Losers Live Longer

'Maybe nothing. What's her name?'

There was an official edge to her voice that made me sit up and squeak my swivel chair.

'That depends who's asking, Bill.'

'How about a couple of first grades who'd love to spend the whole evening asking? They're looking for a kid like yours, snatched a purse outside the Outsiders Cafe Tuesday noon.'

'Things must be slow, detectives working on a purse-snatching.'

'They're homicide. The purse belonged to Charles Marburger's niece.'

The name was fresh in my memory. I thanked Billie for the information, but hung up on her angry demands for the girl's name. I dug yesterday morning's Post out of the garbage, shook out the cigarette butts, and read the article:

GRAMERCY PARK SLAYING

A 72-year-old autograph expert

was found fatally stabbed in his

Gramercy Park townhouse Tuesday

afternoon by police responding to

a 911 call. Mr. Charles Marburger

was pronounced dead on arrival at

Bellevue Hospital, from numerous

wounds to the chest and throat.

Detectives are investigating

robbery as a motive.

The assailant or assailants may

have gained entrance with keys

obtained earlier that day when

a purse belonging to the victim's

niece, Celia Janssen, was stolen

outside an East Village cafe.

Police are seeking a young

female suspect in connection

with both crimes...

I read another account in the Times that provided a lengthy obit for Marburger, highlighting his career as an autograph expert (his crowning achievement the denouncement of a diary purported to be Hitler's). I dropped the papers back in the trash.

I had to hand it to myself. I was really giving the Strichs their money's worth, an hour on the job and already trying to tie their daughter in with a homicide. Brooding over it did no good. I got out the white pages and looked up Celia Janssen, but she wasn't listed. I did find a Charles Marburger on East 20th Street though. I dialed the number, closed my eyes, and let it ring.

Long after I'd lost count, a woman's voice answered, standoffish at first, until I assured her I wasn't 'yet another reporter' (not that being a private investigator endeared me to her).

'I'm calling about the purse-snatching.'

I could hear her breathe. I wondered what she looked like.

'Well, what about it?'

I hate interviewing witnesses over the phone: Half of what you can learn from somebody is lost on their unseen gestures and facial expressions. I told Ms. Janssen I had to see her in person, offering to meet at her convenience the next day.

'If it’s that important,' she said. 'I could see you now.'

I glanced at my watch. Nine o'clock. I said that would be fine.

The neighborhood of Gramercy Park appears like the last holdout to a forgotten age of gentility in Manhattan, the elegant era of Edith Wharton. At its center is the park, completely enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, its locked gates protecting the green grass, gravel lanes, and flower gardens from the outside world. Its small forest towered above the surrounding buildings, two- and three-story townhouses dating back to the 1800s in Italianate, Greek revival, and Victorian Gothic styles. It must've been a quaint place to live until Marburger's murder.

Curved white marble steps led up to the entrance of the dead man's townhouse, a gaslit globe flickered over its doorway. There were separate buzzers for Marburger and Ms. Janssen. I touched hers once and the door opened to a black-haired young woman with long, coltish limbs and a boyish physique. She had on a dark blouse and a white satin skirt that clung to her like a layer of thick cream.

She looked at me with a kind of happy relief. I don't know what she saw in my eyes, but her dazzling smile was easy to take.

'Mr. Sherwood?'

I handed her my identification. As she read, I looked over her shoulder into a hallway of cozy Victorian decor. To the right a spiral staircase led to the upper floors, the walls decorated with autographed photos of celebrities and statesmen. Over her other shoulder, I saw down the facing passage to a closed oak door wrapped up like an unwanted present in yellow ribbon: CRIME SCENE—DO NOT ENTER.

Grabbing a black knee-length coat and a Chanel shoulder bag, Ms. Janssen stepped out and closed the door behind her.

'I'd rather not talk here, Mr. Sherwood. We can go to the park.'

The gates to the park are locked twenty-four hours a day, keys belonging solely to the residents of the square. When I first moved to the city, I'd occasionally climb the fence late at night, usually drunk. I'd grip the spearhead tips of the fence and hoist myself up, over, and down into the soft black earth on the other side. In an instant the stink of exhaust would be replaced by the aroma of dirt, dewy grass, and cedar chips. Back then it felt like breaking into the Garden of Eden.

Celia Janssen had a key.

We went in the east entrance. When I started toward a statue I remembered, a surreal copper sculpture of a two-faced sun/moon, she tugged my sleeve and led me along another path, into shadows.

'I had to get out of there,' she said. 'The phone kept ringing. I finally took it off the hook after you called.'

'I'm lucky I got in under the wire. I'm sorry I have to disturb you at all.'

'Are you? People only say that when they want something. What do you want, Mr. Sherwood?'

'I'm trying to locate a young girl. A runaway. I think you might've seen her the other day.'

She stopped in a patch of light. Eyeing me, she fished in her shoulder bag for a thin brown cigarette, lit it, and let the smoke drip from her wide, dark lips.

'You mean the girl who stole my purse?'

'Well, that's what I'm trying to determine.' I handed her the photo of Melissa Strich.

She angled to catch more light from a streetlamp, studied the photo, then handed it back without a change of expression.

'Could have been her. If so, she's changed a great deal.'

'In what way?'

'Dirtier. Much dirtier. There's a green tint to her hair now, sort of chartreuse, and braided into dreadlocks. It's hard to tell from the photo. Also she had a silver stud through her nose and silver rings that looked like barbed wire pierced through her lower lip.'

'How tall?'

'I was seated at the time. Maybe five-three.'

'Color of her eyes?'

'I didn't really get a good look. A glimpse as she turned away. Then my eyes were drawn to her nose and mouth. I didn't even know my purse was gone until she was halfway down the block.'

'How much did she get?'

'A couple hundred dollars and my credit cards.'

'Cancel them?'

'Naturally.' She blew out smoke. 'What makes you think it's the same girl?'