“Not at all. I just wanted to make sure she-uh-that she belonged here. We’re leaving in a few minutes and I didn’t want her unsecured, in case you thought we’d be hanging around.”
“She’s a definite crowd-pleaser. The surgery’s on rush. Thanks for your concern.”
So Verge had a problem with truth telling, perhaps a greater challenge for us than for him, especially since Mercer was in his corner.
I let the door slam behind me as I walked to rejoin the group. Mercer came toward me to cut me off. “Seems he’s rejected your kind offer of a hotel room.”
I tried to look around my friend’s broad shoulders, but it was impossible to see Verge, who was still entertaining the cops and swinging the wooden puppet from side to side.
“That stinks. What’s your plan?”
“These plainclothes guys say they can keep tabs on him for the next few days.”
“24/7?”
“Be reasonable, Alexandra. They’ve got better things to do now.”
“He’s a liar. Flat out. Now, get the puppet back, please. Nobody gave it to him, and she’s got to be picked up for repair.”
“Understood,” Mercer said, keeping himself between the old man and me as he walked over to ask for the marionette.
“C’mon, Verge,” Mercer said, beckoning with his curled-up fingers. “We’ve got to put the doll back where she belongs.”
“Not right yet,” he said, starting to lope down the path leading away from the cottage. He was swinging Red Riding Hood like a cowboy showing off with a lariat. “She belongs to me.”
One of the young cops started after Verge. “Hey, Pops. You gotta give back the doll.”
“She’s got a broken arm,” I called out, thinking he might have a soft spot for the injured doll, like the way Jo described him responding to her friends. “She needs to get fixed before the kids come to the show this weekend.”
“That can happen to little girls that go into the woods,” he said, walking backward as he told the cop to stay away.
His laughter no longer struck me as the humor of a simple man. The tone had become more sinister.
“Stop right there,” Mercer said.
Verge flipped the large doll over his shoulder, and when it landed-as he turned again to walk off-we could all see that she had become completely entangled in the long white strings that were suspended from the hand controls.
There was no point in my opening my mouth again. Mercer was on his way to reclaim the doll.
“Hand it over, will you?”
Verge lifted the marionette as though he was going to return it to Mercer. With a sudden movement he grabbed the doll’s head between his hands and twisted it so hard I could hear the wood crack.
“She’s beyond repair now,” he said, smirking at me. “I think I just broke her neck.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“Calm down, Coop,” Mike said. “It’s just a doll.”
“But he’s demented. I know Verge didn’t kill anybody just now, but that was a sick thing to do, wringing the puppet’s neck.”
“There’s got to be a psych history on this dude, Mercer. You looking?”
“I am now. I’ll start with his sister in Queens and see what we get.”
Mike had replaced the marionette-with her multiple fractures and a completely snarled set of strings-in the crate for pickup and repair. I watched with dismay as Verge Humphrey walked away from us, headed off the path into a grove of trees, and disappeared.
“I hate that he’s roaming around on his own,” I said. “Between him and Tanner, I feel like driving through the Park and scooping up all the girls who are out there tonight, thinking it’s a safe place to be.”
“Hold that thought. I don’t think social work’s your strong suit.”
“Are you going to the garage?” Mercer asked Mike.
“Yeah. It’s just a few blocks over.”
“Taking Alex?”
“Yup.”
It was after five o’clock. “I’m starving,” I said. “And tired. Let’s do that and make a plan for tomorrow, and maybe I’ll have an early night.”
Mercer wagged a finger at me. “Not so fast. How about dinner?”
“With you?”
“With us.” He looked over my head to Mike and nodded.
“Something up?” I asked. It was one thing if Mike wanted to spend the evening alone with me, and if not it would be a smart idea to get some rest.
“It’s a good time to organize where we stand,” Mercer said, “what we need to do with the weekend approaching.”
“Come to my place for takeout?” They both usually liked that idea. The bar tab was cheap, the digs were comfortable and private, and they could watch the Yankee game while we ate.
“We can do better. Call me when you’re done at the garage. I’ll get us a table.”
Mike and I walked out of the Park and across 79th Street till we came to Amsterdam.
“You want to talk?” I asked him.
“We’re on the clock, Coop. On the job.”
“So it’s going to be that way?”
“Course it is when we’re working.”
“You have any second thoughts about last night?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“You just don’t want to-?”
“Discuss it right now,” he said.
“I don’t either.”
Mike turned his head to me, bit his lip, and laughed.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m easy.”
“Highest-maintenance broad I know, and you’re suddenly easy? Sweet.”
“So how do we make sense of Vergil Humphrey?”
“Let Mercer figure him out,” Mike said. “I just want to understand why so many of these roads are leading back to the Dakota.”
At the southwest corner of 77th Street and Amsterdam Avenue we came up to the drab old building bearing a beat-up sign: THE DAKOTA GARAGE.
There was a man in the ticket booth and two attendants, one young and one who looked older than Verge, sitting on wooden chairs with their feet up on the metal railing that separated the one-room office from the rows of parked cars.
“Mike Chapman, NYPD.”
He had the attention of the younger fellow, but the older guy still stared straight ahead, gnawing on a toothpick.
“There’s no trouble,” Mike said. “I’ve just got some questions about the building.”
“What do you want to know?” the kid asked.
“How long have you worked here?”
The older man spoke without glancing at us. “That’s not about the building, is it?”
The kid answered anyway. “Me? Only eight months. Abe’s been here fifty years.”
“Fifty-six. But if you’ve got no trouble, why are you asking?”
“You must have started working before child labor laws,” Mike said.
“Dropped out of high school, wiseass. One of our cars gone missing?”
“Nope. Maybe one of your horses.”
Abe stood up and stretched. “Long before my time.”
“That’s what I want to know,” Mike said. “Was this really a stable?”
“Certainly was. From here to 75th Street was called Stable Row. See those portals? Each one was an individual stall,” Abe said, pointing his toothpick toward the warm orange brick arches that lined the long room. “This place was built to hold more than a hundred horses, and space for three times that many carriages on the second floor.”
“But the Dakota apartments-they’re a couple of blocks away,” Mike said. “Why would the stables be built this far west?”
“Did you ever smell the likes of a hundred horses and all the slop that goes with them?” Abe asked. “This here couple of blocks was close enough to be convenient to the staff, but far enough away for the odors and the sounds of the animals not to bother the rich people who lived over on the Park. I have all that from the old-timers that worked here when I came on. Once upon a time, when it was built, the Dakota had horses right in the courtyard, and a special entrance in the rear so hay could be delivered without bothering anyone. But that’s all ancient history now.”