Homer, wearing huge yellow rubber gloves that went nearly to his skinny elbows, was mopping the lobby. He indicated the dining room with his head, never stopping the rhythmic motion as he did.
Sorry, I mouthed as Dashiell and I tracked up the wet floor.
But when I was standing right outside the dining room, the doors open just a crack, I heard something that made me pause. I grabbed Dashiell’s collar before he used his big head as a wedge to push open the doors.
When I turned around and looked to see if Homer was watching me, I saw that he had stopped too. The mop was still and Homer was staring, waiting to see what I was up to.
I could have checked my pockets, pretending I was looking for something.
Or bent down to tie my shoelace or fuss with Dashiell’s collar instead of just holding it.
But I did nothing, nothing but stand there and obviously eavesdrop, at first, with my back to the door, watching Homer watch me. Then I turned around so that I could hear better.
I heard the mop hitting the pail and the water running off it as Homer picked it up, then squeezed it out.
“You don’t mean here?”
The speaker petulant.
“Where else?” Eli. Sounding weary.
Silence. Perhaps a shrug.
“You mean you thought you’d do it from home, without any contact with this place at all?”
“You do have a phone, don’t you?”
“I think we’re jumping to conclusions here.” Nathan, trying to calm everyone down.
“What do you mean?” the first speaker said.
“I mean we have to see the provisions in the will, what is called for, what is set forth legally.”
“He was my uncle,” the petulant speaker said. “Who do you think he’d have control the investments, someone outside the family?”
Silence.
“And what sort of experience do you have that would make you think you could control the finances of a place you never—”
“I thought the purpose of this meeting was to discuss what’s best for the kids,” Samuel said. “It’s not a business meeting.”
“It might as well be,” Eli said. “It’s obvious, one way or another, there are going to be some radical changes here.”
“For one thing, there’s the nepotism of the staff.”
I wondered if Bailey was flipping his hair back as he spoke.
“What are you waiting for, Eli?” Arlene asked. “Harry’s dead. He can’t take care of income and expenses anymore. I believe that it was his intention that—”
Backing up, working from the front of the lobby to the rear, Homer was washing the floor behind me, leaving the patch where I stood snooping for later. When I turned to look at him, he looked away.
“We’ll work it out. We all have the same goal in mind,” Nathan said, “that things run smoothly here, with as little change as possible for the kids.”
I turned again, holding up my pointers to make a T before Homer got the chance to look away. He nodded, the mop never stopping.
When I heard some chairs scrape against the floor I backed up fast, taking Dashiell with me, so that it would appear we were just arriving. But we were still too close for comfort. When Arlene pulled open the double doors, she gasped, wrinkling up her expensive face.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “I was just coming for the staff meeting. It’s not over, is it?” I looked concerned and checked my watch.
Arlene frowned. She looked up from Dashiell. Now she seemed to be staring at my hair. So I studied hers. The humidity hadn’t bothered it. Perhaps it had been coated with polyurethane. I had the feeling the color wasn’t natural either, but that was just a guess. Only her hairdresser knew for sure.
Everything about her cost money, lots of it—more than she could afford, was my guess. But she didn’t look worried. Maybe she was expecting a windfall sometime soon. Then I found myself thinking that her sister must have left her something when she died. But probably not enough. When is it ever enough for people who care about things like that? I wondered if she’d figured out some way to get more. One has to keep up appearances, doesn’t one?
Arlene was still frowning. Either trying to place me, or hoping I’d move the fuck out of her way.
“I was hired to do pet-facilitated therapy, after Lady disappeared,” I told her, instead of moving away.
“Of course you were.”
She smiled a Melba toast smile, guaranteed to break into several pieces if she dropped it.
I ignored the prettied-up surface and tried to see what was underneath. It was an old habit by now, something I’d done for years as a dog trainer, and now for years as a detective.
Janice, coming along behind her mother, just stared, more like a sullen adolescent than a grown woman. Bailey was checking the backs of his hands, which he found infinitely more interesting than me.
I stepped aside, and they walked out, Arlene heading for the front door with Bailey right behind her.
“I left my purse in Uncle Harry’s office,” Janice said, holding up her hand and snapping her fingers. Bailey reached into his pocket and flipped her a set of keys.
Turning toward the dining room, I heard the keys land on the floor.
“Don’t just stand there. Get those for her,” Arlene said.
I was pretty sure she was talking to Bailey, but I responded anyway. “Keys,” I told Dash, and he picked them up, bringing them to Bailey, sitting in front of him and wagging his tail, waiting for an atta-boy. Well, with this motley crew, he could just wait.
“What’s this supposed to be?” Bailey said, taking a step back.
Weren’t there any dogs on the Upper East Side?
“Oh, please.” Janice yanked the keys out of Dashiell’s mouth.
I turned to go into the dining room, but the Kagans were coming out.
“Am I too late?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Nathan said. “I left a message on your answering machine. We didn’t know where you were. Dad”—he looked at his father—“we’re all exhausted. We’ve decided not to have the staff meeting tonight. We’re”—he took a breath—“all on overload. I hope you can forgive—”
“Please, don’t give it a thought. As long as I’m here, is it okay for me to take Dashiell around for bedtime visits?”
“I wonder,” Eli said. Then he paused. “I hate to impose, but as long as you’re going to do that, Rachel, would you take Dashiell to see David? But ask Homer or Molly to go with you, please.”
I nodded. “Has there been any word from the hospital?” I asked, looking at Eli, and when he didn’t look at me, looking at Nathan, then Samuel.
“No change,” Eli finally said. “We’ll stop by on our way home.”
“Your doctor friend?”
“Yes?”
“Could he, would it be possible for me to go over really late with Dashiell, after I finish here?”
“Rachel, you need your rest, too. Look at you. Your eyes are all red. You look so—”
“I’d really like to go.”
“I’ll make sure it’s okay.”
“Why don’t you come with us now?” Samuel asked. “That would be okay, wouldn’t it, Dad?”
“I want to take Dashiell around first. I think that’s important,” I said, nodding for emphasis. “But thanks for asking.”
It was also a great time to check Eli’s office, since he was going over to St. Vincent’s and then home.
I turned to head back to the stairs and saw Janice. She’d found her purse. I couldn’t miss it against the gray suit.
There was something else I couldn’t miss as well. It wasn’t Harry’s office she was coming out of, brushing her hands against each other; it was Venus’s.
Arlene and Bailey were waiting at the front door. As Janice joined them, I saw Arlene’s eyebrows go up.
“It wasn’t there,” Janice said.
I didn’t get it. It was right in her hand. But no one elaborated for my benefit. They walked out into the heat, and a split second later, looking through the sidelight where David usually stood, I saw Arlene’s arm go up for a taxi, God forbid they should wear out their Gucci shoes walking to the subway.
Eli had gone to get his briefcase. When he returned with it, both sons followed their father out. Watching them leave, I wondered if I’d made a mistake, not going with them. Couldn’t one of them kick out the plug of the ventilator or screw up the IV line? But then I remembered Nurse Frostee and all those monitors at her station, and I knew that Venus was safe. At least for now.
Walking up the stairs, figuring I’d start at the top and work my way down, see who was in the mood for a little visit, I began to think about David. Nathan said they had to protect him. And Venus had told me he did get violent sometimes. She’d told me to be careful.
Still, in view of all the other things that had happened here, I wasn’t buying the story. It was too convenient, having someone to blame who couldn’t defend himself, a scapegoat whose apparent guilt would allow the whole incident to evade police scrutiny.
It was, in fact, if it weren’t true, a brilliant ploy. Now all I had to do was determine which one of the players was smart enough, and greedy enough for power, to have figured it out.
And cold enough to have acted upon it.