At a counter, Fink pointed over a teenaged cashier’s shoulder and through a case’s glass doors at trays packed with pink and yellow-sprinkled and chocolate syrup-topped pastries. “And for my partner,” he said. “Two of those.”
The teenager glanced at a nearby booth where a man studied a notebook and lifted a cup and sipped. “But he said he only wanted coffee.”
“Well, you don’t know him like I do. When he’s hungry, he gets crabby.”
“But he comes in at least once a week only for coffee and seems fine.”
“Well, once a week five days week for fifteen years, is it?” Fink jabbed a finger at the case. “So, go on, grab them.”
The teenager glimpsed at the case. “Which ones, sir?”
“Surprise him, they all look good!” He watched the teen pick-out one sprinkled and one chocolate pastry and placed them on a tray atop the counter where two other pastries sat and then paid.
“Enjoy, sir,” the teen said.
Fink smirked. “We will, thanks.” He walked the tray to the table where the man sat, placed the tray in the center, and sat opposite him. “Today, you’ve got two types. Take your pick.”
The man shook his head and chuckled. “And got to stop caring what some youngster thinks about you. If you enjoy donuts, you enjoy donuts. This shop’s not going to phone your wife, you know.”
“Well, I hope not, she’s the main one telling me to trade my sweet tooth in for a treadmill.” He seized a pastry and wolfed down half. “Boy, Hale, you’re lucky—you’re not married, so you’ve no one in your ear about giving up sweets.”
Hale nodded. “But it doesn’t make joining a gym any easier.” He shifted the notebook aside, and now before him, only a map laid, and he tapped it with a pencil.
“Still studying that?” Fink said, chewing, watching him, and after a moment, he knocked on the table. “Earth-to-Hale.”
Hale shuddered. “My apologies. Only, this doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
“Christianne, the flower shop owner. Per a customer’s sworn statement, that day, Christianne rushed her through a bouquet purchase, out the shop, and shut out the lights at seven on the dot. Then, while two blocks down at Van Aken’s for a wedding rehearsal dinner where she delivered the bouquet, the customer felt that something was amiss, excused herself from dinner, and dashed back to the shop where the lights snapped on and Christianne was inside. That was at forty-five minutes later.”
“Did the customer include Christianne’s state in the statement.”
“Yes, she said she was inside arranging a bouquet as though the shop was open, so she went back to the restaurant.”
Fink shrugged. “So, what’s issue?”
Hale pointed at the map. “The issue’s that her shop’s in midtown on Seventh and Hinkley while Cliff Ridge—a rural cemetery where an undertaker spotted her that evening at 7:15PM—is an hour away.”
“Well, there must be some mistake.”
Hale shook his head.
“What do we know about this undertaker?”
“He said her saw her plain as day placing flowers beside a grave, felt something peculiar about a young woman there just before sunset, and noted the time—7:15PM. And before you ask, that day, sunset was 7:21PM.”
Fink nodded. “Cameras?”
“None picked her neither her or any car. The according to the undertaker, he drove a small utility vehicle down a few seconds down a lane, looked back, and she was gone as though into thin air.”
Fink shrugged. “For one-hundred stacks, I wouldn’t put my back to an undertaker.”
“Why not trust him? He’s no reason to lie.”
“They spend all their time around the dead. Who knows—they may be possessed, or something.”
Hale slipped the map into the notebook. “Okay—so, you wouldn’t trust an undertaker but you would trust first-hand evidence, correct?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Ask for a to-go bag.” He peered out the bakery’s front window and across a street at a brownstone. “We’re going to take a walk.”
Fink followed Hale’s gaze. “Christianne lives over there, doesn’t she?” He sighed and then gestured at the teenager behind the counter. “This morning, when you said, ‘Let’s stop for coffee in midtown. My treat,’ I should’ve known you weren’t just being cordial.”
“Yes, you should’ve.”
Fink bagged his pastries and tossed it into a squad car parked outside and then he and Hale crossed the street to a brownstone where a few grade school girls sat on the staircase.
“Excuse us,” Hale said, and both men climbed the stairs, bypassed a main entry door, and stepped into a foyer.
Fink pulled a secondary entry door. “Locked.”
“Yeah, without a key fob, we’ll have to be buzzed in.” Hale scanned a panel that contained room numbers with a button beside each. “Of course there’s no directory that lists occupant names.”
“Do you know which room’s hers?”
Hale shook his head.
“Then when we find out, we can circle-back.” Fink watched him slap the secondary door and then led him out the main door, down the staircase, and onto the sidewalk where he turned and gazed throughout the brownstone’s many windows. “Hale, its’s useless, we don’t have her room number. But like I said, when we find it, we can circle—”
“Fink, your pastries on the front seat where you left them, okay?”
“What?! I want to catch-up with her for questioning as much as you do!”
“I’m sure you do.”
Fink sighed, examined the windows, and peered at the girls seated on the staircase. “Anyone here know Christianne?”
They stared at him.
“Oh,” he said and pulled out his badge. “No worries, I’m a police officer. Name’s Fink. Detective Fink.”
“Doesn’t that rhyme with ‘stink’?”
All the girls laughed except one.
“Yes, it rhymes with ‘stink’, but thank goodness I don’t. Now, come on—who here knows Christianne?”
The girl who didn’t laugh didn’t shake her head either, only watched the others shake theirs, and Fink nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Have a great day.” He seized Hale’s arm and walked him several steps toward the car before Hale halted.
“Wait a minute,” Hale said.
“What? They said they didn’t know her.”
“I know what they said, but the one who all but responded knows something.”
Fink looked back at the girls, sighed, and led Hale back. He pulled out his wallet. “Who like free donuts?”
The regular responders shot a hand into the air, and Hale handed them each a dollar. “Okay, bakery’s across the street, and look both ways as you cross.”
One of the girls pointed at quiet one. “Where’s Priscilla’s dollar?”
“We’ll send Priscella across with her dollar in a moment,” Fink said. “Me and the other officer here want to ask her a couple questions first. But you all go on, and stay together.”
The girls looked at Priscilla who nodded at them, and the girl crossed the street and
entered the bakery.
“I’m glad you sent the others away,” Priscilla said. “I didn’t want to talk about it with them around. There’s no way they’d believe me.”
“No worries,” Fink said. “Only Detective Hale and I are here now. Please tell us what happened.”
Priscilla swallowed. “Ever since she moved in last year, I never felt comfortable around Ms. Christianne. Maybe it was in the way she always made sure to compliment my mother on her style—‘Oh, I love your hair, that dress is divine, where did you get that scarf’—when the world knows my mother thrifts all her clothes.”
“Okay, so Ms. Christianne was trying to make a friend,” Fink said.
“Or trying to seem like she was,” the girl said.
Hale leaned in. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, ‘round that time, my mother broke up with her boyfriend, and he stopped helping with the bills but kept wanting to come ‘round to start an argument. So, with mom working days—and most evenings—at a diner, she asked Ms. Christianne let me help her down at her flower shop after school so I wouldn’t be home alone. She asked for weeks, and Ms. Christianne always said ‘no’ until one night, when my mother arrived home from work, she saw him grab her.” Pricilla pointed at their feet. “Right where you’re standing.”
“So, you started working at the flower shop?” Fink said.
The girl nodded. “Watering, pruning, and planting, and customers always said it smelled like a garden in spring or some distant, wooded meadow.”
“So, Ms. Christianne got on with customers well?” Hale said.
“Yes, when she wasn’t in her office. There’d be times where she’d say, ‘I’m going to do office work,’ or ‘I’m going to review the books…so, hold-down the fort’, and then she’d head into her office, close the door, and—five-minutes later—come out, both hair and clothes sweaty and in disarray, as though she’d been at a gym.”
Fink shrugged. “Doing inventory can be a physical process.”
“Not when you’re not actually don’t inventory,” Priscilla said.
“What do you mean?” Hale said.
“Well, one day Ms. Christianne walked in her office and shut the door, and suddenly, customer walked in and needed to see her. So, I dashed to the office and knocked forever on the door, and since she didn’t answer, I opened it, and Ms. Christianne wasn’t there. An office with no windows or other doors or any cabinet anyone could hide in was empty.”
Fink started at her. “So, you expect us to believe a full-grown woman vanished into thin air?”
“No, but that’s what happened,” Priscilla said.
“And you’re certain to saw her walk into the office?” Fink said. “Not a cellar or attic or out a backdoor or something.”
Priscilla nodded. “Positive. The shop’s so small, it doesn’t have any of those things.”
Fink tapped Hale. “Let’s get out of here before my pastries melt.”
“Wait a moment,” Hale said to Fink and then turned to Priscilla. “So, this is what you didn’t want to say while your friends were around because they wouldn’t believe you?”
The girl’s eyes widened. “No, all I’ve told you they know. What I don’t want them to know about what I saw in Ms. Christianne’s apartment.”
Suddenly, across the street, Priscilla’s friends exited the bakery and started across the street.
“Okay,” Hale said. “Let’s head inside.”
The three climbed the staircase and entered the foyer, and Priscilla used a key fob to unlock the secondary door. Beyond this door, an oak staircase with a Persian-inspired runner rug stretched to a second floor alongside a lengthy, first floor hall lined with a similar run and numerous doors.
“Which door’s Christianne’s?” Hale said.
Priscilla pointed upstairs. “Room 212, across from mom and I’s room.”
“Can you show us?”
She nodded and then led them upstairs, down a hall to 210, and pointed across to 212. “She lives over there, but you can come in here so I tell you about—”
“No, this is good enough,” Hale said and knocked on 212, and Priscilla snatch her keys, opened 210, and stepped inside, holding her door ajar.
For a while, Hale knocked, and when no one answered, Priscilla stepped into the hall. “That’s weird, her car’s parked out front.”
Fink sighed. “We should come back tomorrow.” He watched Hale dig a small, precision screwdriver kit out a pocket.
“Why come back tomorrow, when the answers are inside today?” Hale said, knelt before the door knob, and inserted two miniature screwdrivers. After a jiggling both tools a bit, a mechanism inside the door popped, and Hale stood and opened the door.
Fink huffed. “A regular locksmith.” He watched his partner step inside.
“Christianne?” Hale said. “South Metropolitan police. We’d like a word with you.” He scanned an apartment in which long-stem peonies, orchids, and lilies lay beside potting soil bags and empty flower pots on side tables, fold-out tables, and coffee tables. “Christianne?” He shrugged and ambled to a dinner table packed with sunflower bouquets.
Priscilla walked inside, as well, and Fink shut the door and looked around.
“Goodness gracious,” Fink said. “One can only just see the sofa and television in this jungle.” He shook his head. “Is this what you saw in this apartment that your friends wouldn’t believe?”
“Nope,” Priscilla said, heard giggling outside a window, and walked a sill and looked downward at several girls who sat on the front staircase eating pastries. “One afternoon while Ms. Christianne kept me, my friends visited this apartment. She allowed them to help us pot plants and stuff.”
“So, what did you see that they didn’t?” Hale said.
Priscilla swallowed, cast eyes to hardwood floor.
Fink waved a hand. “Don’t worry about whether or not we’ll believe you, just share with us what you saw.”
Priscilla lifted her eyes, looked at Fink who nodded.
“No worries,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, out of the blue, one day, dad visited,” she said. “I was on the inside stairwell and mom was at the foyer door and dad was in the foyer, tugging the handle, saying he wanted to see me.” She shook her head. “I told mom not to open it, but of course she did, and dad rushed inside, shoved mom to the floor, and dashed up the staircase and into our apartment. Tears pouring down her face and yelling ‘No more, no more!’, she stormed upstairs and through the hallway and, outside our apartment door, all but tackled dad who had her purse in hand. He was an addict and was trying to steal more money. Mom tussled with him, but he hit her, and she collapsed against Ms. Christianne’s door, and he hit her again. I screamed, and Ms. Christianne opened her door, watched dad dart down the hall, and helped mom on her feet. Face bruised and battered, mom shoved me into Ms. Christianne’s arms, said ‘Please watch her! I have to call the police!’, and ran into our apartment. I started after her when Ms. Christianne pulled me into her apartment and slapped the door shut. ‘This stops today!’ she said and dragged me through this living room, down that corridor, and into a bathroom.”
Hale glanced down the corridor. “A bathroom?”
Priscilla nodded. “Inside, she smacked a toilet lid down, sat me on it, and handed me bath towel. She said to sit there and dry my eyes, and she’d be right back. Outside a partway open bathroom window, dad’s car engine started, and Ms. Christianne glimpsed at the window and tore out the room, slamming the door closed.”
“Where did she go?” Fink said.
“Her footsteps faded into a room straight across the hall and didn’t come out,” Priscilla said. “Which is why I plodded to the window, opened it more, and watched dad’s car drive away, thinking she wasn’t going to catch him.”
Fink nodded. “Make sense—she hadn’t even left the room across the corridor, and your dad was already halfway down the block.” He looked at Hale. “Heard enough?”
“Apologies, sir,” she said. “But I’m not done: before long, as dad’s car reached an intersection, his car swerved and screeched and crashed into a garbage truck, and the instant the impact echoed up the street, in the room across the corridor, a SMASH sound startled me off the toilet lid.”
“A smash?” Hale said.
“Yes,” she said. “As though, in the other room, two cars crashed.”
The detectives glanced at each other.
Priscilla sighed. “I’ll show you.” She walked across the living room and down the corridor to the bathroom and the detectives followed. She pointed at the toilet. “Seated there, I heard the smash and then opened the bathroom door.” She inched across the corridor to a closed door. “I crept here, listened, and called Ms. Christianne’s name.”
“Did she respond?” Hale said.
“She didn’t.” Priscilla opened the door. “So, opened this door just enough to peek inside.” She stepped inside room, and the others did, as well, examining a bed, a dresser, and a closet door.
“In this room,” she said. “And only in this room, how many doors do you count?”
Hale scanned the room. “Two—Just behind us, there’s an entry door, and near a counter, on our right, there’s a closet.”
She nodded. “Yes, but on that day, on the left, behind the bed, there was a third door.”
“A third door?!” Hale said.
Eyes wide, she nodded.
“I call bull,” Fink said.
“Shut your trap.” Hale circled the bed to a bare wall and touched a bare wall and then watched the girl step backward. “Where was it? ‘Round here?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hale examined the wall and then turned to her. “What did I look like?”
“Like a purple-glowing rectangle stood on its end.” She began to tear. “Through it, I could see a familiar backseat littered with metal and shattered glass. Suddenly, a lady’s hand reached out and grabbed the bedroom wall as though she was trying to pull herself through the door, but since I recognized the bracelets, I knew whose arm it was, closed the bedroom door, and dashed back to the bathroom toilet. Before long, footsteps approached and bathroom door opened, and Ms. Christianne led me out into the living room where, for the rest of the day, we potted plants, sang old commercial jingles, and played boardgames while mom rested. And since a couple of them live in this building and heard all the hallway stuff anyway, I told my friends everything except about the purple door and how it was gone when Ms. Christianne walked me out the bathroom, or where I believed she got the limp she’d had from, or how, when she’d walked me out, she’d handed me my mom’s purse, telling me dad must have dropped in the hallway.”
Hale nodded. “Fink, give the girl pastry money.”
He did, and Priscilla dashed down the corridor and out the apartment.
“A purple door?” Fink said. “Tell me you don’t believe her.”
Hale pulled-out the map and unfolded it and then shrugged. “I don’t know whether I do, but all our evidence might.”