Killer Smile

“That’s her. Hmmm.” Leslie sounded stumped.

“She left me her phone number.” Mary gave her the number. “I called but there’s no answer. See, she called and said her car broke down and could my son pick her up.”

“Her car broke down? I thought it was new.”

Oops. “I know, it’s an outrage. Anyway, my son left an hour ago but he lost the address and I don’t remember it. So now I need her address.”

“Ms. Broughley, we don’t give out that information. I can call her for you.”

“You won’t get her. I just called her at home and got no answer. There’s no answer on her cell, either.”

“Keisha gave you her cell?”

“Sure enough.” Mary read her the number. “We got along very well. I thought the world of her, that’s why I sent my son out to fetch her. I hate to think of Keisha standing in the rain. She wouldn’t do that to one of us patients, not for a minute.”

“You’re right about that, and this weather is so awful. Sometimes I think we’ll never see the sun again.”

Mary knew the feeling. “And it’s so cold for this time of year. Even the rain is so cold. If I could just have her address. I think my son’s only a block or so away.”

“Well, I guess it’s okay, just this once. Tell Keisha I said hello.”

“Will do.” Mary jotted the number down, thanked her, and hung up. She grabbed her purse and hurried to Judy’s office to make her escape, taking personal inventory. She was wearing jeans, Jack Purcell’s, and her old Penn sweatshirt, and her hair was loose under a Paddington Bear slicker and rain hat. It was a good outfit for a stuffed animal, not an amateur sleuth, but she had no choice. With one last hurdle, she was good to go. She stuck her head in the door of Judy’s office. “This is me, leaving,” she said.

“Is it that time already?” Judy squinted at her Swatch watch, which Mary knew was a tumbling circle of smiling baby heads.

“You can’t tell time with that thing, admit it.”

“Yes I can. It’s half past baby nose.” Five seconds later, Judy was still squinting.

Mary faked a yawn. “Listen, I’m beat. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m going home to take it easy, to be fresh for tomorrow.”

Judy scoffed. “Please don’t bullshit me. You’ve got something up your sleeve.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What is it? Give.” Judy leaned over her messy desk.

“I would tell you. Gimme a break.”

“Did Keisha call?”

“No.”

Judy’s eyes narrowed. The alert blue had been replaced by eyestrain pink. “Did you call her?”

“No.”

“Truth?”

“Yeth.”

Judy seemed placated. “Okay, I believe you. Go home and chill. You’re the best.”

Ouch. “You, too,” Mary said. That much was true.

Then she hurried out in her sneaks.

Thirty-One

Mary had got off the D bus in West Philly, in a residential neighborhood that was truly integrated. At the moment, however, Mary’s was the lone white face on the street, and her Paddington Hat screamed Dumb Things Only White People Will Wear. The rain slowed to a drizzle, so she took off the hat and rolled it like a hoagie into her slicker pocket. Then she turned left on Gingko Street. The sky was permanently cloudy and prematurely dark, but residents were still out, enjoying the last night of the weekend. A young couple walked by with a golf umbrella held over a baby bouncing in a Snugli, and kids played Wiffle ball in the street, hitting foul balls with a wet thwick. Gingko trees lined the street, and Mary eyed them, loving their primitive branch system, if not the stinky berries they dropped all over the sidewalk. Gingkos were as Philadelphia as snapper soup, and they scented even the best of her pumps.

She traveled down the street, walking past 5207 and 5209, four-story Victorians with Cape May paint jobs, and she inhaled a great-smelling back porch barbecue, which she’d take over foie gras any day. But she wasn’t thinking about food now. She was thinking about Keisha Grace. At the end of the street lay a newer limestone apartment building, and Mary raised her eyes to the second floor. One of those windows belonged to the nurse.

She went to the building’s front door, painted a forest green, and was about to knock when she noticed it was slightly ajar. She opened the door and went inside an entrance hall that bore a large homemade sign, PLEASE CLOSE THE FRONT DOOR BEHIND YOU! She read the stainless steel mailbox covers until she found 2F, Grace/Whitman. All right! She pressed the black button, and the walls were so thin she could hear a loud buzz overhead. A man answered almost immediately.

“Yes?” On the cheap intercom, his voice sounded like it was underwater.

“This is Mary DiNunzio, and I’m looking for Keisha Grace.”

“She’s not here.”

“Well, may I come up and see you? She’s been calling me, and I’d like to talk with you, if I may.”

A pause. “Okay. Come on up.”

The buzzer sounded and Mary crossed the hallway to open a thick front door, which swung onto a red carpeted hallway and ended in a set of narrow stairs. The hallway smelled vaguely of gingkoes and Glade, and she went upstairs to the second-floor landing, which contained a long hallway with several doors, but no sign. She took a flyer and went right. 2D, 2E, 2F. The door had been painted navy blue, and as soon as Mary knocked on it, any worries she’d had about going alone to a stranger’s apartment vanished at the sight.

The man at the door was a tall but slight African-American in black nylon gym shorts, a red Temple T-shirt, and round rimless glasses. His dark eyes were bright and intelligent behind the glasses, and he had short close-cropped hair and a slight overbite. He extended a hand with long fingers. “Bill Whitman,” he said, shaking Mary’s hand. “You’re the one in the papers, aren’t you? The lawyer.”

Mary cringed. “Yes, that’s me.”

“I knew I knew that name.” He smiled, and the tips of his front teeth popped into view. “Nice picture.”

“Thanks.” Mary stepped inside the apartment, which was large and had high ceilings. It was neat for a guy’s apartment and simply furnished, with a black cloth couch she’d seen in the IKEA catalog, a teak coffee table, and a wool rug in earth tones. Abstract paintings hung in a trio on an exposed brick wall, and the overall effect made her jealous. “This is a really nice apartment. Mine’s so small.”

“Where do you live?”

“Center City.”

“Got more space up here.” Bill gestured at the couch the way boys do when they’re playing host, halfheartedly swinging his hand from the shoulder. “You want a water or somethin’?”

“No, thanks.” Mary looked to her left, where three desktop computers with three oversize monitors, two CPUs with the motherboards exposed, and two laptop carcasses covered the dining room table. Even she could sleuth this one out. “You’re a computer guy.”

“Yeah. I do consulting and repair from here. It’s my own business, I started it two years ago. You know anybody who needs IT help, call me.” Bill sat down on the end of the coffee table, feet flat-footed on the floor. “So, you must be here because Keisha worked for Saracone.”

Smart. “Yes. I met Keisha at Saracone’s, the night before he died.” Mary edited out the rest of the story, now that she was learning to shut up on occasion. “I got a call from her yesterday, asking me to call her back. I did, but that’s the last thing I heard.”

“Sounds like Keisha. She comes and goes.”

“When is she coming back?”

“Dunno.”