French Pressed

Seventeen

Mike picked me up at noon in a battered beige Dodge sedan that he sometimes used for undercover work. We drove north to Washington Heights, on the hunt for an address near Wadsworth Avenue—the last known residence of Brigitte Rouille.

Washington Heights was a large Manhattan neighborhood located above Harlem. Gentrification had infiltrated the area, but the wealth was concentrated mostly around Yeshiva University (an area recently dubbed “Hudson Heights” by a canny local real estate firm eager to attract a more upscale clientele). Gentrification had not yet spread to the shabby street off Wadsworth that Brigitte Rouille had been calling home until only a few weeks ago.

The language on the streets was Spanish, with a Latino population dominated primarily by Dominicans. The sidewalks were cracked and pitted on Wadsworth, and potholes dotted its side streets. I observed more than one homeless person lurching along, shouting at phantoms, and strange, illegible graffiti was spray-painted everywhere: billboards, buildings, passing delivery trucks.

Now I knew very well that graffiti had been around for a few millennia. The ancient Greeks had it. So did the Romans. But the stuff we were passing now wasn’t attached to 2,000-year-old historical relics. This wasn’t even the artsy kind of graffiti I’d seen during the eighties all over Soho and the Lower East Side: the kind of street art that had launched major careers, like the powerful primitive images of Jean-Michel Basquiat or the lighthearted pop figures of Keith Haring.

These slashing, sloppy, angular marks were gang tags, something I knew in passing but Mike knew in practice. “Violent drug dealers use the symbols to claim territory and send messages,” he informed me.

“Messages?”

“To warn away rival gangs.”

“And a Hallmark card would have been so much more thoughtful.”

Mike shot me an amused glance, but he didn’t laugh. As we walked along the run-down avenue, I sensed a tension in him. There was a slight wariness, too, in his gaze, as he continually scanned our surroundings. But what most radiated from Mike was a tremendous coiled energy. I couldn’t help flashing on a sketch I’d seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook: a medieval catapult, pulled all the way back, ready to unleash hell at a moment’s notice.

But, as it turned out, there was no reason to unleash it. No one bothered or threatened us in the least. And within minutes, we’d easily entered the shabby interior of Brigitte’s former address, which was not marred in any way by graffiti. The six-story dirty brick apartment building was merely filled with bad smells and a clashing color scheme.

The second Mike and I stepped through the front door, the scent of cigars was distinctly recognizable. The bouquet of cheap tobacco became even stronger as we headed down one flight of metal stairs to the basement. And by the time we walked the narrow, lime-green hallway with mustard-yellow trim, I’d added stale beer, scorched garlic, and the reek of industrial-strength cleaning fluid to my stomach-turning aromatic profile of the place.

We passed four apartment doors at the basement level.

Mike glanced at each one. He finally paused at the very last door on the hall. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, we stood together, reading the crudely scrawled name.

FELIX PINTO, SUPERVISOR

Spanish television was blaring on the other side of the door. From another apartment, I could hear a man and woman arguing loudly, speaking a language I didn’t recognize. Filipino? Tagalog? Somewhere else, a dog yapped continuously.

Mike’s square jaw worked a moment before he glanced at me. I was wearing my low black boots, a pair of pressed gray slacks, a loose white sweater, and a long gray overcoat. Mike told me to look like a professional detective, and I made sure to follow his advice.

“I’ll do the talking,” he said softly. “Okay?”

I nodded.

He lifted his knuckles and knocked. Three firm taps.

“Usted se va,” a muffled voice called from inside. “Yo estoy comiendo mi almuerzo.”

Mike frowned, turned his fist to the side and pounded. His deep voice boomed loud enough to make me flinch. “Lunchtime’s over, amigo! Open the door!”

“Vuelva a las dos,” the voice replied.

“No. Not two o’clock. Now!” Mike roared. “This is the NYPD. Policía!”

I heard muttering, and then a bolt was thrown. The door opened a few inches, until it was stopped by a chain. A young man in his twenties with slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin mustache peeked through the crack.

“Sí?”

“I want to see the inside of an apartment belonging to one of your former tenants,” Mike said.

“No hablo inglés—”

“You habla English just fine, Felix. I already spoke to the old lady—the one who let me and my partner into the building.”

My eyes widened at Mike’s brazen lie. There’d been no old lady. We hadn’t talked to a single soul on our way in. No one had let us in, either. We’d just waited until a teenager exited the building and then we’d rushed the door before it locked again.

Felix Pinto frowned. “Vieja perra should keep her mouth shut,” he muttered.

“Don’t blame the old woman. I just showed her this”—Mike held up his gold shield—“and she let loose. She told me all about you, Felix.”

Now the super looked nervous. “What do you want, man?”

Mike folded his arms. “I want to see Brigitte Rouille’s apartment.”

Felix leaned his forearm on the doorjamb—a naked woman in a tropical jungle was tattooed down the length of it. “Some other cops came by yesterday,” he said.

“How long did they stay in the woman’s apartment?”

“They didn’t show me no search warrant—”

“That’s not what I asked you, Felix. I asked you how long the police searched Ms. Rouille’s apartment.”

The man shrugged. “Not long. A few minutes. That’s all. They didn’t do much searching. They just wanted to make sure she was gone, I think.”

“And is Ms. Rouille gone?”

“Long gone, man,” Felix replied. “Like five weeks ago. Skipped out on the rent, too, but that ain’t my problem. New tenant’s movin’ in Monday.”

“Any idea where Ms. Rouille went?”

“Probably moved in with her boyfriend. Why pay two rents when you can pay none?” He snickered.

“Who’s the boyfriend?”

“Don’t know, man. I don’t ask junkies their names. They all act kind of twitchy, you know?”

“Do you know where this junkie lives?”

Felix shook his head. “Sorry, no forwarding address. Guess she didn’t want the management company coming after her. Deadbeat bitch.”

“I’ll need the key.” Mike held out his hand. “Unless you’d rather come with us? Then we can talk over some of those things the old lady told me.”

“No, man. I don’t need to come with you.”

The super searched through a ring of keys attached to a chain on his belt. He finally detached one of them and handed it to Quinn.

“Four F,” Felix said. “And don’t bother waiting for the elevator, ’cause it don’t work. Just slide the key under my door when you’re done.”

Then the super ducked out of sight, and the door slammed in our faces.

“I don’t recall you speaking to an old woman,” I teased as we hit the stairs.

“Every apartment building in New York City has an old lady who talks too much,” Mike informed me, casually tossing the key and catching it. “Sometimes it’s useful to talk to the lady herself, and sometimes it’s just an easy way to get around that ‘no hablo inglés’ crap.”

“This is a side of you I haven’t seen before.”

Mike arched an eyebrow. “A cop on the street, you mean?”

“No, a big fat liar. The baloney you fed that super was prime cut.”

“It’s not baloney, sweetheart. It’s procedure. Sometimes you have to bend the truth to get what you want out of an interrogation.” His blue eyes speared me. “You never bent the truth a few times to get what you wanted?”

I shrugged. “Guilty. But I only lie for a good cause.”

“What do you think I just did?” He held up the key and smiled. “We’re in.”

We’d reached the fourth floor. Mike held the heavy fire door open for me, and we exited the stairwell. Apartment Four F was right across the hall. He stepped in front of me and slipped the key into the lock.

We walked through a small entryway and entered the empty living room. It was a nice apartment, very spacious, especially for Manhattan, with polished wood floors and new light fixtures. But it was stuffy, the air stale and close. Two small windows faced the walls of the next building on the block. I stepped across the room, opened one of the windows. A cool, refreshing November wind stirred the stagnant air.

“There was a chair here,” I said, pointing to a ghostly square of fast-dispersing dust bunnies on the bare wood floor. “She didn’t leave in the dead of night. Looks to me like Brigitte took her furniture with her.”

“Maybe,” said Mike, opening a small closet. Inside, empty hangers dangled from a wooden rod. Several buttons lay on the floor.

“I’m going to check the kitchen,” I said.

The kitchen was clean but small, a long and narrow space with a single sink, a miniature stove, a tiny window, and a Kenmore refrigerator that seemed too large for the limited space. I opened it. There was nothing inside.

I checked the drawers next. In one I found a few discarded utensils—an ancient and corroded potato peeler, a plastic spatula, chopsticks from a local Chinese take-out place.

Another drawer was stuffed with handwritten papers. Shopping lists, mostly, and a few recipes. There were some pieces of junk mail and an old wrinkled note, written in a flowing, delicate hand:

“In here!” Mike called.

I stuffed the papers that I’d found into my oversized purse for perusal later and followed the sound of Mike’s voice.

He was in the bath, perhaps the coziest room in the place, with coral pink tiles and a large tub. Brigitte had left behind her matching shower curtain. The scent of feminine soap clung to the water-resistant material.

Mike had opened the mirrored medicine chest. Inside I spied a few waterlogged bandages, an empty container of face cream, and a couple of brown prescription bottles.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“These bottles were all prescribed to Brigitte Rouille,” he said, pushing the stuff around with his finger. “Pretty innocent stuff: an antihistamine, antibiotics.”

Mike displayed a bottle he’d kept in his hand. “This prescription isn’t Brigitte’s, and it’s not so innocent, either.” he said. “It’s a ’script for methadone, from a clinic on 181st Street.”

“Methadone? Isn’t that what they give addicts to wean them off heroin?”

Mike nodded. “This prescription belonged to someone named T. De Longe.”

“Toby De Longe, perhaps?” I showed Mike the note I’d found in the kitchen.

“Good, Clare. There’s an address on this bottle, too,” he said, pocketing the note with the bottle.

It took only a minute to search the bedroom and its closet. They turned up empty.

“Let’s go,” Mike said, tapping his pocket. “I think we found what we came for.”

As we locked up, another apartment door opened. A little chocolate-brown terrier trotted out of the apartment, followed by a fortysomething man clutching its leash. He wore a nylon Windbreaker and Yankees cap placed at such a strategically conceived angle that I was sure it covered a bald spot. He smiled when he saw us.

“Are you the new tenants?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “She’s coming later.”

The man zipped up his Windbreaker. Tail wagging, the dog circled the man’s khaki-covered legs, tangling them with the tether.

“Easy, Elmo, settle down.”

“When did the movers come?” Mike asked while the man untangled himself.

“Movers? What movers?”

“The men who moved Ms. Rouille’s furniture.”

The man rolled his eyes. “That woman’s furniture has been rolling out of here for months, not to mention the china, silverware, and electronics. A television. A stereo. Blender and a big cake mixer—”

“Where did her things go?” I asked.

“Pawned, I guess,” the man replied. “Or traded for drugs.

That woman had a problem.” He put his hand to his lips and whispered, “Cocaine. Her friends all had monkeys on their backs, too. I’m not surprised the little cook was behind on her rent.”

“Did you know her boyfriend?” Mike asked.

The man shrugged. “She had a lot of friends. I didn’t know them, though.”

Impatient, the little terrier barked. “Okay, Elmo, let’s go caca,” the man said, heading down the stairs.

After the man’s footsteps faded on the stairs, along with the click, click, click of little dog nails, Mike faced me. “You learn something new on this job every day.”

“Such as?”

His blue eyes smiled. “Not every apartment building’s biggest gossip is an old lady.”

Just then, the tinkling tune of “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music went off in my shoulder bag. I pulled it out, checked the tiny digital screen.

“It’s Matt,” I said.

Mike nodded. “Call him back in the car.” He glanced up and down the hall. “You should talk to him in private.”

“Okay.”

We hit the street again, found the battered beige Dodge. Mike unlocked my passenger-side door. I climbed in, surprised Mike didn’t get in with me.

“Private’s private,” he insisted.

As I hit speed dial, Mike walked to the corner to check out the headlines at a small newsstand. I watched him affably engage the Hispanic vendor. He appeared to be speaking in fluent Spanish.

I put the phone to my ear, listened to Matt’s phone ring. My ex picked up right away. “Clare, I have some news from the lawyers—”

“Can I see Joy today?”

“No. Neither one of us can. She’s on Riker’s Island, and no one can see her but her lawyers.”

“What about tomorrow?” I asked, my tone a little desperate.

“Same deal. Neither one of us can see her until her arraignment Monday.”

“Monday?” My gaze fell from the bright windshield. I stared unseeingly at the Dodge’s dashboard. “Is that a normal amount of time?”

“There are complicating issues. The Vincent Buccelli murder might be tagged on, but it took place in Queens, and that’s another borough, so it’s another DA’s office.” He sighed. “They’re sorting it all out, I guess—a lot of law degrees are involved.”

I took a deep breath, released it. “She will get out on bail, right? What are the lawyers saying?”

“The judge will decide Monday downtown in criminal court.”

I closed my eyes, not able to comprehend my Joy sitting behind bars for months and months before her trial would even come up on the docket.

“Anyway, Clare, I’ll stay on the lawyers, keep you informed.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

“You should thank Breanne, too. This criminal defense firm is one of the best in the city. Bree has personal ties to the partner handling Joy’s case. She made all the calls from Milan.”

“I will thank her, Matt. I just pray we never have to use Bree’s lawyer friend. If I get lucky today, Joy’s case will never have to go to trial.”

“You think you can nail Keitel’s killer?”

“Vinny’s, too. I think Brigitte killed them both. She’s on the lam now, but Mike and I are on her trail.”

“Keep following it then.” Matt paused. “Look, I know I’ve been down on you in the past for butting in, for being a nose hound, but this is our daughter we’re talking about, so…anything you can do, Clare, anything…”

“I know, Matt. I’ve been doing the best I can—”

My eyes lifted up just then. I noticed Mike in his long overcoat, turning away from the newsstand. He glanced back at the Dodge, met my eyes.

“—now let me get back to work.”