Authors: Bernice Gottlieb
The tall man wearing a hoodie and dark glasses parked his car in the Stop and Shop supermarket lot, across the street from the business district. Ignoring the red light and the oncoming traffic, he zig-zagged between fast-moving vehicles and crossed Main Street’s busy thoroughfare. As he continued down the street, he stopped briefly and peered into the window of a real-estate office, easily picking out the sales woman he was scheduled to meet in half an hour. The description she’d emailed him was perfect. He move
d on.
Suddenly, right there on Main Street, a whirlpool roiled his gut. His eyes welled up. What the fuck is wrong with me? This nauseating vortex of exhilaration and depression was not unfamiliar. He mopped his eyes with a hand-hemmed linen handkerchief, and then tossed it in a wastebasket on the curb. He detoured into a small park with two benches and a statue of Washington Irving, and sat there breathing slow, deep breaths until the spell had pa
ssed.
From there, it was only a short distance down the hill to the train station, where the woman was planning to pick him up in her car. Once he got himself together, he removed the loose grey hoodie that covered his Prada suit coat, tossed it into another trash receptacle. He reached the station, breathing smoothly, just as the train pulled in, slicked back his dark hair, and waited for the agent to ar
rive.
Leah was a lively, bright woman and I took to her right away. We’d arranged to meet for lunch the following day at the Dobbs Ferry Diner, not far from that town’s train station. She lived nearby, in Pleasantville, so Dobbs Ferry was an easy drive for both of us. I must say I was surprised when I met her. Somehow, I had pictured someone named Leah Goldman as being white, probably Jewish. Rather, Leah was a tall, stately, African woman, most likely my age. She’d been born in Ethiopia and had come to New York in the 1970s to attend NYU. Later, modeling for a wholesale fur business, she’d married the owner, Larry Goldman.
The first thing Leah wanted to know, as soon as I slid onto the banquette across from her, was why I was asking about Danny Joe Farrell.
I had to tell her at least a partial truth. “I’m a real-estate agent in this county,” I said, “and we’ve had a series of attacks upon women brokers here—one ending in murder.”
Leah gasped.
I went on, “And we have reason to believe that this man may be implicated …”(Notice how loose that “we” is? Technically, if you include the police in the “we,” I’m telling the truth. But, on the other hand, given the syntax of my sentences, it could be much easier to conceive of the “we” as referring to real-estate brokers. Given Leah’s earlier refusal to talk to the police, I’d let her make up her own mind about just exactly who the “we” was.) “So, we decided that I should follow up and see if I could find out anything about him.”
Before Leah could respond, the young Latina waitress came to take our order—I asked for the Cobb Salad and she ordered the Bison burger with sweet-potato fries.
Then Leah sat back and regarded me soberly. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you might tell me about Danny Joe. That kid had a rough start. A while back—a long while back—he wrote to me from Juvenile Detention at some place upstate, asking about his mother. He wanted to find her. He sounded desperate about it.” She paused to place the napkin on her lap
“Were you able to help him?”
Leah shook her head. “No.”
“Have you heard from him recently?”
Another no.
The diner was crowded, as it usually was at lunchtime. I took a moment to look around, breathe in the delicious air, nod at people I knew. Gather my thoughts. “When was the last time you two communicated?”
“Let’s see. I guess it was back in the late eighties. DJ stabbed his father. He went after him with a kitchen knife, and that’s why he was sent away. Of course the guy deserved it; he was a monster. I’d be too disgusted to tell you all the stuff he did to that child when he was drinking.”
“Hmm,” I responded, feeling a bit sick.
The waitress—her nametag read Luz—delivered glasses of ice water with floating lemon slices. I nodded my thanks and took a long sip.
Leah went on. “Danny’s mom, Tessa Farrell, and I were neighbors—and, for a while, good friends. When our boys were small, they played together all the time. She was so beautiful she almost made me jealous, a Swedish immigrant with the most gorgeous platinum hair—natural, not bleached.”
“Do you and Tessa still keep in touch?”
“Oh, no, it’s not possible. Tessa is dead. Leah teared up.
“When did she pass, Leah?”
“I’m not sure, exactly.” She sipped from the Diet Coke Luz had delivered. Seeming to ponder for a moment or two, she looked up at me. “One day, before she moved away, Tessa gave me an envelope. She made me promise not to open it until she’d left Buffalo. I kept my word and waited.
“Then, poor Tessa, one day after a terrible fight with Frank she just picked up and left—.
“Who’s Frank?”
“Her husband, an abuser and a drunk.”
“Leah, you were a good friend to her, I can tell.” I liked this woman more and more.
“So, I read the letter. Then I panicked. I tried desperately to reach her but couldn’t. She’d never given me any way to contact her—no address or phone number or anything. I called the police right away, but they couldn’t do anything, because they didn’t know where she was, either. I felt so helpless, for her and also for little Danny Joe. He was only eight at the time.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “What did the letter say?”
“It said she was planning to kill herself.”
“Oh!” I felt a little shiver all over my body. “What a heartbreaking story! And what an awful position for you to be in! What about her husband—Frank? Couldn’t he do something?”
“Ha! That loser?” She gave a guttural laugh. “No, he knew nothing about it until I showed him that letter. And then he just laughed and said, “Well, better her dead than me!”
“What about Danny Joe?”
“I don’t think anyone ever told him she was dead. I know I never did. He was just too little to understand. God only knows how that child survived the beatings, sexual abuse and neglect. No matter how many times I called Children’s Services, they never removed him. I tried to adopt him, but Frank threatened me. Terrified me. I just couldn’t go through with my plans to help that poor boy.
“And it only got worse,” Leah continued, ominously. “Frank died a few years ago from kidney failure, nobody could find Danny Joe, and the house went into foreclosure. So, there’s nobody left. And, of course, now I have a lovely home in Pleasantville, so I’m not around.” Suddenly, she stopped talking, finished her burger and started in on the fries.
“What a tragic life it was for that child.” I didn’t know what else to say, and Leah was munching the fries, one at a time, deep in thought.
She remained distracted until I finished my coffee, and then reached into her bag for her car keys. It seemed that our lunch date was over.
I took out my checkbook to write the reward check, but Leah put her hand on my arm.
“I didn’t come here for the financial reward,” she said. “I really simply wanted to put some closure on that part of my life. I do hope Danny Joe Farrell is not the man who’s attacking you brokers, but if he is, at least I know I’ve done whatever I could about it.”
That was the last I heard from her before she left; I was getting my debit card out to pay, when she turned and walked out of the diner without saying goodbye. After the waitress came back with my receipt, I went to the door and watched Leah turn the corner toward the parking lot, and then vanish from sight.
Well, that’s that
, I thought. I never expected to have anything to do with Leah Goldman again.
Claire had an appointment with a new customer named Bob Wilson, with whom she’d been in touch by email. His company purchased foreclosed properties, he’d told her, and she had one for sale that she’d been trying, with no luck, to get rid of for months. A tall, good-looking, dark-haired man waited in front of the Hudson Hills’ train station. She pulled up in front of him and powered down the Saab’s windows. “Bob?”
“And you, my dear, must be Claire.” He reached for the door handle, and Claire clicked the unlock button. His smile was contagious. This could be a pleasurable showing, she thought.
Bob Wilson settled into the leather seat, fastened his seatbelt, sat back, and grinned. “Whereto, my lady?”
“The office, first,” she said. “Just for a minute. We have to fill in a New York State Disclosure Form.”
“Can’t we do that later? Before you take me back to the train. I’m eager to see this place.” He frowned, charmingly. “After all, I’ve come all this way.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting the car in gear and turning up Main Street. “But it’s a State requirement.” She was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. ‘The office is right up there.” She pointed. “It’ll just take a second.”
“Let’s not do it
now
,” Bob Wilson pleaded.
Claire was reluctant to put obstacles in an enthusiastic buyer’s way, and he seemed like a nice guy. The house was close by, on Ogden Street, almost in the middle of town. What could happen? “Let’s do a drive-by,” she suggested. “After all, you might not even want to go in after you see it. In that case we won’t have to go to the office.”
“That’d be a start.” He sat back.
“So, I asked, making small talk as we drove, “are your company’s headquarters located in the New York Metropolitan area.”
“No. Not really.” That was evasive, Claire thought.
“Oh, is your business national?” She thought she was making polite conversation.
He swiveled, and pointed his finger at her, no longer Mr. Nice Guy. “Quit interrogating me! Just do your fucking job and show me the damn house!”
Uh oh
, she thought, taking a deep, startled breath, what have I got myself into here!” No way was she going into a vacant house with this man. She pulled up to the slush-piled curb of the nearest house on a busy street and put the car in park. “Here we are,” she chirped, and reached behind her for her bag. “Just let me get the key.” Fumbling through the bag, she groaned, “Oh, no! I must have left the damn key at the office.”
“What the fuck?” He swiveled toward her.
She was truly frightened, now. Where was her cell phone?
“What kind of game are you playing here? Either you get me in that house right away, Bitch, or you drive me right back to Metro North!”
“Okay,” she said, pulled the car away from the curb, turned right for a block, right, again, and then right again. She was in the residential area of Main Street again, heading back downtown, while Bob Wilson seethed and cursed. When she slowed in front of the train station on Railroad Street, he snapped, “When’s the next train.”
“Not for half an hour,” she said, and then, as if she’d had a sudden inspiration, “I know! Let’s go get a coffee. We’ve got a great Keurig in the office.” She sped up, took the sharp right back up Main Street, and screeched to a halt in front of the office. She’d just reached for the seatbelt clasp, clicking the belt open, when he grabbed her hair and pulled her toward him. She felt a sharp prick on her neck. That was when she saw the knife, black hilt, stainless blade.
Le
thal
.
“Drive to the station now, Bitch, or I will kill you!”
But she knew she had to get away from him. With a quick twist of her wrist she turned the motor off and grabbed for the door handle.
He pressed the point of the knife into her neck and pulled it out again. Searing pain almost overcame her. He slammed his door open, flew out and sped across the street.
Somehow Claire got the door open and leapt out onto the curb.
“Stop him! Help! Someone stop that man,” she screamed. Two women wheeling strollers froze, like deer in headlights. A bulky guy wearing Yale sweats huffed off after him. But ‘Mr. Bob Wilson’ ran into the huge parking lot of the Stop and Shop across the street and vanished from view.
From my desk, even with my door closed, I heard a sudden commotion in the outer office. The front door slammed open, there was a scream from Mary Jane, the secretary, and a great thud as someone knocked over a chair and crashed to the floor.
“What the heck!” I jumped up from my swivel chair and yanked the door open. Claire, blood oozing from her neck and down her right arm, lay in a heap on the carpet, sobbing and gasping, babbling incoherently.
“Call the police! Call an ambulance!” I screamed at MJ, who stood over Claire, staring down, immobilized.
MJ flew to the phone and dialed 911.
“What is it, Claire? What happened?” I grabbed a thick wad of tissues and pressed them hard against the source of the bleeding. “Who did this to you?”
“It was him!” Claire sobbed. “Oh, Maggie, it was the rapist! He had a knife!”
I gasped. “Okay, Sweetie,” I crooned to my friend, cradling her. “Okay. It’s going to be all right. The police are on their way. You’ll be fine, Sweetie. You’ll be just fine.”
But would she? The blood was flowing fast. Just how far had that knife gone in?
The early winter darkness had begun to gather, and the flashing red, blue, and white strobes of the arriving emergency vehicles lent the office an almost hallucinogenic aura.
The front door slammed open, and Chief Betsy, hand on gun, practically fell into the room; she’d run all the way. “Wha’ happen?” she huffed. Then she took in Claire’s pale face … the dripping blood. “Oh, God! Not another one!”
In the E.R. there was such a huddle of medical personal in Claire’s cubicle that I hung back, outside the curtains. She was my friend, but right now she needed other people more than she needed me. I could hear a jumble of hysterical sobs, terse medical voices, beeping equipment, and low, intense questions from Chief Betsy. Between those sobs, Claire’s responses were so muted I couldn’t make sense of them. All I could do was cry silently, hot tears running down my cheeks.
A young male nurse wearing blue scrubs walked past me in the corridor, gave me a second glance, and continued on. In a minute he was back, handing me a box of tissues. “Is the neck laceration your friend?” he asked.
I nodded, mopping my eyes. “Someone stabbed her.”
“Hmmm,” he responded, soberly, and turned into another cubicle.
Then I gasped. Oh, my God! Suddenly I had a revelation. The attack on Claire must be my fault. When I’d told her that I was going to place an ad searching for Danny Joe Farrell in the Personals column of Looking, she’d scoffed and bet me she’d do better in an online search. Was Danny Joe Farrell monitoring the Internet for any interest taken in him? Had Claire’s search activity somehow triggered an alert?
My realization so shocked me, I almost passed out then and there. Plunking down onto a chrome-frame chair by Claire’s cubicle, I began taking long, slow, deep calming breaths. All I needed to do to complicate the situation was to pass out in the E.R.
Just then a doctor came out of the cubicle and gave me a sharp look. “Pull yourself together, Lady,” she snapped. “Your friend is going to need you.”
Nobody had scolded me like that in decades. Oddly enough, being spoken to like a bawling five-year-old was exactly what I needed. I sat up straight, stopped crying, swallowed hard, and asked, “How is she?”
The knife, fortunately, had not punctured an artery. There may have been some nerve damage, but it wasn’t immediately apparent. She was now on pain medication and headed for surgery to repair what damage they could see. They’d keep her in the hospital for observation until they were certain about the nerve function.
“She’s in good hands, here.” As I calmed down, the doctor mellowed. “You can go in, let her know you’re there for her, then go home and pour yourself a strong drink.”
All of which I did.
I’d intended to tell the Chief about my lunchtime meeting with Leah Goldman, but given the attack on Claire, Leah flew completely out of my mind.