Havoc-on-Hudson by Bernice Gottlieb Page A

another trash receptacle. He reached the station, breathing smoothly, just as the train pulled in, slicked back his dark hair, and waited for the agent to ar rive.

24
    Leah was a lively, bright woman and I took to her right away. We’d arranged to meet for lunch the following day at the Dobbs Ferry Diner, not far from that town’s train station. She lived nearby, in Pleasantville, so Dobbs Ferry was an easy drive for both of us. I must say I was surprised when I met her. Somehow, I had pictured someone named Leah Goldman as being white, probably Jewish. Rather, Leah was a tall, stately, African woman, most likely my age. She’d been born in Ethiopia and had come to New York in the 1970s to attend NYU. Later, modeling for a wholesale fur business, she’d married the owner, Larry Goldman.
    The first thing Leah wanted to know, as soon as I slid onto the banquette across from her, was why I was asking about Danny Joe Farrell.
    I had to tell her at least a partial truth. “I’m a real-estate agent in this county,” I said, “and we’ve had a series of attacks upon women brokers here—one ending in murder.”
    Leah gasped.
    I went on, “And we have reason to believe that this man may be implicated …”(Notice how loose that “we” is? Technically, if you include the police in the “we,” I’m telling the truth. But, on the other hand, given the syntax of my sentences, it could be much easier to conceive of the “we” as referring to real-estate brokers. Given Leah’s earlier refusal to talk to the police, I’d let her make up her own mind about just exactly who the “we” was.) “So, we decided that I should follow up and see if I could find out anything about him.”
    Before Leah could respond, the young Latina waitress came to take our order—I asked for the Cobb Salad and she ordered the Bison burger with sweet-potato fries.
    Then Leah sat back and regarded me soberly. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you might tell me about Danny Joe. That kid had a rough start. A while back—a long while back—he wrote to me from Juvenile Detention at some place upstate, asking about his mother. He wanted to find her. He sounded desperate about it.” She paused to place the napkin on her lap
    “Were you able to help him?”
    Leah shook her head. “No.”
    “Have you heard from him recently?”
    Another no.
    The diner was crowded, as it usually was at lunchtime. I took a moment to look around, breathe in the delicious air, nod at people I knew. Gather my thoughts. “When was the last time you two communicated?”
    “Let’s see. I guess it was back in the late eighties. DJ stabbed his father. He went after him with a kitchen knife, and that’s why he was sent away. Of course the guy deserved it; he was a monster. I’d be too disgusted to tell you all the stuff he did to that child when he was drinking.”
    “Hmm,” I responded, feeling a bit sick.
    The waitress—her nametag read Luz—delivered glasses of ice water with floating lemon slices. I nodded my thanks and took a long sip.
    Leah went on. “Danny’s mom, Tessa Farrell, and I were neighbors—and, for a while, good friends. When our boys were small, they played together all the time. She was so beautiful she almost made me jealous, a Swedish immigrant with the most gorgeous platinum hair—natural, not bleached.”
    “Do you and Tessa still keep in touch?”
    “Oh, no, it’s not possible. Tessa is dead. Leah teared up.
    “When did she pass, Leah?”
    “I’m not sure, exactly.” She sipped from the Diet Coke Luz had delivered. Seeming to ponder for a moment or two, she looked up at me. “One day, before she moved away, Tessa gave me an envelope. She made me promise not to open it until she’d left Buffalo. I kept my word and waited.
    “Then, poor Tessa, one day after a terrible fight with Frank she just picked up and left—.
    “Who’s Frank?”
    “Her husband, an abuser and a drunk.”
    “Leah, you were a good