Death Will Help You Leave Him (18 page)

“Better than the Marines,” I said.

This time the laugh touched her eyes.

“I could have gone to Pratt,” she said. “But I was all fired up and so mad at him for not supporting me. It had to be Manhattan.”

“But you came back,” Barbara said.

“Yeah, those strings were stronger than I thought. I went back to Frankie first. We always got under each other’s skin. I thought we’d outgrow it. I thought once I was living the life I wanted, doing what I loved, and even doing pretty well at it— I show, I sell, a lot of people in the art world know my name— he’d just be part of what I’d left behind. Wrong. The only catch was, by the time I realized I wanted him back, he’d married Netta.”

“You started seeing each other anyway,” Barbara prompted.

“We were hot together. We always were.” A reminiscent grin lit her somber face for a moment. “From the first time, when we were fourteen. I didn’t care about Netta. Well, I did, enough to make sure she didn’t know. We were supposed to be best friends. But not enough to stop me. She was a good little virgin all the way to the wedding night. Nobody knew. Rocky and Vince, my brothers, would have killed me.”

“When you were fourteen?” I asked. “Or after he was married?”

“Both,” she said. “It was none of their business. One reason I put the East River between me and them was they thought they were the morality police. I’d finished with all that.”

“You’re obviously liberated from that environment,” Barbara said. “So why did you have the baby?” If inquiring minds want to know, Barbara will open her mouth and ask. “You could have had an abortion.”

“Now, here’s the stupid part,” Carola said, “and the funny thing is I think you’ll understand. I did it so Frankie wouldn’t leave me.”

I looked around the comfortable apartment. Sun streamed in the window, dust motes dancing in its rays.

“Did it work?”

“Not really,” she said. “I moved back here for Edmund. Frankie started coming around again later, and we’d be a family a couple times a week. That was enough for me, to tell the truth. I’m a painter, I need time to work. No, when I told him I was pregnant, he wanted me to ‘take care of it.’ That’s what he said— he would live off selling cocaine and heroin, but he wouldn’t let the A-word cross his lips. I had the baby to keep Frankie— and that’s why he left me and took up with that Puerto Rican woman.”

“I liked her,” Barbara said.

She and Jimmy and I sat in their cramped but hospitable kitchen. The remains of Chinese takeout littered the table. In front of Barbara, a hand thrown silvery ceramic rice bowl sat on a North African woven placemat, with neatly crossed chopsticks beside it. The empty bowl glistened as if she’d licked it. Barbara insisted on dining in what she called a civilized manner. But she liked her food. Equally empty cardboard cartons with forks stuck in them attested that Jimmy and I did too.

“So did I,” I said. I cracked open my fortune cookie. “The best is yet to come,” I read aloud. “Damn, have they been talking to my sponsor?”

“But I’m not so sure her story hung together,” Barbara said.

“Me neither,” I said. “She painted such a pretty picture.”

“What were her paintings like?” Jimmy asked.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said.

“Woman who keeps silent shows greatest wisdom,” Barbara read. She popped both halves of her fortune cookie into her mouth. “Have you guys been talking to Confucius about me?”

“She had only one big painting in the living room,” I said. “It was cheerful but not at all pretty. Almost like a photograph.”

“Superrealist,” Barbara amplified. “Very fine detail. A bay window in a sunny room with light streaming through the window and a bright red fire engine on the seat. The little boy must love it. Open yours, Jimmy.”

Jimmy broke his cookie in half and fished out the scrap of paper.

“Happy is the man who wants what he already has,” he read.

“Here’s the weird thing,” I said. “She made it sound like such a romance. Big Love.”

“Even though she admitted to screwing her best friend’s boyfriend from junior high through marriage and a couple of kids.”

“Right.”

“And not even a faithful cheater,” Barbara said, “because he took up with Luz while Carola was pregnant and made Luz think she was the only one too. Carola acted like she wasn’t at all pissed off about that, but I don’t believe it.”

“What about violence?” Jimmy asked. “You would already have mentioned anything obvious like a black eye or broken jaw, but any sign of bruises? Was she scared? Any hint of resentment?”

“Not a peep,” Barbara said. “She didn’t have that defeated look they can get either.”

“That’s what I meant by too pretty,” I said. “Chances are a guy like that couldn’t keep his temper with one woman if he lost it with all the others.”

“The little boy looked healthy and happy,” Barbara said, “but appearances don’t always tell the whole story.”

“She also skated lightly over the drug part,” I said.

“She knew he was dealing?” Jimmy asked.

“Came right out and said it,” Barbara said. “She even mentioned the irony of peddling dope but disapproving of abortion.”

“Except she said he wanted her to have one,” I pointed out. “That’s where I got confused.”

“She contradicted herself,” Barbara agreed. “Maybe she was simmering underneath the whole time. Maybe he hit her or threatened to hit the kid.”

“Could have been emotional abuse,” Jimmy said.

“You didn’t meet her,” I said. “She’d be hard to bully.”

“Not every victim of domestic violence looks like one,” Barbara said.

“Maybe she’d just found out about Luz,” Jimmy suggested.

“Or about Netta being pregnant again,” Barbara said. “Though she did strike me as the kind of free spirit who wouldn’t care if he wasn’t monogamous, and not just because she said so. I got a gut feeling that she was an empowered kind of woman— at ease in her own skin.”

“I thought so too,” I said. “But it could have been an act. She implied that she knew about Luz all along. As if it didn’t bother her, since it started while they weren’t seeing each other. But maybe she didn’t know he still had that going till just before the murder. She could have gone up there to confront Luz, found Frankie there, and lost her temper.”

“Or she could have known he’d be there,” Jimmy said, “and gone up there to kill him, knowing Luz would be suspected.”

“I’d like to talk to her again,” Barbara said.

“I’d like to see her paintings,” Jimmy said. “Do you know if she shows at one particular gallery?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

Barbara shook her head.

“Give me a minute.” Jimmy pushed back his chair and galloped out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, we heard his computer talking to him. He talked back. In a couple of minutes, he called, “Found it!”

Barbara and I got up and went to look over his shoulder. Carola had a show in a gallery less than a block from Laura’s loft.

“Want to go look at pictures?” I asked. “Any day but Saturday.”

I had told myself firmly that I would
not
spend another Saturday in SoHo.

“Anyone else you want me to look up while I’m at it?” Jimmy asked.

I shook my head.

“How about Netta’s brothers?” Barbara asked. “Avenging the family honor?”

“Vinnie said to stay away from them,” Jimmy said.

“Vinnie said to get the hell out of Brooklyn, all of us,” Barbara retorted. “Did we listen to him?”

“I think he was issuing a friendly warning. We don’t know what those guys are into.”

“Why, just because they’re Italian? Come on, don’t be a bigot. At least find out their names and what they do. Maybe Vinnie was only trying to scare us off.”

“If Netta and Frankie had a wedding site,” I said, “her maiden name will be all over it.”

“Find the name, Jimmy,” Barbara said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.” Jimmy’s fingers flew on the keyboard.

“I’ll call Carola and ask her what she thinks of Netta’s brothers.” Barbara started to paw through her bag. “They were neighborhood kids like the rest of them. I know my cell is in here somewhere.”

“I’m going out for a smoke,” I said.

When I came back, Jimmy was printing out a web page.

“Sal and Vito Gaglia. They run a body shop on Coney Island Avenue.” He read from the screen. “ ‘Hell on Wheels. Auto body repair and custom detailing. Classic and exotic— or we can just hammer you. Body parts available.’ What’s the message here?”

“It could be a chop shop,” I said.

“It could be a perfectly legitimate business,” Barbara said. “I’m going to ask Carola about them.” She waggled the cell phone at us and marched out of the room.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“Bedroom. I can do this better without an audience.”

“Jeez, what is she planning to say?”

Jimmy shrugged and brought up a virtual Civil War reenactment site on the computer.

“With Barbara, you never know.”

By the time she came back, 8,163 soldiers, Union and Confederate, had died at Antietam. Jimmy clicked Save and laid down the mouse reluctantly.

“Poor guys,” I said. “You haven’t killed enough of them?”

“Nope. Both sides together lost 23,000 in a single day at the real battle.”

“Never mind that,” Barbara said. “Carola said she’s known Sal and Vito Gaglia her whole life, and they’re harmless.”

“That’s what Luz said about Frankie,” I said.

Barbara’s cell phone, still in her hand, played the first fifteen notes of the
Ode to Joy
from Beethoven’s Ninth. She flipped it open, listened, made a few soothing noises, then thumbed the mute button.

“Luz. She’s had a fright. A man followed her in the park. Okay if I ask her to come over?”

“Sure, sure,” Jimmy said. He’d already gone back to Antietam.

It wasn’t my apartment. And I liked the idea of seeing Luz again.

“I might have imagined it,” Luz told us ten minutes later. She refused Chinese leftovers but accepted tea. Her small hands circled the ceramic mug, making the handle look oversized. “It was stupid of me to go through the park this late, but it wasn’t dark, and the crosstown bus didn’t come and didn’t come.”

We all nodded. Every New Yorker knows how that is.

“I didn’t realize until I got to the Great Lawn how deserted it was. Nobody playing ball, no mothers with kids in strollers. I walked as fast as I could. The sky was beautiful— all gold looking downtown and pink to the west. I was admiring it, not thinking where I was going but not slowing down, you know?”

Jimmy and I nodded again.

“Road trance,” Barbara said, “you got kind of dissociated.”

“Yes, exactly,” Luz agreed. “Suddenly I found myself back under the trees, almost up to the bridle path, without knowing how I’d come that far. And I heard footsteps— it was probably silly to think anything of it, but it was so gloomy under the trees, and the steps kept pace with mine. When I walked faster, they sped up. I was afraid to run.”

“Did you look back?” Jimmy asked.

“At first I was afraid to do that too,” Luz admitted. “As if showing fear or making eye contact would make things worse. I thought about all the stories I’ve heard of people being attacked in the park, especially women. I was so mad at myself— how could I have been so stupid?”

“Women should be able to walk in the park at sunset,” Barbara asserted. “It’s not our fault if we can’t.”

Jimmy gave her a not-now look.

“You were freaked out,” he told Luz, “I can understand that. But you did look?”

“Yes, very quickly— and that frightened me more, because when I did, the footsteps stopped, and I could see no one.”

“What did the steps sound like?” I asked. “High heels? Heavy boots? Lots of people wear running shoes to the park. It would be hard to hear someone sneaking up on you.”

“At first it was a brushing sound, like someone sweeping the leaves,” Luz said. “There are many on the paths right now. It was too regular to be a squirrel.”

“Not so hot with left and right, squirrels,” I said, trying to win a smile from her. She still looked very tense. “But you got here okay. I’m glad.”

“I was lucky,” she said. “My back felt all nerves, as if someone had painted a target between my shoulder blades. I wanted to scream and run. I think I would have done so in a minute. I had trouble breathing, and my heart was going so fast.” She pounded her fist against her chest in illustration.

“Panic attack,” Barbara murmured. “Sorry, go on. What happened?”

“Just as I reached the bridle path,” Luz said, “two cops came along on their horses.”

“Did you tell them someone was following you?”

“No, I didn’t. All of a sudden, things felt normal— the horses trotting, one cop talking on a cell phone. My panic disappeared. The other cop said hello as I crossed the bridle path.”

“They were up high,” I said. “If there’d been anyone behind you, they’d have seen them.”

“Yes, that is what I thought,” Luz said. “But whoever was following me must have heard the hoof beats, as I did, and hidden or run away. I heard no more after I crossed the path. Then I did run, all the way to Central Park West.”

“Only an idiot would attack someone with mounted police right there,” Barbara said. “And since the stable on West 89th closed, they’re the only folks on horses in the park.”

“I’d suggest no more sunset strolls in the park,” Jimmy said. “Not by yourself, anyhow. It’s not fair, but there are too many predators out there.”

Luz rubbed her fingertips across her forehead as if to smooth out the wrinkles of anxiety.

“That I have already told myself,” she said. “But there is more.”

“What, Luz?” I prompted.

“What if it wasn’t just a mugger picking any foolish woman walking alone? Whoever killed Frankie has been in my apartment.”

“You mean the same person might want to hurt you? Oh, no!” I protested. Unfortunately, I didn’t mean I thought it was impossible.

“That’s terrible!” Barbara sounded as appalled as I did. “But why? Frankie was— you aren’t—”

Frankie was a sonofabitch and Luz was a very nice woman.

Jimmy found a nice way to put it.

“We can’t assume that the murderer’s motive for killing Frankie would apply to you.”