homework, and I made supper, and then when our mom comes in the morning, everything is nice for her.”
“What time did you have breakfast today?” I said.
“I think eight.”
“OK, well, if you just tell your mom I was here.” I took my card out and put it on the counter. I wanted to do something, give them something, take back all the questions. But all I did was say good-bye and run down the stairs.
Marie Louise had been out all night. I had seen her leave the Sugar Hill Club party, but she wasn’t home until morning.
Where was she during that time?
Plenty of time to get to the Armstrong and Lionel Hutchison.
Who could she have been babysitting for? Who?
At a local candy store, I scooped up candy bars, comics, and a box of chocolate, put it all in a bag, ran back to the apartment, went upstairs. I felt shitty about the stuff I bought-it was only a bribe after the fact-so I just left it by the Semakes’ door. I didn’t go in.
On my way back to 116th Street, my phone rang. It was Virgil.
“Where are you?” he said.
I told him.
“Can you get over here? The Armstrong.”
“Soon as I can.”
“No. Now. Just come.” His voice was tense.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the Armstrong, in the basement,” said Virgil. “Please just hurry the fuck up, OK?”
“Where’s Lily?”
“With me.”
“What’s going on? What happened?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone,” he said.
CHAPTER 43
T he wet sheets, piled up in plastic baskets in the Armstrong’s laundry room, were like crumpled ghosts. On a line stretched between hooks screwed into opposite walls, hung a newly washed pink cotton baby blanket, shedding water onto the floor. The acrid smell of bleach mixed with the wet laundry hit me as soon as I got to the entrance. A young guy in uniform tried to stop me going in. I showed him my badge.
All the overhead lights were on. A portable spotlight had also been set up. It was aimed at one of the washing machines, where Virgil was standing, looking down. Lily stood a few feet away, still wearing the green shawl she’d worn to Simonova’s funeral that morning. Her arms were crossed. Diaz was there, too, along with a middle-aged woman in jeans, a yellow sweatshirt, and an apron. There was the low buzz of talk, people mumbling, hesitant.
“Over here,” said Virgil. “Jesus, who the fuck does this kind of stuff?” He pointed at a mound covered by a green bath towel.
“What is it?”
“It’s the dog,” he said.
“What?”
“The Hutchisons’ dog.”
“Ed,” Lily said.
“The black Lab?”
Virgil nodded. “Shirley found it,” He nodded in the direction of the woman in the apron.
“The dog?”
“Yeah, somebody put him in the washing machine and ran it for a complete cycle,” said Virgil. “Then they stuffed him into one of the old gas dryers and tried to light the mechanism under it. There was gas in there, it almost blew the place up. We’re waiting for the ASPCA forensics truck. They can test on the spot, but there’s no question what happened here. I’ve seen the shit people do to animals. I remember one case, we picked up some crush videos.”
Lily looked at me questioningly.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“Men use dogs to fight each other, you know that, but there are women who like to put on high heels and stick them in the dogs’ flesh. They kick them to death.”
She turned away.
All I could think of was Marie Louise and her fear of dogs. She’d been terrified of the Hutchisons’ dog.
“First Lionel, now the dog,” said Lily. “Virgil told me about Lionel. I can’t believe it. He was fine. I should have done something.”
“You couldn’t.”
“Virgil told me he was killed around three this morning.”
“I know,” I said.
She looked at me, and I knew what she was thinking. We had been at the club dancing, or fooling around in her apartment, when somebody killed Lionel Hutchison.
“Does Celestina know?” I asked Virgil.
“I told her.”
“It must have hit hard.”
“She said she brought the dog home from her sister’s yesterday when she came to change for the party, and she left the dog with Lionel because her sister couldn’t put up with Ed’s yapping. She said Ed was especially nervy and barked a lot, so she left him with Lionel for the night.”
Again I thought about Marie Louise. If she had been in the Hutchison apartment, if she went to get rid of Lionel, she would have found the dog. Did she, terrified, kill Ed? Did the dog yap at her? Was she also scared the neighbors would hear, would hear the dog and find her? But why like this? Was this some kind of awful exorcism?
I had seen the awful fear in her eyes, her fear of this black dog, a dog she’d told me had orange eyes and was an evil spirit. There had been plenty of time in the night for Marie Louise to stuff it in the washing machine. And she knew her way around the laundry room.
“Lily?”
“Yes?”
“Have you seen Marie Louise?”
“Why?”
Lily knew about Marie Louise and her fear of the black dog. “What do you want her for, Artie?” She was defensive.
I moved a few yards away from the washing machine and closer to the dog. Virgil pulled back the towel covering the animal. I wanted to puke.
“You found him?” I said to Shirley.
“Yes. I opened one of the old dryers. I saw something sticking out that made me open it. I found him. I put him there on that mat. I put the pieces there.” She turned away suddenly, and covered her face.
“Lily?”
“I saw Marie Louise a little while ago, when I got back from the cemetery.”
“Where was she?”
“She was on her way into Lennox’s apartment. She had some cleaning to do, she said.”
“On a Sunday?”
“Yeah, sometimes. If he needs extra stuff, ironing, shit like that. She works like…she works really hard,” said
