Rehearsal for Murder (Maggie Ryan) Page 9

  “And him with a bad ankle.”

  “Yes. He seemed desperate, Nick. How was he going to get her from the playschool and up to the sitter?”

  “The trials of papahood. Two-year-olds are supposed to be even harder to manage than Sarah.” Nick too had been reading Spock. He inspected his daughter’s drowsy head uneasily.

  “And they’re a lot heavier than Sarah,” Maggie agreed. “Anyway, he asked me to do it, and he was so desperate and so rushed I said yes. Neither place was far away. He also gave me the money for the sitter, in an envelope.”

  Nick frowned. “Trusting soul.”

  “Maybe Sarah gave him confidence in me. Anyway, there weren’t any problems. I went to the school, a Montessori school not far from your old stomping grounds, the Sullivan Street Playhouse.” Nick nodded. That had been a good part, back when he’d had some hair. Life had been very different then. Maggie went on, “I asked for Muffin. They said her dad had called, and they handed her right over. Cute little girl. Very solemn about me, but she got interested in Sarah and didn’t complain. So I took her to the apartment. Only one section of them is finished. The rest of the building is all stacks of two-by-fours and Sheetrock.”

  “Sounds like home.”

  “Yes. The sitter was there in the hall of the finished section. Complaining about her arthritis and how lucky I was to be young. Her name was Mrs. Golden. Working-class grandmother. Smoked a lot and talked more. I gave her the key and Muffin and asked if I could change Sarah there.”

  “So what’s your worry?” Nick adjusted the strap of Sarah’s carrier on his shoulder. “Sounds as though he’d solved his problems.”

  Maggie scowled at the DON’T WALK sign. “It’s a bunch of little things I got to thinking about on my way over. For one, Mrs. Golden wasn’t quite what I think Buzz would hire. I’d expect a nanny or maybe a motherly Jamaican or a college-bound high-schooler. Of course he had to arrange it all in a rush, but I’d think he’d have people he could call on.”

  “Well, it was an unexpected problem.”

  “Yeah. But also, the apartment was odd. It’s tiny, all newly furnished, and just doesn’t look like Buzz’s place.”

  “How do you know what his place should look like?”

  “He’s doing well, okay? Burberry, nice watch, shoes, briefcase. But the apartment was small and dark. Opens onto an airshaft. From the hall you can see that some others in the finished section have much better views. Even if there’s a price difference, he seems like the kind of guy who’d want the better one.”

  “Maybe he puts all his money into clothes.”

  “Maybe. But the furniture was odd too. New but cheap. I mean, somebody with a Burberry, who uses words like ‘pied-à-terre,’ doesn’t get his furniture at Woolworth’s.”

  “I see what you mean. Still, it’s obviously not his main home.”

  “Yeah. It just seemed fishy. Like walking into a stage set. Or as though he’d got it for someone else.”

  “Well, as long as the little girl was all right, it’s not your job to worry about his private life.”

  “You know, that would explain why he didn’t get his regular sitter. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone he knows to know about the apartment.”

  “You’re sure she’s not his regular sitter?”

  “She said it was the first time she’d worked for Mr. Hartford. She chattered on about her own family. Her daughters and her nephew. Jerry something. Abelson? Anyway, she did point out that the lock was lousy. She was right. I wouldn’t have needed the key he gave me.”

  Nick grinned at his dexterous and not always law-abiding wife. “Not everyone has your talents.”

  “Some bad guys do. And Nick, this was his daughter!”

  “Yes.” Nick glanced down at his own and was flooded with protective feelings as they turned up the walk to the hospital entrance. “I sure wouldn’t have done it that way. I would have called someone I knew. Do you think Mrs. Golden is okay?”

  “I guess so.” She remained dubious. “She may talk poor little Muffin’s head off, but except for that, she seemed competent and kind.”

  “Well, you did the favor as requested,” said Nick reasonably. “What more could he expect?”

  She shrugged and nodded. He pushed open the doors, and they turned their worries to Ramona.

  VII

  Thursday night

  March 8, 1973

  The hospital desk was besieged by a milling crowd of worried people—a gaunt man in a frayed parka who was head of a chattering Hispanic family, a black woman carrying a wide-eyed little boy, a pale and very pregnant Northern European woman, a stocky nun holding the hand of an olive-skinned girl, a florid man in a moving-company jacket. Nick and Maggie finally worked their way to the desk and asked about Ramona.

  “No change,” said the receptionist crisply. She probably didn’t lack compassion, Nick decided; but she wouldn’t be able to do her job if she became involved with every sad case. Her light eyes focused on the observant Sarah an instant and she asked, “Are you immediate family?”

  “No. Friends.”

  “I’m sorry. Only family is allowed to visit until her condition improves.”

  “Thank you.” Maggie glanced at Nick, resigned: fight this battle later, if at all. They turned away.

  At the door the nun waylaid them. “I heard you ask about Ramona.” Her black eyes were bright, her middle-aged face concerned. She still held the hand of the snaggletoothed girl, maybe twelve, who looked shyly at her shoes.

  Nick said, “Yes.”

  “Do you know what happened? They wouldn’t tell me. I just took Luisa here to a dentist I know, and we stopped by but couldn’t get past the desk. And I saw her husband, but he was very short with me, poor fellow.”

  “My wife and I found her.”

  “Oh, glory be!” Something about her buck teeth gave her smile a delightful zaniness, as though Bugs Bunny had stepped from the screen into a convent. She tapped Sarah’s nose. “And look at the little darling, fresh from God! Please, come sit a minute and tell us about it. You know, we’d gone out, and then I remembered my umbrella and came back and heard you ask about her. I’m so glad!” A stubby powerhouse, she pointed with her furled umbrella as she bustled them toward some plastic chairs that had just been vacated by the Hispanic family. “It’s serious, they say,” she prompted as they sat down.

  “Yes. She was shot.”

  The black eyes squeezed shut in a sympathetic grimace. “Poor sweet! How did you come to find her?”

  Nick sketched out the situation. She nodded gravely and asked, “She was unconscious?”

  “Yes. Bleeding a lot,” said Maggie. She took Sarah into her lap, where she began grabbing at Luisa’s ear. Both children were highly amused.

  “I hope the doctors can fix her up,” said Nick.

  “Yes. I’m so glad you two were there for her!”

  “I keep thinking, if we’d just walked her to the restaurant,” said Nick, despite his resolve not to play if-only. Maybe the sight of her habit aroused thoughts of confession. His sorrow and remorse still prickled very close to the surface. “I wish we had.”

  She offered understanding, not absolution. “So do I, child, but what do we know?”

  Maggie said, “Sister, excuse me, but I wouldn’t have expected Ramona to be a close friend of yours.”

  She chortled. “I wouldn’t have expected it either! But you see”—she leaned forward and imparted the information with merry emphasis—“God is weird!”

  Even Maggie was taken aback. “Yes, maybe so, Sister.”

  “Weird and wonderful. Beyond us mortals. We don’t know who we are or what we can do.” She rocked back so vigorously that her chair creaked. “It was years ago that I met Ramona. I had just started at the shelter in South Brooklyn. Here.” From the folds of her gown she handed Nick a soiled card. St. Thomas Center, it said, and scrawled underneath, Sister Alphonsus. She went on, “Ramona was sixteen. I’d seen her with some of the high
school girls who came by, but she’d never stayed long. Then she appeared one night. Black eye, bruises, and a suitcase. ‘Sister,’ she said, ‘I’m going to Times Square to be a whore!’ ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘and what do you want from me, a subway token?’”

  They couldn’t help laughing along with Sister Alphonsus’s exuberant remembered mirth. Even shy Luisa was grinning at her shoes.

  She continued, “Well, she was sixteen, didn’t think it was funny. She threw her suitcase at me and broke a lamp, and I saw she wanted a fight. So I picked up a broom and chased her into my room and locked the door.” She caught Luisa’s amazed glance and nodded vigorously. “Yes, I did so! And you remember it, child! Ramona hollered a while and then settled down for the night. I slept on the lumpy old couch. Next morning she was ready to talk.”

  Nick had a sudden hunch. “Did you take her some cocoa?”

  “Yes. Yes, I believe I did.” She looked serious now, as much as her cartoonlike features allowed. “And she told me about her dad, who was alcoholic and alternated spoiling her and beating her. Her mother had long since been broken, but Ramona was tougher. Loved him but hated what he did to her. And she asked, what can I do? So I said, ‘I’ll tell you after breakfast.’”

  “Good idea. Get some food into her,” said Maggie the ever-ravenous.

  “Oh, it wasn’t that!” That tipsy grin again. “I needed time, you see! I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. I’m such a lamebrain, don’t know why God chose me. I wonder about His taste, you know? But people are broken sometimes, and I’m sent the strength to help.” She gave an enthusiastic little bounce on the abused chair. “Like that time with Ramona! See, during breakfast—all kinds of people come to us, you see, and some need breakfast—Ramona looked around the table and suddenly started clapping her hands. And she started singing ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.’ Well, I think she meant her dad. But that doesn’t matter. The point is, all the bums and even old sober Sister Catherine Mary fell right under her spell. Clapping along with her, grinning like fools. So God put Heck Callahan in my head. We’d gone to St. Francis grade school together.”

  “I see,” said Nick. Callahan had been a leading producer in the fifties.

  “I called him and woke him up, I think, and told him he had to look at this kid. And he swore at me and then found out I’d become a nun, and he got so embarrassed he said he’d do it. So after breakfast I asked Ramona to think of her two favorite songs and go sing them for Heck.”

  “And the rest is history.”

  The funny smile lit her face again. “A lot of people forget. Ramona hardly ever came back. For a while I think she was afraid of meeting her dad, and later she was so famous. But she didn’t forget. Twice a year she sent money.”

  Nick said, “She told us you were her best friend.”

  “Oh, it’s not me. Someone she sees through me and won’t admit.” Sister Alphonsus nodded emphatically. “And I see Him through her, and through the other wonderful people I meet. I like this battered old world, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of helping each other.” She glanced at Luisa. “Luisa’s mom is working hard now.”

  “At the detox,” Luisa volunteered with a timid peek at Nick. “Then she’ll be better and get a job.”

  “But meanwhile somebody has to get Luisa to a dentist. Well, I think, hey, you with the buckteeth, you don’t want her to end up like you! So I get moving.”

  “Your center is for kids?” Maggie asked curiously.

  “That’s our focus. But sometimes the best way to help the kids is to give mom a breather, or coax dad into finishing high school, or just get the whole family a square meal.” She grinned. “Ramona is such a tease. Calls it Band-Aids for Broken Lives. Well, most people mend soon with a little help. We do need more family support for times when a family’s life gets rough. Ramona hopes to help with that. And a few times I called her about some other kid she could help. She always razzes me. Says her big break came inThe Devil’s to Pay so it couldn’t have been God responsible. But she always does what I ask.”

  Nick had a sudden vision of Sister Alphonsus, glorying in the huddled humanity of South Brooklyn, doling out a bag of groceries for this one, a set of braces for that one, a whole new life for the other one, all with the same loopy thankful grin. Maggie’s questioning eyes met his, and he nodded. She thrust a twenty at Sister Alphonsus.

  “Here, Sister. To get someone a Band-Aid.”

  “Oh, Luisa, look! It’s the rest of Mrs. Hamed’s rent money!” crowed Sister Alphonsus.

  “Mrs. Hamed? Doesn’t sound very Catholic to me,” teased Nick.

  “Oh, Catholic, schmatholic! If God wants us sorted out that way, He’ll just have to do it Himself,” she snorted. “You see, Mrs. Hamed’s youngest swallowed four big buttons, so they had some expenses they hadn’t expected. And their papers haven’t come through, so they aren’t eligible for medical plans yet.” She stood up briskly. “We’d better go or Luisa’s sister will start to worry about her.”

  “Yes,” Nick agreed. They all went out into the cool evening. “Sister, I’m glad Ramona has a friend like you.”

  “Oh, I do hope she does all right! Well, she’s strong, and I’ll get everyone to pray for her.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes, God is wonderful!” She hooked her tightly rolled umbrella over one arm and reclaimed Luisa’s hand, then glanced back at the hospital with a puzzled shake of her head. “But weird.”

  Nick and Maggie had reached the hospital parking lot entrance when a gray limousine pulled out in front of them. The driver, tense, hunched over the wheel with a solemn Great Dane look. Nick leaped toward the car and banged on the windshield.

  “Mr. Jenkins! Excuse me!”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jenkins bristled through the two-inch gap where he hadn’t closed his side window.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m a friend of Ramona’s. I thought you might tell us how she’s doing.”

  “My God!” he exploded, his spiky brows lowering. “First that little shit of an Englishman, and that nun, and now you! Don’t any of you have any respect?”

  “Yes. But we care about Ramona too.”

  “You care about her goddamn money! You’re one of those goddamn actors, right?”

  Nick felt his jaws tighten. “Yes, sir, I’m one of those goddamn actors, sir,” he said mildly.

  “Look, cut the sarcasm. I’m not interested in talking to any of you. Only one I want to talk to is that joe who found her at that construction site.”

  “At your service,” said Nick. “Sir.”

  “What?”

  “I’m the joe. I found her. My wife and I.”

  The haggard eyes shifted to take in Maggie for the first time. “That your baby?”

  “No, we pick up strays as a hobby.”

  Jenkins ignored his words. “The police mentioned a baby. All right, look, hop in and we’ll go talk.” He pushed a button to unlock the doors. Maggie took Sarah around to the front passenger seat while Nick sank into the capacious back. Upholstery as soft as moss, the luxurious scent of thick leather.

  “I’m afraid I can’t talk long, Mr. Jenkins,” said Maggie as the big machine glided, purring, into the street. “Have to get back to my work.”

  “You’re not involved with this damn show, then?”

  “No. I’m a statistician.”

  Jenkins scowled. “Financial? Never heard of you.”

  “No, consultant for people who want to analyze survey results, evaluate programs, that kind of thing. We work with corporations, academics, government projects. But that’s not what you want to know from us.”

  “No, I—look, where are you going? I’ll drop you there.”

  She gave the address and he shifted lanes. “What I wanted to know,” he said, “was how the bastard got away. The police kept evading the question.”

  “They probably don’t know,” said Maggie. “I could give you our theory. We think
that the kid ran through the building to the next street.” She explained once again about the sheltering scaffolds, broken plywood walls, and the emptied handbag.

  “Nobody saw him running away?”

  “No. So our guess is that he ran back to the next street. There was a construction scaffold. Good cover.”

  “I see. Look, you said ‘kid.’ Why ‘kid’?”

  “Mr. Jenkins,” said Nick, struggling to lean forward from the depths of the upholstery, “the police apparently haven’t told you much.”

  “Damn evasive,” Jenkins agreed.

  “Well, you see, we’d like a trade,” explained Maggie. “The police have been evasive with us too.”

  “Well, you were the last to see her! How can I know you didn’t shoot her?”

  “You can’t,” said Nick. He wished the seat weren’t quite so deep and soft, engulfing him in yielding luxury that made movement difficult. He shoved himself awkwardly forward to balance on the round front edge of the cushion. “We can’t know that you didn’t shoot her, either.”

  But Jenkins seemed more astonished than offended. “Me? My God, why?”

  “Quicker than divorce,” explained Maggie drily.

  “And you get her money,” added Nick.

  “Her money! Goddamn it, she won’t die! And who the hell do you think wants the goddamn divorce? Not me!”

  “That wasn’t exactly a friendly discussion you had with her at rehearsal.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Maybe not. But she did tell us you were having an affair,” Maggie said.

  “God, that stupid woman!” Jenkins groaned. “And Ramona too. I wouldn’t have expected her to be spreading that around. Yes, okay, I was seeing someone. But it didn’t mean anything! It’s just that Ramona gets involved in these projects and nothing else exists for her. I might as well be on the moon. So, okay, this time there was someone … well … available. And I thought I’d keep myself amused.”

  Nick had heard this story a hundred times: the devoted actor, obsessed with a role, neglecting everything else in life. And the bewildered partner reacting in jealousy against the loss of primacy, calling the reaction revenge or self-discovery or amusement, like Jenkins. Jenkins repeated, “But it didn’t mean anything.”