Chapter 8

Thursday morning I felt much more in sync with East Coast time. As I expected, by nine a.m. Bebe was on her way to the SuperKrafts corporate offices with her neatly written inventory list and her best professional outfit, as close to a three-piece suit as a girl could get. She’d stopped by our room and received the appropriate supportive approval.

It was just me and Maddie in our Big Apple hotel room and not much to do for the show until further notice from Supervisor Bebe. But once I’d told Maddie I could use her help on a computer search project for Cynthia, our plans for sightseeing in Manhattan took second place.

“I thought you wanted to see the Statue of Liberty,” I reminded her.

“I did, but remember that book Grandpa read to me when I was little? It was all about the Statue of Liberty and how you can see it from all over the city if you’re up high enough. We can just go up on the roof of the hotel.”

“I doubt it.”

“Plus, there’s so much online about New York,” Maddie said. “You almost don’t need to leave your computer. There’s a whole website for subway pranks.” She laughed as if she herself had pulled them off. “Too bad Dad insisted on us never taking the subway. Last week a mariachi band went through the cars, just for fun, and cheered everyone up. People were dancing, even. Then another time a team of performers went through pretending to be panhandlers, but funny. Like, one dressed up like a Wall Street guy and he was yelling about not being able to pay off his really expensive car. A Fraro, I think.”

“A Ferrari, probably. Would you really rather stay in and work on your computer than do any of the things you checked off in your tour book? How about the Children’s Museum?”

“Maybe later. Just for right now, Grandma, I want to do this research. I’ve been looking up all the obituaries of old people that lived nearby. Manhattan is only a little more than two miles wide, so that’s the radius I’m using. Besides it’s nice and warm in the room.”

“Do we need to buy you some warmer clothes? You know there’s an entire shopping mall below us, part of Grand Central Station. Maybe we can pick up an extra sweater to wear under your jacket?”

“Nah, I have enough clothes.” She looked at me as though she’d do anything to get rid of me. “You’re supposed to call the agencies like the one Cynthia uses for nurses, right?”

“Right.” I got the point, and decided to give Maddie a little more work time before forcing a good time on her. I knew I couldn’t call all the agencies in Manhattan, or even in a two-mile radius. In fact, it seemed unlikely that a care worker could afford to live in this part of Manhattan. I guessed they were commuters from less pricey neighborhoods, and therefore we should be looking everywhere else. An impossible task.

I pushed aside the fact that my eleven-year-old granddaughter was collecting statistics on New York citizens between eighty-five and one hundred years old, who died in the last three months while patients of healthcare workers. It was my fault that Maddie wasn’t on a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, or at a children’s museum, which is where her father envisioned her, I was sure.

Rring. Rring. No New York tune this time; just the plain old landline of the hotel room. I picked up the cumbersome black receiver.

“Mrs. Porter, I’m so glad I caught you. I thought you might be sightseeing by now.” So did I, but the gravelly-voiced woman didn’t need to hear that. “This is Jackie Cromwell, the organizer of the miniatures part of the fair. I’m afraid we have a problem. We could really use your help.”

“What can I do for you?” I asked, as if I had nothing else going on.

“We’ve had a rash of thefts in the exhibit hall. Several vendors are reporting things missing, even though we have as much security as we ever have at these events. Usually this doesn’t happen until the show starts and people start coming in off the streets.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Lots of expensive things are being taken this time, not just the usual little doilies or mini-plates of food that are piled on the tables and can easily be swept into a purse. For example, the Langland Editions people are missing an heirloom-quality miniature tea cart. It’s made of inlaid wood, with gold accents, worth almost two thousand dollars. Another missing item is a small porcelain pitcher from Japan that’s worth several hundred dollars. And at least three jewelers have reported the loss of hand-blown glass pendants.”

“That’s most unfortunate. What can I do for you?” I asked again, this time emphasizing the I. I held my breath, but it didn’t do any good as far as keeping what I feared at bay.

“I met Bebe Mellon at a vendor meeting yesterday, where we were talking about this, and she tells me you work as an auxiliary to the police department in your hometown in California. That’s just the kind of expertise we need to supplement our own security staff. Would you be able to come to the office on the second floor of the hotel and work with Ronnie O’Brien, our head of show security? Maybe you could look at some footage we have from the last couple of days.”

I started to formulate a correction of Bebe’s description of me as other than the relative of a homicide detective, a designation probably shared by many others connected to the show, but thought better of it. If nothing else, here was a chance to do something for Bebe, whom I’d come to serve. “Of course,” I said. “I’d be glad to help.” I went on to explain that I was with my eleven-year-old granddaughter and would have to bring her with me. No problem, it seemed. I didn’t mention that if anyone would see something significant on the screen, it would be ­Maddie.

* * *

With our new schedule in place, an excited Maddie and I rode down to the second-floor security office. At the sight of the banks of monitors stretched across the gray-paneled room, she uttered her approximately one-hundredth New York “Wow.” A greeting from Ronnie O’Brien, NYPD, Retired, interrupted her counting of the screens at twelve.

“Hey,” he said, extending his beefy hand to Maddie first. “You like all this? Maybe you can come to work for us some day.” Maddie’s nod and “Uh-huh” were too enthusiastic for my taste. I’d spent most of her life trying to dissuade her from a career in crime, on either side of the law. Ronnie, as we were asked to call him, set us up in front of our own monitor. “We’ve gone over these videos already, but Jackie—that’s Ms. Cromwell—thinks that a new pair of experienced eyes might spot something we didn’t.” Ronnie’s tone said he doubted it, especially if the eyes were those of a little girl and her grandmother. I was ready to agree and move on to our next project, but Maddie had made herself comfortable and I had promised to do whatever she wanted today. Never mind that I pictured us walking around the Egyptian Temple of Dendur at the Met, not a dark room that was Security central for a hotel.

Ronnie left and we turned to the task of watching people come and go on video, through the main turnstile entrance on 42nd Street, in and out of the elevators on all floors, and in and out of the ballroom where the show was set up.

“Everyone wears a coat in New York,” Maddie said. “Not, like, a heavy jacket or a down vest. A real coat. There’s one lady in a coat with a collar that’s as big as a cape over her shoulders. My mom would love it. And even some men wear coats. I wish my dad had a coat.”

“Maybe we can buy him one for Christmas.” A thought that made me realize that the countdown for that was quickly heading to single digits.

Maddie laughed. “Dad wears the same jacket he wore when I was little.”

“And that was so long ago.”

“Uh-huh,” Maddie said, not missing a beat, not seeing the humor.

“Did you find anything that will help with the thefts?”

“Not yet, but this is fun, Grandma. You can see what people do when they don’t know someone’s watching.”

Worse than a cop or a criminal. A voyeur. “I think it’s better not to know,” I said.

Maddie smiled and I knew she disagreed with me.

* * *

We sat at a small marble-top table in the bustling food court on the lower level of Grand Central Station. Elbow to elbow with other diners, most looking like office workers, Maddie and I shared a lunch of tomato-and-mozzarella panini, sea-salt chips, gourmet pickles, fruit cups, and cheesecake, from four different vendors. My young partner and I discussed our cases.

“I think I know what’s happening with the robberies, Grandma. But I need to watch more video in the security office,” Maddie said.

“Do you actually have a lead, or do you just want to look in on people and their private lives?”

“It’s not exactly private, Grandma. They’re in the hallways or the ballroom or the lobby. It’s not like they’re taking a shower or anything.” I took her answer as evidence that she had no real lead but didn’t want to abandon such a fun project. Too bad it was past the era of washing little mouths out with soap. Or had that been only for bad language?

“Still, we said we’d leave the video monitoring and work on Cynthia’s project after lunch,” I reminded the offender. She was quick to agree—a Case was a Case, after all.

On the way out, we bought cookies to go at another vendor stand. Maddie stuffed them in her backpack as we made still another food purchase, small cups of gelato at the last little shop, at the doorway to 42nd Street. “I wish the food courts at home were like this,” Maddie said.

* * *

Back in our room, Maddie worked on her laptop, and I used her phone to call the first agency on the list. While I was on hold to watered-down holiday music, I thought of what we were missing in the city that never sleeps. I pictured Maddie making journal entries at a play or concert or walking with me in one of the many parks. Even a wobbly, top-heavy, red tour bus would have been preferable to being holed up in a hotel room bent over a computer. An older-sounding woman picked up the agency phone, breaking into the on-hold music and my musings.

“Alliance Caregivers,” she announced. “Helping you overcome challenges.”

I cleared my throat, wondering how she knew about my current challenges, and turned away from Maddie, to pave the way for the yarn I was about to spin. “I’m looking into hiring a caregiver for my elderly father. One of my friends likes your agency and recommended that I call you.”

“We’re here for you,” she assured me.

“But I’ve also heard that there was a problem with a recent patient.” I chided myself for the lameness of my opening salvo.

“Oh? What kind of problem?”

“My friend says that one of your patients, an elderly woman, died when she inadvertently stopped taking her blood pressure medication.” I tried not to sound accusatory. Or too much like a fiction writer.

I heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “Well, to be perfectly honest, we did have a similar situation last year, but the relative who’d hired us had insisted that the patient did not need help with pills.”

Cynthia? It sounded true to her form. But the timing didn’t match. “Wasn’t there a similar case more recently, maybe a week or so ago?” Now I was winging it, and, I was positive, revealing myself for the amateur investigator I was.

“No, no, you’ve been getting bad info. The only case I can think of involves the Fairhaven Agency, where one of their patients fell from a balcony, possibly due to a drug reaction.”

“It seems I’ve been misinformed.”

“It certainly does. Now, can we schedule an appointment for you and your father?”

I’d forgotten my lie for a moment—that I was calling about my elderly father (who’d passed away before the agency was in business probably). I found myself perspiring, worried that the woman was tracing my call and alerting a federal investigatory bureau, perhaps putting my number on a list. “I’ll think about it and get back to you.” I hung up with haste, hoping that Richard, the registered owner of Maddie’s smartphone, wouldn’t get solicitations from Alliance.

Strike one. Strike two, if I counted the Fairhaven Agency with its death by falling.

My calling plan seemed doomed. I realized that no one was going to give me useful information under these conditions. I seemed to be a better strategist in a small town. I reached over to Maddie, sitting on her bed with her laptop, and patted her shoulder. “Come on, sweetheart,” I said. “Let’s grab our coats and get out of here. We’re taking a break.”

“Where to?” Maddie asked, her brows knitted, her fingers still dancing over the keyboard. “I’m trying a new search engine.”

How to grab her attention? “We’re going to look at some creatures that have been dead for millions of years,” I said. “Not only that, but no one knows exactly how they died.”

Maddie’s eyes lit up. “I almost forgot. The dinosaur museum is here. Let’s go!” She grabbed her jacket and frowned when her journal didn’t fit properly inside her backpack. Until she realized that what took up room was a bag of cookies. Her smile returned and we were on our way.

Fifteen minutes later, we were bundled up in a taxi, protected against twenty-degree weather, heading across town to the Upper West Side. This time we’d visit, not Cynthia, but a T. rex at the American Museum of Natural History. Surely the dino tour was a journey more fit for Maddie’s report to her class, and to her father.

* * *

During our educational afternoon, I declined two phone calls, one from Cynthia and one from Bebe. Instead of answering, I walked the enormous halls with Maddie for a while, marveling at the mammoth creatures composed of fossilized bones, then retreated to a bench while Maddie roamed among the rest of the dinosaurs. She made several trips to and from my seat to write in her journal and report to me on her findings—the Deinonychus (seven feet long, with sharp claws); the Velociraptor (sharp teeth and sickle-shaped claws); and, her favorite, the Triceratops, one of the last dinosaurs standing. This was what I had pictured—Maddie bent over, not her computer, but documentation for the fossilized imprint of the carcass of a prehistoric creature.

“This Triceratops has an injury on its skull, Grandma,” she told me on this latest visit to my bench. “Can you imagine? It’s partially healed and they think it was in a fight with another dinosaur sixty-five million years ago.” She let out one of her “Wow” sounds. “I wish Dad was here. He would be totally amazed. Did he come here? Is that why he’s an orthopedic surgeon? Fixing bones and stuff?”

I’d have loved to have told Maddie that her orthopedist father was inspired on a visit here by the exhibits in the hall of reptiles and amphibians, but the truth came out. “When we lived here, your dad was a little too young to appreciate science. Remember, we moved to California before his fourth birthday.”

“I wish you’d stayed in New York,” she said.

Give my regards to Broadway…

My phone saved me from having to comment on that complicated topic. This time I took the call, from Henry, who was in the San Francisco airport on his way to Hawaii. I relaxed and smiled, remaining seated while Maddie left for another tour of ancient claws and hipbones.

“I figure we’ll be about seventy degrees away from each other in terms of temperature,” he said. “Did you bring enough heavy clothing?”

I assured him we were keeping warm and described the sauro­pods Maddie had lately informed me about.

“I can’t believe you’re not working one of your cases. According to your email, you have two now, right? Your friend’s aunt’s death and the thefts at the show?”

“Yes, as if I needed another pull on my time.”

“Well, good for you, taking a break today.” Anyone listening to Henry might have thought I was a career homicide detective on vacation instead of a simple retired English teacher and grandmother who was a miniatures enthusiast. Or maybe that was how I’d sounded in my last email to him.

I accepted his praise, but confessed the reason for our respite from police work. “We’re at a stalemate.” I explained the lack of any leads in Aunt Elsie’s death, and likewise from the security footage of the exhibit hall. “Not that any of these facts have dissuaded Cynthia or Bebe from prodding me on. Cynthia’s as determined as ever to prove that her aunt’s death was not an accident, and Bebe is convinced I’ll be able to catch a thief.”

“I can hear the tension in your voice. Maybe you should get on a plane and meet us on Maui. We can relax on the beach together.”

“Thanks for the laugh. I’m sorry to dump on you. I have to figure out how to meet my responsibilities to Bebe and her managers and at the same time honor Cynthia’s special needs.”

“If anyone can do it…”

My “Thanks” was simple, but heartfelt.

“What do you think happened to Cynthia’s aunt?” he asked.

Henry’s question took me by surprise. I hadn’t considered my own position on the matter. I’d simply gone along with Cynthia’s conviction. I’d challenged her mostly because I didn’t want to become involved in a potential murder investigation in a city where I didn’t even know where the nearest police station was, let alone have a nephew on the force. I’d tried exercising Skip’s system of Means-Motive-Opportunity, but I hadn’t allowed myself to ask hard questions or look carefully at the circumstances of Aunt Elsie’s death—the appearance of a full bottle of pills at just the right time; the disappearance of a secretly placed box, probably containing a significant amount of cash; the number of people who had access to Aunt Elsie and her home. I hadn’t even followed up with interviews of alleged suspects, like the nurse, Ashley, and the almost-nurse, Candace, and the super, Neal, whom I’d met at the memorial service. Or the deli and bakery workers. Or the doormen—Duncan, Cody, and any other temporary workers. Or Aunt Elsie’s old beau, Philip. “I’m not sure what I think,” I told Henry.

“You can never be sure. What’s your best guess?”

“I don’t have enough information.” More stalling.

“Then get it. Think of Skip and what his interview with Cynthia would be like, and go for it. Then get Cynthia to put you in touch with all the people you told me about, who were at the service. Once you’ve done all that, you’ll have everything you need for an informed opinion, and you might even decide how to help Cynthia present a case to the police.”

“As Maddie would say, ‘Wow.’ While you’re on a roll, Henry, what about the missing little treasures?”

“I did give that some thought, and remembered a time I went to a woodworking show while I still taught shop at the high school. A couple of crooks worked in pairs. One guy dropped something or created some kind of disturbance, and the other whisked away a valuable piece. They focused on small items like an inlaid toothpick holder or camping knife with a fancy wood handle. I’m sure it’s a common trick—one distracts; the other grabs.”

“I can’t wait to tell Maddie. No wonder I love you.”

“Aww.”

My call-waiting buzzed. Cynthia again, as if she knew I was “there” but avoiding her. I declined again, and took some time signing off with Henry and greeting Maddie, who had returned to my bench with new excitement. She held out her smartphone. “Look, Grandma, there’s a museum app with a game about accidental poisoning. They give you cases and hints and you have to solve them. Like, sometimes the reason for the poison is from the air or water, or sometimes it’s from food. Or it could be from a toxic plant.”

“What does this have to do with dinosaurs?”

“It’s to show you how scientists work, Grandma. Detectives solve problems like scientists. Uncle Skip says that a lot. You have to think logically, like my science teacher says, too. Ask questions, make a hypothesis, test it, and draw a conclusion. Like, first they thought the Stegosaurus had two brains, but they did some research and found out the one it had was enough, even though it was smaller than they expected.”

I had a not-so-pleasant flashback to learning the scientific method and participating in science fairs in school, perhaps when I was Maddie’s age. But it was already too late by then. Baking soda volcanoes and batteries made with pennies didn’t work for me, either physically or interest-wise. Now, thanks to my fiancé and my eleven-year-old granddaughter, when I did call Cynthia back, it was with a new attitude. No more tiptoeing around. I was going to approach the problem like a scientist.

“We have to talk,” I said to Cynthia. “I need to ask you some questions and get honest answers.”

“You mean, sort of forget we’re friends?”

“Sort of. Some of the questions might be hard.”

“I’m ready,” she said, as if I were going to hook her up to a lie detector. “Where are you?”

“About ten blocks away, where the dinosaurs live.”

Cynthia laughed, a nice sound. “That’s easy then. Just come to my place.”

“I guess the break’s over, huh, Grandma?”

We headed for the magnificent lobby of columns and flags, said good-bye to the plant-eating Barosaurus rearing up over the banners, and picked up our coats. “I guess it is.”