The Groaning Board

trespassing.
    “I listen when people talk,
Silvestri. You’re emotionally involved, so you’re going to miss things.”
    Silvestri braked sharply to avoid
being sideswiped by a yellow cab. The dark was slashed with headlights. “I am
not emotionally involved. What Sheila and I had was over a long time ago. I
haven’t seen her in years.” His reply came through clenched teeth.
    Wetzon sighed. Not emotionally
involved, huh? “Jessica told me about the phone calls. She was there once when
Sheila checked her answering machine. It was on the tape.” ‘Metzger didn’t say
anything about it.”
    “Metzger didn’t know. Sheila made
Jessica promise not to tell. He probably knows now because I told Jessica she
had to tell him right away.”
    “I’ll call him when we get home.”
Silvestri rolled down his window and paid the bridge toll.
    He’d become a stranger again, closing
her out. In the middle of the East River, the brightly lit apartment houses on Roosevelt Island floated like a multicandled wedding cake. What made her think about
weddings just now, when their relationship seemed to be unraveling?
    Traffic on the Triborough Bridge came
to a dead stop, x Somewhere ahead there’d been an accident, for the
swirling® lights of the EMS wagon and the whine of police sirens took charge of
the night.
    “Fuck,” Silvestri said, hammering on
the wheel.
    His beeper went off. After checking
the number, he took his cellular phone from under the dash and punched in some
numbers, waited, then spoke. “I’m on the cell because we’re * stuck on the
Triborough, so keep it clean.” He listened for a moment, glanced at Wetzon.
“Yeah, I just heard.” Listened again. “Okay. Let me drop Les, and I’ll meet you
there. Take the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. We’re backed up here till kingdom
come.” He disconnected and replaced the phone.
    Traffic began to creep, then move.
    “You and Artie are going to Sheila’s
place?”
    “Yeah. First I’m taking you home.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    “You want me to put you in a cab?”
    “No. I want to go with you.”
    “That’s crap, Les.” They came off the
bridge and onto the FDR Drive.
    “You said the Crime Scene Unit went
over the place with a fine-tooth comb, so I wouldn’t be interfering with any-
thing.”
    “Forget it.”
    In the glancing light from other
cars, she saw his jaw was set against her. Infuriated, she said, “Isn’t it odd?
Only a fewi months ago you actually asked for my help with Terri Matthews’
murder, Silvestri. How quickly we forget.”
    “This is different.”
    “How is it different? Because you
happen to have been involved with Sheila? You don’t even know that she was
murdered. The CSU has gone over the place; I won’t touch anything. And maybe
I’ll spot something you guys’ll miss. I did find out about the phone calls,
didn’t I? Why didn’t the CSU find the answering machine tape?”
    “I don’t know. There was no sign of a
break-in, no sign that anyone else had been in the apartment. Accidental death
pending autopsy results.” His tone was stiff and cold.
    They didn’t speak again until
Silvestri found a parking place on First Avenue and Seventy-third Street. When
they got out of the car, Silvestri took a small sack from the trunk.
    “What’s that?”
    “Gloves and booties.” He slammed the
trunk closed, made sure the car was locked, then walked off quickly, leaving
her to race after him.
    Seventy-second Street was a
cul-de-sac this far east. On both sides of the street, cars were parked bumper
to bumper.
    “Metzger’s here already,” Silvestri
said. Metzger’s car was on a slant in front of a fire hydrant, a flashing
gumball on its roof. Silvestri looked up at the building. A light went on in
the fourth-floor window. The blinds were down. “Come on,” he told Wetzon.
    The building was one of four
whitewashed tenements with new white-rimmed thermal windows. Fire escapes
climbed the fronts like geometric ivy. Two cement steps led UP to a small
square vestibule with a flooring of tiny black and white tiles in a mosaic
pattern. Built into the wall was a cluster of mailboxes next to a list of
tenants, a buzzer beside each name.
    Silvestri pressed the buzzer for 4F. S.
Gelber. A loud buzz released the lock and let them into the building.
    The fourth floor really meant eight
flights of stairs, but the building was clean and the stairs well lit. Sounds
of life drifted past them: a too loud TV with the Channel 5