Part 38 (1/2)
When he still did not respond, I got out my cell phone. ”You get invited to the wedding?” I asked.
He snorted. ”We weren't that kind of friends.”
He could have been saying any number of things. I didn't bother to work them out. I hit a b.u.t.ton and put the phone to my ear.
”What are you doing?”
”Seeing if I need to stop that pickup truck, Chris.”
”He's a good guy, just trying to support his family.”
”Helpless guy, too, I imagine. Not like Lexi. She'll have all kinds of support. I talk with her, she'll probably have a lawyer sitting right there with her. Not that she did anything wrong or that she's going to be in trouble, but just to protect her against the things that all the rest of us have to deal with.”
”Like you.”
”Like me. That's right, Chris.”
He shook his head. The drops I had seen at his hairline flew off. ”I can't do anything to hurt the Gregorys.”
”And I'm not asking you to do anything other than give me a name and address.”
Chris Warburton cranked his neck back and looked up at the sky, which probably did not look as bright as it had when he came out of the kitchen.
”h.e.l.lo, Sergeant?” I said into the phone. ”It's a.s.sistant D.A. Becket-”
”I might know where there's a Christmas card you could look at,” the chef said, putting his hand out. And when I didn't lower the phone, he added, ”Might still have the envelope.”
”I'll get back to you,” I said to the phone.
NEW YORK CITY, September 2008.
I CARRIED MY SUIT JACKET IN A GARMENT BAG. CARRIED IT ONTO the airplane. Carried it in the taxi on my way into Manhattan from LaGuardia. It was a light gray Zegna suit, purchased at a post-Christmas sale at Saks, tailored by a taciturn, chain-smoking Russian in the South End of Boston. My tie was a $150 red silk item from Louis Boston, a Christmas gift from Marion. At the time she bought it, I thought it was special because it was something I never would have bought for myself. This was the first I had worn it since she left.
I primped by marking my reflection in the pa.s.senger window of a Lincoln Town Car parked on the corner of 87th and Park Avenue. Then I walked a block north to an apartment building and presented myself to the doorman. Doormen. An army of them.
”I'm here to see Lexi Trotter,” I announced.
”Yoor name, sir,” said the doorman sitting at the desk in pretty much the middle of the lobby. Behind him stood two others, both in doorman's uniforms with hats and epaulets. The guy seated didn't have the bandleader jacket, just a white s.h.i.+rt and tie.
”George Becket.” I handed him my business card.
The man looked at it, fingered its edges, turned it over, looked at the front again.
Beyond him, behind his two buddies, there was a large atrium with a garden on the ground floor. The apartments rose up in two high-rise buildings on either side of the atrium. I resisted the urge to show the doormen what a regular, friendly guy I was by commenting on the attractiveness of the plants and the water features among them.
”I don't got you in the computah,” said the man at the desk. ”Was she expecting you?”
”No. I was just hoping she'd see me.”
He looked at the card again. ”Is this a legal mattah?”
”Personal.”
The uniformed boys s.h.i.+fted their feet. One of them looked at a fourth doorman, who was sitting in an anteroom off the lobby watching a bank of television screens, perhaps getting ready to rush out and spray me with Mace.
”Do you have Ms. Trotta's phone numbah, sir?”
”Don't you?”
The seated man stuck out his hand. In it was my card. ”I'm sorry, sir,” he said with just a trace of menace in his voice, ”you don't got an appointment, you can't see none of the guests. You wanna see Ms. Trotta, you got to call her beforehand, get her to call down to us or leave your name wit us.”
I wanted to point out the quality of my suit, my tie, even my Bally shoes, but it was not going to get me anywhere. I thanked the man at the desk and said I would be back.
He didn't seem to care. Neither did the guys in the bandleaders' garb.
I HAD A PHOTOGRAPH. It was on the Christmas card. It was the Christmas card. A family shot of a mom and dad and what appeared to be twin girls, all of them lying on their stomachs facing the camera, all of them laughing, all of them quite handsome. From what the black-and-white picture showed, Lexi had dark hair, a dark brow, and a slightly rounded face. Only her face, shoulders, and one arm were shown in the picture, and it was not possible to tell how tall she was, but she appeared to be well proportioned. It would, I realized, be best if she came out of the building lying down, the way she was in the picture. Barring that, I would have to watch for a dark-haired, dark-browed, well-built woman in her mid-twenties.
Fair enough, except I had no place to stand at 88th and Park with my Christmas card picture in my hand. The apartment building was on the southwest corner of the intersection, and I particularly did not want to loiter there because one of the doormen had come to the entrance to hold his hands in front of his crotch while he stared at me. I went through a quarter of an hour pretending to make cell phone calls while I waited for something to happen. Nothing did.
I crossed 88th and looked back. I crossed Park and looked back. I had no place to sit on that side of the street, either. There was not even a shop I could go in. I went south across 88th and west across Park, and this time I had a little bit of luck because the doorman was no longer at the entrance. I did the circuit again. My feet were beginning to hurt. There are many things about detective work that should not be taken for granted.
AT 3:00 in the afternoon she emerged from the building. At least I had reason to believe it was her. A dark-haired woman wearing a dark blue sweat suit, white trainers, and a Yankees hat, pus.h.i.+ng a double baby stroller. She came out the door, turned left, went to the corner of 88th and turned left again in the direction of Central Park. I caught up with her when she stopped at the traffic light at Madison.
”h.e.l.lo, Lexi.”
I got no h.e.l.lo in return. She stared at me, tightened her grip on the handle of her carriage, and looked impatiently at the light.
”My name's George Becket. I'm from the Cape and Islands district attorney's office in Ma.s.sachusetts. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
The light turned and she flat-out ran across the intersection. On the other side of Madison she pushed the stroller up onto the sidewalk, looked over her shoulder at me walking after her, and kept on running.
I stayed back a block and watched her run all the way to the sidewalk on the far side of Fifth Avenue, turn north, and keep going. I crossed 88th, mingled with the crowd in front of the Guggenheim Museum and kept my eye on her as she ran to 90th, turned left, and entered Central Park. Then I ran, too: a guy in a suit sprinting along Fifth Avenue.
Enter Central Park at 90th and you come to a road, and on the other side of the road is the reservoir surrounded by a fence and a running path. I wondered if she could have gone there, thought it unlikely with her baby carriage, and looked to my right and left. There was another path, this one paved and just inside the park wall. Heading south, still running behind the carriage, was Lexi. Between us were at least a dozen people walking dogs. Purebreds, mostly. Airedales seemed to be extremely popular. I used the dog walkers as a cover, stayed back, wished I wasn't the only guy in the park in a suit and tie. People I pa.s.sed shot me quick looks as if I must be a strange fellow indeed. I took off my coat and carried it over my arm. She went around a corner and I lost sight of her.
THERE WAS A CHILDREN'S playground just south of the Metropolitan Museum. She wasn't there. No one was. I kept following the path until I got to a second playground below 75th Street. That was where I found her, sitting on a park bench in an area where young mothers and older nannies ruled. There were sandboxes and slides and fortresslike mazes with no sharp edges. Her kids, who looked to me to be about two years old, were still in their stroller, craning their necks to see what the older kids were doing while their mother pushed the stroller out and pulled it back, never letting it go more than a couple of feet. Mom was doing this while she talked to a woman dressed much like she and doing the exact same thing with her stroller from the other end of the bench.
I walked up and stood in front of them, halfway between them.
”Lexi,” I said, ”can I just show you my identification?”
She was already getting to her feet.