Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 22

There’s nothing wrong, Caroline told herself. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for Andrea’s not going to work today. It felt far later than five-thirty, but only part of the exhaustion that was threatening to overwhelm her had been brought on by her first day back at work. Her desk — actually nothing more than a table that had been moved from the shop into the back room, as she’d become busier and busier with Irene Delamond’s redecoration — had been stacked with work that had accumulated while she was gone. It seemed as if the contractor had passed every question that had come up from the subcontractors directly through to her, and she’d spent most of the day on the phone. But after the call from Andrea’s office asking if she’d heard from Andrea over the weekend, she’d found it harder and harder to concentrate on the wallpaper samples, paint chips, fabrics, and dozens of other details comprising the updating not only of Irene Delamond’s apartment, but her own as well. Instead, she’d become more and more distracted worrying about Andrea, leaving half a dozen messages on her answering machine before giving up. She’d tried to tell herself that nothing was seriously wrong — that some emergency had come up, and she’d had to go out to Long Island. She’d even tried to find a phone number for Andrea’s parents, but they weren’t listed, and neither Bev nor Rochelle had had a number for them, either. She’d called Andrea once more before she left the shop, but this time the phone had simply rung and rung. Was that a good sign, or a bad sign? Now, as she walked the last block to The Rockwell, she went over it all one more time, but just as had happened all afternoon, she kept coming back to one unyielding fact: Andrea Costanza was simply not the kind of person who would take a day off without telling anyone.

And no one, apparently, had either seen or heard from Andrea since Friday.

But it still doesn’t mean anything, she silently insisted. She was in front of the building now, her hand already reaching for the handle of the heavy door. She could have—

But there were no more could-haves. Caroline had gone through every one of them, and rejected them. So now, instead of pulling the door to The Rockwell open, she turned away and continued three more blocks up Central Park West, then turned left on 73rd. Her pace quickened as she crossed Columbus, then Amsterdam. But as she crossed Broadway, she suddenly stopped, for in the block ahead she could see flashing lights, several police cars, and some kind of truck that might have been an ambulance.

All of it was halfway up the block, in front of Andrea’s building.

It’s a big building. It could be anybody.

But her pounding heart told her she was wrong, and she was almost running when she suddenly came to the yellow police tape — and the two uniformed cops — that blocked the sidewalk in front of Andrea’s building. “What’s wrong?” she asked, hearing the fear in her own voice.

One of the cops spoke. “You live here?”

Mutely, Caroline shook her head.

“Then there’s nothing to see. Just move along.”

Another voice spoke: an elderly woman who was clutching at the lapels of her coat as if the garment itself could somehow protect her from the dangers of the city. “It’s that nice woman on the fifth floor,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “Always had a nice word for everybody. Not like some of the people in the building. I always told Mr. Balicki — he’s the super you know — I always told him about some of the people. Having parties every night and playing their music ’til all hours. Satan’s music, that’s what they play. I always told Mr. Balicki something bad would happen. But he didn’t believe me. Nobody believes me. But now they’ll see. Came right in through the window. I was right all along. I said…”

The old woman kept talking, droning on to whoever was closest, but Caroline had stopped listening. The front door to the building had just opened, and two men were maneuvering a gurney down the steps to the street.

The body on the gurney was completely shrouded by a pale green sheet.

It’s not Andrea, Caroline insisted, but even in her own head the words sounded far more like a wish than a fact. And then, as the men began loading the gurney into the back of the van, there was a flash of gray as a small schnauzer shot through the front door just before it closed, and began barking frantically.

“Chloe?” The name of Andrea’s pet escaped Caroline’s lips almost involuntarily, but the little dog instantly stopped barking and turned, as if looking for whoever had spoken her name. “Oh, Chloe!” Caroline said, kneeling down as tears flooded her eyes. The dog leaped into her arms, its tongue licking at the tears running down her face, and Caroline clung to it, burying her face in Chloe’s soft fur as the full realization of what had happened began to sink in. As the van bearing Andrea Costanza’s body pulled away from the curb, Caroline finally turned away and started toward home, carrying Chloe with her.

Caroline’s mind clung only to fragments of the rest of the evening. It was as if a movie had been chopped into tiny pieces, then reassembled so that only a few frames were left.

She remembered opening the front door to the apartment, but had no memory of the walk home from Andrea’s building.

She remembered talking to Rochelle and half a dozen other people, but could recall nothing of the conversations beyond the barest facts: Andrea is dead. Someone killed her. No forced entry. Came through the window.

She remembered Ryan’s question when he saw Chloe: “Can we keep her? Please?” but there was no recollection of her answer.

She remembered trying to eat dinner, but had no idea at all of what the food might have been, or whether she’d eaten any of it.

After dinner Laurie and Ryan had escaped to their rooms, and she and Tony had gone into the living room. Except it didn’t really feel like a living room, not to Caroline. At least not her living room. Her living room — the only one that could have given her comfort — was the one in the apartment up on 76th Street where she and Brad had lived. That room had been small enough to offer her shelter, even after Brad had died. The room she was in now was so large that she felt somehow exposed and alone even though Tony was with her, and even though she herself had made certain the windows were locked, her eyes kept going to them as if she expected to see some faceless killer invading her home. Coming for her and her children as he’d come for her husband and her best friend. Tearing her gaze away from the windows, she turned her tear-streaked face toward Tony. “Why is this happening?” she asked. “Why did they kill Brad?”

“Brad?” Tony repeated. “You said—”

But it was as if Caroline didn’t hear him. “Why did they kill Andrea?” she went on. “What’s happening, Tony? Are they going to kill the children too? Are they going to kill Ryan? Laurie?” It was as if speaking her fears aloud opened whatever floodgates inside her had been holding her emotions in check through the long evening, and with a great shudder she threw her arms around Tony and clung to him. Tony’s arms tightened around her, and he pressed her face close to his chest, but instead of drawing warmth from him, she only shivered with a sudden chill. “Don’t, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Nothing’s going to happen. Not to you, and not to Laurie, and not to Ryan. I promise.”

He was still holding her, still trying to soothe the terrible shaking that had overcome her, when the phone rang. Instinctively he reached for it, but hesitated. Maybe he should simply let the answering machine take the call. Then, as the phone rang again, he remembered the children. If it was someone else calling about Andrea, better for him to take the call himself. Still keeping one arm around Caroline, he picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Tony?” he heard an unsteady voice say. “It’s Beverly Amondson. I just got home, and Rochelle called about—”

“We know,” Tony broke in, hearing the pain in Beverly’s voice.

“Is Caroline all right? Should I come over?”

Tony hesitated. Caroline was still sobbing, her body still shaking uncontrollably. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “Could you call her tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Bev replied. Then: “Take care of her, Tony. To have this happen after what happened to Brad — well, I just don’t know how she’ll be able to handle it.”

“It will be all right,” Tony assured her.

“Thank you.” She was silent for a moment, then: “She’s so lucky to have you.”

“No,” Tony said softly as he hung up the phone a moment later. “It’s me that’s the lucky one.”

Putting the phone back on its cradle, he returned his full attention to soothing his distraught wife. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’m going to take care of you. You, and the children too.”