by Blake Banner
“What do you want to do now?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I would like to have another chat with Sylvie, without Reverend Truelove breathing down our necks. I would like to hear what she has to say about the reverend’s being there or not during that day and the next morning. Also, though Sylvie’s memory may be failing her, there is somebody else who was there whose memory may be a lot more reliable.”
“Ahmed the gardener.”
“Indeed.” I stood. “Okay, let’s go.”
As we walked back toward the car, Dehan walked behind me, smacking my ass. I looked at her with scandalized eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You have sand on your ass. You can’t interview a witness with sand on your ass. It’s not dignified.”
This time, we found Sylvie at home. She opened the door like she was going to give it a spanking. She was wearing an apron and had her hair tied behind her head with a sock. When she saw who it was, she kind of sagged and said, “Oh, detectives, I am kind of busy…”
Dehan smiled, not unkindly, and said, “You working?”
Sylvie nodded and gestured behind her for us to see. There was a mop in a bucket stenciled in the kitchen door and we could hear the washing machine churning its way through a cycle. Dehan nodded her understanding and said, “Yeah, so are we.”
Sylvie had the good grace to smile as she sighed and stood back to let us in. “Sure, sorry. I get kind of caught up. Will you have some coffee?”
Dehan was doing fine so I let her answer for us both. “Yeah, that would be nice. Thanks. We won’t keep you long, Sylvie. Just a couple of quick questions.”
Dehan followed her into the kitchen. I closed the door and stood looking a moment at the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. I wondered which stair she had been sitting on, and looked down at the carpet under my feet. It was kind of a pale beige. It was not the same one he had died on. I could see in my mind the crime scene photographs, the spot where he had lain, with his briefcase by his hand, so important to him in life, yet oddly irrelevant in death. Death has a way of radically altering essential values.
I became aware of their silhouettes framing the mop in the kitchen portal, watching me. I followed after them.
She had a kitchen of the sort that was known in the 1980s as ‘stripped pine pajamas.’ There was a big pine table in the middle of the floor and a large, no nonsense AGA near a window that overlooked her back garden. Dehan sat at the table while Sylvie put on the coffee and I looked out the window. I could see the roof and fat tower of the church over the tops of the fruit trees and the hedge that separated her place from the plot where they had held the fête the day before.
I turned toward her. She was getting down a tin of brownies from a cupboard. “It must be very convenient, having the church right at the back of your property like that.”
She smiled. “It is.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t put a gate in the hedge.”
She glanced at me. “I have thought about it, but it might be presuming a little too much.”
I sat as she put the tin on the table and poured the coffee. “We have just come from visiting Elizabeth Cavendish.”
“Gosh! I haven’t seen Elizabeth for years. She used to visit quite regularly. She was a friend of Paul’s. What has she got to do with your investigation?”
I gave my head a little ‘gee-gosh’ sideways twitch and reached for a brownie. “In cold cases, we have to cast our nets wide.” I watched her face carefully as I added, “Reverend Truelove was visiting them on the night of the crime.”
She frowned. “Was he? My memory of that day is so hazy. I know he had been here earlier…”
Dehan dunked her brownie and bit into it. “Why’s that?”
“We’d been talking about Ahmed, what days he would be at the church and what days with us. It wasn’t difficult. He only had to come through…”
She faltered.
I prompted, “Yes? He only had to come through the hedge?”
She smiled. “It was easier in those days. It hadn’t grown so thick.”
Dehan frowned. “Forgive me, Sylvie, but it seems like a kind of odd thing to remember for almost twenty years.”
Her eyes became abstracted. She looked unhappy. “It’s an odd thing. The essential details are completely obliterated, yet small, trivial details seem to stand out so vividly. I can’t explain it.”
“It is very common, Sylvie,” I said. “Trauma can play havoc with our memories. Have you seen a therapist?”
“I have the best therapist of all, Detective Stone. God is my therapist.”
“Of course.”
Dehan raised an eyebrow at her brownie, like she didn’t believe something it had just whispered to her. “Sylvie, there is something we have been wanting to ask you. Please don’t take this the wrong way. These are questions we are required to ask.”
Her smile was oddly kind when she answered. “I do understand, Detective. And I can see how I would be a suspect. Please ask everything you need to. The truth is always our best defense.”
“If only all witnesses took that view. Were you aware of the insurance policies that Simon had taken out in your favor, before he was killed?”
She shook her head. “No, he never discussed that kind of thing with me. He was real old-fashioned about the family finances and what not.” She gave a small, pretty laugh. “He saw himself as a patriarch in the style of Abraham. We depended on him, and he provided.” The smile faded. “Even in death, he faithfully provided.”
Dehan nodded. “Sure, I get that. Would he have discussed matters like that with Reverend Truelove?”
“Oh, Lord no!” She laughed again. “Simon did not approve of Paul, at all. He accepted him because it was God’s will. But he did not approve of him.”
I sipped my coffee. “What caused his disapproval, Sylvie?”
There was no mistaking the look in her eyes as she gazed out the window toward the church. Whatever Simon may have thought, she definitely approved of the reverend.
“Paul doesn’t always go by the book. He goes more by the spirit of the scriptures than by the letter. I guess he has faith in the guidance of the Lord, and that gives him courage to act on impulse. Simon went much more by the letter of the scriptures. I sometimes felt that he was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of transgressing against the Word. He never did. And yet…” She turned and stared at me. “Do you think that evil can grow in a repressed heart, Detective?”
“What do you mean?”
She heaved a big sigh. “Is it possible that Paul’s heart, though less tied to the letter of God’s law, was also less repressed, and so had more room for kindness and humanity? While Simon’s, through being so vigilant, so dogmatic, had become a repressed, dark place, with no room for forgiveness or compassion. And in the end he was struck down, like the Tower of Babel, for trying to get too close to God…”
I made a thinking noise, wondering at what point it had stopped being a question and become a statement. “I am not sure if you are asking me or telling me, Sylvie. Either way, I think it’s a question I am not qualified to answer. What I am pretty sure of, though, is that Simon was not struck down by God, but by a human being. And I aim to find out who that is. As far as I can see, there are only two people who might have seen him. You, and possibly Ahmed. Have you still got Ahmed’s contact details?”
She nodded, got to her feet and moved over to a large, pine dresser. She pulled an old phone book from a packed drawer and leafed through it. Then she copied down a number and an address onto a piece of paper and brought it over to me before sitting down again.
“He is no longer involved with the church. He returned to Islam.”
I studied the piece of paper a moment and then put it in my pocket. “Sylvie, you said Reverend Truelove was here earlier in the day to discuss Ahmed’s roster. What time would that have been around? Before lunch, after lunch…?”
/> She gazed over at the church again. She looked distressed. “After. After lunch. They came over together and then Ahmed set to work on the fruit trees, the plums and the apples, collecting the harvest. And Paul and I talked and had coffee. Then he left, about six I guess. He had to go, to…”
She frowned.
“To what, Sylvie?”
“I don’t recall.” She gave a small laugh. “I suppose he had to get ready to go and have dinner with Elizabeth Cavendish.”
I nodded. “No doubt.”
I stood. Dehan was watching me with narrowed eyes. “Thank you, Sylvie. You have been very helpful.”
Dehan stood and we left.
As we drove away, I could see her standing in the doorway, watching us.
SIX
Dehan sat watching me and frowned. I glanced at her a couple of times as we moved from Pierce Avenue onto Bronxdale. All I could see was the street passing behind her head and my own reflection duplicated in her shades. Finally, she said, “There is something on your mind you are not sharing. What have I missed?”
I made a face. She was right. “I’m not sure. It may be nothing. I need to check it out first. I want you to contact the insurance company and find out if they have any correspondence on file between themselves and Sylvie from before the 5th September, 1999. Let’s see if she’s telling the truth.”
“Meanwhile…?”
“I’m going to talk to Ahmed and see if his story tallies with hers.”
“You think she’s lying?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The way she kept staring out the window at the church, I just got a hunch.” I looked at her again. She was waiting. “I had the feeling she was remembering more than she was telling us about.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I had that feeling, too.”
“When you’re done with the insurance company, see if you can get any information on Humberto. But I don’t want the reverend to know we are looking. See if you can get a Social Security Number or something. You know what to do.”
“Sure.”
“Then what do you say we get together for a beer this evening and compare notes? I’ll buy you a steak at 900 Park.”
She looked embarrassed. “I can’t.”
My face said I was surprised. “Oh?”
“My uncle has invited me to dinner at his house.”
“Oh, sure. So we can catch up in the morning.”
“Yeah. Well, anyway, I’ll call you if anything important comes up.”
“Sure.” I smiled. “Likewise.”
I dropped Dehan at the precinct and took White Plains Road north to Morris Park Avenue, then ducked left and right into Uniport Road, by the railway lines. It was a place designed according to the Who-Gives-a-Fuck school of architecture, by people who didn’t care, for people they thought didn’t matter. Ahmed had a gray, featureless two-story house with iron rails on the front door and the windows. There was a lot of shouting going on inside in a language I didn’t understand, and there seemed to be men, women and children involved. I rang the bell and wondered if they’d heard it over their massed voices.
Somebody had, because a small man in his mid-thirties opened the door after a while, dressed in a vest, pajama pants and slippers. He had a couple of day’s stubble and large, vaguely amused brown eyes. He said, “What?” but not in a hostile way.
I showed him my badge and told him who I was.
He took the badge and examined it. Then handed it back and shrugged. “What I can do for you?” He gestured with both hands into his house. “Everybody has got papers. We have a simple life. Why NYPD?”
“Are you Ahmed Abadi?”
“Yes. That me.” He shrugged, spread his hands. “We simple family…”
“Cut the act, Ahmed. I know you’ve been here since you were a kid and I know your English is just fine. Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”
He grinned. “Okay. What about? I keep my nose clean, Detective Stone.”
“It is not about you, and it has nothing to do with immigration. You may have unwittingly been a witness in a crime a long time ago. I just need to ask you a couple of simple questions…” I paused. “Can I come in?”
He led me into a narrow hallway carpeted in an orange patterned fabric designed to give you chronic depression while simultaneously curing you with static electric shock treatment. He pushed into a cramped living room, hollering a stream of what sounded like obscenities. Two women in burkas and six kids of varying ages fled the room, giggling. He gestured with both hands at a sofa that was a mistake in the 1970s and was still a mistake today and said, “Please, sit, can I give you some tea?”
I sat. “No, thank you, Ahmed. This won’t take long.”
He did the whole shrugging and spreading his hands thing again, like I was missing out on a once in a lifetime chance, and sat down smiling with his eyes.
“How can I help you?”
“About eighteen years back, you used to work for Simon Martin, over on Bogart Avenue, and for the church that backed onto that house…”
“Reverend Paul Truelove. Very beautiful people; they were so kind and helpful to me when I was new in this country. I hold them always very close to my heart, Allah be merciful.”
I nodded. “You probably remember that back then Simon Martin was the victim of a home invasion…”
His face had changed in a second and he looked like he might cry.
“It was a tragedy. I pray every day for his soul. Such a good man, with an equally as good wife, beautiful baby. Kind people. How can this happen to such a kind family? I want to know. How can this happen? Allah be merciful!”
“Well, that is what we are trying to find out. We have reopened the investigation, Ahmed, and as I understand it, you were there on the day in question, with Reverend Truelove.”
He was doing big nods, involving his whole upper body. “I was. I was. You want to know what I saw, and what I remember?”
“That would be very helpful.”
He sank back in his chair. His eyes became abstracted. “It is such long time ago. I was…” He shook his head, pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Fifteen? Sixteen? Just a boy.” He gave a small laugh. “So grateful to be away from Iraq! So grateful for starting this new life! And to Paul and Simon…” He sighed and I waited. “They were trying to decide what is best, I work for Paul Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Simon Thursday, Friday and Sunday?”
“Sunday. Not Saturday?”
“No, Sunday, because Saturday is bad for me. Sunday. Or maybe they think is best I work for Paul in the mornings and Simon after lunch. They were wondering, talking, talking. This day Simon is at work. He is always at work! Six, seven days of the week. I joke with him, ‘If the week have fourteen days, Mr. Simon, you would work fourteen days!’ He laugh a little…” He held his fingers together to show a really small amount. “He’s a man who does no laugh much. ‘We praise God in our work!’ he say to me. I say, ‘Allah be praised!’”
“So what happened this day?”
“Paul he say me, ‘Come on! We go talk with Sylvie! She will decide!’ so we go through the garden. Is very good. The gardens are connected so we can go, pom pom pom, through the garden to her house.”
“What time would that have been around, can you remember?”
He rocked from side to side, like he was listening to a sweet melody. “Maybe five or six. I go always to Paul after four, five. So he go inside to have coffee and talk with Sylvie, and I start to collect fruit from the plum trees and the apple trees.”
“What happened next?”
“I am working, pompompom, pompompom, and Paul come to the step of the kitchen door. He said to me, ‘Ahmed!’ And he put up his thumb.” He showed me the thumbs up gesture. “He say me, ‘It is all set up, you work afternoons for Simon and Sylvie. Mornings with me.’ I say him, ‘Sounds good to me’ and he go.”
“What time?”
“Oh, it must be around six. Maybe more.”
“What
did you do with the fruit?”
He smiled. “Put in baskets and leave them in the kitchen. Sylvie tell me she is going to make jam and pies to sell for the church. She say maybe she will have some extra for me.” He winked and his grin was infectious. “She is very good woman. Very religious, with God. Allah is merciful. I clean the leaves, water the flowers, and I go.”
“How did you go?”
“Through garden to church. Then I got on the bus.”
“I want you to think very carefully about this question, Ahmed. It is very important. If you are not sure, then just say you are not sure, okay? Did you or Mrs. Martin close the kitchen door before you left?”
He put his hands over his eyes and then slid them slowly onto his forehead. His eyes were wide and abstracted. “No…” he said, “No, don’t say this to me. I leave the door open. Is this how he is getting in? Oh, man…!”
I shook my head. “We don’t know yet, Ahmed. Don’t blame yourself. He might have got in any number of ways. You are sure you left the door open?”
“Yes.”
“I know it’s a long time ago, but anything you can remember is helpful. Did you happen to notice anybody or anything that struck you as odd, strange, out of place?”
He shrugged and sighed. “Maybe, then, but is such long time. I don’t remember.” He made a ‘pfff’ sound. “And you know, it is Bronx, right? What is strange is when you don’t see nothing strange.”
“I hear you. Ahmed, you have been very helpful. Thank you.” I stood and he stood with me.
“We always want to help the police. Anything at all, we are here, you are always welcome.” We shook hands and he saw me to the door. “Please, come again.”
I made my way back to the Jag and sat thinking and turning things around in my head, and whichever way I turned them, I couldn’t get them to sit right. It just didn’t work, however I looked at it. At least one person was lying, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t Ahmed.