New York Dead

Chapter 12

Herbert Van Fleet’s mother didn’t like it. Stone and Dino waited quietly while Mrs. Van Fleet called her lawyer.

She returned grim faced. “All right, how do you want to go about this?”

“We’d like to see every room in the building,” Stone said.

“What are you looking for?” she demanded.

“Anything that might help us in our investigation,” Dino said, none too politely.

Seething, the woman took them through the building. Stone saw nothing out of the ordinary – at least, out of the ordinary for a funeral parlor. They finished up in the embalming room, where Herbert Van Fleet was working on a corpse. A tube ran from the man’s stomach to a pump, and the machine whirred quietly. Stone looked away.

Van Fleet looked up without surprise. “Well, well, look who’s back. I’m not answering any further questions, gentlemen, except in the presence of my lawyer.”

Stone handed him the warrant, and, while Van Fleet read it carefully, he went to a row of large drawers.

“I’ll do this,” Stone said to Dino. “I wouldn’t want you to faint on me.”

Two elderly men were the only occupants of the refrigerated storage drawers. Stone and Dino had a look in an adjacent storage room, then returned.

“All right,” Van Fleet said, “when do you want to go to my apartment?”

“Immediately,” Stone replied.

Van Fleet turned to his mother. “But what about Mr. Edmonson?” he asked plaintively, gesturing toward the corpse on the table.

“Just pop him in the fridge,” Dino said. “He’ll keep.”

“You’d better go with them,” Mrs. Van Fleet said to her son. “They’ll wreck your place if you’re not there.”

Van Fleet nodded, went to a sink, washed his hands, removed his rubber apron, revealing that he was dressed in a three-piece suit, and said to the officers, “I’m ready.”

Van Fleet didn’t speak on the way downtown. His building was in SoHo, near the river, and the street seemed to have been missed in the gentrification of the area. A sign on the dusty windows of the empty ground floor read WEINSTEIN’S FINE GLOVES. Van Fleet unlocked a steel door and led them into a vestibule and onto a freight elevator.

“Who else lives in the building?” Stone asked.

“Nobody,” Van Fleet replied genially. “My mother and I bought it as an investment last year. I had planned to renovate the rest of the building and rent lofts, but I ran out of money. Maybe next year.”

“Did the glove factory occupy the whole place?”

“No, there was a kosher meat-processing plant and a piecework sewing business, and offices on the top floor, where I live.”

The elevator stopped. Van Fleet pushed back the gate and unlocked another large steel door.

“It’s sort of like a fortress, isn’t it?” Dino said.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you what a problem burglary is in this city,” Van Fleet said. Inside the door, he tapped a code into a keypad. “I’ve got a very decent alarm system, too.”

Stone watched him.

Van Fleet led them into a large, open space. A kitchen had been built in a corner at the far end and a bedroom in the other corner. These rooms were separated from the rest of the loft by a framework of lumber that had not yet had plasterboard applied to it. “I’m doing most of the work on the place myself,” Van Fleet said.

Light flooded the loft from three sides; the other abutted another building.

“Nice place, Herb,” Dino said admiringly.

“You may call me Mr. Van Fleet,” Van Fleet said, almost sweetly. He turned to Stone. “You may call me Herbert, if you wish.”

“Thank you, Herbert,” Stone said. “I feel for you, doing your own remodeling. I’m doing the same, myself.” He said this while walking the length of the highly polished oak floor, the expanse of which was broken only by an occasional Oriental rug. A sofa, two chairs, a lamp, and a television set had been placed on one rug, an island of a living room surrounded by hardwood. The two detectives went methodically through the place, but there was hardly anywhere to hide anything. Van Fleet’s desk rested against one wall. Stone opened the drawers and found nothing he wouldn’t have seen in his own desk drawers: bills, stationery, office supplies.

“Let’s see the rest of the building,” Stone said to Van Fleet. His warrant did not cover the whole building, but he hoped the man wouldn’t notice.

Van Fleet didn’t. He went to a kitchen drawer and retrieved a large key ring, which jangled as he led them to the elevator. They walked through the building a floor at a time. Van Fleet may not have had the money to complete his development project, but he had cleaned out the building; it was as empty as any place Stone had ever seen.

“Anything else?” Stone said to Dino.

Dino shook his head.

“Can we offer you a lift uptown, Herbert?”

“Thank you, no,” Van Fleet replied. “As long as I’m here, I’ll have my lunch and get a cab later. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” he said sweetly.

“You’ve been very helpful, Herbert,” Stone said, “and we appreciate your cooperation.”

“Have you found out anything else about Sasha?” Van Fleet asked.

“I’m afraid we can’t discuss an investigation in progress,” Stone said.

“The papers said you’re making no progress at all,” Van Fleet said, walking them to the front door.

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Dino said, as Van Fleet closed the door behind them.

Back in the car, Stone sighed. “Clean as a hound’s tooth,” he said.

“Yeah,” Dino agreed, disconsolately.

“Let’s go up to Sasha’s and go through those boxes.”

“Okay.”

There was a different doorman on duty when the detectives arrived at the building. Stone flashed his badge and asked for his key to the Nijinsky apartment. The man handed it over silently.

The moment they stepped off the elevator, it was obvious that something was wrong. The police notice fixed to the apartment door had been removed.

“The seal’s broken,” Dino said. “What the fuck?”

Stone led the way into the apartment. It was completely empty. The two men stood there looking helplessly about them, as if waiting for inspiration. Stone bent over and picked up a card from the floor.

Effective immediately,

Sasha Nijinsky is at

1011 Fifth Ave.

New York 10021.

Burn this.

“The movers,” Stone said.

“What?”

“The movers. She was moving the next morning.”

“What’s the new address?”

“Ten-eleven Fifth.” Stone didn’t mention that he knew someone else at that address.

“Let’s go see the doorman.”

Downstairs, Stone braced the doorman. “There was a police seal on the door of the Nijinsky apartment,” he said. “Who broke it?”

“Jesus, Officer,” the man pled, “I don’t know nothing. The moving people showed up and took her stuff; that’s all I know.”

They drove uptown in silence. The building was across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The doorman greeted them.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he said, blocking the entrance.

Stone showed his ID. “Miss Nijinsky’s apartment.”

“Yes? What about it?”

“We’d like to see it. This is part of a police investigation. Did some moving people bring some furniture and boxes here yesterday?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t let you into the apartment without permission, unless you’ve got a search warrant, of course.”

Dino sighed loudly. “I guess you know the lady’s in no condition to give permission.”

The doorman shrugged. “My hands are tied,” he said, “unless you get permission from the cooperative’s board of directors. If one of them says it’s okay, I’ll let you in.”

“Who’s the chairman of the cooperative’s board?” Stone asked.

The doorman went to a tin box on his desk and produced an index card. He handed it to Stone.

The name on the card was Barron Harkness.

Stone registered this for a moment, then showed the card to Dino. “May I use your telephone?” he asked the doorman.

“Sure,” the man said, placing a phone on the desk.

“An interesting connection, wouldn’t you say?” he asked Dino. He checked his notebook and dialed the number of the network.