Persephone Cole and the Christmas Killings Conundrum Read online

  “Where will you go from here?”

  He hesitated, as if verbalizing the future gave it more sorrow than he might be able to bear. “I look for property nearby but everything is expensive. The lease here was good, a fair lease. Maybe I will have to set up shop in Brooklyn. It is not the same but I will do what I have to do.” He turned his back on the two and returned to his store. Both man, woman, and dog watched him enter the building.

  “It is so sad,” murmured Mr. Pierce. “I am old; I will retire. I don’t care that much, but Mr. Zimmer is different. He’s only in his forties with only part of his family here. There are many more he’s trying to get out of Poland. This is no time for him to lose his business. The worst part for me is cleaning thirty-two years of storage out of the basement. I haven’t been down there in years.”

  “Thanks for your help, Mr. Pierce. I hope you and Cougat enjoy retirement.” Percy chucked the little dog under the chin. He growled. She withdrew her hand. “Feisty little guy.”

  “He is, indeed.”

  “Okay, so maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “A pleasure, Miss Cole.”

  Percy, deep in thought, watched the tubby old man carry the tubby little dog into the building.

  Chapter Nine

  “Who does that bitch detective think she is snooping around here?” He turned away from the dog and ripped open a box, clawing through the contents. “Dolls! Nothing but children’s dolls! It’s got to be here. I saw it…when?” He froze in place thinking, hands shaking with cold, anger, and fatigue. He shook his head. “So long ago. I can’t remember. But I know I saw it…” He exhaled a rheumy breath. “It was nineteen thirty-four? Or was it thirty-five? Why didn’t I pay attention?”

  He tossed the useless box across the room. It collided with several others. He added the dolls, stiff with age and years of dust, to the ever growing pile in a corner of the musty, cold basement.

  “I’ll blow her up, too if she gets in my way. Fat bitch detective. I’ll fix you, too. I’ll fix them all.”

  Chapter Ten

  Percy slipped the nickel in the payphone, closed the door of the booth, and listened for a dial tone. She dialed her home number and waited for someone to pick up the phone.

  “Hello,” said a small voice, after the fourth ring.

  “Just the young man I wanted to talk to,” Percy said, a flood of warmth spread through her. “It’s mommy, sweetie.”

  “Mommy!” Oliver went on in a rush. “Guess what we’re having for dinner?” The eight-year old didn’t wait for an answer. “Pot roast! Pot roast and mashed potatoes and string beans.” He took a breath but spoke again before Percy could answer. “And Lily’s making an apple pie for dessert! With whipped cream!”

  Astonished but pleased, Percy laughed. “That’s wonderful, sweetie.”

  “When you coming home, Mommy?”

  “Soon. I have to run over to the west side and talk to a lady first then I’ll be home. Did Grandpa tell you you’re bunking with me for a few days? Just until we sort a few things out with Lily.”

  “Sure. I like Lily. She’s a lot like Aunt Sera only prettier.”

  “Don’t tell your Aunt Sera that. Did you do your homework?” He made a dejected sound over the phone. “What’s wrong?”

  “Multiplication tables. I hate them.”

  “What’s twelve times six?” She said, trying to make a game of it.

  “We didn’t get to the twelve tables yet.”

  “Okay, what’s six times twelve?”

  “Oh! That’s easy. Seventy-two,” he answered.

  “Very good. That’s six times twelve. Twelve times six is the same answer. All you have to do is reverse it. By the time you get to the twelve tables, you’ll know them.”

  “Wow! Thanks, Mommy.”

  “Go get your grandpa for me and then finish your homework. I’ll see you soon, okay, sweetie?”

  She waited for Pop to come on the line and gazed out the glass of the phone booth door, watching people order their evening meals at the drugstore counter. She could have used something to eat herself. It was a long time since the spam sandwich.

  She heard her father’s voice. “How’s everything going, Pop?”

  “Couldn’t be better. Lily insisted on ordering up groceries and she had ration coupons for stuff like meat, fresh milk, eggs, and butter. It cost sixty-seven dollars, too.”

  Percy became anxious. “She didn’t show herself to the deliveryman did she? I don’t want--”

  “Of course not. She gave me the money and I paid him off at the door. She says as long as she’s here, we’re going to eat like kings. She insists on cooking the meals, too. That don’t please Mother too much, but she’s going along with it. Of course, the boy, Sera, and I are pleased as punch, your mother not being the best cook we know.”

  “Good, good,” Percy answered, anxious to get to the next reason she called and not wanting to run out of her nickel’s worth.

  “Pop, I need you to get some information for me. You still got that friend at the census bureau?”

  “Renaldi? The census bureau? What for?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”She looked at her watch. “But it’s nearly five o’clock and I want you to catch him before he leaves for the day. Ask him who’s listed as the owner of the building at Sixty-Four east Fifty-Ninth Street, the names of the people who lived there until they got booted out, and what businesses have leases there. Maybe he can write you out a list.”

  “Census, huh? How far back should I ask Renaldi to go?”

  “Hmmm,” she thought. “I don’t know. Nineteen-thirty, maybe. I’m also interested in finding out who recently bought the building, but that’s another department. Harrison Construction is going to be handling the demolition, if that’s any help. Maybe you can make a call to some of your cop friends on that one.”

  “What for, Persephone? Does this have anything to do with the dead elf?”

  “I’m not sure, Pop, but whenever there’s a change as big as what’s going on there, I want to know the particulars. While you’re at it, find out about Barnes and Weinblatt Toys, over at thirty-fourth and ninth. This Harry Weinblatt is quite a character.”

  “You’ve been a busy girl.”

  “About to get busier. Don’t tell Lily this, but it seems Connie had a wife and a couple of kids. I’m about to pay a visit to the grieving widow.”

  “Stay dry, Persephone, and we’ll save you some grub.”

  “You’re giving me something to look forward to, Pop.”

  * * * *

  A short ride on the cross town bus and Percy legged it up to seventy-second street and Central Park West. It was sprinkling again, and she was glad she had the umbrella, even with its twisted spoke.

  She entered the lobby of the Dakota, grand, elegant, and old world. The doorman, a barrel-chested man with a handlebar mustache, gave Percy the once over and was pretty iffy about what he saw. She asked for Mrs. Conrad Barnes and his mustache began to twitch.

  “She’s got company.” His manner was nervous but gruff.

  “That’s right,” Percy lied, “And they’re expecting me.”

  His jaw dropped and he stared at her wide-eyed. “They is? Then you go right up, missy, and good luck to you.” He shook his head and turned away.

  “Where am I going?”

  “14B,” He said, sitting behind the desk and snatching up his racing times. “Damned shame, the way some people behave, him not cold in his grave.”

  What the hell is that all about?

  The elevator, almost bigger than her son’s room, stopped with a jerk at the fourteenth floor. She heard the music of Guy Lombardo from somewhere down the hall. The closer she got to the apartment door, the louder it got, drowned out by an occasional burst of laughter, sometimes from a man, sometimes from a woman.

  Sounds like someone’s having a helluva party. Maybe I should have worn my dancing shoes.

  As she walked down the hall, her first thought was how
the sound could travel so far in such a well-made, sturdy building. When she arrived at the door marked 14B, she discovered the source of the music and that the door had been propped open with several stacked books. A small dog, this time she knew the breed – a wire-haired terrier— came running from somewhere further up the hallway. It looked at her, jumped over the books, and back into the apartment. There, it did a fast turnaround and began to bark insistently; the sound reverberating in Percy’s ears, despite lavish rugs and padded furniture.

  “Shush, Toby,” said a female voice. The dog barked on, while Percy covered her ears to protect them from the piercing noise.

  “Toby! Stop that.” A needle skidded across a record, as if it had been struck from the side. Guy Lombardo and his band of renown were silenced, but the dog continued to bark.

  “Shut up, you fleabag,” said the man’s voice. “Before I throw something at you.”

  “Now, Greg, there’s no need to get physical.” Greg laughed and apparently got physical with the woman, who began to giggle. The dog continued to bark.

  Percy rapped on the door with loud, persistent knuckles for a moment or two before she was heard.

  “Someone at the door,” the woman said to the man. “Who is it?” Her voice was louder and there were sounds of movement to the door and the scooping up of the dog. The door flew open and a dyed redhead with mussed hair, maybe five foot eight or nine and in her mid-thirties, stood before Percy. The woman was barefoot but wearing a short evening dress of royal blue, trimmed with sparkling beads at the neckline.

  The dog stopped barking and struggled to be free from her grasp.

  “Yes?” She set the dog down, whose job apparently done, scampered away.

  “Mrs. Barnes?” Boy, if you are, being a shrimp didn’t cramp the little guy’s style.

  “Yes. Who are you? What do you want?”

  “My name is Persephone Cole.”

  “Perse…Per…what Cole?” She focused on Percy with a vacant, bored stare.

  Jesus, what a dummy. “Miss Cole will do. I’d like to offer my condolences over the loss of your husband.” That was hard to say with a straight face.

  The woman’s demeanor changed and she struck a remorseful pose. “Thank you.” Then she dropped the act. “So, what do you want?”

  “I wondered if I could speak with you for a few moments. I’m doing some investigative work on behalf of Lily Waller. Did you know her or have ever met her?”

  “Hey,” said a male voice, obviously standing behind the half-closed door and listening in. “Isn’t that the broad that killed Connie?”

  The door opened wider and a coatless Greg, wrinkled white shirt half unbuttoned, stepped in front of the barefoot woman, not so much in a protective manner as a possessive one.

  From behind his shoulder, Margaret Barnes blurted out, “I never met any of Connie’s friends. I hadn’t even seen the guy in six months.”

  “Okay, lady,” Greg said. His voice and body language took on a belligerent edge. “You got your answer. So take a hike.” Fingers holding a cigarette and a hand wrapped around a rock glass filled with amber-colored liquid, he gestured to the processed red-head. Said woman stepped to the side of the tall, rumpled man and leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at Percy with a smirk. “Don’t you know we’ve got a grieving widow here?”

  “So it would seem.” Percy turned around to leave. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  She headed for the elevator at the end of the long hallway. Right before the elevator came, she heard Guy Lombardo’s music resume.

  * * * *

  “Can I ask you a couple of questions, old-timer?”

  Percy exited the elevator and strode over to the uniformed man behind the counter, who was still reading the racing form. She took a five-dollar bill out of her pocket, the last of her savings, and set it on the marble-topped counter. “For a fin, maybe you’ll tell me what you know about Mrs. Barnes.”

  He looked up in surprise and his handlebar mustache twitched again. “You back already? Thought they invited you to the party. They’re celebrating.” He glanced at the fin. “What do you want to know? She’s pretty much an open book. She don’t care what people see, that one.”

  “First, where are the kids?”

  “Where they usually are, with her mother in Queens. They’re normal, those kids. Not like Barnes was.” He reached for the money. Her hand was quicker and covered the bill.

  “What else?”

  “Let’s see. Her friend’s name is Mr. Gregory Rhodes. He’s a dentist. He’s been visiting here for about a year.”

  “I’ll bet her teeth have never been cleaner. And Mr. Barnes didn’t mind? That’s pretty liberal thinking.”

  “He hasn’t lived here for four or five years. I think they have one of those legal separations. At least, that’s what I heard the cops say when they was here earlier. I never heard of such a thing. Either you’re married or you’re not. She gets everything, that wife. I heard that, too.”

  Percy looked over his shoulder to a newspaper lying on a stool beside the man. “Can I see that paper?”

  “This one?” He reached for it. “Sure. You can have it but it’s gonna cost you a five-spot.”

  “It’s yours,” Percy said with a grin and slid the money to him.

  On the front page was the same photo Percy had seen of Lily on her father’s desk. She read the large-type heading, ‘Have you seen this woman? Lily Waller is wanted for questioning in the murder of Conrad Barnes.’

  Percy exited the Dakota absorbing every word the New York Globe had to say about her client’s daughter. It wasn’t pretty.

  Chapter Eleven

  The door slammed overhead on the ground floor, and he strained his ears for the sounds of the lock being turned. Once he heard it, he closed his magazine, threw off the blanket he’d wrapped around himself, stood up from the bench, and stretched.

  “That should be the last of them.” He looked around the dim, dank room, his preferred place to stay when down in the basement. The large furnace chugged away making the constant hollow, sucking sound, as it consumed its recent bellyful of coal. His back hurt from the relentless filling of it and he rubbed the back of his neck. In the summer, this room was too hot to be in for very long, not that he couldn’t endure it. He could endure anything. But in the winter the heat was a welcome respite from the rest of the damp and cold block-long basement, separated by winding tunnels and locked doors.

  “Too many rooms down here. Too many places it could be,” he muttered. “Too many. And too many nosy people snooping around in my business.”

  He picked up a crowbar and headed for the next unexplored tunnel.

  Chapter Twelve

  Percy heard the hubbub from the kitchen as soon as she opened the apartment door. It made her smile. She felt the warmth of the air then took in the aroma of home cooking.

  Be it ever so humble.

  Exhaustion enveloped her. It had been a long one. Percy felt like she’d covered the east and west sides of Manhattan on foot. She’d trudged through on and off heavy rain for the past hour, having made the decision not to wait for the cross town bus but to hoof it, saving a nickel. Big mistake. Drenched and chilled, she fought back a sneeze.

  I don’t want to get a winter cold like good, old Harry has, but like Christmas, ‘tis the season.

  Rather than heading to the joviality of the kitchen, Percy slipped into the peace of her bedroom. She changed clothes and put on the warm, sheepskin slippers she’d received the previous year for Christmas. She was wearing them out. With any luck, a new pair would show up under the tree in a few days. That was Sera’s usual Christmas gift.

  While towel-drying her hair, she checked for any written messages Pop might have left on her desk. This was their usual method of communication when one of them was out for the day and the other was manning the office. It had been a long time since Pop was the one out; these days it was her.

  No note. Either Pop hadn’t reached
his friend at the Census Bureau or there was nothing to say. She lay down on the bed, giving in momentarily to the fatigue.

  Jeesh, what a day. I’ve walked my dogs off and got nothing much to show for it, except a newspaper that cost me my last five bucks. Get up, girl. Can’t lollygag around just yet.

  Percy sat up and looked around. The bedroom she’d known since childhood was a well-worn combination of floral and plaid, in shades of dark green and pale blue, decorated when she was eleven. Only once had she known any other home and that was when she was married for a short time to Leo, the Louse.

  She scanned the room filled with memories, mostly good, and tried to give it the jaundiced eye of a stranger. Cramped. She hadn’t thought of it being cramped growing up, and maybe it only seemed so now because it was currently doing double duty as her office. For the next few days, it would also contain a small boy, but the thought made her smile. Two toy airplanes sat on the foot of the bed and Oliver’s homework was laid out on a corner of her desk. She looked at her son’s neat but childlike penmanship.

  What a smart boy he is. He was worth everything I went through to keep him. And more. I hope his father doesn’t reappear one of these days the way he disappeared, without warning.

  She felt a lurch in the pit of her stomach. Eight years he’d been gone, right before Oliver was born, his leaving prompted by the announcement of her pregnancy. She’d never filed for divorce; surely Leo had. Jude kept encouraging her to file but she’d always had better things to do with her money. Particularly, as she’d never heard boo from him in all these years.

  Still and all…

  Percy pushed the thought of her louse of a husband out of her mind and started for the kitchen with two intentions.

  Have some food and find out who this Danny is.

  On the other side of the kitchen door, she heard such happiness and camaraderie going on, it gave her pause to interrupt it. Conversation and mirth were infused with the sounds of holiday music on the radio and the occasional clatter of dishes, pots, and pans. As exhausted as she was, it lifted her spirits.