Hark! (11 page)

“This is
so-o-oo
cute, what they're doing,” Buddy said. “The double wedding. Adorable. So let's figure a hundred and ten people…”

Reading his lips, Teddy again signed,
A hundred and
twelve.

“Yes, I know, darling,” Buddy said, almost as if he could read her hands. “I'm approximating. But let's say a hundred and ten, a hundred and twelve. Will we be passing fingerlings around before dinner?”

“Fingerlings?” Carella said, and looked at Teddy.

Finger food
, she signed.

“Fig with liver mousse,” Buddy said, nodding. “Seared tuna on toast tips…well, here,” he said, and moved one of the sample menus to where Carella and Teddy sat opposite him. “Potato pancakes with avocado salsa…salmon and cucumber bites…goat cheese tartlets…and so on. We've got fifty or more fingerlings we can pass around before dinner is served.”

“Do you think we'll want fingerlings?” Carella asked.

I think they might be nice
, Teddy signed.
With the drinks. Beforehand.

“How many different kinds of fingerlings would you suggest?” he asked Buddy.

“Oh, four or five. Half a dozen. That should be enough. We don't want to get too complicated. And we don't want to spoil our appetites for dinner, do we?”

Reading his lips, Teddy signed,
Maybe we should choose the dinner menu first.

Carella translated.

And come back to the hors d'oeuvres later.

Hors d'oeuvres
was a difficult word to sign. Or to read. She saw the puzzled look on her husband's face. She corrected it at once.

Finger food.

Carella told Buddy what she'd said.

“Well, yes, certainly, we can do it
backwards
if you prefer,” he said, sounding miffed.

For the appetizers, he suggested three dishes from which the guests could choose. Either the lobster salad with black truffle dressing,
or
the Hamachi tuna tartare with caviar crème fraiche and smoked salmon,
or
the jumbo shrimp cocktail. For the main course, again a choice of three dishes. Either the roasted branzino stuffed with seafood, button mushrooms, roasted artichokes, and fennel,
or
the chicken curry with pearl onions, red peppers, and madras rice,
or
the braised rabbit in Riesling with spaëtzle, fava beans, and wild mushrooms.

“All served with a baby-greens-and-tomato salad with lemon, extra virgin olive oil, and century-old balsamic vinegar dressing,” he said, grinning in anticipation.

Carella looked at Teddy.

She looked back at him.

“Isn't there anything…
simpler
?” Carella asked.

“Simpler?” Buddy said.

“Well…it's just…I don't think many of the invited guests would appreciate such a…such an ambitious menu.”

“These
are
, believe me,” Buddy said, “some of our very
simplest
selections. Virtually
basic
, in fact.”

“Well,” Carella said, and shrugged and turned to Teddy. “Hon?” he said.

Some of the guests will be coming from Italy
, she signed.

Carella told Buddy what her hands had just said.

“So what would you
like
to serve them?” Buddy said, somewhat snippily. “Spaghetti and meatballs?”

“No, but…” Carella started.

“Or maybe you should just take them over to McDonald's,” Buddy snapped.

“Maybe so,” Carella said, and rose abruptly. “Let's go, hon,” he told Teddy, who had stood up at almost the same moment.

“We also make a nice risotto,” Buddy offered as they went out the door.

 

“A
NYBODY COMING IN
the building has to talk to me first,” the doorman told them. “Has to state his business with me,” he said. “I clear all visitors with the tenant. That's the rule here. No exceptions.”

“So if anyone had come here for Ms. Stanford…”

“That's right.”

“…on Memorial Day…”

“Correct.”

“…he'd've had to talk to you.”

“Which is what I just told you,” the doorman said, “din't I?”

“So how'd he get in her apartment?” Eileen asked.

“I got no idea,” the doorman said.

“Is there a service entrance?”

“Yes, there is a service entrance.”

“Where's that?”

“Around the back of the building. On Eleventh. But the man taking deliveries there has to call up to the tenant, same as me. Before he lets anything or anyone go upstairs. So you can save yourselves a walk around there.”

“Is there a door to the roof?” Willis asked.

“Of course there's a door to the roof.”

“Is it kept locked?”

“All the time.”

“Mind if we take a look up there?”

The doorman looked at them, and then wagged his head as if to say there was no accounting for people who wished to waste their time. “Let me get the super to take you up,” he said, and yanked a wall phone off its hook.

T
HE BUILDING SUPERINTENDENT
seemed surprised.

“Looks like somebody smashed the lock,” he said, studying the door to the roof.

“Looks that way, doesn't it?” Willis said.

“Sure does.”

“When's the last time you were up here?”

“Can't recall.”

“Try,” Eileen said.

“Must've been last week sometime. Water tank was leaking. Had to bring a plumber up.”

“When last week would that have been?”

“Friday, must've been. Had a tough time getting a plumber cause the long weekend was coming up. Well, it's
always
tough getting a plumber. Plumbers are the divas of the building trade, you know. Guys fixing toilets, can you imagine? Divas!”

Eileen had already taken out her pocket calendar.

“So this would've been Friday, May twenty-eighth, is that right?” she said. “When you last came up here?”

“If that's what it says,” he said, and leaned over to look at the calendar in her hand.

“And the lock was okay at that time?” Willis said.

“Had to use my key to open the door,” the super said.

“Anybody been up here since?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Let's see what's on the other side,” Eileen said.

A doorknob was lying on the floor inside the door. The super poked a screwdriver into the hole the missing knob had left, angled it upward, and used it for leverage to pull open the door. They stepped out onto the roof.

There were times when this city took your breath away.

The day was sunny and bright, with wisps of white clouds scudding across an immaculate blue sky. At this time of day, the sun glinted on the gray-green waters of the River Harb below in the near distance, causing dancing sparkles of silver to glimmer on its surface. There was enough breeze to encourage the city's sailors; at least a dozen boats skimmed along the river's surface, bright sails billowing in the sunlight. Across the river in the next state, a non-competitive skyline seemed modestly secure in its own stark beauty. And to their right, the city's rooftops stretched far and away to the distant River Dix.

“Is the building next door a doorman building?” Eileen asked.

“Don't think so,” the super said.

“So he could've got onto this roof from the one next door,” Willis said.

“If he was of a mind to, yes,” the super said.

“Could've jumped right over.”

“If he was intent on doing mischief, yes.”

They turned back to the door behind them.

Someone had worked long and hard on the knob in order to get to the lock. Removed the knob, approached the lock from inside the door.

“No alarm on this door?” Willis said.

“No,” the super said.

“You ought to look into that,” Willis said.

Why? Eileen wondered. Horse is already out of the barn.

The super was thinking the same thing.

“Can we go down to her apartment again?” Eileen asked.

 

T
HIS TIME THEY CONCENTRATED
on the door and the lock. And this time, now that they were looking for them, they found the discreet marks a burglar's jimmy had left. So now they knew how he'd got in. Jumped onto the roof from the building next door, forced the lock on the roof door, did the same thing to the lock on Gloria Stanford's apartment. Was waiting for her when she got home that day. He'd used a gun with a silencer, Ballistics had confirmed that. So no one had heard any shots, no one had raised an alarm. Had he left the building the same way he'd got in? Probably. Easy come, easy go.

They thanked the super for his time, and left 1113 Silvermine Oval.

“Want to do a canvass next door?” Willis asked.

“I doubt if anyone spotted him going in or out,” she said. “But if you want to knock on doors, I'm with you.”

“For the sake of closure,” he said.

“I hate that word,” she said. “Closure.”

“So do I.”

“It's a lawyer's word.”

“I also hate lawyers,” Willis said.

“Me, too.”

They were out on the street now. It was almost three-thirty. Their shift was almost over.

“So what do you say?”

“Let's do it,” she said. “Keep the Loot happy.”

 

T
HE
D
EAF
M
AN'S
third and final note that day cleared up any lingering doubt that he was trying to spear the word
spear
, so to speak:

“What the hell is spear-grass?” Parker asked.

“Some kind of grass they have over there in England,” Genero said.

“How do you happen to know that?”

“Common sense. If it's Shakespeare, it has to be England.”

“This doesn't even
look
like Shakespeare,” Hawes said.

“That's right. It's not even poetry.”

“Shakespeare also wrote prose,” Carella said.

“And this time, there
is
a message,” Kling said, “prose or whatever.”

“What's prose?” Genero asked.

“What's the message?” Hawes asked.

“That it's all fake. He's misleading us. It's slander, the venom'd spear. It's a lie again.”

“Same as always.”

“Tickle your noses to make them bleed…”

“Must be some kind of sharp grass, don't you think? That spear-grass?”

“…and then beslubber your garments…”

“I love that word.”

“Sounds like be
slobber
,” Brown said. “Beslobber the Johnson…”

“Be
slubber
the garments…”

“The clothes…”