A Quiet Death

ELEVEN

I’d finished the sweater. Blocked the pieces, sewn it together, and attached the buttons. It fit perfectly and had even garnered compliments from Emily, new-age fashionista, when I showed up at Spa Paradiso for the massage she’d arranged to thank me for my babysitting services.

Now I needed another project.

I could rake leaves (would that involve ‘screwing?’) alphabetize my spice rack, or…

‘I’m taking the train up to New York City today,’ I announced to my sister, Ruth, as we lingered over our two-egg platters at Chick and Ruth’s Delly (no relation!), a few doors up Main Street from Ruth’s shop, Mother Earth.

Ruth paused, coffee mug halfway to her mouth. ‘And you’re doing this, why?’

‘I considered flying to Paris or Seville, or one of the other exotic locations where Lilith Chaloux preferred to receive her mail, but the most recent address I have for her is in New York City, so I thought I’d start there.’

‘Didn’t you tell me that the letter you addressed to her in New York City came back, addressee unknown.’

‘It did, but Thirty-nine Fifth Avenue is an apartment building. If I’m lucky, somebody still living there now will remember her.’

Ruth set her mug down on the black Formica tabletop, worry lining her normally smooth brow. ‘The train, Hannah? Are you sure?’

I shrugged. ‘Have to climb back on the horse that bucked you.’

‘Does Paul know what you’re up to?’

I rested my knife against the rim of my plate. ‘No. He fussed that I was obsessing over Lilith and Zan, which is true. I was – am - obsessing over their story. Paul put up with it while I was recovering from the accident because it kept me home and out of trouble, but I think he was secretly pleased when I put the letters away and got back to my knitting.’

‘So to speak,’ Ruth grinned.

‘No, really,’ I grinned back. ‘I actually finished a sweater.’

‘Won’t Paul notice that you’re missing?’

I shook my head. ‘Paul’s in Colorado Springs.’

‘What the hell’s he doing in Colorado?’

I tore off a bit of toast and dredged it through the egg yolk remaining on my plate. ‘The Navy-Air Force game is today. He’s flown out on a party plane with a bunch of his Naval Academy buddies.’

Ruth gave me a look that I’d often seen on our mother’s face whenever we were trying to pull a fast one. ‘He’s going to have a cow when he finds out!’

I shrugged. ‘“It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission,”’ I said, quoting Grace Hopper.

‘So, how come you’re not going to the game, Hannah?’

‘No scientific instrument yet invented is sensitive enough to measure how little I care about football.’

Ruth smothered a laugh with her napkin. ‘Want me to come to New York with you? I could get Neelie to cover the store for the day.’

Cornelia – nicknamed Neelie – was my widowed father’s girlfriend. The Alexander girls – my sisters, Ruth and Georgina, and I – thoroughly approved of Cornelia Gibbs and couldn’t imagine why our father hadn’t asked her to marry him yet. It had been almost a decade since our mother’s death. But we knew from experience that there was little to be gained from pushing the man. There’s not much you can tell a retired navy captain. They’re accustomed to being in charge.

‘I appreciate the concern, Big Sis, but some challenges simply have to be faced alone.’

The waitress appeared, and Ruth held out her mug for a refill. ‘It’s your funeral, Hannah, but for heaven’s sake, be careful!’

An hour and a half later, I parked my car in the Amtrak garage at BWI and bought a ticket on the next train to New York City. I thought I had the Train Thing under control until the Northeaster actually pulled into the station and it was time to climb aboard.

One step forward, two steps back, the heebie-jeebies had taken hold. Except for the conductor, I was alone on the platform.

‘Are we holding you up?’ asked the conductor. ‘You getting on or just sightseeing?’

I took a deep breath, and dashed up the steps into one of the middle cars before I had a chance to change my mind.

Three hours later, I got off at Penn Station.

Miraculously unscathed.

It’s a twenty-five minute hike from Penn Station to 39 Fifth, but cabs can be expensive, so I ruled them out. I had no appointments, no schedule to keep, so I’d planned a leisurely stroll along a route that would take me past Macy’s windows and down Broadway. I took my time doing it, too, zigging across town on the numbered streets and zagging down the avenues, enjoying the exercise and the crisp fall air.

Thirty-nine Fifth turned out to be a handsome, seventeen-story apartment building situated between 10th and 11th streets on the edge of Greenwich Village, just a couple of blocks north of Washington Square. Unusual terracotta frescos decorated the façade at the building’s third-floor level. I ducked under the fancy green awning that sheltered the entrance from the elements and rang the bell.

When the doorman appeared on the other side of the glass, my heart sank. He was probably in his early thirties. At the time Lilith Chaloux lived here, he would have been struggling with fractions in elementary school.

The door opened a crack, and he peered out, followed by a blast of superheated air.

‘Can I help you, ma’am?’

‘I hope so. My name’s Hannah Ives, and I’m organizing a high school reunion. One of my classmates used to live in this building. Apartment Four-B? Lilith Chaloux?’

‘Which high school?’ he asked.

‘Cardinal Spellman,’ I ad-libbed, naming the only high school I knew of in New York City that didn’t have ‘PS’ and a number attached to it.

‘Right. Well…’ He scratched the back of his head, as if actually thinking. ‘Nobody named Chaloux in this building now, and there’s two women with a baby in Four-B, so I’m afraid I can’t help you. When did you say she lived here?’

‘In the 1980s.’

‘Way before my time, you know?’

I smiled. ‘Yes, I guess it was. Well, thanks anyway.’

I had expected to be disappointed, but the news still stung. Thinking that a cup of coffee might improve my disposition, I walked around the corner to University Place where I remembered seeing a Dean and Deluca café. I bought a takeaway cup of the house blend, then strolled back the way I had come.

On the corner of 10th Street and 5th Avenue stands Ascension Episcopal Church, a red stone building surrounded by an iron fence. I crossed to the other side of 5th Avenue and leaned against the churchyard fence, sipping my coffee, observing as residents came and went from Lilith Chaloux’s old building.

At a bus stop across the street, someone was watching me, too – a husky guy wearing a New York Yankees ball cap and sunglasses with odd, glacier-blue lenses. He was reading the Post, waiting for the bus, glancing up at me from time to time. Did he think I was a bag lady?

His scrutiny, however innocent, was making me nervous, so I wandered halfway down 10th Street, admiring the church’s splendid stained-glass windows and lamenting that they had to be protected by Plexiglas sheets, but understanding why.

Back at my station in front of the church a few minutes later, I was relieved to see that the guy wearing the blue sunglasses had gone. I alternated between Googling on my iPhone – the stained-glass windows were by John LaFarge, I learned – and keeping my eye on Lilith’s old building. My patience was rewarded (finally!) when a pair of elderly women emerged from 39 Fifth being led by a large German shepherd dog. The women were dressed in nearly identical bulky, oversize cardigans, black ankle-length skirts, and neon-pink jogging shoes. They resembled each other so closely that they had to be sisters.

As I watched, the dog dragged his mistress south along 5th Avenue toward Washington Square, heading, as I soon found out, for a play date with an exuberant young golden retriever at the dog run in the park.

I chucked my empty coffee cup into the nearest trash container and followed.

The sisters had been sitting together on a bench for about ten minutes, watching with wry amusement while the dogs frolicked, before I plucked up the courage to join them.

‘I hope you’ll excuse me for interrupting you,’ I said, ‘but I just noticed that you came out of Thirty-nine Fifth. Do you live in that building?’

‘I’m sorry, dear, but we don’t take surveys. I know you’re just doing your job, but…’

I raised a hand, chuckled. ‘Please, don’t worry! I’m not taking a survey. I’m just trying to track down somebody I used to go to high school with.’

The woman glanced nervously at her sister, who smiled, nodded and gave her a light, go-ahead-she-looks-harmless-enough-to-me punch on the arm. ‘Why, in that case, yes, we live at Thirty-nine Fifth Avenue.’

‘My name is Hannah Ives. I live in Annapolis, Maryland, now, but I used to go to Cardinal Spellman with a girl named Lilith. Lilith Chaloux.’

While I explained about the imaginary reunion, I pulled Lilith’s picture out of my handbag and handed it to the older of the two women.

‘I’m Elspeth Simon, and this is my sister, Claire.’ Elspeth held the picture close to her face as if she’d forgotten her reading glasses, turning it this way and that in the bright sunlight, then handed it to Claire. ‘Yes, that’s Lilith all right. Lovely girl. She lived in our building for quite some time.’

I showed them the second picture, the one of Lilith standing in front of the tomb of Christopher Columbus with the man I assumed to be Zan. ‘Do you know who this is?’ I asked, tapping the man’s face.

Elspeth studied the image for a few seconds, nodded in recognition, then shared that photo with her sister, too. ‘He was the love of Lilith’s life,’ she told me, looking wistful. ‘Claire, what was that man’s name? Something Japanesey, as I recall. Zen?’

‘No, it wasn’t Zen.’ Wrinkles furrowed Claire’s brow and she stared up at the massive stone archway that dominated the park, deep in concentration. ‘No, it was Zan. Zan something.’

‘Did Zan have a last name?’

Elspeth laughed. ‘Of course he had a last name, dear! Something foreign with little squiggles on it. Claire, do you remember?’ Claire shook her head, her gray curls bouncing against her neck. ‘I can’t remember if I ever heard her say it. Lilith always referred to her boyfriend simply as Zan.’ She handed the picture back to me. ‘Lilith kept pretty much to herself. Didn’t talk much about her private life, but whenever that man was in town…’ She tapped the photo with a neatly manicured index finger. ‘Well, whenever Zan showed up, that girl simply glowed.’

Claire brightened. ‘Lilith had a studio somewhere down on West Broadway. She was an artist, you know.’

‘I did know. I have some of her work, in fact. She was into photorealism back then, wasn’t she?’ I said, drawing on information I had gleaned from one of Zan’s letters.

Claire nodded. ‘She even had a picture in a group show at the Meisel Gallery on Prince Street. We went to see that show, didn’t we, Ellie? It was a painting of sunlight shining on broken glass vases. She was very talented.’

‘Is that how Lilith made a living?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Claire said. ‘She was always most reluctant to part with her work. I often wonder what happened to all those beautiful paintings when she moved away.’

‘When was that?’

‘About the time the building voted to go condo,’ Ellie cut in. ‘That would have been, let’s see, 1986.’

‘No, that’s not right, Ellie. She moved away in April, or maybe May, of 1987. Remember? They’d just put up the scaffolding in front of the building. The movers had to work around it.’

‘I distinctly remember it was 1986, Claire. The year Pedro died.’

‘Pedro died in 1987.’

‘Oh, well she left in ’87, then.’

‘Who’s Pedro?’ I asked.

‘Our dog.’ The sisters said it in unison, setting off a fit of giggles.

‘He was a chihuahua,’ Ellie explained. She held her hands in front of her, palms facing, about eight inches apart. ‘He was that tiny.’

I pointed at the German shepherd who was lolling in the dirt with his playmate and raised an eyebrow.

Ellie laughed. ‘Well, we’ve super-sized it, haven’t we? Meet Bruno.’

Long, lean, strong-boned and muscular, Bruno was my kind of dog. Bruno was a dog’s dog. Yappy purse-sized dogs left me cold.

‘So Lilith didn’t have a job? A real job, I mean.’

Ellie thought about my question for a moment while lacing the end of Bruno’s leash around her fingers. ‘No. I gather she had money, though. She told me that her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was still in her teens. She had a trust fund administered by some doddering old uncle in Switzerland. Zurich, I believe. Lilith didn’t spend money willy-nilly, mind you, but I don’t think money was a particular issue for her.’

‘Remember what she said, Ellie? About the magic credit card?’

‘What’s a magic credit card?’ I asked, intrigued that there might be such a thing and wondering where I could apply for one.

‘She’d charge things on it,’ Ellie explained. ‘And every month it would get paid off by some bank in Switzerland, no questions asked.’

‘Where do I line up to get a credit card like that?’

‘We’ll be right in line behind you!’ Claire chortled.

‘Do you know where Lilith went when she moved away?’ I asked.

‘First, she was going to stay with that uncle I mentioned in Zurich. I remember that plainly, because she said she was having her things put into storage for six months.’ Claire looked thoughtful, then raised her eyebrows and her hands in unison. ‘Until the cottage was ready! That’s what she told us, didn’t she, Ellie? She was going to move into a cottage!’

‘What cottage? Where? In Europe?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t remember, dear. I’m so sorry. My son says it’s CRS. Can’t remember shit.’

I handed Ellie one of the business cards that I’d printed out on our home computer, a simple sailboat graphic with my name, address, phone number and email. ‘If you think of anything that might help me find Lilith, please give me a call. We’re having the reunion next spring. It’s our fortieth, can you believe it? I really would love to get back in touch.’

While eyeing my brace, Ellie tucked my card into the pocket of her sweater. ‘Can I ask what happened to your arm?’

‘Fender-bender,’ I fibbed, not feeling up to revisiting the ordeal. ‘Airbag broke my arm.’

This launched Claire on a lengthy monologue about the dangers posed by airbags to short, elderly drivers, copiously illustrated with hair-raising examples from among her own circle of friends.

When she wound down, I offered to buy the sisters lunch, but they demurred, claiming they had to get Bruno home for his nap. I bid them thanks and goodbye, then wandered across the park, heading south down West Broadway into Soho proper.

West Broadway between Broom and Prince used to be prime Soho retail space. Sadly, it seemed to have fallen on hard times. Storefront after vacant storefront made my leisurely stroll unexpectedly dreary. RIP Rizzoli’s Bookstore, Sigrid Olsen and Té Casan. I poked my nose into a few shops and wondered, as I walked, which of the studios I was passing might have been Lilith’s.

On a hunch, I popped into the Louis Meisel Gallery, but the black-garbed Twilight wannabe manning the desk had never heard of a Lilith Chaloux, nor was she listed among the artists who had ever shown there. Puzzled and disappointed, I walked a few blocks further and cheered myself up at the Apple Store by taking an iPad for a test drive.

Before heading back to Penn Station, I picked up a carry-out sandwich at Olives – smoked turkey, bacon and avocado on sourdough – then caught a cab that got me to the station well in time to catch the 5:39 back to BWI. I sat in the waiting area, ate my sandwich, powered up my new iPhone 4, and launched the Safari browser.

I was still giving my iPhone a workout three and a half hours later when the train pulled into BWI station. I hurriedly unplugged the charger from the seat-side outlet, snatched up my purse and hopped off on to the platform. When Paul came home the following day, I’d have to confess, of course, but at least I’d have something interesting to report.