Havoc-on-Hudson

by Bernice Gottlieb

  “Not for half an hour,” she said, and then, as if she’d had a sudden inspiration, “I know! Let’s go get a coffee. We’ve got a great Keurig in the office.” She sped up, took the sharp right back up Main Street, and screeched to a halt in front of the office. She’d just reached for the seatbelt clasp, clicking the belt open, when he grabbed her hair and pulled her toward him. She felt a sharp prick on her neck. That was when she saw the knife, black hilt, stainless blade. Lethal.

  “Drive to the station now, Bitch, or I will kill you!”

  But she knew she had to get away from him. With a quick twist of her wrist she turned the motor off and grabbed for the door handle.

  He pressed the point of the knife into her neck and pulled it out again. Searing pain almost overcame her. He slammed his door open, flew out and sped across the street.

  Somehow Claire got the door open and leapt out onto the curb.

  “Stop him! Help! Someone stop that man,” she screamed. Two women wheeling strollers froze, like deer in headlights. A bulky guy wearing Yale sweats huffed off after him. But ‘Mr. Bob Wilson’ ran into the huge parking lot of the Stop and Shop across the street and vanished from view.

  26

  From my desk, even with my door closed, I heard a sudden commotion in the outer office. The front door slammed open, there was a scream from Mary Jane, the secretary, and a great thud as someone knocked over a chair and crashed to the floor.

  “What the heck!” I jumped up from my swivel chair and yanked the door open. Claire, blood oozing from her neck and down her right arm, lay in a heap on the carpet, sobbing and gasping, babbling incoherently.

  “Call the police! Call an ambulance!” I screamed at MJ, who stood over Claire, staring down, immobilized.

  MJ flew to the phone and dialed 911.

  “What is it, Claire? What happened?” I grabbed a thick wad of tissues and pressed them hard against the source of the bleeding. “Who did this to you?”

  “It was him!” Claire sobbed. “Oh, Maggie, it was the rapist! He had a knife!”

  I gasped. “Okay, Sweetie,” I crooned to my friend, cradling her. “Okay. It’s going to be all right. The police are on their way. You’ll be fine, Sweetie. You’ll be just fine.”

  But would she? The blood was flowing fast. Just how far had that knife gone in?

  The early winter darkness had begun to gather, and the flashing red, blue, and white strobes of the arriving emergency vehicles lent the office an almost hallucinogenic aura.

  The front door slammed open, and Chief Betsy, hand on gun, practically fell into the room; she’d run all the way. “Wha’ happen?” she huffed. Then she took in Claire’s pale face … the dripping blood. “Oh, God! Not another one!”

  27

  In the E.R. there was such a huddle of medical personal in Claire’s cubicle that I hung back, outside the curtains. She was my friend, but right now she needed other people more than she needed me. I could hear a jumble of hysterical sobs, terse medical voices, beeping equipment, and low, intense questions from Chief Betsy. Between those sobs, Claire’s responses were so muted I couldn’t make sense of them. All I could do was cry silently, hot tears running down my cheeks.

  A young male nurse wearing blue scrubs walked past me in the corridor, gave me a second glance, and continued on. In a minute he was back, handing me a box of tissues. “Is the neck laceration your friend?” he asked.

  I nodded, mopping my eyes. “Someone stabbed her.”

  “Hmmm,” he responded, soberly, and turned into another cubicle.

  Then I gasped. Oh, my God! Suddenly I had a revelation. The attack on Claire must be my fault. When I’d told her that I was going to place an ad searching for Danny Joe Farrell in the Personals column of Looking, she’d scoffed and bet me she’d do better in an online search. Was Danny Joe Farrell monitoring the Internet for any interest taken in him? Had Claire’s search activity somehow triggered an alert?

  My realization so shocked me, I almost passed out then and there. Plunking down onto a chrome-frame chair by Claire’s cubicle, I began taking long, slow, deep calming breaths. All I needed to do to complicate the situation was to pass out in the E.R.

  Just then a doctor came out of the cubicle and gave me a sharp look. “Pull yourself together, Lady,” she snapped. “Your friend is going to need you.”

  Nobody had scolded me like that in decades. Oddly enough, being spoken to like a bawling five-year-old was exactly what I needed. I sat up straight, stopped crying, swallowed hard, and asked, “How is she?”

  The knife, fortunately, had not punctured an artery. There may have been some nerve damage, but it wasn’t immediately apparent. She was now on pain medication and headed for surgery to repair what damage they could see. They’d keep her in the hospital for observation until they were certain about the nerve function.

  “She’s in good hands, here.” As I calmed down, the doctor mellowed. “You can go in, let her know you’re there for her, then go home and pour yourself a strong drink.”

  All of which I did.

  I’d intended to tell the Chief about my lunchtime meeting with Leah Goldman, but given the attack on Claire, Leah flew completely out of my mind.

  28

  It was well after dark by the time I returned home, took the doctor’s advice, and poured myself a snifter of Remy Martin. I sank into the soft leather armchair by the wide window that overlooked the river. The night was cold and clear. The river was beginning to freeze. And the bridge lights shone like diamonds. I was shaking and the ice clinked in my glass.

  Andrew was out of town on business, and I didn’t want to bother him. I just wanted to sit still and pull myself together. Was it really my fault that Claire had been attacked? Should I tell the Chief about what I had done? What Claire had done?

  Yes, I should. I would do it first thing in the morning.

  It was a while before I noticed the blinking light on my landline telephone. Once I did, I debated with myself over whether or not I would listen to the message. It was late. How important could it be?

  But, then, of course, I answered it.

  Leah Goldman had left me a farewell message.

  “Hello, Maggie. I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided I don’t want anything more to do with Danny Joe Farrell. That’s why I left the diner so abruptly this afternoon. I panicked a little. I don’t even want to talk to you about him anymore. It’s over. I’m done.

  Except for one last thing—”

  What the heck? I thought.

  “Now that I’m widowed,” she went on, “I’m about to move to California. My son’s working out there, and I want to get away from these god-awful New York winters.”

  She was silent for a moment, and then continued, “But there’s one more thing—I’ve been holding onto a second letter from Tessa, one that she wrote for her son, for when he got older. She asked me to personally hand it to him. But no way I’m going to go anywhere near him, seeing what he’s turned out to be. But, if they catch him, you’ll probably be seeing him—behind bars.”

  Hopefully that will be the case, I thought

  “No matter what, he should have this letter. It belongs to him and whatever it says might help him to forgive his mother for leaving. Tessa truly loved her little boy. He meant everything to her. But the abuse she suffered from Danny’s father just killed her spirit. That must be why she decided to commit suicide.

  “I’ve tried and tried, but I haven’t been able to find Danny Joe, so I’ve put this letter in the mail to you, Maggie, to give to him if you ever can. Also Tessa sent me a folder of personal items, such as licenses and birth certificates. I’ve mailed them in the same envelope, and I’m going to trust, in all good faith, that you will give them to him.”

  What? I thought. Why the hell would I want to have anything to do with this errand?

  There was
a long pause, then an even longer sigh, then she spoke again. “Now that you will take this awful burden from me, I feel that Tessa will finally rest in peace.

  “Thank you so much, Maggie. I’m trusting you on this. Please don’t try to get in touch with me. I don’t want to hear from you again.”

  And she hung up.

  29

  The River Journal, Tarrytown, NY, January 18:

  Local Real-Estate Agent Stabbed in Village:

  Claire Burns, real estate associate at Maggie Mitty Real Estate in Hudson Hills, was brutally stabbed yesterday by a customer who had requested a home showing. Ms. Burns sustained lacerations of the neck and is recovering from surgery at a local hospital. The motive for the attack is unknown.

  Due to ongoing investigation into an increasing number of attacks on real estate salespeople, Maggie Mitty, Principal Broker at Maggie Mitty Real Estate, has been called in as a consultant to the Hudson Hills police department as they pursue investigation into the suspect/suspects involved in these local attacks, the most recent involving the murder of agent Amy Honeywell last July.

  In an interview on the front steps of St. John’s Pavilion, Chief Betsy Colwell said, “I want the public to know that this attack is no longer just a local issue. It is a national one, and has all branches of law enforcement involved. There has always been the occasional attack on women (and men) throughout the real-estate industry, according to the Department of Labor and Statistics. The average number of rapes and/or murders per year is 70-80 nationwide. It is a cowardly form of terrorism against a specific group of vulnerable professionals. But a sudden escalation of attacks in the Hudson River area has agents—and law enforcement—concerned.”

  In response to a question about whether any person or persons of interest had yet been identified, Chief Colwell said, “DNA testing is underway as we speak. When results come in will have answers that will prove invaluable in our investigation.”

  30

  “Do you happen to know her maiden name?” Uncle Ralph asked, blowing a ring of smoke from his newly legal Cuban cigar. Ralph, Claire’s uncle, not mine, was a police officer in Nassau County, and Claire had enlisted him to help in my search for information about Tessa Farrell. She bragged that her uncle could search just about anyone online or in state records or even in police files. Well, yeah, he wasn’t supposed to access the latter for personal use, but that had never stopped old Ralph before. “What else are they there for?” he’d say when anyone asked.

  “No, unfortunately I don’t know her birth name.” I had the thick mailer that Leah had sent me, and I knew there were personal documents included which might well provide that very information. But, for some reason, I’d been oddly reluctant to open it.

  Now that I knew Tessa was dead, I’d been doing Internet searches to try and locate her burial place—without any luck. Not knowing which state she’d been living in at the time of her suicide twenty years ago made the job almost impossible.

  Then, Claire, the online whiz kid—now recovered from her ordeal—stepped in, but even she couldn’t find information anywhere in the United States for a death under the name Tessa Farrell during the past twenty years. So, after several weeks of frustration, she’d called in the big guns, good old Uncle Ralphie. Now we sat in the real estate office afterhours drinking decaf Starbucks lattes and brainstorming with the pro. So far, he, too, was coming up zero.

  “Could be,” Ralph said, making the office air blue with his cigar smoke, “that she destroyed her identity papers before she offed herself. Sounds like Tessa’d been making long-term plans to do herself in. Maybe she didn’t want the suicide to get in the papers under her name. The scandal, you know? Maybe she didn’t want anyone back home to know she’d done it.”

  “Or maybe,” Claire added, “once she left Buffalo, she changed her name.”

  “That, too,” Ralph agreed.

  “Hmm,” I agreed, not really paying attention. I was still obsessing over the material Leah Goldman had sent me, and that I’d been so reluctant to open. But why hadn’t I opened it? I definitely wouldn’t feel right about reading Tessa’s last letter to Danny Joe, but the large white folder that had also come, why couldn’t I look at that?

  But once it was opened, wouldn’t I have to share it with the police? Maybe I should do that without looking at it. But …

  I was feeling a little sick. Cold decaf latte is more disgusting under fluorescent light than it is in the deliberately mellow mood lighting at Starbucks. Add Uncle Ralph’s cigar smoke to that and I was ready to go home.

  “Sorry, Ms. Mitty.” Ralph suddenly slumped back from the computer and said, “Doesn’t look like I’m getting anywhere.” He chewed thoughtfully on the end of his cigar. Then he leaned his elbow on the desktop with the cigar still at his lips and waggled the damn thing as if he were Groucho Marx. “A child of five could do better than I could,” he said, in nasal tones, and blew another smoke circle. “Go get me a child of five.”

  31

  “What’s up, Mike?” I asked, as Officer Mike Pandolfo pushed open the office door a few mornings later and headed for my desk.

  “I need some names,” he said, talking out of the side of his mouth like a B-movie heavy.

  “That sounds sinister,” I replied with a grin. “You’re not going to hold matches to my fingernails, are you?”

  But, no. Nothing so dire. He wanted names of contacts at whatever New York State department kept statistics about real-estate salespeople. The report of the attack on Claire had been sent out over the AP network. Now national media was interested, asking the town police for exact numbers of brokers in Westchester County who’d been raped, killed, or threatened.

  “And we can obtain numbers only from the United States Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Maggie, and those are just national,” he said. “They don’t break down into states or counties. I don’t want to broadcast inaccurate information through the press.”

  Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of what State division might keep records like that. If any. “Mike, I don’t know if there’s any one agency that collects such data county by county. You can probably compile it yourself by calling the various Westchester Police Departments and asking them about local incidents.”

  His expression sobered. “Aw, Maggie. That’s a lot of calls. I don’t suppose you—”

  “No.” I sputtered. “Don’t suppose any such thing.” I swiveled my desk chair away from him and pulled a stack of bulging manila file folders toward me on the desk. “I’ve got my own job to do,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him, “and I’ve already spent too much time working with you guys. Houses don’t sell themselves, you know.”

  Silence.

  When I glanced up from the teetering stack of folders, he was still there, looking uncomfortable.

  “Maggie?”

  “What!”

  “You’re not mad at me, are you?” He was so young—couldn’t have been more than twenty-two—and so cute in his chagrin that I had to smile. “No, Mikey,” I said. “When you come at me with the matches, then I’ll get mad. I just can’t help you with this right now. Okay?”

  “Great!” He turned to leave, and then swiveled back again.

  “Oh, by the way, Maggie, did you hear about that last footprint? You know? At the house where the lady was murdered in the tub?”

  “A new footprint? I thought each one had already been figured out.”

  “No, one of them was never matched to an individual, and it was found in a number of the main rooms of the house. They’re frustrated, because everybody who either lived there or was there the day of the murder has been identified either from their size or the covers on their shoes. But now, finally, the lab has been able to identify at least the brand of the unknown shoe.”

  “What brand is it?” I was fascinated by the news. “It could be the murderer’s. Or he could have
had an accomplice. We’ve never given that possibility a thought.”

  “We?” Mikey said, noting my enthusiasm. “Y’know what? Leave it to the detectives. “He beckoned toward my forgotten stack of files and grinned. “You’ve got too much to do already.”

  I sat up straighter and cleared my throat. “Well, yes, of course I do. Just curious, that’s all.”

  He continued, “The dicks and the techs are working on it. According to the report I saw, looks like a pair of expensive men’s shoes, made in Switzerland by a company named … er, what was it? Oh, yeah, Bally, or something like that. I think the report says they’re a size eleven.”

  “Bally? That’s a good shoe,” I said. It made me think about my poor Ferragamos, languishing in the storage room at the lab, when I could be wearing them.

  “Well, maybe this case will take on a different turn from what everyone bargained for.” I said, processing the news.

  And the stack of folders teetered on the desk a while longer. As soon as the door closed behind Mike, I remembered about the envelope Leah had sent me. I still hadn’t been able to open it—some silly fear of betraying Leah and thus the poor dead Tessa. Some really stupid fear of betraying the young Danny Joe. And right now it was sitting in my top desk drawer.

  Leah had trusted me to get that letter to Danny Joe. Was I being overly obedient to her wishes? Should I turn it over to the police immediately?

  But they would confiscate the personal letter to Danny Joe, and Leah had made such a solemn promise not to open that letter. She felt Danny Joe had to read it first, before anyone else got their hands on it.

  So, was the ethical thing for me to do, at least for now, to hide the personal letter from Tessa to Danny Joe until I could give it to him? Yes! That was it.

  But the unknown information in the large white envelope might impact positively on the current investigation and save innocent lives in the process.