Friday, 1:30 P.M.
RANNIE WALKED FROM DOLORES COURT TO THE STATION HOUSE, A WHITE brick, three-story affair in the West 80s. White-and-blue cruisers were packed in a small parking lot next to it and double-parked on the street. None of the women who lived on this block had to worry about a psycho stalking them home.
Sergeant Thomas Peratta was ditching a can of Sprite and a greasy wrapper from a Subway sandwich when she entered the large office he shared with other cops. He stood behind a metal desk and shook hands.
“Please,” he said, pointing to a gray metal folding chair.
Rannie sat, the chair scraping unpleasantly on the linoleum. On his desk was a framed prom-type photo of a girl with his same broad, friendly features, her hair done up in elaborate curls.
“She’s a senior at Bronx Science…got 770 on her math board.” He looked embarrassed. “She’d kill me if she heard me bragging. Your son, where’s he want to go?”
“Stanford.”
Eyebrows lifted. “Very nice. She’s got her heart set on Johns Hopkins so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
The brief moment of “just between us parents” camaraderie made Rannie relax a little although it seemed odd sitting in a police station discussing college with a homicide detective.
He leaned back, settling his hands on his ample belly. “Officer Heffernan told me about the glass. It’s already been tested…nothing but Coke in it. But we didn’t find any sign.”
“Index card,” Rannie corrected.
“You have any idea why somebody went to the trouble of scaring you like that?”
“I’m not sure…. I think so.” She grasped one of the pencils in the pocket of her barn jacket. Funny how holding one always gave her a sense of empowerment. “I’m sorry. I’m very nervous. The S.W.A.K. victim last night. The woman was found on my block.”
“Take your time. That’s why I’m here, to gather information.”
Mentally she took a deep gulp. She began with an account of running into Ms. Hollins the morning that Tut’s body was discovered, hearing about the note sent to Tut’s home. He nodded, giving no indication of whether or not this was news to him. Maybe a poker face was like the badge—something that came with the job.
She recrossed her legs. “Then late that night, Tuesday night, I was coming out of a friend’s building, and I saw Ms. Hollins leaving a brownstone next door with a suitcase and garment bag.” Rannie supplied the street address for Peratta. “And—and then I started walking in the same direction she was.”
“Did you speak to each other?”
“No, I was about a half a block behind her.”
“You were on your way home?”
Rannie averted her eyes. Okay, no more dillydallying. “I know this is going to sound bizarre.” She scrunched up her face. “I—I was sort of following her.” She refused to glance up to calibrate his reaction.
“Why were you doing that?”
Unfortunately, there was no rational answer. Might as well say, “I’m a mother; all of us are raving paranoids when it comes to our kids,” or “Being out of work is making me crazy,” or “My life seems to have lost purpose,” or even “The devil made me do it.” But he was waiting.
“Um, I was curious to see where she was going.” It sounded borderline nut job even to her own ears. “And, and then, when I got home, I looked in the phone book. Where I first saw her…well, it was where Mr. Tut lived.”
He waited, still Buddha-like in his imperturbable calm, hands still clasped on his Buddha-like belly.
“She claimed they were casual friends. And—and then I see her carrying a suitcase out of his building?” The pitch and volume of her voice was starting to rise. “I mean, right away Tut’s death looked suspicious, right?…and then here was Ms. Hollins—”
“Doing something that looked suspicious to you.”
“Yes.”
“This was Tuesday night, correct?”
Rannie nodded. “Ms. Hollins spotted me, uh tailing her. She confronted me the next day, furious. And then that night—”
“This is Wednesday night now?”
“Yes. That night around ten, the super rang my doorbell. Somebody left a letter for me in the lobby. It’d been shoved under the front door—like a menu. It was similar to the letter Ms. Hollins described, the one Tut received, in a typeface that looked like letters in a ransom note…only mine said, ‘Stop snooping.’ My name was written in purple marker. Ms. Hollins uses purple marker to grade papers.”
“Did you bring the note?”
“No, I tore it up.”
“Why?”
“Why would I keep something like that!” To put in a scrapbook along with the kids’ baby teeth and first haircuts? “It was creepy, but I didn’t consider it a real threat. It didn’t say ‘Stop snooping—or else.’”
His eyes stayed fastened on her; there was sleep sand in one of them.
“I thought of it as payback. I’d scared her by following her home. So she was scaring me…and if it was comeuppance—I don’t know, I guess I sort of felt like I deserved it…. But now knowing for certain that Mr. Tut was murdered…and seeing that glass on my desk…” If she gripped the pencil in her pocket any tighter, it would crack in two.
The sergeant remained silent for a moment longer, the corners of his lips curled down, at the same time staring at her in a way that became more unsettling the longer he held the gaze.
“Let me ask you something, Ms. Bookman. Where were you Monday evening?”
Talk about a curveball! She kept her voice as steady as possible and replied, “I had a five o’clock appointment at the Unemployment Office. I stopped for groceries at a Gristedes on Broadway and went home. I got there about six-thirty.”
“So you were home before your son?”
“Yes.” It suddenly struck her that the sergeant’s last questions were not about establishing her own whereabouts but verifying Nate’s.
“And what time was that?”
“Before seven.” She remembered because she’d been making dinner and listening to National Public Radio. “Lieutenant, if you’re thinking Nate is somehow involved—”
“Did you hear me say he was?” Then he asked if she’d told anyone what she’d just told him, and when she said no, he nodded. “Good. I don’t want you discussing anything with anyone.”
Right after that, he stood, so Rannie did too. The chair scraped again, the sound as grating as fingernails across a chalkboard. Fleetingly it crossed her mind that if Nate were indeed a suspect, the sergeant might not believe a word she’d said. The guy was a father. He understood to what lengths parents would go in order to protect a child. “I just want you to know I came here in good faith. I can’t justify my own behavior but I can certainly vouch for Nate’s. He and Mr. Tut were friends.”
Then Rannie nodded curtly, a formal “good day, sir” nod as prelude to what she hoped was a dignified exit. On the way home Rannie passed several newsstands. All the front pages of the afternoon papers had grainy photos of a Chaps kid, head bent down, in a lifer windbreaker and a hoodie, a menacing hunched-over figure that looked like a grim reaper in training. Her mother’s eye knew in a flash it wasn’t Nate, but would the police be so discerning?
E-mail sent late Friday to all Chapel School families
FROM: jemarshall@chapelschool.org
This is a painful, shocking, and distressing time at Chapel School, whose mission is to educate children, to turn them into responsible, caring young adults. An unspeakable crime has been committed here, one that flies in the face of everything we hold dear. However, I have complete confidence that the New York Police Department will solve the murder of Lawrence Tutwiler. That’s their job and they will do it.
Our job is to teach your children and we intend to do our job, too. In the coming weeks, our aim is to maintain daily routine and to keep school life as normal as circumstances allow.
Unfortunately, some parents are fueling hysteria in other parents. This is exactly the worst time for panic. For the sake of the students, I entreat you to remain calm and rational.
Chapel School has been educating children since 1867. With your help, we will get through this terrible time.
Jonathan Edwards Marshall
Friday night message on Rannie’s phone
Hi. It’s Tim Butler. I know this is kind of late, but are you free for dinner tomorrow at my bar? I’ll call back.