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Decker drew up the only other chair in the room and said, “Bradley Costa?”
Nottingham screwed up his features. “Oh, Brad, yes, yes, of course.” He next looked perplexed. “Is he in some sort of trouble with the FBI?”
“No. Just following up some leads on a case. He was your neighbor back in New York?”
“That’s right. He bought an apartment in my building in SoHo. I’d lived there for decades. I sort of took him under my wing. He was a delightful person.Very handsome. He could have been a model, if you ask me. And smart. He was very successful. Worked on Wall Street.”
“And then he moved?”
“Yes, yes he did. That was very sudden. I was a little hurt, to tell the truth. He never even said goodbye. Here today, gone tomorrow.”
“You have an ancestor, Nigel Nottingham?”
The old man smiled. “Yes. Thebutler. Hewas my great-grandfather. Worked in a horrible place called, um, well, I can’t remember right now, but he labored away for an absolute miser there.”
“John Baron. The place is called Baronville.”
Nottingham snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s right. In, what was it, Ohio?”
“Pennsylvania.”
Nottingham looked sadly at Decker. “In the last year my memory, whichused to be razor sharp, seems to be leaving me. That’s one reason I came here. I…forget things. And I didn’t want to burn my building down by mistake.”
“No reason to be sorry. You’re doing fine. Was Costa interested in the Barons?”
Nottingham scrunched up his features once more. “Well, come to think, it was at a dinner party I threw a number of years ago. I remember becauseI had just been given an award by the fashion industry. It was one of those things you get for being around as long as I had,” he added with an embarrassed smile.
“What happened at the dinner party?”
“Well, it was after we ate and we were having port in my little room of photos. Brad picked up a picture from off a table and asked me about it. Well, it was Nigel. I told himall about him, or at least what my father and grandfather had told me. Nigel was born in England, Surrey, long, long ago and then immigrated to the United States. I’m not clear on how he made it to Baronville. But he became Baron’s butler. His son, Samuel, my grandfather, left Baronville as a young man and moved to upstate New York, where my father was born. My parents moved to Brooklyn after theywere married, and that’s where I was born.”
“So no one in your family wanted to stick around Baronville?”
“Oh, God no. From what I remember being told, it was this dreary piece of dirt where they had coal mines and filthy factories and people were worked to death. My grandfather actually told me that he left because he hated the place. Wanted to get away as soon as he could.And he did. Thank God for that. I doubt I would have had the same career if I had been born and raised there.”
“What about Nigel?”
Nottingham thought for a few moments, tapping the chair arm with his long fingers. “That’s right. I remember now. He stayed on with the Barons until he died.” He paused. “In fact, I remember my grandfather telling me that he went back for Nigel’sfuneral. It was actually funny.”
“What was funny? Not his father dying, surely?”
“Oh, no. It was funny because his father had died on the very same day that Baron did. The one who started the whole town and named it after himself.”
“They died on the same day? I didn’t know that.”
“Yes. Apparently they were the same age. Master and servant till the day theyboth died. Then who cares about titles and who has more money, right?”
“Would it surprise you to learn, then, that Brad Costa moved to Baronville?”
Nottingham slumped down in his chair. “Oh my God, you must be joking.”
“No, I’m not. In fact, he was murdered there.”
As soon as he said this Decker realized it had been a mistake.
Nottingham startedhaving trouble breathing. He was gasping, grabbing his chest and pointing at something. Finally, Decker realized what it was.
The oxygen.
