Murder at the Falls by Stefanie Matteson Page B

in the same way?”
    “I don’t know any more about it than that. But if you’re interested, you can ask my friend. His name is Jason Armentrout. He did the paintings you saw inside. He can also tell you more about Randy. They were good buddies. Though Randy was even starting to grate on his nerves toward the end.”
    Tom looked up. “It looks like you have a visitor,” he said.

5
    A hunchbacked old woman clad in a long skirt and a shawl was descending the steps to the patio. Her face was nearly covered by a kerchief, and her feet were incongruously shod in new white running shoes. She couldn’t have been much more than four feet tall, so bent over was she by old age. Coming up to Charlotte, she gestured with a gnarled hand toward the shopping cart that she pulled behind her, which was filled with crumpled newspapers, and muttered something in a language that sounded like Italian. Gesturing again at the cart, she said in English, “One dollar.”
    Curious, Charlotte reached into the cart and withdrew one of the crumpled newspapers. To her delight, she found that it was filled with a bouquet of autumn wildflowers: black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace, and wild asters. “How lovely!” she exclaimed. Taking out her wallet, she paid the woman, who responded with a toothless smile.
    Handing another bill to the old woman, Diana said: “I’ll buy one too,” explaining to her guests that the old woman had been around before. “Sometimes she has violets, sometimes mushrooms, sometimes wild herbs.” She nodded at the mountain that loomed over the city. “I think she picks them up in the reservation.”
    “Excuse me,” said Diana as the old woman mounted the steps back up to Spruce Street, “I’m just going to get a vase for these.”
    She returned momentarily with a small ceramic vase filled with the wildflowers, which she placed in the center of the table. “Here are some damp paper towels for yours,” she said to Charlotte as she handed them to her. “To keep them fresh until you get home.”
    “Thank you,” Charlotte said.
    “That’s the magic of Paterson,” Diana continued as they watched the woman make her way down Spruce Street, pulling her cart behind her. “Magical little things like that old woman appearing with her wildflowers are always happening here. Have you read the poem Paterson by William Carlos Williams?”
    They shook their heads.
    “Allen Ginsberg sometimes does readings of it here. He’s a Paterson native son. Ginsberg, I mean. Williams was a doctor in Rutherford. Anyway, there’s a line in that poem: ‘The mystery of streets and back rooms—’ That mystery is why I hang on here, despite it all. That, and the wonderful buildings.”
    They stayed a few more minutes, asking questions about Randy, to support the charade about the article. Though Diana clearly didn’t believe their story, Charlotte doubted that she suspected their real motive. As an inveterate gossip herself, she probably thought they wanted an excuse to get the lowdown.
    “Where can we find your friend Jason?” Charlotte asked as they were preparing to leave.
    Diana consulted her watch. “Let’s see. At this hour, he’ll probably still be at his studio, which is in the old Columbia Bank building, downtown. Nine Colt Street. If you’re facing City Hall, Colt Street is to your right.”
    Tom nodded. They had gone by City Hall several times in their search for the public safety complex.
    “If he’s not at his studio, he’ll be at Le Club Parisienne, which is right around the corner.
    “Is that a restaurant?” asked Tom. “I’m starving.”
    “Of sorts,” she replied.
    The Columbia Bank was one of those wonderful old Beaux Arts buildings that Charlotte had admired as they were driving around downtown Paterson. Adjacent to City Hall, it, like the other banks in the vicinity, had been built in the same ornate style, with wrought-iron grillwork at the enormous windows, pilasters crowned with lions head