not at home, so he and Jani bunked here. Jani took over around eleven last night so I could get home before it got too deep. My place is only a block from the stop, so I knew I could get back before four today.”
“Why would the day man just up and quit?” I asked. “Was it because of Phil?”
Sidney shook his head and tried to smother a yawn. “He and Phil didn’t get along all that good. Not that he wished Phil bad luck or anything, but I don’t think he’s gonna cry at Phil’s funeral. No, it’s probably that he’s finally had it with teenage boys who think it’s funny to hijack the elevator and leave it on another floor. Vlad was still ticked off about it when I got here.” Beneath that impeccable gray mustache, his lips curved in wry humor. “But then with Vlad, everything’s a big drama.”
CHAPTER
13
—
, 1909
SIGRID HARALD— SUNDAY (CONTINUED)
By the time Sigrid and Sam Hentz backed out of the hospital room, Denise Lundigren was in full-blown hysterics. Leaving Dr. Penny to calm her, they headed back for the car, and both gave involuntary sighs of relief as they got in and slammed the doors. It was one of those rare moments of solidarity and Hentz didn’t push it.
Instead, he put the car in gear and said, “Think there’s any chance she followed him upstairs and killed him?”
“The spouse is always a possibility.” Sigrid leaned forward to adjust the heat controls with chilled fingers. “Remember what she said when we told her Lundigren was dead?”
Hentz nodded. “She asked if he was really dead and not just hurt.”
“Which could suggest that she had hit him herself without realizing the force of her blow.”
“And the door was secured with two chains,” Hentz said thoughtfully. He eased down on the brakes so that a man pulling two laughing, well-bundled children on a sled could cross against the light. “Like she didn’t expect him back.”
“Unless he habitually came and went through the service door,” Sigrid said, trying not to let herself be diverted by that sled and the bittersweet memory it evoked of sliding down a snowy Connecticut hillside into a tangle of blackberry vines with Nauman, another sharp reminder of all that she had lost when he died. “Their living room looks more like a furniture showroom than a place used by someone in coveralls.”
“Between the crystal knickknacks and flowers and ruffles, the whole apartment felt girly to me. Wonder if he ever wore a dress and sipped tea?”
“Would you?” she asked dryly.
“Point taken,” he said. “She did make it sound as if he really was a man trapped in a woman’s body. Must have been hell on him growing up.”
Up ahead of them, a sanitation truck fitted with a snowplow on the front trundled along, throwing up a three- foot high windrow that completely blocked a car illegally parked in front of a delicatessen. They saw the car’s owner come hurrying out, gesticulating wildly.
Too late.
He shook his fist at the driver, who passed on, oblivious.
“Hope that poor bastard has a shovel in his trunk,” Hentz said.
Although both of them were too young to remember the blizzard of 1969, when the city came to a virtual halt for three days, no succeeding mayor of New York ever forgot the political fallout, and surely this mayor was too savvy to let the streets stay closed for long. New Yorkers might enjoy a Sunday snow, but come Monday morning there would be a price to pay at the next election if too many streets remained blocked for more than two or three days. Private snow removal companies were already out at the major corners, and traffic had to swerve around a yellow backhoe that was loading snow into a big dump truck.
“Do you suppose the board knew about Mrs. Lundigren’s klepto tendencies?” Hentz asked as he waited for the light.
Sigrid looked up from her notes. “I was wondering that myself. Lowry and Albee reported that this Mrs. Wall made a point of saying how honest Lundigren was. I think we should go back and ask her about the wife. From what I’ve read, kleptomaniacs steal for the thrill of stealing, not for any material gain. Most times, they’ll just throw the object away. If Lundigren always took back whatever she stole, then maybe the board was willing to treat it as a quirk, something they could put up with in order to keep a valuable employee.”
“Are you going to tell her about Lundigren?”
“Only if it’s pertinent.”
“Wonder where they got married? Were same-sex marriages allowed anywhere?”
“He was probably already passing by then, but it’s an interesting legal point,” she said. “The state recognizes common-law marriages between heterosexuals, but what’s the standing for same-sex couples? Did he leave much of an estate? Is there a will?”
“I don’t know about a will, but the Wall woman told Lowry that she’ll benefit from a quarter-million insurance policy. That could be two hundred and fifty thousand reasons to kill.”
“Maybe, but why do it in 6-A?”
Hentz flicked her a sardonic look. “Don’t you mean ‘why now’?”
