Every Dead Thing

I had contacted his secretary earlier that afternoon to make the appointment, telling her that I was acting for an attorney in the matter of an inheritance coming to Ms. Demeter. Cary and his secretary deserved each other. A wild dog on a chain would have been more helpful than Cary ’s secretary, and easier to get past.

“My client is anxious that Ms. Demeter be contacted as soon as possible,” I told him as we sat in his small, prissy office. “The will is extremely detailed and there are a lot of forms to be filled out.”

“And your client would be…?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. I’m sure you understand.”

Cary looked like he understood but didn’t want to. He leaned back in his chair and gently rubbed his expensive silk tie between his fingers. It had to be expensive. It was too tasteless to be anything else. Crisp lines showed along his shirt as if it had just been removed from its packaging, assuming Timothy Cary would have anything to do with something so plebeian as a plastic wrapper. If he ever visited the shop floor it must have been like an angel descending, albeit an angel who looked like he’d just encountered a bad smell.

“Miss Demeter was due in work yesterday.” Cary glanced down at a file on his desk. “She had Monday off, so we haven’t seen her since Saturday.”

“Is that usual, to have Monday off?” I wasn’t anxious to know, but the question distracted Cary from the file. Isobel Barton didn’t have Catherine Demeter’s new address. Catherine would usually contact her, or Mrs. Barton would have her assistant leave a message at DeVries’s. As Cary brightened slightly at the opportunity to discuss a subject close to his heart and started mouthing off about work schedules, I memorized her address and SSN. I eventually managed to interrupt him for long enough to ask if Catherine Demeter had been ill on her last day at work or had complained of being disturbed in any way.

“I’m not aware of any such communication. Miss Demeter’s position with DeVries is currently under review as a result of her absence,” he concluded smugly. “I hope, for her sake, that her inheritance is considerable.” I don’t think he meant it.

After some routine delaying tactics, Cary gave me permission to speak with the woman who had worked with Catherine on her last shift in the store. I met her in a supervisor’s office off the shop floor. Martha Friedman was in her early sixties. She was plump, with dyed red hair and a face so caked with cosmetics that the floor of the Amazon jungle probably saw more natural light, but she tried to be helpful. She had been working with Catherine Demeter in the china department on Saturday. It was her first time to work with her, since Mrs. Friedman’s usual assistant had been taken ill and someone was needed to cover for her.

“Did you notice anything unusual about her behavior?” I asked, as Mrs. Friedman took the opportunity afforded by some time in the supervisor’s office to discreetly examine the papers on his desk. “Did she seem distressed or anxious in any way?”

Mrs. Friedman furrowed her brow slightly. “She broke a piece of china, an Aynsley vase. She had just arrived and was showing it to a customer when she dropped it. Then, when I looked around, she was ru

“And was she sick?”

“She said she felt sick, but why run for the escalators? We have a staff washroom on each floor.”

I got the feeling that Mrs. Friedman knew more than she was saying. She was enjoying the attention and wanted to draw it out. I leaned toward her confidentially.

“But what do you think, Mrs. Friedman?”

She preened a little and leaned forward in turn, touching my hand lightly to emphasize her point.

“She saw someone, someone she was trying to reach before they left the store. Tom, the security guard on the east door, told me she ran out by him and stood looking around the street. We’re supposed to get permission to leave the store when on duty. He should have reported her, but he just told me instead. Tom’s a schvartze, but he’s okay.”

“Do you have any idea who she might have seen?”

“No. She just refused to discuss it. She doesn’t have any friends among the staff, far as I can tell, and now I can see why.”

I spoke to the security guard and the supervisor, but they couldn’t add anything to what Mrs. Friedman had told me. I stopped at a diner for coffee and a sandwich, returned to my apartment to pick up a small black bag my friend Angel had given me, and then took another cab, to Catherine Demeter’s apartment.

7

THE APARTMENT was in a converted four-story redbrick in Greenpoint, a part of Brooklyn that was populated mainly by Italians, Irish, and Poles, the latter counting a large number of former Solidarity activists among them. It was from Greenpoint’s Continental Iron Works that the ironclad Monitor had emerged to fight the Confederate ship Merrimac, when Greenpoint was Brooklyn ’s industrial center.

The cast iron manufacturers, the potters, and printers were all gone now, but many of the descendants of the original workers still remained. Small clothing boutiques and Polish bakeries shared frontage with established kosher delis and stores selling used electrical goods.

Catherine Demeter’s block was still a little down at heel, and kids wearing sneakers and low-slung jeans sat on the steps of most of the buildings, smoking and whistling and calling at passing women. She lived in apartment 14, probably near the top of the building. I tried the bell but wasn’t surprised when there was no answer from the intercom. Instead I tried 20, and when an elderly woman’s voice responded, I told her I was from the gas company and had a report of a leak but the super’s apartment was empty. She was silent for a moment, then buzzed me in.

I guessed she’d probably check with the super, so time was limited, although if the apartment didn’t reveal anything about where Catherine Demeter might have gone, I’d have to talk to the super anyway, or approach the neighbors, or maybe even talk to the mailman. As I passed into the lobby I used a pick to open the mailbox for apartment 14, finding only a copy of the most recent New York magazine and what looked like two junk mail drops. I closed the box and took the stairs up to the third floor.

The third floor was silent, with six newly varnished apartment doors along the hall, three on each side. I walked quietly to number 14 and took the black bag from under my coat. I knocked once more on the door, just to be sure, and removed the power rake from the bag. Angel was the best B &E man I knew, and even as a cop I’d had reasons to use him. In return, I’d never hassled Angel and he’d stayed out of my way professionally. When he did go down, I’d done my best to make things a little easier for him inside. The rake had been a thank-you of sorts. An illegal thank-you.

It looked like an electric drill but was smaller and slimmer, with a prong at its tip that acted as a pick and tension tool. I stuck the prong in the lock and squeezed the trigger. The rake clattered noisily for a couple of seconds and then the lock turned. I slipped in quietly and closed the door behind me, seconds before another door in the corridor opened. I stayed still and waited until it closed again, then put the rake back in the bag, reopened the door, and took a toothpick from my pocket. I snapped it into four pieces and jammed them into the lock. It would give me time to get to the fire escape if someone tried to enter the apartment while I was there. Then I closed the door and turned on the lights.

A short hallway with a threadbare rug led to a clean living room, cheaply furnished with a battered TV and a mismatched sofa and chairs. To one side was a small kitchen and to the other a bedroom.