“I can make an assumption.”
“Go ahead.”
“After we talked, you went back to the Abeona Shelter. Rather than hang upstairs in your executive office, you rolled up your sleeves and went into the field because you felt the need to connect or get to your roots or some similar banality. Perhaps you took the van out on rescue missions. Perhaps you counseled a young girl who was recently assaulted. At some point, you raised your head and took a good look around at this rather impressive shelter you, Patricia, built. And then you got misty-eyed and marveled to yourself something akin to: ‘These girls are all so brave, while I’m not going to the FBI because I’m a redundantly cowardly chickenshit.’”
Patricia almost laughs at that. “Not bad.”
“Am I close?”
“Close enough. I have to come forward, Win. You get that, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I get. I’m here to support you.”
“Good, but you’re wrong about one thing,” she adds.
“Oh, do tell.”
“Those girls who never came home?” she says. “They don’t haunt me. They just expect me to do right by them.”
CHAPTER 24
We see no reason to wait. I call PT and tell him that Patricia is ready to talk.
“Glad you chose to call us,” PT says.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we were coming to you. See you in an hour.”
He hangs up, but I didn’t like his tone. An hour later—PT is nothing if not prompt—an FBI helicopter lands at Lockwood. We exchange pleasantries before convening in the parlor, where the Vermeer’s empty frame looms larger than normal. PT has brought a young agent he introduces as Special Agent Max. Special Agent Max wears hip neon-blue-framed glasses. I don’t know whether Max is his first name or last, but I don’t care either.
PT and Max sit on the couch. Patricia takes our grandfather’s old chair. I stand and coolly lean against the fireplace mantel like Sinatra against a lamppost. The word you are looking for is “debonair.”
PT cuts right to it. “Win told me that the suitcase we found at the murder scene belonged to you. Is that correct?”
Patricia says, “Yes.”
“You know about the murder, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Did you know the victim, Ry Strauss?”
“No.”
“Never met him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Ever been to his apartment at the Beresford?”
“No, of course not.”
“Ever been to the Beresford at all?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think so?”
“I guess at some point I may have been there for a function of some kind.”
“A function?”
“A fundraiser, a party, some kind of social event.”
“So you were at the Beresford for something like that?”
I don’t like this.
“No,” Patricia says, seeing it too, “I don’t think so. I don’t remember. But it’s possible. I’ve attended fundraisers in many apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, but I don’t specifically recall one in the Beresford.”
PT nods as though he’s totally okay with that answer. “Where were you on April fifth?”
That is the day of the murder. I do not like the way this is going—more of a tat-tat-tat interrogation than a cooperative coming forward. I decide to break up the rhythm. “What exactly is going on here?” I ask.
PT knows what I’m doing, so he ignores my question. “Ms. Lockwood?”
“Call me Patricia.”
“Patricia, where were you April fifth?”
“It’s no secret,” she says.
“I didn’t say it was a secret. I asked where you were.”
I say, “Stop.”
PT now turns to me. “I’m asking questions, Win.”
“It’s okay,” Patricia says. “It’s public knowledge. I was at Cipriani that night for a fundraiser.”
I confess that this information surprises me.
“The Cipriani in midtown?” PT asks.
“On Forty-Second Street. By Grand Central station.”
“So you were in New York City?”
“If Grand Central station and Forty-Second Street are still considered New York City,” Patricia replies with a hint of irritation, “then the answer is yes.”
“When did you arrive in New York City?”
She sits back and looks in the air. “I spent two nights at the Grand Central Hyatt. I arrived by Amtrak on Friday and departed Sunday.”
The room grows silent from the obvious implication. Patricia breaks it.
“Oh please. We’ve recently opened an Abeona Shelter in East Harlem, so I would venture to guess that over the past six months, I’ve been in New York City almost as much as Philadelphia. I can get you my work calendar if that will help.”
“That would be nice,” PT says.
I stick my nose in again. “Is there a point to this?”
“Win,” Patricia says. The edge in her voice is there but blunted. “Let me handle this.”
She is right, of course.
Patricia turns her attention to both PT and Max. “So what is your theory here? A quarter century after my father was murdered and I was kidnapped, I…what…found out that the perpetrator was living as a recluse in New York City, so I killed him?”
“No need to get defensive,” PT says.
“I’m not defensive.”
“You sure sound defensive. Your suitcase connects you to the murder scene. I would be remiss if I didn’t explore every avenue. Which leads me back to the night of your father’s murder and your abduction.”
“What about it?” she asks.
Special Agent Max takes out a binder and hands it to PT.
“I’ve gone over all the statements from that time period, and there are a few things I would like to clarify.”
Patricia offers up a what gives? look. I reply with a small shrug.
“Your mother, Aline Lockwood, found your father’s body when she came home from shopping. She then called the police.”
PT stops. Here again he leaves a little uncomfortable pause to see whether his suspect dives in. Patricia does not.
“Why wasn’t your mother at home with you and your father?” PT asks.
Patricia lets loose an aggravated sigh. “The report says, doesn’t it?”
“It says she was at a supermarket.”
We wait.
“It was almost ten p.m.,” he continues.
“Agent…” Patricia pauses. “Do I call you Agent PT?”
“PT is fine.”
“No, that doesn’t feel right. Agent PT, when my mother returned, I was tied up in the trunk of a car and blindfolded. I really couldn’t speak to what my mother was doing.”
“I’m simply asking whether your mother often went supermarket shopping at that hour.”
“Often? No. Sometimes? Yes. The FBI checked my mother’s alibi, didn’t they?”
“They did.”