they pulled open the inner doors, Rodney looked up from the paper he had spread out in front of him on the counter. “I’m afraid Dr. Humphries isn’t in right now.”
“Not here for Humphries,” Oberholzer replied. “Which apartment do the Flemings live in?”
“I’m afraid I really can’t divulge—” the doorman began, but Oberholzer had already flipped his wallet open to expose his detective’s shield.
“I’m not asking you to divulge a damned thing,” he interrupted. “Just answer the question.”
Rodney looked as if he was on the verge of arguing further, but then seemed to think better of it. “5-A,” he said. “Fifth floor, overlooking the park.”
“Thank you,” Oberholzer said with exaggerated politeness. Then, as he and Hernandez headed for the elevator and Rodney reached for the telephone, he spoke again, not even bothering to turn back to face the doorman. “And don’t call ahead.”
Rodney waited until the elevator — and the two detectives — had disappeared upward before dialing Anthony Fleming’s number upstairs.
The elevator jerked to a stop, and Oberholzer pulled the door open. It stuck halfway, and he gave it a jerk. “You’d think they’d put in a new elevator, wouldn’t you?” he grumbled.
“There’s nothing new in this building,” Hernandez replied. “Everything looks exactly like it did when I was a kid. Even the doorman looks the same.” She shivered slightly. “He’s got a creepy look in his eyes.”
“He’s a doorman,” Oberholzer retorted. “They all have creepy eyes — it’s part of the job.” He jabbed at the button next to the door of 5-A, then jabbed it again when there was no immediate response. He was about to punch it a third time when the door opened and he found himself facing a tall, dark-haired man that he figured was maybe in his mid-forties. Oberholzer could tell from the look in the man’s eyes — a look that wasn’t quite hostile, but couldn’t be called welcoming, either — that the doorman had called ahead, which only made the acid in his stomach bubble a little higher. “Mr. Fleming?” he asked. When the man nodded, Oberholzer flashed his badge and introduced himself. “Actually, it’s your wife I’m here to see.”
Anthony Fleming pulled the door open wider. “I think you’d better come in,” he said, the neutrality of both his expression and his voice dissolving into worry. “We can talk in my study.” He led Oberholzer and Hernandez into the wood-paneled room, and the detective took in every stick of furniture with a single sweep of his eyes. Had anyone asked him a week later to describe it, he could have repeated not only the entire inventory, but diagramed its placement in the room as well. By the time Anthony Fleming had reached his desk, then leaned against its edge when neither Oberholzer nor Hernandez accepted his offer of chairs, Oberholzer’s focus had already shifted from the room to the man.
“I assume this must be about Andrea Costanza,” Fleming said, resting his hands on the desk at either side of his hips.
“Your wife was a friend of hers,” Oberholzer replied. “We’re talking to everyone she knew. Is your wife here?”
Fleming shook his head. “I’m afraid my wife has taken this very hard. Andrea was her best friend, and after —” He hesitated, then began again. “My wife’s first husband was killed in Central Park a little over a year ago. And now with her best friend being killed… ” His voice trailed off a second time, then he took a deep breath and spoke one more time. “I’m afraid I had to take her to a hospital last night. Ever since she watched them take Andrea’s body away, she’s been having a rough time of it. Bad dreams, and — it’s hard to describe it. Paranoia, I suppose. Yesterday she came home from work early, and when I got home she was nearly hysterical. Certain that people were watching her — that sort of thing. When I couldn’t get her calmed down—” He spread his hands helplessly, sighed, and shook his head. “I’m hoping she’ll be home in a few days.”
“Where is she?” Oberholzer asked, his pencil poised over his notepad.
“The Biddle Institute,” Fleming replied. “Up on West 82nd Street.”
“How well did you know Costanza?” Maria Hernandez asked.
“Hardly at all, actually,” Fleming replied. “We had dinner with her once, and she was at the wedding of course, but it was one of those woman things — she and my wife were friends from college, and they stuck together like glue. The other two are Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman.”
Oberholzer nodded. “And can you tell us where you both were last Friday evening?”
“Last Friday—?” Fleming began, but then grasped what Oberholzer was getting at. “Ah. The night Andrea was killed. Well, for the most part we were here. We had dinner with the kids, and then I had a board meeting.”
“A board meeting? At night?”
“The co-op board,” Fleming explained. “We meet once a month, mostly to argue over money.”
“And who else was at that meeting?” Oberholzer asked.
Fleming’s brows rose slightly, but then he began ticking them off on his fingers. “Well, let’s see. I was there, of course, and George Burton and Irene Delamond. And Ted Humphries.”
“Just five?” Maria Hernandez asked.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get five people to agree on anything?”
“And the meeting lasted…?” Oberholzer left the question hanging.
“An hour and a half maybe. Certainly I was home by eleven. Now, if we’re about through, I’d like to go up and check on my son — he seems to have picked up a bug himself.”
“Okay,” Oberholzer said, closing his pad and slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Do you have any problem with us visiting your wife at the hospital?”
“My wife is very sick,” Fleming replied. “If you could wait a few days—”
“I wish I could,” Oberholzer cut in. “But we’re investigating a murder, Mr. Fleming.”
For a moment Anthony Fleming appeared to be on the verge of arguing, but then seemed to think better of it. “Of course,” he said, leaving the desk to usher Oberholzer and Hernandez toward the door. “If there’s anything else, let me know.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Oberholzer assured him.
Neither he nor Hernandez spoke until they were downstairs and out of the building, and even then they waited until they were across the street and halfway down the next block. “Well?” Hernandez asked. “What do you think?”
“I think I go up to the Biddle Institute, while you go back to Costanza’s address book,” Oberholzer replied.
“I meant what did you think of
Oberholzer shrugged. “Won’t know til I check out everything he said.”
“I didn’t like him,” Hernandez informed him, even though Oberholzer hadn’t asked. “Something about his eyes.”
“His eyes,” Oberholzer repeated darkly, rolling his own. “Okay, I’ll bite. What about his eyes?”
“They looked dead,” Hernandez said. “I mean really dead. Like a corpse.”
CHAPTER 35
His first impulse when he’d discovered there was a trapdoor in the ceiling of his closet had been to climb up through it and see if he could find a way out of the building. But the darkness beyond the shaft of light coming up from the closet was so complete that just peering into it made Ryan’s skin crawl, and in an instant he was
