Deborah, who was seated in front beside Sigrid, turned to look at Hentz, who sat behind Sigrid. “The other things that were stolen—is there any way Antoine could have gotten into those apartments?”
It was Sigrid who answered. “According to one of the porters, the locks on most of the service doors have never been changed.”
“So who better than the man on the elevator to know when an apartment would be empty?” Deborah said excitedly.
Sigrid slowed to veer around a truck that had suddenly and with no warning decided to stop and double park in their lane. Till then she had caught several green lights in a row. The small delay meant that she had to speed up to get back into the flow, but a red light caught her in the next block. “Maybe Corey didn’t hijack the elevator as often as Antoine Clarke claimed,” she mused as she waited for the light to change.
Hentz saw where her thoughts were going. “Clarke could’ve slipped out of the elevator, onto the service landing, and been in and out of an apartment in minutes, then if anyone saw him, he could say that he was looking for the elevator.”
Sigrid finished the thought for him. “Corey probably saw him, realized what was happening, and started blackmailing him.”
“Corey was blackmailing Antoine?” Deborah asked. “Why?”
From the backseat, Dwight Bryant said, “Is the kid into drugs?”
Sigrid’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. Normally she would not have discussed a case with an outsider, but this murder had been committed in their apartment, he had helped take names Saturday night before reinforcements came, and he was, after all, an officer of the court, as was, of course, his wife. “Not drugs, Major. Poker. He’s a gambler, a compulsive one from the sound of it. He’s stolen so much from his family so that they’ve put locks on their bedroom doors and his parents have blocked his online access to poker sites, but his friend says he’s still playing live games someplace in the area at least once a week.”
“Ah,” said Deborah, who nodded in understanding. “Therefore the need to blackmail Antoine instead of turning him in. After talking to Mrs. Lundigren, I thought maybe Antoine had killed her husband because Lundigren walked in on him while he was loading his pockets in our apartment. Could that still be the case?”
“Unless it was Corey Wall that Lundigren walked in on and the kid panicked,” Sigrid said. “Clarke was in the building, if not in the apartment itself. It’s possible that he was in the back hall and saw Corey slip out of the apartment through the service door.”
“This could be a blackmailing standoff that left Clarke dead,” Hentz said thoughtfully. “Corey was certainly at the party, so he could have seen that your door wasn’t locked and decided to see what he could pick up to feed his gambling habit.”
“That latch is getting worse, too,” Deborah said. “Dwight, maybe you could take a look at it tomorrow? See if something could be tightened? I had to pull it to twice before I was sure it was locked.”
An ambulance with siren wailing and lights flashing roared through the intersection at West 23rd and Sigrid had to brake sharply to avoid clipping its back bumper. A minute or two later, she turned onto West 14th. One of her rear tires hit a patch of ice at the curb and the car almost fishtailed into a delivery van in the next lane.
“Whoa!” Deborah said as Sigrid quickly corrected. “Good reflexes.”
White-knuckled, Sigrid slowed as she tried to decide which of these branching streets would lead her to the West Village restaurant Buntrock had selected.
“He said for us to get off the train at Christopher and walk north on Seventh Avenue,” Bryant said as they all began peering through the windows.
“Must be near the club,” Hentz said.
“There it is!” Deborah cried, pointing to a sign two doors off Seventh.
Sigrid signaled to turn. Miraculously, a car pulled out directly across the street from the restaurant and she slid her own car into the spot.
Helped along by rock salt and the day’s weak sunshine, the street itself appeared almost completely ice-free, but dirty gray snow was still piled along the curb and had frozen back into ice so that Dwight’s boots crunched on it when he got out to hold the door for Deborah.
As they were thanking Sigrid for the ride, Elliott Buntrock rounded the corner on foot and a big smile lit up his bony face.
“Perfect timing,” he called, his open overcoat and scarf flapping in the wind like the wings of a giant heron. “I was afraid I was going to be late. Sigrid? Aren’t you staying?”
She lowered her window. “Hello, Elliott. No, I’m just their gypsy cab.”
“But why not? You have to eat. Unless you have other plans?” He gave a crafty smile. “Or is Roman cooking something special tonight?”
“Oh, God, you’re right. He did mention medallions of calf’s liver poached in wine. When I left this morning, he was trying to decide whether merlot or chardonnay would go better with the capers and the green beans.”
Deborah, who did not like calf’s liver or green beans, made a face. “You’re joking, right? Who’s Roman?”
“My housemate, and no, I’m not joking. He’s an inventive cook, but some of his inventions are bombs.”
“At least he cooks,” Buntrock said with a half smile, which Sigrid returned.
“Elliott’s seen my collection of take-out menus,” she said, turning to the others. “You sure you don’t mind if I join you?” It had suddenly occurred to her that there would be more than one source of some specific information at the table.
The Bryants assured her that she was quite welcome. Hentz, however, looked a bit apprehensive.
“And we can all go on to Smalls later and hear Sam play,” Elliott said.
Sigrid was amused to see the look of discomfort deepen on Hentz’s face. Not quite enough revenge for his
