Silver Anniversary Murder Page 14

  Lucy felt terribly sad and was afraid she was going to start crying; anymore of this and she’d be jumping into the harbor. She got up. “Thanks for seeing me,” she said, embracing Tito in a hug. “Take care.”

  “You too,” he said, limping to the door and opening it a crack, peeking out before opening it all the way for her. “It’s a dangerous world out there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The neighborhood didn’t seem especially dangerous to Lucy as she approached the waterfront, where she found a busy supermarket, a quaint crab shack restaurant, and a giant IKEA store. She walked past the entrance to the superstore and through the parking lot to the pier, where a line of people had already formed and were watching the ferry chug across the East River. It was one of those spots in New York that took your breath away, offering a stunning panoramic view of lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano Bridge, and Governors Island. If you turned and looked up the river, you saw the hulking shape of the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Lucy gazed, struck by the fact that few of the other riders were taking in the view, but were instead busy keeping track of their purchases, their children, and even a small dog that yapped furiously at anyone who stepped too close to his owner. The little ferry docked, discharged its passengers, and Lucy joined the surge of people eager to board.

  Moments later the little boat began its return trip to South Street Seaport, and Lucy found herself enjoying this short trip across the water. The afternoon sun glinted off the windows of the tall skyscrapers, including the new Freedom Tower, which dominated the skyline. A few helicopters hovered overhead, a huge orange Staten Island Ferry was briefly glimpsed before buildings blocked the view, and then, entirely too soon for Lucy, the ferry docked. She found herself on a dark, sooty street beneath the FDR Drive, where she could hear the hum of the overhead traffic. Crossing the street, she stepped into sunlight and followed a cobblestoned street to the heart of the seaport shopping district. Continuing on up the hill toward the beckoning Freedom Tower, she discovered a brand new, strikingly modernistic Fulton Street subway station constructed of glass and steel. Somewhat surprised by this example of modernity, she was reassured when she discovered the escalator wasn’t working and the subterranean platforms were every bit as filthy and smelly as they’d always been.

  The platform was also packed with people, as rush hour was beginning and many of the people who worked in the financial district were heading home. Her train was already standing room only when it screeched to a stop, but the people on the platform pushed their way in, squeezing together so the doors, which bucked a bit at the pressure, could finally close.

  Lucy tried not to think of the bodies pressed against hers, deciding that there was a certain advantage in such close contact because it eliminated any possibility of having one’s pockets picked or purse snatched. They were packed together so tightly that it was impossible to move one’s arms; even the slight expansion of one’s chest that breathing required was problematic. These stoic New Yorkers seemed used to the situation and focused on avoiding eye contact.

  Lucy eased her discomfort by practicing a bit of mental translocation, imaging herself stopped at the single traffic light in Tinker’s Cove, alone in her air-conditioned SUV. It was a lovely thought and got her to Grand Central, where she shuttled over to Times Square and caught a crowded, but not jam-packed 1 train to Sixty-Sixth Street.

  Ascending to the street, she found herself at Lincoln Center, where she admired the classic modern architecture of the theaters and considered buying a ticket to a concert or dance performance. She’d never been to the opera—maybe this was her chance. She paused for a moment, in front of a sign promoting current performances, but the advertised ticket prices were high and nothing on offer appealed. She was tired and hungry, and all she really wanted to do was get home, take off her shoes, and eat something.

  She stopped at the bodega to pick up something for supper, settling on a frozen diet TV dinner. When she brought her purchases to the counter, the clerk smiled at her.

  “You’re new in the neighborhood?” he asked, in a heavily accented voice. He had very black hair, neatly combed, and his skin was mocha colored; Lucy thought he might be Pakistani or Indian but wasn’t sure.

  “I’m just here for a week, from Maine. I grew up in the city, though, up in the Bronx.”

  “You have come home?”

  “I guess you could call it that. It’s funny, the city changes, but not that much. I can still find my way around.”

  “This is a good neighborhood—people are nice.”

  “Business is good?”

  “No complaints.” He scanned the TV dinner, then clucked disapprovingly. “You could do better. I have some soup, my mother makes it. Much more, um, nourishing, is that the word?”

  “Is it good tasting?” asked Lucy with a smile.

  “Delicious,” he said. “Do you like curry?”

  Lucy wasn’t sure she did but didn’t want to be rude. “Okay, but I’ll take the dinner, too.”

  Noticing a sandwich board announcing a wine tasting in front of the liquor store next door, Lucy decided to pick up a bottle of wine to accompany her dinner.

  Finally back in her apartment with the chain on the door securely fastened, Lucy emptied the container of soup into a pot and set it on the stove to heat up, then opened the wine and poured herself a glass, adding a few ice cubes to chill it. Then she sat down in the armchair, slipped off her shoes and propped her feet on the coffee table, and used the remote to turn on the TV to catch the evening news.

  She’d finished her glass of wine when she became aware of a heavenly aroma: the curry soup. She set herself a place at the all-purpose table that served as dining table and desk, renewed her glass of wine, and ladled up a generous bowlful of soup, rich with chunks of chicken and lots of rice. It was delicious and she savored every spoonful, trying to figure out what the ingredients were and whether she could reproduce it back home in Tinker’s Cove. Probably not, she decided, doubtful that Marzetti’s IGA stocked the necessary, no doubt exotic, spices.

  Dinner done, she washed up the pot and her dishes, fixed herself a cup of instant decaf, and settled down for an evening of TV viewing. She flipped through the channels, but didn’t find anything she wanted to watch. It was still light outside, and she felt restless, so she decided to go for a stroll and further explore the neighborhood.

  This time, instead of going right toward Broadway, she turned left intending to catch a glimpse of the Hudson River. The clerk at the bodega was right; it was a nice neighborhood. Lucy’s walk took her past neatly maintained apartment buildings with clipped hedges and planters filled with seasonal flowers. Rounding a corner, Lucy passed a gray stone church that was encircled by an ornamental black metal fence. The gate stood open, as did the red-painted doors with ornate black strap hinges. Lucy was intrigued; the church reminded her of St. Andrew’s, though on a much grander scale, and she paused to read the sandwich board that was propped on the stone stairs. FREE CONCERT it announced, in somewhat shaky script, advertising an evening of chamber music performed by the DeLillo String Quartet.

  Lucy had never heard of the DeLillo quartet, but she had a suspicion that, since Lincoln Center was nearby, the musicians might well be members of the symphony orchestra. She wasn’t really one for classical music—her car radio was set to an oldies station—but she figured a live performance would beat anything the TV might offer.

  She went inside the church, which had beautiful woodwork and stained glass windows, and joined the handful of people sitting in the pews. By the time the quartet took their places on the raised dais in front of the altar, the audience had grown, and the center sections were pretty much filled. The musicians, two men and two women, were highly accomplished and the audience was appreciative, filling the sanctuary with loud applause. Lucy hadn’t expected to recognize the music, but much to her surprise, a lot of the selections were familiar from movies and even TV shows.

 
As she sat there in the sacred space, she let the music flow over her, and found it comforting. The notes seemed to carry away the tensions of the day as well as the confusion and sadness she felt following Beth’s death. The city could be ugly and even threatening, but there was beauty here, too. She thought of Tito, consumed with dark thoughts and overwhelmed by random acts of violence, and wished he were here, soothed as she was by beauty and peace. Maybe this was the answer, she thought. Maybe people simply needed to take time to pause and reflect, allowing themselves to gain respite and perspective.

  All too soon the music ended and the audience was invited to meet the performers and partake of refreshments in the Macmillan Fellowship Hall, just through the door on the right. Lucy was feeling a bit peckish. The soup hadn’t actually been all that filling, and she decided to see what was on offer. She joined the line of well-dressed, pleasantly courteous concertgoers and found herself in a large room where several smiling women were ladling out lemonade and encouraging people to help themselves to bakery cookies. Lucy was happy to oblige, and took her refreshments to one of the small café tables that dotted the room.

  Moments later a pleasant, round-faced woman in wire-rimmed eyeglasses approached and asked if she could join her. Lucy agreed, and Terry, as she introduced herself, took the other chair, setting her cup of lemonade on the table.

  “Do you come to these concerts often?” asked Lucy.

  “Oh, yes. They have them every week and I always try to come. The performers are from the symphony, you know. Last week they had an organist—she was really something. The instrument in this church is quite famous. It was sacred music, of course.”

  Lucy took a bite of butter cookie and studied Terry, noticing her long hair, which she had twisted into a ponytail and pinned up with a barrette. She was wearing a simple cotton blouse, white with blue flowers, and a rather long, loosely gathered blue skirt. It was the sort of outfit she’d seen many women wearing in the city, comfortable in the warmer weather. Terry had prepared for the cool of the evening with a sweater tucked into a roomy tote bag.

  “It’s nice to have someone to talk to,” said Lucy. “I’m just here for a week, on my own, and I’m not used to being by myself so much.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “A little town in Maine.” Lucy finished the butter cookie and moved on to a mini black and white cake.

  “I just love Maine,” said Terry, in an enthusiastic voice. “It’s so beautiful. Do you have family there?”

  “Oh, yes. A husband and four kids. Two are grown and flown, but we still have two daughters at home.”

  “Do you work?”

  “Part time, for a local weekly newspaper.”

  Only two cookies were left, and Lucy offered one to Terry, but she shook her head no, preferring to continue the conversation. “You’re a journalist! That must be so interesting.”

  “I guess it is,” said Lucy, thinking of the daily grind in an enhanced light. “How about you? Do you work?”

  “Not outside the home,” said Terry, “but that keeps me pretty busy. And I do a lot of volunteer work. There’s a great need in the city, you know. We have a lot of homeless people, and working poor—people whose paychecks don’t last the week.”

  “It’s the same in Maine,” said Lucy, leaving the cookies and taking a sip of lemonade. “Our town’s been hard hit by this opioid crisis.”

  “Really? In Maine? That surprises me. You’d think people would be high on all that natural beauty.”

  “It may be beautiful, but beautiful doesn’t pay the mortgage or put food on the table. Our local food pantry has seen steadily increasing numbers, in spite of the improving economy.”

  “It isn’t improving for everyone,” said Terry. “I wonder. . . This is perhaps too personal, but are you a woman of faith?”

  “Well, I guess I am, faith being the operative word. I’m not what you’d call a believer, but I do confess to a certain amount of faith. Remnants from my childhood and Sunday School. I can rattle off the Apostles’ Creed from memory, but I’m not convinced it’s completely true. . . .” Here she paused and smiled before adding, “Especially the part about ‘born of the virgin Mary.’ ”

  “Well, I find great comfort in my faith,” said Terry, ignoring Lucy’s heretical comment and fingering the simple gold cross she wore on a chain around her neck. “Faith is the beginning, that’s what my minister says. It’s like a tiny little mustard seed, and if its cared for, you know, watered and fertilized, it will grow into a wonderful, sturdy plant that enhances our lives, just like mustard enhances a hot dog.”

  Lucy was unable to resist teasing Terry. “I put pickle relish on my hot dogs,” said Lucy. “Never mustard.”

  “Well, while you’re here, if you’re feeling lonely again, you’d be very welcome at my church. . . .”

  “Not this church?”

  “No, no. I go around the corner. We have Bible study every night, and you’d be very welcome. And we have cookies, too,” she added, with a nod at Lucy’s plate. “I just happen to have a pamphlet,” she said, producing a folded piece of paper from her tote bag and placing it on the table. “I do hope you come. I think we’re on the same wavelength, you and me.”

  Lucy wasn’t at all convinced of that but wasn’t going to contradict the woman. She stood up, thanked Terry for the pamphlet, and tucked it in her purse, which she swung over her shoulder. “It’s been nice talking to you,” she added. Lucy continued on her way to the exit, pausing to congratulate one of the musicians, who was also leaving. She turned, thinking perhaps she ought to thank the church ladies who provided refreshments, and saw Terry surreptitiously wrapping the two cookies she’d left on her plate in a napkin and tucking them into her tote bag.

  It wasn’t that odd a thing to do, she thought. Lots of people packed up leftovers to take home for later. But from the guilty look on Terry’s face, you would have thought she was committing grand theft. Or maybe one of the seven deadly sins.

  When Lucy stepped outside, night had fallen and the streetlamps were lit. There were still plenty of people about, some busy running errands and others simply out for an evening walk. She saw older couples walking sedately, arm in arm, and imagined they were returning home from dinner at one of the many little neighborhood restaurants. She had been struck by the numerous bistros tucked in among the shops, and wondered how they could all stay in business. Back home in Tinker’s Cove, diners could choose from very expensive dinners at the Queen Vic Inn and the newly opened Cali Kitchen, moderately priced mass-produced fare at Lobster Lickin’, which catered to tourists, and greasy pub fare at the roadhouse, which always had several motorcycles parked outside. There was also Jake’s Donuts, but that was only open for breakfast and lunch.

  Of course, folks in Tinker’s Cove tended to eat at home, often enjoying freshly caught fish and veggies straight from their gardens. New Yorkers, on the other hand, seemed to eat out a lot, which she guessed was because their apartments tended to be small, with tiny kitchens. The kitchen in her studio apartment was fine for making toast or zapping something in the microwave, but wasn’t equipped for serious cooking. If she wanted to eat with a lot of friends, or had a hankering for roast turkey with stuffing, she would have to eat at a restaurant.

  Rounding the corner from the busy avenue, which was the neighborhood’s commercial center, she turned onto one of the more residential numbered streets. There were no big apartment buildings here, but instead rows of old brownstones, survivors from an earlier time. They had been built as one-family houses, complete with servant’s quarters, but now most had been converted into apartments.

  As she walked along, she became fascinated with the glimpses of domesticity she caught through the windows. The basement levels, which had once contained kitchen and laundry facilities, were now desirable “garden level” apartments, because they had access to the little patches of garden behind each brownstone. Some people had closed their shutters and curtains, but others left their wi
ndows unobstructed and, to Lucy, the scenes seemed like little stages or dioramas illustrating modern life.

  In some she saw toys scattered on colorful ethnic rugs, bicycles hung from hooks on the wall or ceiling, and enormous numbers of shoes in all sizes that had been removed at the doors and left there. City people apparently believed that street dirt should be left at the door, which she thought was probably good policy. Raising her eyes to the first, or parlor floors, which were entered from an exterior flight of stairs, she mostly saw ceilings. The ceilings oftentimes had fancy moldings and ornate plaster rosettes from which light fixtures and even elaborate chandeliers hung. Other apartments had been stripped of the Victorian trim, and mobiles and sleek overhead lights hung from the smooth plaster. She also caught glimpses of the top shelves of bookcases, often loaded with decorative bins and baskets filled, she guessed, with Christmas decorations and off-season clothes. There was also lots of artwork, ranging from museum posters to family photos to valuable oils in gilded frames. Lucy found it all absolutely fascinating, and noted with some amusement that she wasn’t the only one peering into strangers’ windows. Though sometimes they weren’t strangers; she also encountered people chatting through open windows with friends. Others stood outside the locked front doors, pushing buzzers for entry, or using their cell phones to invite friends to come down.

  Then she was around another corner and back at her Airbnb, which was beginning to feel like home. Almost. As soon as she stepped inside her door she made sure to turn the dead bolt and latch the chain, thinking as she did so that they didn’t even have such things on their doors in Tinker’s Cove. There they had doorknobs that locked with a turn of a button, but could be easily jimmied with a credit card. That was rarely necessary, however, since nobody locked their doors unless by accident or if they were going away for an extended period. Then there was the problem of finding the key, which most people dealt with by hiding a spare in a somewhat secure place, like under a potted plant, behind a shutter, or on top of the door casing. Places where no thief would ever think to look.