LITMIR.BIZ

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York was not so daunting after all.

      An awning over the sidewalk, a doorman in a modest dark blue uniform. A lobby with neutral colored walls, a couple of gilt-framed mirrors, a flagstone floor. As Lindsey entered the lobby a broad-shouldered middle-aged black man emerged from the elevator and crossed the lobby to the street door. Lindsey was startled; in that fleeting moment, the man bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead Cletus Berry.

      Lindsey blinked and the man was gone.

      Lindsey entered an elevator operated by another blue-uniformed minion, a woman this time. She asked politely for Lindsey’s floor, and whom was he planning to visit. He told her and she responded, “Oh, it was such a pity, Mr. Berry was such a nice man, it was such a tragedy.” And a pause—it was a slow elevator—and, “Are you a friend of the family?”

      And Lindsey said, “Mr. Berry was my partner.”

      And when Lindsey pushed the button beside the massive, maroon-painted door, a small dog started to yip inside the apartment. Lindsey did not hear the heavy elevator gate slide closed until the apartment door had opened and Lindsey identified himself to the black-swathed woman who answered the door and she invited him inside.

      The woman’s gray hair was unkempt and her dress hung on her. This was no smart mourning outfit. This woman was no Auntie Mame. This was real grief. The woman offered her hand and Lindsey shook it, then dropped it.

      The woman’s eyes were a dark green and her skin was olive. Her features were soft. She was a classic Mediterranean type.

      He asked, “Are you Mrs. Berry?”

      She shook her head. She said, “I am her sister.” She spoke with a heavier Italian accent than the woman who’d answered the phone earlier; that must have been Berry’s wife. “She just came home. She wanted them to give her his body. They won’t give her his body. She’s with the baby now. Come in the house and sit down, you want to talk to her.”

      He followed her. He detected the odor of cooking in the house, and of coffee brewing, but he couldn’t tell how fresh it was.

      The yapping had come from a tiny dog with a glossy, black-and-gold coat. The dog was circling Lindsey and the woman, darting forward as if it intended to nip at Lindsey’s trouser cuffs, then dancing back, its fore-end close to the hardwood floor, its hindquarters and stumpy tail elevated.

      The woman said, “Ezio Pinza, shame, you don’t be a bad boy. You go keep Anna Maria company.”

      The dog looked up a her. He gave one more yip. The woman gestured at him, as if she were brushing him away. “Go, you. She’s crying, you go.”

      The dog ran down a narrow hallway and scratched on a wooden door. The door opened and the dog disappeared into another room.

      “You come and sit down,” the woman said to Lindsey. She led the way into the living room. A blue-patterned sofa and two easy chairs were grouped around a low table.

      Lindsey followed instructions.

      The woman said, “I am Zaffira Fornari. I am going to be with my sister. You wait. She know you are coming here, so she sees you.”

      She walked along the hallway the little dog had scampered down and rapped softly on the door. If there was a reply, Lindsey didn’t hear it. She opened the door and disappeared behind it. In a moment the door closed with a metallic click.

      Lindsey looked around the room. A fireplace on one wall, two massive bookcases opposite. A large frame, obviously holding a picture or a mirror, but now there was no telling which because it was draped in heavy black cloth. A couple of windows overlooking the street.

      The woman had introduced herself as Zaffira Fornari, the sister of Berry’s wife. No, of his widow. Lindsey knew that Berry’s wife was Ester Lazarini Berry; then her sister must be Zaffira Lazarini Fornari. Whoever Fornari was—obviously a husband.

      The bookcases were jammed, and Lindsey’s curiosity was just getting the better of him, pushing him to get up and scan the titles, when the bedroom door opened.

      Ester Lazarini Berry emerged; her sister Zaffira remained behind.

      Ester might have been beautiful once. She might have been beautiful yesterday, until she learned of her husband’s death. Now her face was drawn, her eyes were red from weeping, and her shoulders were rounded. She looked as if she was drawing in upon herself, racing to immerse herself in her thoughts and her memories and away from the world in which the body of her husband had to be chopped off the icy concrete in a garbage-strewn alley.

      The sisters bore a strong mutual resemblance. Lindsey stood up when Ester Lazarini Berry entered the room. Like Zaffira, she was dressed in black. She walked toward Lindsey, almost steady on her feet.

      He stood up and started to say something but she took his hand in hers, not the way one person shakes hands with another, but the way a child takes the hand of an adult.

      She said, “You were his friend.”

      Lindsey said, “Yes.”

      She said, “I do not understand. Why did they kill him? I went there today, I had to look at him. Who would do that? They killed that other man, too, I did not know him, maybe he did something, maybe he needed to die. But Cletus needed to live. I need him, Anna Maria needs him.”

      She hadn’t let go of Lindsey’s hand, so he held her hand in both of his. She had graceful fingers and fine bones. She was trembling, gently, steadily.

      “We need him,” she repeated. “He has a baby. Ten years old. You know what it mean to a little girl, ten years old, they kill her father? Why did they have to kill him?”

      Lindsey shook his head. “I came because—”

      She pulled her hand away and said, “Sit. You like a cup of coffee? I make the best coffee on the East Side. I just made a pot. Cream? Honey? Sugar?”

      He stammered a reply.

      “Sit.” She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down. He sat on the couch and watched her disappear into what must be the kitchen. He heard china and silver clattering. From the other room, the room from which Ester had emerged and into which Zaffira had disappeared, he heard soft sounds, sounds of voices and soft sobs.

      He opened his pocket organizer and looked up half a dozen phone numbers that he already knew, including Detective Marcie Sokolov’s. He wished that Sokolov had taken the case more seriously. She hadn’t done much about it and Lindsey had the feeling that she wasn’t going to do much about it.

      Another murder, another corpse, another number.

      The bedroom door opened and Ezio Pinza pranced out on the end of a leash. He gave a small yelp when he saw Lindsey. The girl holding his leash—she must be the ten-year-old, Anna Maria—looked at Lindsey, then looked away. Zaffira Fornari was close behind her.

      Anna Maria was wearing a bright red and green mackinaw. Ezio Pinza wore a blue doggie sweater. Zaffira had put on a dark, shapeless coat and tied a black woolen scarf over her graying hair. They went to the front door, Ezio tugging at Anna Maria. Zaffira reached over the girl’s shoulder to open the latch. Just before the door closed behind them, Zaffira Fornari looked back at Lindsey and said, “We go for a walk. Anna Maria’s dog got to go for his walk.”

      Ester returned from the kitchen carrying a tray with a silver coffee service and cups. She poured a cup for Lindsey and pushed a silver creamer and a little silver cup of honey with a miniature ladle in it, toward him. She hadn’t bothered to ask if I took decaf, he thought. With an effort he refrained from smiling at the triviality.

      But maybe, he thought, that’s how we keep from dwelling on painful things—we divert ourselves with trivialities. Maybe, he thought, that was why Zaffira and Anna Maria were walking Ezio around the block. And maybe that’s why Ester has busied herself making coffee and playing the gracious hostess to this man she’s never met before.

      “You came to offer condolences, Mr. Lindsey.”

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