A Darker Shade of Blood Read online

  “So I said he could go, only he should stay close to me. We had a plan developed. We were well-armed. We went in. I don’t know what went wrong. They must have had a look-out. Anyway, when we breached the front door, shots rang out. My men are the best trained fighters in the country. Their instincts are incredible. We killed every terrorist.

  “We took one casualty, Danny. The boy from New Zealand. I was the leader, so I went in first. I should have been shot. But I wasn’t. He was killed. I wrote his wife. I wrote his parents. I became overwhelmed by guilt. My whole identity began to unravel. I’d walk the streets of Jerusalem and wonder what it meant to be Jewish. I’d go to the Kotel, the Western Wall. I’d put my hands on the rough stones of the Wall and I’d pray to God. And guess what? God answered me with silence.

  “That’s why I really came to your country, Danny. It was an escape. I know one day I have to go back. But right now I don’t know who I am.”

  The food came and we ate it.

  There was still no Marilyn Park.

  “I could never fully understand that, Ari. I don’t know my own identity, much less understand a Jewish identity. You need to talk to a Rabbi.”

  “But I’m not religious, at least in terms of attending service or following rituals.”

  “Your first reaction was to go to the Western Wall.”

  “That’s a great symbol in our country.”

  “There’s the Rabbi we helped, Ari.”

  “I can’t remember his name.”

  “It was Benjamin London.”

  “Wasn’t he dying, Danny?”

  “Yes. He still is dying. But he’s alive. He calls me sometimes. He’s very wise. You should talk to him.”

  “What if he thinks I’m not a very good Jew?”

  “I know him a little now, Ari. He doesn’t judge. Maybe that’s the kind of person he is, or maybe it’s because he won’t live long and that reality has made him very tolerant. You want me to arrange a meeting?”

  Ari just nodded.

  We kept waiting. I went through two more cups of coffee.

  The waitress came back over.

  I looked up. “Listen, Marilyn is really late. I’m worried about her. She’s friends with someone I know, and I promised I’d check on her.”

  “She hasn’t called. Which is annoying because it means I have to stay.”

  “Can you tell me if the manager called her?”

  “Sure. Like ten times. He gets very upset very fast. There was no answer.”

  I took out a fifty dollar bill.

  “I’m a good tipper. I can in fact give you another one of these in exchange for her address.”

  “I’d have to sneak in back and look it up. If the boss sees me I could be fired.”

  “What would you think would be a fair tip then?”

  “A hundred now, another hundred after I get you the address.”

  I handed her the hundred.

  “Don’t go flying to Bermuda with this,” I said.

  “Thanks for the idea.”

  She was back in three minutes with Marilyn Park’s address.

  I gave her the additional hundred.

  “You boys should feel free to come back here any time you want.”

  We went outside.

  Ari and I were silent as we drove over to Marilyn’s apartment on Route 347.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I knocked on the door. Loudly. Then we waited. One woman came outside carrying garbage and put it in one of the large green collectors. People drove in and out.

  “Block me,” I said to Ari.

  “What’s that?”

  “Stand in front of me.”

  He did.

  I bent over and opened the mail slot on the door. I could see stairs off to the right and just a white wall straight ahead. I couldn’t hear any sounds.

  “What do we do?” Ari asked.

  “You take a walk. I’m going to dance at the edges of American law, and you don’t want to get involved mainly because if you’re caught you’ll get deported.”

  “I don’t see stores around here.”

  “Then just sit in the car.”

  When Ari was out of sight, I took out my key with the serrated edge filed down and put it in the lock. I had gotten good at this and so it only took a few seconds to have the door open. I dared not look around because I didn’t want anyone to see my face.

  I climbed the stairs and called out.

  “Marilyn. This is a friend.”

  An exaggeration of sorts, but I needed an excuse to be there in case she had been napping and heard me.

  I began looking around. You look in two ways. One is the case in which the person whose room you’re searching has an object to hide and knows people will be looking for it. This is what C. Auguste Dupin faced in Poe’s story “The Purloined Letter.” The other case is that the person either doesn’t have anything to hide or has no reason to believe people will be searching the room looking for it.

  I pondered this. Marilyn intended to blackmail Ken Lucey. She had photographs, letters, and who knew what else. She might reasonably assume that Lucey or one of his cheap henchmen (aka me) would try to retrieve it to get the blackmail material away from her. So she’d hide it. She wasn’t exactly a master criminal, so I didn’t think she’d put it in some secret underground bunker for later retrieval. She’d want it near her.

  I didn’t know where she was, but she might have it on her. That was always dangerous because Lucey’s cheap henchmen might attack her. But if she was going someplace with the materials, say to a payoff, she’d need them.

  I decided that maybe she was just shopping and the materials might still be someplace here in the apartment. I had found hidden materials in amazing places. For a time drug dealers used to unscrew a light plate and hang the drugs behind the walls. For some reason, loads of people think a freezer is the home version of Fort Knox. I once found gold coins in a hollowed-out book, a trick I thought had expired in the 1930s. A lot of people, following Poe’s lead, might leave the hidden goods in the open. Maybe they tuck it in a vacuum cleaner that’s standing there. Or have a safe covered up by a tablecloth near the front door. The most irreverent case I saw was when someone hid love letters between pages of the family Bible which was lying open.

  The rule when you break and enter is to get in and get out quickly, so I dashed around looking. Luckily, Marilyn seemed to keep all the materials she deemed important on a small desk in her bedroom.

  There were no provocative materials, however.

  But there was a note, evidently written to herself as a reminder.

  It read: “Lucey. Sag Harbor.”

  I checked my watch. The Luceys had a summer house in Sag Harbor. Because it was so small a town, their home wasn’t that far from my father’s. I was relieved the two houses weren’t on the same block.

  I could go to a gas station or diner to get a phone, but one was sitting in front of me. I reached for it and dialed.

  There was no answer.

  This part was dangerous. I was going to provide some proof that I had broken into Marilyn Park’s home. I didn’t think I had a choice.

  I left a message.

  “Hello. This is Danny. I understand that Marilyn Park is supposed to be there or she is coming there. I’m driving to your home. If she arrives before I do, don’t speak to her, Mrs. Lucey. Don’t let the Congressman-elect speak to her. If your mother-in-law is there, don’t let her speak to Miss Park. I’ll see you in about an hour. The way my friend drives it might be ten minutes.”

  I hung up and went downstairs, found Ari walking, though not far from the car.

  We got in. He usually insisted on driving. I didn’t argue. He started. He went down 347, turned off and drove until he got on the Long Island Expressway, took it to Exit 70, and went south eventually getting on Route 27, Montauk Highway. Ari was definitely getting better. He knew the roads. He didn’t once ask to stop to buy food, and only three drivers threatened to kill us. />
  We drove down Main Street to the Lucey house. I saw a familiar car driving the other way. As we approached the house, I saw a face from the window look at us and disappear.

  “Should I go in with you?” Ari asked.

  “The fewer people the better, Ari. In fact if Lucey’s mother comes after I go into the house, keep her outside.”

  “By force.”

  “No. By your humble persuasion.”

  “Sure. That’s what the Israeli army trained me in.”

  “Good. It will work out then.”

  I went to the front door.

  This wasn’t good. It was partially open.

  I pushed the door, and started to yell.

  I heard some loud sobbing.

  A sane political fixer would have quit on the spot and gone out for a nice meal. A sane political fixer would have walked backwards to the car, gotten in, and told his companion to leave. No one ever accused me of being a sane political fixer.

  I went inside.

  I wasn’t ready for what I saw.

  Ken Lucey’s wife was on her knees. She was bent over the very bloody body of Marilyn Park. Mrs. Lucey was holding a knife in her hand. There was blood on her face and on her dress.

  She turned as she heard me.

  “I killed her,” Mrs. Lucey shrieked.

  I’m the fixer. I was supposed to fix all this.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rule One in fixing: Remain Calm.

  “What the hell happened here?” I screamed.

  Mrs. Lucey was having trouble speaking. I went over and took her to a chair.

  I ran to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. No, not a glass, I decided. A nice plastic cup. Unbreakable would be good. I didn’t know what I was doing so I took the first cup I saw, ran the cold water for a few seconds, and filled the cup.

  I ran back and gave her the water.

  She drank it slowly, having trouble swallowing.

  When she looked calmer, I said, “Is your husband here?”

  She shook her head.

  “His mother?”

  More head shaking.

  “All right. Have you called the police?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Take your time. Just tell me as much as you can remember. What happened?”

  She put her face in her hands, which made her face bloody. Some deep breathing.

  I wasn’t about to rush her.

  “That woman knocked on the door. I was home alone. I looked out the curtain and saw her. I should have yelled at her to go away.”

  She was lying.

  “But you didn’t do that, Mrs. Lucey.”

  Mrs. Lucey shook her head.

  “No. I let her in. We argued. I was loud. She was trying to destroy my whole family. She wanted to ruin my husband’s career. To hurt my baby’s name. For all I knew she would want the baby back.”

  She stopped to spend some time sobbing.

  “She took out the knife. I grabbed it from her and I stabbed her. Over and over. Oh, it was horrible. And that’s when you walked in, Danny.”

  Her voice was hysterical. She was giving the worst acting job I had ever seen. Or it was deliberately the worst acting job. I couldn’t be sure.

  She looked up. “Please, Danny. Call the police. Tell them to come here. Tell them I’m going to confess.”

  “Why would you confess to a crime you didn’t commit, Mrs. Lucey?”

  Her face became cold.

  “What are you talking about?’

  “First of all, you lied about the Congressman-elect being here.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I saw him in his car driving down Main Street as we were arriving.”

  “So what?”

  “So it gives an alternative interpretation of what happened. But there’s more.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I saw you looking out for me to arrive. You were searching from behind the window curtain. When you saw me, you ran back to the body and put on your little performance.”

  She put her face in her hands.

  “Now I’m guessing.”

  A sob.

  “You came downstairs, saw Ken with Marilyn Park. Or rather Marilyn Park’s dead body. You either saw him kill her or assumed he did.”

  “He lied to me,” she said. “He was standing right there and told me he was innocent. For all I know, somewhere in his mind he really believes that.”

  “Did you see him kill her?’

  “No, but who else could have?”

  “Tell the police the truth.”

  “I can’t, Danny. His whole political future is at stake. His mother will never forgive me. This way, I go to jail. He remarries and everything goes on. He’ll survive the scandal.”

  “Listen, Mrs. Lucey. I don’t know what happened. And neither do you. Don’t say anything for two weeks. Let me look around. You always have time to confess. We’ll get a lawyer. I know a good one in Port Jefferson. Let the police investigate. You tell them you found her like this. I’ll support you. Say you bent down to see if she was still alive. Say you didn’t see anything. Don’t mention your husband. The police will search. I’ll talk to some people, including a friend in the D.A.’s office.”

  “If you can’t find anything in two weeks, Danny, I’m going to say I did it. I’m going to hire one of those planes that does skywriting to say I did it. I’m going on television to say I did it.”

  “That’s a deal. For two weeks, you stick to the story that you found the body.”

  “You think a killer sneaked in here, killed her, and disappeared in a puff of smoke?”

  “Stranger murders have happened.”

  “My husband trusts you. You saved our family, our baby. That’s why I’m doing this against my better judgment.”

  “I’ve got to speak with your husband, Mrs. Lucey. There’s a lot for me to do. You have to understand that.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m going to call the police now. Then I’m going to call the lawyer I mentioned. You’re going to say you found the body. That’s all you’re going to say.”

  She nodded silently.

  I didn’t tell her, but I was also going to call my father, the only expert I knew on death and murder from the killer’s point of view.

  The cops were there faster than I expected. A detective arrived soon after.

  Mrs. Lucey gave her statement. Then I gave mine.

  The detective came over to me.

  “My boss said if I could, I should arrest you. We couldn’t get your father, so he figured we should get someone in the family.”

  “I don’t kill people.”

  “So you say, Ryle. We’re going to take a real clear look. We love dead bodies because we look so good putting the bad people who killed them behind bars. You’ll be bent and gray before you walk free again if you did this. And I’m starting out thinking that maybe, just maybe, you did.”

  I nodded. “You’d be wrong if you think that.”

  I stared again at Marilyn Park’s body and thought how unfair life is.

  And then I thought I had better find the real killer.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I went home first to check some notes that I should have carried with me and to call my father, and then Ari and I got back in the car and drove east on Route 25. The radio said there was some kind of crash on the Expressway. We got into Riverhead and I showed him where to turn right. Marty’s Hole in the Wall had been on the corner when I was a kid. I bought a lot of clothes there. I had heard Marty had moved to Israel. I never said anything to Ari. We got to the traffic circle and headed toward Flanders.

  The whole area had once been filled with duck farms. You could smell a large duck farm as you drove past. The smell didn’t add to the charm of Eastern Long Island. But I always liked driving past The Big Duck. My mother used to say when we drove by that we were almost home, and my brother and sister and I came to see it as a symbol of arrival at a safe pla
ce.

  The Big Duck was a building in the literal shape of a duck. It was really a store where you could buy ducks or duck eggs. It was a living advertisement for the allure of ducks, and they needed all the ads they could get. The duck’s eyes were in fact Ford Model T tail lights. They looked good on the duck. I hadn’t been in the store for years, but I remembered being surprised by how small the area was inside and how big it was to look up.

  Two visits to Sag Harbor in a single day. It was a record for me.

  My father was raking leaves. I told him that he should call me to do it, and he said he would when he got old.

  I had filled him in briefly on the phone and said I needed some advice. Instead he said, “I want you to take me somewhere, Danny.”

  I nodded and we went in the car. Ari stayed behind at the house to rest.

  There is a place to eat outside Riverhead. Its owners were named Fred and Lillian. There were goldfish ponds outside. When I went there I always had a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate ice cream soda with coffee ice cream. It was my identification as a customer. It had been years since we had gone there, certainly not since my mother died.

  My father asked to go there and get the usual meal. I didn’t ask him why. When we finished he asked me to drive him to Aquebogue, specifically to Fannings Beach, a private group of homes where we had once lived in the summers. Although we weren’t on the water, by sheer luck there was an empty lot in front of our house so we could always see the bay. I went swimming five times a day. I went fishing. I once was in a rowboat and got too tired to row. I figured, based on my limited knowledge of geography, that I’d end up in Spain. There was a water pump at the end of the road. There was a dock with boats. Once I was sitting at the table eating. I looked out and saw a stream of water working its way through the sand on the empty lot. I waited too long but then told my mother. She screamed, ran outside, and began warning our neighbors about a flood. Then she returned, and, one by one, she carried my sister, my brother, and me to higher ground. The water was then up to her neck.