The Address(57)

Sara quietly slipped out of her bed, wrapping the scratchy blanket around her, and knelt down by the woman. She took her cold hand in her own and rubbed it. The woman’s cries softened back to low moans, and Sara sang softly to her, as she would a child. Soon, her neighbor’s breathing lengthened.

Only when she was certain the woman was asleep did Sara slip back into her own bed.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



New York City, September 1985


“Here’s what I’m thinking we should do.”

Melinda opened up a glossy architecture and design magazine. She’d shown up on Sunday night on her way back from the Hamptons, grinning from ear to ear, and plunked down at the kitchen table, where Bailey was heating up a can of chili.

“The house where I went to a pool party this weekend had a bamboo divider between the dining room and living room. Like this.”

She pointed to a photo of a minimalist space with a low planter running down the middle, from which eight or ten bamboo poles ran up to the ceiling. Some crisscrossed, others were exactly vertical. It resembled some kind of POW jail cell in the jungles of Vietnam.

“It’s very striking.” The best Bailey could do.

“I know, right? According to Tony, Oriental is coming back with a vengeance. I thought we could tear out the wall between the library and the parlor and put something like this there.”

“But the fireplace is in the middle of it.”

“Well, we’ll do it on either side.”

“Let’s take a look.” Bailey stood up and held her breath the entire way, hoping her instincts were correct.

They were.

“Shoot. Check this out.” She knocked on the walls to either side of the fireplace. “You see how the wall sticks out about three feet on either side?”

“Yeah.” Melinda drew out the syllable, her eyes wary.

“Well, that’s all the flues from the other fireplaces. You can’t break through there. Which means you’ll only get a foot or so of bamboo at the very far right-hand corner, and another foot next to the wall to the living room.”

“What if we got rid of the door and put all bamboo between the flue and the left-hand wall? That’s like five feet of bamboo.”

“Do you think that would look right, on only one side? The symmetry might be off.”

Melinda wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “Well, check with Steve. See how much it will be and we’ll go from there.”

“Of course. I’ll let you know what I hear back tomorrow.”

They wandered back into the kitchen. “You were pretty messed up on Friday night. You doing okay?”

Bailey went to the stove and stirred the chili before turning off the heat. Her face probably burned the same color as the flame. “I’m fine. Need to stop that from happening again.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have invited you out.”

“No, it’s not your fault. I need to get tougher with myself.” She turned back. “Did I make another huge scene?”

Melinda shook her head of blond curls. “Not at all. We hung out down in that room the whole time; you were perfectly well behaved. If rather fucked up. I tried to tell you to stop.”

Had she, really? Bailey couldn’t remember that. Melinda was the type of person who drew power from others’ frailty, and Bailey was vulnerable. Had been for a couple of years now.

But thoughts like that were ungenerous and unkind. Look how much Melinda had done for her just this past week.

Time for a change of topic. “Hey, what do you know about how your great-grandfather died?”

“Not much. Just what you know. He was stabbed in the library with a knife. Like a game of Clue is how it always sounded to me. Don’t you think?”

“It does. But what about my grandfather? Did your mother say anything about who he was or how he ended up a ward of the family?”

“Not that I remember. They did that all the time back then. You had orphans and they got raised by someone else. It was the right thing to do. Otherwise, he’d have been dumped in some orphanage and then where would you be?”

If her grandfather had been raised in an orphanage, there was a good chance she’d be right where she was anyway: broke, an addict, a loser.

“What do you know about the woman who killed him?”

“You’re quite the history buff. Where’s all this coming from?”

Bailey explained her expedition to the basement and the discovery of the trunks. She didn’t mention Renzo’s part in her investigation, since that would probably make Melinda shut right down. She also didn’t bring up the sketch. Not yet. It had been passed down on Bailey’s side of the family, and for now, she wanted to keep it to herself.

“I found an article about the killing as well, from the 1880s. It said that the woman who did it had worked at the Dakota. That she was insane or something. Also, there’s this photo. Hold on a sec.”

She plucked it off the windowsill in her room, where she’d perched it next to the bottle of Dr. Walker’s Vinegar Bitters, and handed it over to Melinda.

“Who are these people?”

“If you turn it over, it says that the woman is Sara Smythe, the lady who killed Theodore Camden, standing with Theodore’s son and two daughters. The boy is your grandfather, Luther. I’m pretty sure this is the ward, my grandfather, in the woman’s arms.”