7
Marilyn was smiling. “My aunt is a character, isn’t she?”
“Quite a character. You said she was so anxious to talk to me, but it seemed as though she was much more anxious to get rid of us.”
“Did you learn anything useful?”
“I’m not sure. She said Iris had a man friend named Harry who she went out with for years.”
“Oh my goodness, Harry. I forgot all about Harry. What did she tell you?”
“Not much, just that he was married and couldn’t get a divorce, which was why they never married, and I gather they never lived together. She said Iris didn’t want that kind of relationship. Did you know him, Marilyn?”
“I certainly met him, but it was a long time ago. He was a tall, good-looking man, dark hair, nice smile. He adored her, I can tell you that.”
“Do you remember his last name?”
We were in the street now, walking to the car. “If I ever knew it, it’s gone now. I bet it’s thirty years since I first met him.”
“Do you know what he did?”
“No idea.” She unlocked the car. “He was just Aunt Iris’s guy. I think she brought him around once when Melanie was a baby and he was very sweet to her, cooed at her. A nice man.”
We started down the Concourse, staying on the service road. At a light we turned right into a busy street with shops and people and cars, an elevated subway just down the hill. “It’s like a little city,” I said.
“Anywhere else it would be a city. Here it’s a neighborhood. We’re heading west now. Pretty soon we’ll be at the northern end of Manhattan. Then we’ll go downtown to my father’s apartment.”
“Marilyn, is there any family gossip about Iris that you can remember?”
“Like what?”
“Having to do with Harry or another boyfriend, some relationship that might have caused the family a problem?”
“There may have been. I may have heard some whispers, but I can’t tell you anything more than that. Remember I was the next generation, and if my parents, my aunts and uncles, knew something they weren’t happy about, they would try to keep it to themselves.”
“Sylvie said Iris’s boss was Mr. Garganus.”
“That’s it!” Marilyn said excitedly. “Wilfred Garganus. I recognized it the minute you said it. Sylvie’s memory’s not that bad, is it?”
“It’s pretty good, actually. But she may be holding something back.” I didn’t want to say more. I felt in an awkward situation. If there was something embarrassing about Iris’s life, I didn’t want it to get out to the family without the permission of the generation that was keeping it secret. “Have you given any thought to whether Iris could have been having an affair with Mr. Garganus?”
“I really don’t think so,” Marilyn said as though she had just now considered it. “I think she was very fond of him, but I don’t think it went any further than that.”
“You know, Iris could have been having an affair with Mr. Garganus, or with someone else, after a long relationship with Harry ended, and she still might have been killed by a mugger when she slipped out of the seder to go home.”
“That’s true. And you may dig up some unpleasant things about Iris that we’d all rather had never been unearthed and still not find out who killed her or why. Her life may have nothing to do with her death.”
“Exactly.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“I want a reason to continue, some piece of information that was overlooked, some motive, something I can sink my teeth into.”
“Well, we’ll be at Pop’s soon. Maybe it’ll turn up.”
I could see why Abraham Grodnik wanted to hang on to his apartment. The building was like many others, a pale beige brick with a facade flush with the sidewalk, a design that made the most of the available space, leaving nothing for a plant or a tree. But the location was irresistible, East Seventy-first Street, just a brisk walk from the beautiful shops on Madison and Lexington Avenues. And the apartment, when we got up there, had large rooms, including a sunken living room, a kitchen large enough for a family to eat in, and two bathrooms.
“It’s wonderful,” I said.
“A nice place to grow up. My parents were the first family to live in this apartment. My mother used to tell us how she came down the day they began renting and got in line. The ones on higher floors were two or three dollars a month more, so she always thought she got a real bargain on the fourth floor.”
“Two or three dollars a month,” I said with amazement.
“It’s hard to believe anyone could think of that as a big saving, but remember, we’re talking about a time when stamps were three cents, a letter from one part of New York to another was only two, and penny postcards were guess how much. The rent on this apartment was under a hundred dollars.”
I shook my head. “It sounds like the way I used to think of money when I was at the convent. You spent only what you needed to, and if you could save a nickel or a dime, you were ahead of the game—or you bought yourself an ice cream cone.”
“It’s not a bad way to grow up,” Marilyn said. “Sometimes I wish I’d been able to instill a little of my mother’s thriftiness in my children. Anyway, here we are. It’s probably a little dusty—we don’t have it cleaned every week anymore—but you’re welcome to look around, open drawers, whatever you’d like.”
“I don’t know what good opening drawers would be. Iris didn’t live here.” I looked around at the furniture and the pictures on the walls. “Your mother must have been a great collector. Everything looks very special.”
“She loved antiques. She loved china. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and catch her standing and looking at a shelf of her treasures with a smile on her face. It gave her pleasure just to look at them.”
“I can see why.” We were next to a cabinet that contained a collection of dishes, each one different, each beautiful. “Show me where the seder was that night.”
We walked into the dining room, turning a corner that obscured the front door. The furniture was mahogany, dark and heavy and very traditional.
“We had to open up the table to get everyone seated. Iris was somewhere over here, close to the doorway. Pop was at the head of the table, over at that end.” She pointed to the farthest place from the doorway. “You can see that wherever you sat, you couldn’t see the front door without getting up and actually leaving the room.”
“Where was your mother sitting?”
“Opposite my father, down at this end. This is closest to the kitchen.”
“And not far from where Iris sat.”
“That’s right.”
I took my notebook and made a very rough sketch of the apartment. Then, on another page, I drew in the dining room in more detail. “You said the children sat separately. Where were they?”
“They were in the kitchen that night. And they couldn’t see the front door any more than we could.”
“I think you told me the women left their pocket-books on a table somewhere.”
“Out here.”
I followed her into the foyer, where a chair, a table, and a mirror were the only furniture.
“They left things on the floor, on the table, on the chair. I’m sure some people must have come with shopping bags, and those might have ended up out here, too.”
“This must be the coat closet you mentioned,” I said, opening a door near the door to the apartment.
“That’s it. It’s very deep, and Mom used to joke that it was the attic for the apartment. In the winter the winter coats were on the front rack and the summer things on the back one. There’s also room for suitcases back there, and I think that’s where Mom kept them.”
“Did the guests hang their coats in this closet at the seder or were they put on a bed in one of the bedrooms?”
“Probably both. If you came early, there was room in the closet. Later on you probably had to toss your coat on a bed. But Aunt Iris came early that day, I’m sure of that, so she would have hung her coat in the closet. And you know, if she’d put it on a bed, Mom would have found it the next day.”
“Right. Marilyn, why don’t we just look at what’s hanging here? The question of whether Iris was wearing her coat is still a little unclear.”
“That’s what we’re here for.” She leaned inside and item by item, she pulled the hangers across the bar and we looked at each one. “Pop’s raincoat, his old winter coat I told him to throw out years ago, his old raincoat that’s falling apart. I wish he’d put a light in this closet like we told him to when we were kids, but he wouldn’t listen to us. What’s this?”
It was a woman’s coat, a soft chocolate brown. Marilyn took it off the hanger. “It’s Mom’s,” she said sadly. “Hanging there all these years. I guess Pop didn’t want to give it away. Isn’t it beautiful? She got it a few months before she died.”
I touched the fabric. It was as soft as cashmere. “It is beautiful. But you’re sure it was your mother’s?”
“Absolutely.” She dug in the pockets and pulled out a pair of leather gloves and a couple of tissues. “It’s Mom’s. This is too big to be Iris’s anyway. Iris probably wore a size eight.”
There were several empty hangers and little else on the front rack. I assumed that Abraham had taken his warm clothes with him when he moved into his daughter’s apartment.
“What’s in the back?” I asked.
“Let’s take a look.” Marilyn pushed aside the winter clothes so that we could walk to the back of the large closet. Then we went through the summer things. “There isn’t much anymore,” she said. “I remember when this closet was so packed you couldn’t get your hand between two hangers, but with everyone gone except Pop, there isn’t much here. That was Mom’s suitcase over there.” She bent and pulled it forward. “They used to enjoy traveling when they were younger. Pop’s is probably with him. Anything else you want to see?”
I backed out of the closet. “I really just wanted to see if Iris’s coat could have gone unnoticed. It doesn’t seem to be there.”
“We would have found it, I’m sure. My goodness, look at all these boots. You’d think we lived in Siberia. These must have been my mother’s. I’ll have to give them away.” She lifted a pair of shoe boots and set them aside. “For heaven’s sake, look at this.” She pulled something out into the better light of the foyer.
“What is it?”
“Mom’s old black pocketbook.” She opened it. “There’s still money in the wallet. Pop probably couldn’t bear to go through it, so he just left it there.” She rummaged around. “Here’s the silver pen I got her from Tiffany’s for her birthday. I always wondered if she used it.” She held it in her hand for a moment, then replaced it in the bag. “Her cents-off coupons for the grocery. The little leather book she marked down her appointments in. Here’s the dentist in January. I wish Pop had gotten rid of this.”
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Marilyn.”
“It’s not your fault.” She closed the bag and put it down on the floor of the closet. “Well, let’s see what else is lurking here among the boots.” She moved things. “Not much. Let’s have a look at the other side.”
I couldn’t see what she was doing because her body was in the way. I stood back, wondering if this had been such a good idea. There was nothing here that could help me. The layout of the apartment convinced me Iris had been totally unseen the moment she left the dining room.
“Here’s another bag,” Marilyn said, standing up. She brushed her dress off. “It’s awfully dusty in there. I’ll have to make sure the closet gets vacuumed next time we have someone in. I don’t remember this one. Maybe it’s my sister’s.” She opened it and looked inside. “Isn’t that a beauty?” she said. “Leather lined You don’t see that much anymore.” She pulled something out, a leather case that held credit cards. “That’s funny.”
“What is it?”
“Mom’s credit cards were in the other bag.” She pulled one card out of its slot and her face changed. “Oh, Chris.”
“What is it, Marilyn?”
“It’s Iris’s American Express card. This isn’t Mom’s bag, it’s Iris’s. It’s the bag she carried the night of the seder.” She turned to look at me, the dusty bag in her hand. “This has been sitting on the floor of the closet for sixteen years.”
8
We sat in the living room, more or less recovering from the shock. The handbag was indeed Iris Grodnik’s. Her French purse, full of money, was inside, along with her credit cards, a pen and pencil, a lipstick, an elegant mirror, and a compact with face powder.
“She must have put it in the closet when she came, just pushed it over to the side where it would be out of the way,” Marilyn said. “No one would have noticed it if they weren’t actually looking for it, and I certainly thought all the purses were in the foyer.”
“It means she intended to come back,” I said. “She didn’t just decide to go home, she didn’t go out to buy anything because her money is here, and she wasn’t grabbed when she opened the door as Sylvie thinks she was because she had her coat on.”
“She went to meet someone,” Marilyn said.
“Or out for a breath of fresh air.”
“Don’t believe it. She wouldn’t have done that. This is what you’ve been looking for, Chris. This is proof that Iris was killed by someone she met, and she must have met him outside the building or she would have left her coat behind.”
“Marilyn, Sylvie said the man that Iris went with for many years, Harry, lived not far from this apartment. I think we have to find out what his last name is and cross our fingers that he’s still alive so we can talk to him.”
“Sylvie said that? That Harry lived near Pop and Mom?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“I’m not sure I ever knew where he lived. Whenever I saw him it was with Iris, and that would have been here or at Iris’s apartment. Why can’t I think what his last name was?”
I took out my notebook. “I need to fill in some geography. Where did Iris live at the time of her death?”
“Kips Bay. She had a beautiful apartment.”
“I’ve heard of that, but I don’t really know where it is.”
“On the east side in the Thirties, just south of the UN.”
“So she was on the East Side, too.”
“Yes. And one of the reasons she picked that location was that it was easy to get up to Pop’s. She liked to keep close to the family.”
“I’d like to look at the place she lived if we have time today. Not that I can learn anything, but it gives me a feel for Iris’s life.”
“We can drive there after lunch. Anything else?”
“You’ve never told me where Iris’s body was found.”
“Yes, of course.” Marilyn stopped as though the thought of the location was a painful memory. “It was a terrible place, Chris. Up at the northern tip of Manhattan there are oil yards. They’re about a block from Broadway and quite near Baker Field, the stadium where Columbia plays its football games. It’s a place where oil comes in on big barges and is stored until it’s taken away by truck to be delivered. I never knew this place even existed, but that’s where they found poor Iris’s body two days after she disappeared.”
“How awful,” I said. I jotted down as much as I could of what Marilyn had just described. “That means that whoever killed her must have had a car.”
“I certainly think so. My husband and I drove up there about a week after they found Iris, just to see what kind of a place it was. There’s a chain-link fence around it—with enough holes that you could probably push a body through if you tried, or squeeze inside yourself if you were crazy enough to want to do it. The fence was all overgrown with weeds, and there’s litter around. It’s an awful place.” She stopped for a moment.
“What’s inside the fence?”
“Mostly oil tanks, a little shack where a guard probably dozes all night, the cabs of old oil trucks. I suppose you want to see it.” She sounded unhappy at the prospect.
“Not if it’s too painful for you.”
“Death is painful. Iris’s death was very painful. Who would take her to such a place, Chris?”
“Someone who didn’t want her found, someone vicious enough to kill her, someone, I’m sure, with a car.”
“Yes, he must have had a car. He couldn’t very well have taken her there by cab.”
I glanced at my watch. “You must be starving. It’s a long time since we left Oakwood.”
“Let’s have lunch. There are plenty of places around, and it’s my treat.”
“Thank you.”
“Let me get a bag first. You’ll take Iris’s purse home with you and give it a good once-over. Maybe you’ll learn something the police didn’t know.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all we ask.”
Marilyn always seems to know some wonderful place to eat, wherever she happens to be. Today was no exception. We walked into a little restaurant on Lexington Avenue that managed to have exactly one small table for two empty, and we sat down to a lovely lunch.
“I think I’ll have the salade niçoise,” Marilyn said, her face half-covered with the menu.
“A what?” I asked.
“Niçoise,” she explained. “That means it’s from Nice, you know, the city in the south of France.”
“Yes, of course,” I said with some embarrassment, remembering high school French a few minutes too late. “What’s in it?”
“Lots of nice things, tuna, potatoes, green beans, little cherry tomatoes, even some anchovies.”
It was the tuna that caught my attention. “I’ll give it a try. It sounds good, and I don’t think I’ve ever had it.”
“You and Jack should think about a vacation in Europe sometime. He gets a lot of vacation time, doesn’t he?”
“He does, but he’s always working on his law books.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Not bad,” I said with pride. “He was very unsure of himself when he began, but he’s gained a lot of self-confidence. I think he was afraid he’d be looked down on because he’s over thirty and a cop. But he’s gotten some admiration for both of those things. He has first-hand knowledge that almost no one else has, and there have been a couple of times when he was able to quote a relevant part of a law.”
“I’m glad he’s as smart as he is nice. I could tell the minute I met him he was a good man. He looks you in the eye when he talks to you, and I think that’s very important.”
It was more a comment on Marilyn, I thought, than on Jack, but I thanked her for her kind words. Marilyn is a very aboveboard person. That’s probably why she gets along so well with her adult daughter. She doesn’t manipulate. If there’s something going on in Mel’s life that she doesn’t approve of or has questions about, she asks openly. I suppose childless people always have strong feelings about how to raise children—and they’re often wrong—but I liked the way Marilyn and her daughter interacted, and I always sensed the respect each had for the other, over and above the affection.
My salad was a happy new culinary experience, although Marilyn assured me they were better in Nice. For my part I was delighted they were this good on Lexington Avenue.
“When we finish, I’ll pick up the car and we’ll drive down to Kips Bay. Then what?” Marilyn asked.
“Well, it’s been a long day. Jack and I can take a ride over the weekend. He can tell me what precinct it’s in, and I’ll see if I can find the detective who handled the case.”
“Do you think he’s still there? Sixteen years is a long time.”
“If he isn’t, he’s probably somewhere else in the city. And in any case, Jack can get a copy of the file and go through it with me.”
“It doesn’t sound like fun. It must be a very nasty job, reading autopsy reports and looking at ugly pictures of victims.”
“It is. But you keep telling yourself, this is going to help me find a killer.”
“A beautiful little woman that didn’t weigh a hundred pounds. I will never be able to accept what happened to her.”
“How did she die, Marilyn?” I asked. It was a question I needed an answer to, but she had never volunteered it and I had been reluctant to ask.
“She was beaten to death,” Marilyn said sadly. “I think he broke her neck.”
“How awful,” I said aloud, and to myself I thought: This was no case of random violence. He hated her.
We picked up Marilyn’s car after we finished our coffee and drove down Second Avenue from the Seventies to the Thirties. A couple of turns and we were in front of a magnificent apartment house overlooking the East River.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Iris lived well.”
“They paid her well and she was single. Single women can afford a lot of things married couples can’t. Nice apartments are one of them.”
“Mel said she and her cousins inherited Iris’s money.”
“That’s right. Iris had a will. She was a very modern woman for her age. She divided her money equally among her grandnieces and -nephews. But there wasn’t much. We’re talking about hundreds, not thousands or tens of thousands.”
“What about her other things? She must have owned jewelry.”
“She did, and a nice fur coat. I think Harry gave her most of it. I asked Pop about it over the weekend. Those things were to be distributed to her remaining brothers and sisters. I think Sylvie got the coat.”
“So nothing went to your generation.”
“We didn’t need it. Sixteen years ago we were all in the prime of life. Are you looking for a motive in the family?”
“I’m looking for a motive wherever I can find one. What about boyfriends? Did any of them inherit?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Do you have a copy of her will?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t inherit, so none was sent to me. But Mel should have gotten one. She was an heir.”
“Yes, she mentioned that.”
“Have you seen enough?”
“I think so.”
“Then let’s call it a day.”