The Green And The Gray

5

The rest of Roger's night passed restlessly, crowded with strange dreams and punctuated by long intervals of lying awake listening to the wind outside their window. At one point he had the impression that Caroline was gone, but the next time he awoke she was back where she was supposed to be.

It made for a hazy sort of grogginess the next morning that even a hot shower couldn't completely eradicate. He could smell the coffee as he shaved, and hoped Caroline was making it strong.

Not only was she making coffee, he discovered as he emerged from the bedroom into the kitchen, but she'd pulled out all the stops on breakfast as well. Along with coffee and orange juice, the table was loaded with bacon, bagels, grapes, slices of cheese, and a nearly depleted plate of scrambled eggs. Caroline was at the stove, busily scrambling another batch.

It was a far cry from the bagels and granola bars that were their normal breakfast, but the reason for the feast wasn't hard to guess. Melantha was already at the table, digging in with an energy only a preteen hitting a growth spurt could manage.

"Morning, Roger," Caroline greeted him, giving him a tentative sort of smile. "You sleep well?"

"Pretty good," he fibbed, sitting down across from Melantha. "Good morning, Melantha."

The girl's mouth was full, but she gave him a smile in return. The smile, he noted, didn't reach all the way to her eyes.

"Had a little excitement last night, didn't we?" he commented casually as Caroline left her eggscrambling long enough to pour him a cup of coffee. Such restaurant-style service, too, was out of the ordinary. "I hope you weren't scared."

"No," Melantha said, not looking at him as she cut a triangle of cheese with her fork and shoveled the last bite of her eggs on top of it.

"You got back to sleep all right afterward?"

"Uh-huh," she said. "Caroline, can I have some more eggs?"

"Of course," Caroline said. "Help yourself. If you don't mind waiting, Roger?"

"No, go ahead and finish them off," Roger said.

"Thank you," Melantha said, and scraped the rest of the eggs onto her plate.

Roger watched her out of the corner of his eye as he poured himself some juice. Once again, he noted, she'd evaded his questions.

But this time, at least, he hadn't come away completely empty-handed. The most obvious question she should have asked was what he'd been doing on the balcony in the first place. The fact that she hadn't asked it implied she already knew.

Perhaps she sensed his eyes on her. "On second thought," the girl said suddenly, "I think I'd rather have a shower instead. May I?"

"Certainly," Caroline said. "There are towels in the cabinet beside the tub."

"Thank you." Scooping a quick double forkful of eggs into her mouth, she got up from the table and disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom.

"So much for questioning her," Roger said pointedly as Caroline piled the fresh batch of eggs onto the serving plate.

"She wouldn't have told us anything," Caroline said, picking up her own coffee cup and sitting down on the chair Melantha had just vacated. "Besides, this gives us a chance to talk." She glanced the direction Melantha had gone, then reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a piece of jewelry.

"Take a look."

Roger took it, frowning. It was a large pin of some sort, made of silver leaves and threads with a purple stone in the middle. It didn't look like anything he could remember Caroline ever wearing. "I take it it's not yours?"

"I'd never seen it before last night," Caroline confirmed. "The point is that I found it in the junk drawer, right where you said you'd put the gun."

Roger looked up under his eyebrows at her. "Are you suggesting," he said slowly, "that this is the gun?"

"It's about the right weight and color," Caroline said. Her voice was dogged, but Roger could sense her backpedaling from her position. If he thought it was ridiculous, and said so...

With an effort, he looked back at the pin in his hand. Yes, it was ridiculous. But no more ridiculous than anything else that had happened since they'd gone to that stupid play. "Let's assume it is," he said. "First and most obvious question: How?"

Caroline shrugged helplessly. "How does a man climb up the side of a building?"

"Touche," Roger admitted.

"I don't like it, either," Caroline said. "You ready for the next one?"

"Hang on." He took a long swallow of his coffee. She had, indeed, made it strong this morning.

"Okay, hit me."

"I went through the phone book last night," she said, getting up and pulling the directory from its drawer. "I thought we might be able to locate Melantha's family."

"With just the name 'Green' to go on?"

"I couldn't sleep anyway." Opening the directory, she pulled out a piece of notepaper and handed it to him. "Anyway, I found two very interesting addresses: one on Riverside Drive near 104th, the other on West 70th just off Central Park. Each of them lists over thirty Greens living there."

Roger frowned down at the paper. His first thought was that she must have double-counted some of the listings. But she'd have to have been really foggy to have double-counted that badly. "You have any reason to assume Melantha's from either building?"

"Not really," Caroline said. "I just thought it was strange enough to be worth mentioning."

"It's definitely that," he agreed. "The Riverside Drive address is closer to where we found her.

Maybe we should go check it out."

"We could," Caroline said, staring into her coffee cup. "But I keep thinking about the bruises on her throat. If her family didn't do that, why is she so reluctant to go back home? Or to even talk about them?"

"Good point," Roger conceded. He glanced at his watch and shoveled a last forkful of eggs into his mouth. "And speaking of going places, we need to get to work."

Caroline seemed to brace herself. "Actually, I thought I'd stay home today. Keep an eye on Melantha."

Roger blinked in surprise. Skipping work was a very un-Caroline thing to suggest. But under the circumstances—"Good idea," he said. "Maybe I should stay, too."

"No, that's all right," Caroline said. "We'll be fine."

"What if our midnight visitor comes back?"

"In broad daylight?" Caroline pointed out. "Besides, she might be more willing to talk just to me."

Roger felt his lip twitch. But she was right. "Fine," he grunted. "See what you can get out of her."

Picking up the pin, he dropped it into his pocket.

"You're taking the brooch with you?"

"I thought I might look in on one of those Green-intensive buildings at lunchtime," he told her. "If this does have something to do with Melantha, it might help prove we have her."

"Ah," Caroline said, her tone suddenly odd. "You think it would be better if we both went later?"

In other words, you don't think I can handle it? "I'll be fine," he said instead. "You concentrate on Melantha; I'll take the outside world."

"All right," she said in that same odd tone. "Just be careful, will you? This whole thing is very strange."

He snorted as he stood up. "That, sweetheart, is the understatement of the month."

She managed a faint smile at that one. "You'll call later?"

"At lunchtime," Roger promised, circling the table to give her a quick kiss. "And you call me if anything happens here."

"Don't worry," she said. "We'll be fine."

He brooded about it all the way to the office, barely noticing the overcast sky or the as-usual crammed subway. This thing with Melantha was bad enough; but what was worse, he couldn't seem to figure out Caroline these days, either. One minute she would be fine, and the next she would be looking like a bug that had been stepped on.

Was this some kind of woman thing? Or was it just Melantha?

The sun was starting to peek more cheerfully through the clouds by the time he reached his office.

But his own dark mood persisted; and after an hour and a half of blankly pushing papers around he finally gave up. Nothing was going to get done, he realized glumly, until the Melantha problem was cleared up.

Five minutes later, he was back on the street. Of the two addresses Caroline had ferreted out, the one near Central Park was the closer. He might as well start there.

The building turned out to be a modest little four-story place on a tree-lined street within view of the park, with a stone stairway that led up a half dozen steps from the sidewalk to a landing and then made a right-angle turn and continued another half dozen steps to the entrance foyer itself. An interesting anomaly struck him as he approached the building: unlike most of those he could see on the street, this one didn't have bars on its ground-floor windows.

There was a young man sitting on the top step, idly rubbing his fingers together and gazing down the street. "Can I help you?" he called as Roger started up the steps.

"Possibly," Roger said. The man looked to be in his early thirties, not exactly the sort Roger would expect to see hanging around doing nothing in the middle of a workday. He was slender with black hair and smooth, darkish skin that reminded him of Melantha's own Mediterranean complexion. He also had something of her exotic eyes, too. "I'm looking for someone named Green."

"Really," the other said. His voice was casual enough, but Roger had the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized, as if visiting strangers were uncommon.

Still, this was New York, where people were naturally aloof. "Yes, really," he said, stopping at the midway landing. "I understand there are some Greens living at this address."

"Actually, all four apartments are owned by Greens," the man said. "Which one are you looking for?"

Roger frowned up at the building. "Four apartments?" he repeated. "That's all?"

"Isn't that enough for a building this size?" the other countered. His tone was faintly jocular, but there was no humor in his eyes.

"Must be really big families," Roger said. "I was given to understand there are over thirty Greens living here."

"Ah," the other said, nodding. "Actually, it's just a matter of thirty phone lines coming in. Two of the families run specialized solicitation services for one of the banks—Chase Manhattan, I think."

"Interesting," Roger said. That story might satisfy the casual passerby, but he knew better. "So this building is zoned for business?"

The other's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't know anything about legal stuff."

"Maybe not," Roger said. "But I do."

"You a cop?"

Roger shook his head. "Just a concerned citizen."

"Concerned about zoning?" the man countered. "Or something else?"

It was as good an opening, Roger decided, as he was likely to get. "Actually, I'm looking for one particular family," he said, throwing a casual glance back at the sidewalk behind him to make sure there was no one within eavesdropping distance. "A family who might have misplaced a young girl Wednesday night," he continued, turning back to the man.

"He knows," a voice said darkly from behind him.

Roger spun around. Standing at the base of the steps beside one of the trees lining the sidewalk was another young, dark-haired man.

Gripped in his hand was a gun.