Slugfest

Only the most mean-spirited, Grinch-like woman would have begrudged Lauryn and her students the first prize they were awarded for best city garden. As it happened, the Grinch and her friend were standing right beside me, criticizing a platter of pierogie. Allegra Douglas looked as if she’d just eaten a spoonful of sour cream that had spoiled.

“Are you enjoying the show?” I asked.

The friend spoke first. “Oh, yes! Even the blackout was thrilling!” Allegra mumbled a response, but her disgusted look said it all—this was torture for her. Someone was sabotaging her show. Not only had the youngsters from the high school taken a ribbon, but apparently Connie Anzalone had received an honorable mention in the beach garden category ahead of three East Hampton gardeners that Allegra knew well. It was anarchy. Chaos. I left Allegra and her pal stewing over the canapes and went to congratulate Connie and Lauryn.

Whatever else happened at the show, it was Lauryn’s night. Most of the television cameras were on her and her students. Every year there was one plant or garden that got all the attention, and this year it was hers.

I hung around, waiting for a free moment to extend my congratulations to her or to Jamal, but she was swamped and I didn’t see him anywhere. Another student told me the boy hadn’t shown up.

Not far away, Connie’s garden was almost as crowded. “Congrats.” She was deliriously happy and couldn’t wait for Guy to join her later that evening. She had made it through the show unscathed, hadn’t needed the bodyguards, and decided that, while tragic, her veronicas had died a perfectly natural death. Not only had her garden been acknowledged, but her backless fish-scale dress was causing quite a stir. A photographer had already immortalized her standing next to a papier-mache sea horse. On top of that, she excitedly told me that someone named Mrs. Moffitt had invited her to a garden party to be held Sunday evening after the show closed.

“My first real friend at the show,” she said. “After you, of course. But you know what I mean. One of them.” I did know what she meant. I wasn’t one of them. Suburban girl in the city. City girl in the suburbs.

“I’m happy for you, Connie. You deserve it.”

A second photographer approached and politely asked if he could take our pictures, but I knew he really wanted Connie so I backed away to the perimeter, where I had an overview of the entire spectacle. That was where I bumped into Rolanda.

“So was it all you thought it would be?” she asked.

“All that and a bag of chips,” I said.

“I was going to come find you tonight.”

“To check my badge again?”

She shook her head. “No, wise guy. The kid? The one whose bag you have? He won’t be coming for it. He’s dead.”

Thirty-two

Rolanda Knox was not your garden-variety security guard. I knew that the first time I walked into the building. What I didn’t know until the reception was that she attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the evenings after a full day’s work, and she monitored police radio the way other people listened to National Public Radio or watched baby owls on webcams. All day long.

“I always learn something from the scanner even when it’s on in the background. I listen, so I know how to observe. Yesterday I heard about a floater found in the Hudson not far from here. White male, twenty-five to thirty.”

She repeated it in that staccato, impersonal cop lingo that suggested it wasn’t a human—wasn’t somebody’s kid or friend or lover. It was a “floater,” like a raft or pool toy. I guess they had to say it that way. Otherwise, it would be too hard to think of the victim as an infant, then a toddler, then a teenager, the mental home movies fast-forwarding until the final frame, when it becomes just—a floater.

“He was wearing jeans, Timberland boots, a T-shirt.”

“Isn’t that every third guy who works at the Wagner?” I asked. “The carpenters and electricians? The show staff?” I didn’t want it to be the kid I had joked with, the kid who would have made a cute adult if he’d ever gotten the chance. “Was he wearing a jacket with a lot of souvenir patches?”

Rolanda shook her head. “A T-shirt that said Happy Valley. He was identified as Garland Bleimeister, from Trenton, New Jersey. Wasn’t that the guy who left you a message about the bag?”

There was no mistaking the name. Babe had spoken to him. And the Happy Valley shirt had registered with me. I’d had a friend who went to Penn State and wore a Happy Valley hat every time the Nittany Lions had a game, even if he was in another state. We are Penn State. Maybe that was why I couldn’t reach the boy and he’d never called again.

“What does the medical examiner say? Did he drown?”

Rolanda shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Cops don’t always like to say right away, but not many people going for a dip in the Hudson this time of year. Not many civilians think to ask about the medical examiner either. You a crime show junkie?”

“No. I just had the bad luck to find a couple of bodies.”

My mind was racing. Do I tell Rolanda I saw Jamal wearing the kid’s jacket? Do I call the police? What if I was wrong? I didn’t know what kids wore these days. For all I knew, some designer at Old Navy had a thing for the national parks and had emblazoned all the park names on their new spring line. Thousands of people could be walking around with the word Canyonlands written across their backs or tied around their hips. Maybe it had something to do with the guy who had to cut his arm off. He’d turned into a hero to some people. Why wasn’t Jamal here? Was he afraid because the body had been found and it would only be a matter of time before he was apprehended?

“I’d better call the cops,” I said. “I still have the kid’s bag. Even if it’s not evidence, the next of kin will want it.”

“If I don’t see you later, can we catch up tomorrow?” Rolanda said.

“Sure. I should get back to work. You know where to find me. We can talk in the morning.”

“Late afternoon. There’s a service for Otis at a Baptist church up in Harlem. A lot of us will be there, so there may be some new faces here tomorrow.”

I was drawing a blank.

“Otis Randolph, the janitor who passed.” I felt ashamed to have forgotten him. Rolanda and I exchanged cell numbers and agreed to meet tomorrow in the Overview Cafe, just outside the show’s entrance on the second floor of the convention center. If I was too busy and couldn’t sneak away, I’d call, and if the service for Otis ran long, she’d do the same. I took my time getting back to the booth. Death has a way of slowing you down, of reminding you there are more important things than whatever you’re rushing off to do. Maybe there’s a sympathetic, physical reaction, an acknowledgment of a soul leaving the planet.

Back at the shops, where no one knew or cared about the dead boy, business was booming. David’s partner, Aaron, had arrived. The wavy black hair and heavy-framed eyeglasses had me itching to break into a chorus of “Peggy Sue,” but I restrained myself since I didn’t know if the look was intentional or not. The men were chatting up a middle-aged woman and her companion who—judging by the shopping bag and fabric books—could only be her decorator. I overheard something about redoing the country house, so I figured things were going well.

We’d talked about a late dinner and a drink if the three of us had anything to celebrate, and so far David and I had each made a big sale. It was Nikki’s turn. But even though I’d only met him once, it seemed ghoulish to party now after having learned of Garland’s death. They could celebrate without me. Besides, Nikki was still gone.

The husband had amassed a stack of clear plastic cups on the wicker table he was using as a desk. I counted six. Like wet rings on a bar they told me how long he’d been waiting. They could have been club soda, but his demeanor told me they’d held something stronger. Perhaps it was the muttering, which was not as sotto voce as he thought it was. I took the direct approach.

“So, where’s Nikki?” I asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I just dropped by … never mind.” He’d repeatedly called Nikki’s cell, but there’d been no answer for the last thirty minutes, the whole time I’d been away from our group.