. And the shock of it, that she and Harry had fallen in love and gotten married. That ought to take them some time to get used to.

  I didn’t know about the Pooles. To hell with them. They had nothing to do with this after tomorrow. But Eli would work it out with Venus, for the sake of the kids. They’d be okay, in time.

  Time was all any of them needed, time to adjust to the changes and go on. Time was what I needed, too, I thought, starting the pasta, giving each dog a piece of the chicken, saving a little for myself, feeling so tired I wasn’t sure I could make it upstairs to bed.

  Why rush over there tonight? I thought, wondering if they knew about Samuel yet. He wouldn’t show up for his evening sing-along. So what? They’d wonder where he was and put the kids to bed. If I went over, I’d have to tell them the bad news—where he was, and why. A message like that, mightn’t they want to kill the messenger? And who was I kidding? I wasn’t merely the messenger. I was the one who’d dropped Samuel off at the precinct, who told them what he’d done and why. No, better to stay home, look at the mail, let Lady spend the night and take her back in the morning, let her settle in with the kids while the Kagans sat in the lawyer’s office listening to the news, two of them anyway.

  I put the remains of dinner into the outside trashcan and secured the lid. Then I unlocked the door, called in the dogs, and filled two bowls with dry dog food, adding some cottage cheese and yogurt, cleaning and refilling the water bowl. I carried the mail upstairs and took it into my office, dropping it on my desk, opening the top drawer and picking up Venus’s necklace, letting the heart spin in the light from the desk lamp.

  When the phone rang, both dogs barked. The sound seemed out of place in the quiet house.

  “Alexander.”

  “Rach. It’s Marty.”

  “Hey. How’s it going? Any luck with that bicycle yet?”

  “Not yet. That thing’s been out in the weather for two weeks. Whatever wasn’t washed off was rubbed off by other people’s hands. Doesn’t look too promising, but then again, we shouldn’t need it now, should we, now that you solved the case for us.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Cute, Rach, cute. Like it slipped your mind, the guy you dropped off here.”

  “Oh. Him. How’s that going?”

  “He confessed.”

  “Hey, great. How’d you get it out of him?”

  “The usual—hot lights, rubber hoses, beatings, and of course the stun gun. Agoudian’s good at what he does.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  “Completely routine, but I tell you, this one’s an amateur, a real crybaby. Wet his damn pants before five minutes elapsed. Literally. Anyway, we couldn’t have gotten where we are without you, kid.”

  “Well, it wasn’t really me. Dashiell got real interested in his pants, so I figured he had the dog, and the rest just fell into place. But it was Agoudian who got him to confess. He only owned up to taking the dog when I had him.”

  “None of that denial here. He opened his mouth, he didn’t shut up until it was all on the table, good stuff, rich with detail.”

  “That’s good. A relief.”

  “You bet. Always nice when you can close a case. It makes the captain happy. So, you recovered the dog at his place?”

  “I did.”

  “Everything okay on that end?”

  “Fine. She’s okay. I have her here, Marty. I’m bushed. I thought I’d keep her here tonight, take her back to Harbor View in the morning. That okay?”

  “Yeah, Rach. We know where she was. And we know where she’ll be. Besides, he wrote it all down and signed it. We got him on video,
too.”

  “You need his keys?” I asked. “I have them here. I can drop them off in the morning. In case someone wants to go out to Brooklyn, get him a dry pair of pants.”

  “There’s nothing in the budget for that, Rach. His old man can get him some clean pants. Or he can get them himself, come tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He confessed, all right. We were running out of fucking videotape. He was ready to take responsibility for World War II by the time we finally shut him up.”

  I didn’t say anything. I had a strong feeling he wasn’t finished.

  “He started out, it looked pretty good. He had a few of the details down pat, stuff he shouldn’t have known, about how the bicycle was obtained, for example.”

  “I may have inadvertently—”

  “But the more into it he got—” I could picture him shaking his head. “He was real wound up, Rach, talking a mile a minute, sweating so much his shirt was as wet as his pants. Agoudian, he can be pretty loud when he has to, he’s in his face, asking him how he could have hit the old man with the bike, someone he knew since he was a little kid, and you know what he says? He says, I hit him from behind. I did it so I wouldn’t have to see his face. Couldn’t have done it the other way, he tells Agoudian, like this makes him sensitive, this makes it okay he killed Dietrich, because he hit him in the back, not the front. What this makes him is not guilty, Rachel. What it makes him is nutty as a fruitcake.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “His father’s a shrink,” I said.

  “Yeah, so it figures, right?”

  “Seems to go that way.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t be running around loose, in my opinion.”

  “But he will be? You’re letting him loose?”

  “One o’clock. Right after lunch. In case you want to meet him, give him back his keys in person. On the other hand, he might not be too happy to see you, considering. Even after cooling off overnight. Maybe you ought to leave them for him at Harbor View. He might be annoyed with you, bringing an innocent man to the precinct, accusing him of some horrific crimes, only one of which he’s guilty of.”

  “Is that why you’re keeping him overnight, to ‘cool off?’”

  He didn’t say anything right away.

  Neither did I.

  “The guys are pissed about what he did, about the nature of the crime, taking the dog away from those poor souls at Harbor View. The dog disappears, wouldn’t they figure any one of them might be next? Must have been a tough time there. So we figured a night of our best hospitality, a couple of our gourmet meals under his belt, he might think twice in the future.”

  I looked up at the bulletin board, the list of people who’d be disappointed once they read the will, thinking, if not Samuel, then who?

  “I’m sorry, Marty. I thought—”

  “Hey, the dog’s okay, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then something good came out of this, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for saying that,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” he told me.

  After I hung up, I’m not sure why, I went to the bathroom, got the tweezers, and, sitting at the desk, holding the necklace under the light, I closed the link on Venus’s chain, then slipped it around my neck, fastened the latch, and tucked it under my shirt, the heart that Harry had given Marilyn first and Venus second. I went into the bedroom and crawled under the covers, feeling the bed bounce twice as both dogs joined me a moment later.

  But I couldn’t sleep. At first, I was thinking about Samuel Kagan, who, when he couldn’t get positive attention from his father, had tried for some negative attention, confessing to crimes he didn’t commit just so his old man would take some notice of him.

  And then I stayed up even longer; whoever had killed Harry and tried to kill Venus was still running around loose. Time was running out, and I didn’t have a clue as to who that was.

  CHAPTER 36

  I Took Out My Cell Phone

  I decided to take Lady back to Harbor View early, while I still could. With Venus in the hospital, I might not be welcome there once Samuel was released. Unless, of course, he decided to keep mum about the whole incident, saving my face along with his own.

  I took the dogs across West Street to give them a good walk along the river, picking at all the loose threads of the case as I headed uptown, Venus’s necklace hanging around my neck like a stone, reminding me that I didn’t know who tore it off her and why. Nor did I know how David got it, how Jackson got the bookend and why he had buried it, nor what those arguments were about on the last day of Harry’s life. I was about to make the list of what I didn’t know longer than the Saint Patrick’s Day parade when I saw something that momentarily stopped my ruminating.

  Someone skating toward me was waving. Since I didn’t recognize him, I turned around. There behind me was someone saluting. A second later, I began to laugh at the absurdity of what I thought. The person was waving back, his hand passing in and out of the position it would be in were he shading his eyes from the sun. Only he was facing north.

  Harry had been facing south. He could have been shading his eyes. He also could have been waving at his killer. Why not? Wasn’t it someone he knew? And then, as the bike got closer, with no signs of slowing down, his hand probably froze, so that someone glancing out the window could think he was saluting. Or shading his eyes.

  How easy it is to misinterpret what we see.

  The skaters met and now both headed north. I followed behind them, stopping to let the dogs sniff and explore or stop and play-bow to each other, untwisting the leashes as the dogs continually changed places, the dog on the left having to see what was on the right side, the dog on the right needing to check out the left.

  Instead of crossing the highway at Eleventh Street, the most direct route to Harbor View, I kept going. I wasn’t in any rush. Samuel wasn’t getting sprung for hours, and everyone else would probably be at the lawyer’s office, trying to figure out what might be involved in overturning Harry’s will, the lawyer shaking his head, telling them the rest of the bad news, that the will was airtight because Harry could leave whatever he wanted to his wife.

  When I got to Twelfth Street, across from Harbor View, everything changed again. Now I had something else to think about, seeing how lonely the old seaman’s hotel looked, the only occupied building on the block. In fact, in no time, it would be the only building standing on the block. That very morning, while I was taking a shower and feeding the dogs, a temporary wooden barrier had been set up around the aqua bar, and the wreckers were there, taking it down.

  I looked at Lady, who looked back at me, one eye showing, the other hidden by her dreadlocks, her mouth open, her small pink tongue out, her head cocked, as if to ask me what I wanted.

  Maybe her disappearance wasn’t how it all began.

  Since I didn’t have a pen and paper with me, I took out my cell phone and called home, waiting for the answering machine to pick up, then reading into the mouthpiece the information from the sign on the wooden barrier, including the phone number. Instead of taking Lady back to Harbor View, I moved as fast as I could, first going back to the hospital to talk to Venus, then heading back to Tenth Street, to my office, to do some very important research, some by phone, some on-line, watching the clock to make sure I didn’t miss Samuel coming out of the precinct, taking a deep breath of fresh air, thinking free at last, free at last, then heading over to Harbor View for some much-needed spin control.

  CHAPTER 37

  It’s All a Terrible Mistake

  At ten to one, despite the heat, I slipped on a jacket, loaded my pockets, leashed the dogs, and walked across the street. When he came out, I was waiting.

  “What do you want?”

  “I came to give you back your keys,” I told him. “And to thank you.”

  “To thank me?”

  “For taking such good care of Lady. Just like you said, she’s fine.�
��

  He reached out a hand.

  I didn’t reach into my pocket for his keys.

  “Here,” I said, handing him the loop of Lady’s leash. “I was just going to take her back to Harbor View. Maybe you should do that. It would look better.”

  “You didn’t tell them?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  He took the leash, ignoring the dog at the other end.

  “Look, I lied to you.”

  He nodded.

  “And you lied to me.”

  This time he looked past me, down toward Hudson Street, where I hoped we’d be headed soon.

  “And you lied to the police.”

  “How do you—”

  “I know what you’re after, Samuel.”

  Two lines appeared between his eyes.

  “Why don’t we wipe the slate clean and start again? I promise you, you’ll get your father’s attention this time.”

  “How?” Sounding like a little kid again.

  “By having found Lady. You can tell him what you wanted me to tell him, that you located her at the shelter, that she must have gotten out, but you never gave up, you kept calling and calling, and finally she showed up there and you went to get her. That would explain your absence last night, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would.”

  I reached into my pocket for his keys, handing them over to him.

  “By the way, what time was the meeting with Harry’s lawyer?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Oh, last night, Nathan said they’d all be gone in the morning, something about Harry’s will, that the lawyer didn’t want to mail copies to the heirs, he wanted to discuss it with them.”

  Samuel frowned.

  “Only he didn’t say what time it would be.”

  “Eleven.”

  “Good. Then they should be back by now. You can surprise them with Lady. I’d like to go with you, Samuel, to see the expression on your father’s face.” I smiled and took a step toward Hudson Street. “Come on. We don’t have a moment to lose.”