evening. Plus, the service doors had to have one of the old locks on it. He’d helped carry in enough packages over the years to know which apartments had valuable little objects sitting around like those gold pillboxes.”
“What about Antoine?”
“Jackson says Clarke figured it out right away and was willing to tell him what went on during his eight-to-four shift for a cut of the profits. Only he was greedy and wanted to hit every apartment that met Jackson’s conditions, and Jackson didn’t want to do it more than three or four times a year, so Clarke was starting to freelance for himself.” Sigrid lifted her glass and took a swallow of wine. “Clarke drew the line at murder, though. He relieved Jackson during the party, but he’d gone to sleep before he heard that Lundigren had been killed. As soon as he heard the next morning, he called Jackson and accused him. Jackson knew it was either blackmail or exposure, and he couldn’t afford either. He figured correctly that Horvath would go to bed before he got here and the porters don’t work Sundays, so he thought he’d have plenty of time to dispose of Clarke before the man was missed, only here came the Wall boy down to get his sled and go have some fun in the snow.”
Sigrid lapsed into contemplation of the wineglass she held cradled in her hands and I figured she’d had a rough session with the boy’s parents. That’s always the hardest part for Dwight. I glanced at his face and he looked as if he was remembering some bad times of his own.
To break the mood, I said, “I know he hid that wheeled bin with Antoine’s body, but what did he do with the Wall boy? Don’t tell me he stashed him in one of those bunk beds, too?”
Sigrid shook her head. “Not with Horvath snoring away in one of them. No, he used the boiler room.”
“Under the tarps?” Dwight asked.
She nodded.
“So the cavity was already there when he needed a bolthole.”
“Right. He was no longer thinking clearly—”
“Hitting me and taping me up like a mummy was thinking clearly?” I asked indignantly.
Sigrid and Dwight both smiled.
“No, I guess not. I don’t think he knew what he was going to do with you. The main thing was to get outside and sling Corey Wall’s body onto the garbage truck before one of the sanitation workers tried to lift the bag. He no sooner got back inside than he heard the elevator descending, so that’s when he dived into the boiler room and hid.”
“Elevators,” I mused, holding out my glass for a refill. “All that coming and going.”
“Only up and down,” Sigrid said. “Never in and out. Horvath told us that Antoine was jealous because Corey would be going off to college, working at a better job, making a richer life, while he was going to be an elevator operator all his life.”
She swirled the wine in her glass. “In an odd way, I suppose the same went for Jackson, only he couldn’t afford to lose this job at his age. Especially since he’s still paying off the nursing home bills for his father.”
Sigrid finished her wine and stood to go.
“Don’t forget this,” I said, handing her the little Tiffany bag. “If you ever find out why Mrs. Lattimore had it, I hope you’ll tell us. Maybe we can get together if you’re down next month.”
“Maybe.” She seemed almost shy for a moment as she thanked me again for telling her about her grandmother. “Mother’s due in tomorrow night. I know she’ll want to meet you.”
“That would have been nice,” I said, “but we’ve decided to cut our trip short and go home tomorrow morning.”
(In the squad car on the way back to the apartment, we had agreed that we’d rather finish our honeymoon at home. With Cal.)
“I’m sorry your trip turned out like this,” Sigrid said. “I hope it hasn’t soured you on New York.”
“It would take more than a murder investigation to sour me on this city,” I said. “Only next time we’ll bring our son with us. There’s so much to show him.”
“And I still want to hear Sam Hentz play the piano,” Dwight said.
She smiled. “Me, too.”
I gave her our Gilbert and Sullivan tickets, and as we walked her to the door, Sigrid paused with her hand on the knob. “Did your nephew figure out who used his cell phone and hijacked his Facebook page?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t talked to the kids today, but I think I would have heard if they did.”
“This may sound strange, but my housemate—he writes mystery novels, and something he said last night made me wonder.”
“Oh?”
“You said that two other boys had the lockers next to his and a freshman girl had the one beneath his?”
“So?”
“I know that one of the boys might have done it because he was jealous of your nephew, but what if the freshman girl was jealous of the nephew’s girlfriend? If he never paid her any attention, maybe he never noticed that she had watched him dial the combination on that lock. Old student locks aren’t all that precise anyhow, are they?”
“Oh, Lord!” It was too logical not to be true. And remembering my own early teen years, who more likely to keep pawing through Lee’s locker than a fourteen-year-old girl who had the hots for him? “The one person they all overlooked?”
Sigrid smiled. “The least likely suspect.”
