to act polite, as if the department had assigned him to drive the woman officially. He nodded, and up close I saw he was just a kid, maybe twenty-two, glasses, short hair, skinny.
“Wait for me here,” said Bernard, sounding imperious but weary. She walked down the street a few yards, returned with Carver Lennox by her side.
“Carver will go with the ladies. He can go with Celestina to the morgue. That way you and I can talk,” she said to me.
“Just so long as Celestina isn’t bothered anymore, I’ll be happy to help out,” said Lennox. “She’s very agitated, not being home for Lionel, being at the Christmas party and then at her sister’s all night.” Then, quickly, offhand, as if it were a matter of course, he gave me an accounting of Celestina’s time over the past twelve hours, even before I asked for it.
I leaned close to Lennox and said, softly, because I wanted to see his reaction before he heard it from anyone else, “I think Dr. Hutchison was pushed.”
He was silent.
“Pushed from behind, maybe from the roof, or hit first, so by the time he was pushed he was either dead, in which case he wouldn’t bleed, far as I know. Isn’t that right?” I said to Bernard.
“Most likely.”
“Or had a heart attack from the trauma when he hit the ice. Or maybe not. Maybe he lay there on the ground dying slowly.”
Lennox looked at me. “My God,” he said. “What should I do?”
I told him to take care of Mrs. Hutchison, just keep her calm, and I’d get back to him.
He lowered his voice, and there was fear on his face. “You believe whoever killed Lionel, if somebody did, had a hand in Simonova’s death, don’t you? Isn’t that right?” said Lennox, and without waiting for an answer, followed the women to breakfast.
While I waited for Lucille Bernard, I called Jimmy Wagner. Told him even though it was Sunday, I needed access to a safe-deposit box at a bank on 125th Street.
I’d found a charge for a safe-deposit box on Simonova’s bank statement earlier, and I had the address of the bank. If there was a box, maybe there was a will.
Wagner told me he’d do what he could, sounding harried. “Just find me somebody I can nail for this one,” he said. “This was an old guy, pillar of the community, Christmas is coming, it’s the best building in the neighborhood. Just get me something.”
I told him about possible prints on the Armstrong roof. I asked him to let me know what the ME came up with, if there was anything unusual in Hutchison’s system when they cut him open.
“That woman that died in the building, the one I only heard about this morning, you think we should check on that, get the ME to look at her, do a tox screen?”
“It’s too late.”
CHAPTER 39
L ionel was murdered,” said Lucille Bernard.
“How do you know?”
“I can read you, detective. It’s what you think. And whatever else you may be, you’re not stupid.”
“What do you think?” I held the door of my car open and she slid in to the front seat. I got in, too, and closed the door.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s cold out there.”
“Go on.”
“I’ve been thinking about Lionel. He was a tough old bird, and he was strong. I would have known if he was sick.”
“How?”
“He would have come to me. We disagreed, but he knew I could keep any secret. He taught me well.”
“Right.”
“Whatever his beliefs, this was a man who loved life,” Bernard said. “He held on to his misconceived ideas, such as they were, because he felt they enhanced life; the avoidance of pain, the avoidance of suffering at the end, was worth it.” Her voice wavered. “He so enjoyed himself. When he was younger, my God, I remember when I was in med school, and I saw him much more often, he would invite students over, and I don’t think we’d ever met anybody who was more involved in his subject, but who also experienced so much joy in life.” She took a deep breath. “Once in a while, even these last few years, he would call me, and we would go out and eat and talk until all hours, about music and medicine and Yeats-he loved poetry. He loved Langston Hughes, and Yeats, and Whitman. He would always gossip about the building-he adored that bloody place-and now somebody has killed him in it.”
“Can you ride with me, I have to pick something up at the Armstrong.”
“Yes. That would be better,” she said. “I don’t want the ladies from the church telling Celestina I’m talking to you, and I was thinking it might be useful for me to look at Lionel’s apartment, see if there’s anything that helps me understand this.”
“The apartment is sealed,” I said.
“I’m sure you can manage something,” said Bernard. “I got so damn fed up with that building when I lived there.” She took off her hat and arranged her hair.
I asked why, as I started the car, heading north to the Armstrong.
“When I lived there with Carver, everybody wanted help. I didn’t mind. I’m a doctor. But for every scratch, every sore throat, I was on call. They considered me not just their in-house doctor but their shrink. They’d come around, tell me their problems. I felt like telling them to watch Oprah instead. Or that Dr. Oz.”
I drove carefully. The streets were slick with ice. Harlem was quiet that Sunday morning. I still hadn’t heard from Lily. I was jittery as hell. Tell me some more, I thought, glancing sideways at Lucille Bernard.
“You ever run into a woman named Marie Louise? She cleaned for the Russian, Mrs. Simonova,” I said, not quite sure why I was asking. The idea just floated into my head.
“How come you’re asking?” said Bernard. “Sure, I know her. “African girl, French accent, right? She cleans several apartments at the Armstrong. Works for Carver some of the time. I think she used to bring Simonova for appointments before Lily Hanes took over.”
“What do you think of her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t get her. I’m sure she has a hard time in America, but she has these strange ideas about Western medicine. She said she had been a doctor back in wherever-Senegal?”
“Mali.”
“Yes, Mali. She’s an MD, but she often gave Mrs. Simonova crazy potions, stuff she bought down on 116th Street. She told me about them. I said they wouldn’t help, so she just clammed up. She was scared of me. I guess she’s illegal.”
“Anything else?”
“Why?”
“I’m asking you.”
“You can’t believe she killed Marianna, and then Lionel? Why would she?”
“I didn’t know you thought anybody killed Marianna Simonova.”
“But it’s what you’re after, isn’t it? I mean, if you were sure she died from the emphysema, you wouldn’t have been all over this even before Lionel died, you and that Virgil Radcliff.”
“You don’t like Virgil?” I pulled up in front of the Armstrong.
“I don’t know him,” said Lucille. “I’ve met him a few times at fund-raisers. I don’t understand why he’s a cop.”
“You mean he’s too smart?”
“I apologize for that, but yes. I do.”
“Or because he’s dating Lily?”
