Night Film(64)

“Where?”

“In the bathtub. She’d been behind me, taking a bath, the whole time.”

I glanced at Hopper and Nora. They seemed to be thinking what I was—the disturbing nature of the scene she’d just described was entirely lost on the woman.

“I introduced myself,” she went on, sniffing. “She told me her name but leaned her head back against the tub, closing her eyes like she’d had a long day and didn’t feel like talking. I finished putting on my wrinkle creams, said good night. After I heard her leave the bathroom, I went back because I’d left my toothpaste on the sink. She hadn’t drained the tub, so I stuck my hand in to unplug it.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how she was in there without her legs and arms freezing off. It was like ice.”

“You never saw Kay again?” I asked.

“No. I heard her, though. The walls are like paper. She seemed to keep the same hours as I did.”

“What hours are those?”

“I work nights.” She said it vaguely, gazing past us at the deserted street. “You know what? There was another time. Sorry. My mind’s stuffy from this cold medicine. It was my night off, so it musta been on a Saturday. I was coming back from the supermarket and passed Kay on the stairwell. She was on her way to a club. I don’t remember the name.” She shook her head. “It was feminine. Kinda French? I think she said it was being held in an old jail on Long Island. She wanted to know if I’d ever been, but I hadn’t.”

“An old jail?” I repeated.

She shrugged. “It was a five-second conversation. You know what? Last week I did see two guys outside her door. They stared at me like they wanted me to mind my own business, so I did.”

“What did they look like?”

“Just guys. One was older, the other in his thirties? Later I heard Dot come upstairs and get rid of them. She doesn’t like strangers.”

“Dot?”

“Yeah. You were talking to her.”

“A little boy lives with her?”

“Lucian. He’s her nephew.”

“How long has he been living here?”

“Long as I’ve been at Henry. About a year.” She sniffed and pulled back her sleeve, checking her watch. “Shit. I gotta run.” She grabbed the duffel, heaving it, clanging, over her shoulder. “You’ll tell Kay I said hi?”

“Of course.”

“How can we get in touch if we have more questions?” asked Nora.

After a slight hesitation, the woman unzipped the duffel, handing Nora a black business card. Then she smiled and took off down the sidewalk toward the Manhattan Bridge. Nora handed the business card to me without a word.

IONA, it read. BACHELOR PARTY ENTERTAINMENT.





38


“A nightclub on Long Island,” I said. “It has a French name. It might be held in an old jail or abandoned building. Ring any bells?”

I was on the phone with Sharon Falcone, standing outside Gitane, a temperamental little French-Moroccan café on Mott Street. After leaving 83 Henry, we’d taken a cab here to grab a bite and debrief. When a Google search of club, Long Island, French, and abandoned jail elicited no breakthrough, I decided to call Sharon on the off chance she knew what the club could be.

“Don’t tell me you’re harassing me because you need help with your social life,” said Falcone on the other end.

I could hear phones wailing, a TV droning NY1, which meant she was still at her desk at the police station, sitting in her beat-up swivel chair, poring over the details of a case her colleagues had long given up on, glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

“Not quite,” I said. “It’s a lead.”

“I know Long Island like I know my kitchen. I understand it’s there for my pleasure and enjoyment, but somehow I never manage to go there. Can’t help you. Can I get back to work now?”

“What about occult worship in the city? How prevalent is it?”

“Does worshipping money count as occult?”

“I mean, strange practices, rituals. How often do you come across that kind of thing at a crime scene? Would it surprise you?”

“McGrath. I got stabbings. I got gunshot wounds. I got a rich kid who knifed his mother in the neck, a six-month-old baby shaken to death, and a man who was castrated at the InterContinental in Times Square. Sure, we got occultism. We got it all. There might be a Starbucks on every corner and an iPhone at every ear, but don’t worry, people are still f*cking crazy. Anything else?”

I was about to say no and apologize for bothering her, when I thought of something.

“I might have a case for Child Protective Services.”

She didn’t immediately respond, though I could practically see her jerking upright, unearthing a yellow legal pad out of the piles of witness testimonies and lab photos, flipping through her illegible scribbles to a blank page, grabbing a pen.

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I just left a woman who’s the guardian of a young deaf boy. It doesn’t look right. The building’s a shithole, might be a brothel.”

“What’s the address?”

“Eighty-three Henry Street, between Pike and Forsyth. The woman’s name is Dot. She runs the place.”