ON THE LAST DAY of her life, she took a yoga class. She wore what she always wore, a full-body black leotard and a too-tight faded gray T-shirt with a red crab on it, a no-particular-reason gift from her younger brother many years before. Normally, she wore a burgundy headband to keep her hair out of her face, but just the day before, she had instructed her hairstylist to “change everything,” and he had responded by giving her a short feathery cut, something she could hand-dry and hand-comb, something that would look good even when, technically, it was messy. Her yoga instructor had commented on it as she was rolling out her mat. He was a pole-thin Iranian with dark deep eyes. A slight man. As lithe and limber as a wet noodle, he was the fantasy at one level or another of at least three quarters of the female students in the class. Probably one or two of the males as well. He spoke with a rich British purr.
“I wouldn’t have thought you could be even more beautiful. This is so nice. Very nice.”
Her short bangs slipped away from the instructor’s flirting fingers, and a slight blush no larger than the size of a nickel dotted each cheek. As the instructor moved over to the wall and slid a CD into the boom box, she smoothed a corner of her mat with her toe, then raised her foot and tucked it against the inside of the opposite thigh, folding her palms together as she balanced perfectly on one leg, like a flamingo. She gave a little shake of her head, her new hair falling quicker than usual, then gently closed her eyes. The floodgates of serenity opened.
She had three hours to live.
THE BEST I FIGURE IT, I was on the witness stand at about that exact moment. Actually, I can be more specific. I was on the witness stand, yawning. I’d just checked my watch as the big yawn was building-quarter to four-then turned my attention from the watch face to the slender pale face of the defense attorney who was fidgeting in front of me. The yawn wasn’t entirely intended as commentary, although the sentiment was shared by any of the dozen or so people sitting in the stuffy windowless courtroom. The pale defense attorney shot a wounded look at the judge, who in turn did an admirable job of keeping a straight face as she doled out her reprimand.
“Mr. Malone, the court is aware that outside this room you lead a most fascinating life. But perhaps you’ll make a concerted effort to at least pretend that you have the same interest in the seriousness of these proceedings as the rest of us?”
Her rounding out the statement with the question mark was, I recognized, shortcut for, Can you cut me a freaking break here, Fritz?
I nodded. “Of course, Your Honor. My apologies to the court. I assure you, my yawning has nothing to do with these proceedings. I’ve been having some trouble with my sleep lately.”
The judge addressed the defense lawyer. “I’ve been having some trouble with my sleep as well, counselor. Perhaps we can start trimming the sails here?”
“But Your Honor-”
“Proceed, counselor. The oxygen in this room is finite. We’re wasting it.”
He proceeded. I sent my next yawn down to my feet. You can do that; it’s a trick you can perform so long as you’re ready. I turned my glassy eyes on the defense lawyer as he continued his attempts to take bites out of my testimony. It wasn’t going to work. My testimony was solid. I’d been hired back in the fall to set up a sting on an outfit that had been taking the notion of trademark infringement to a whole new level. The scammers had devised a method of sidelining as much as a quarter of legitimate orders earmarked for certain retail stores and replacing the merchandise-at bloated markups-with their own identical knockoffs. They then arranged for the return of the originals while hiding the return on the retailer’s end through timely hacking in to the retailer’s electronic bookkeeping. Legitimate stores all over the city had been unwittingly moving the knockoffs right alongside the real deals. It was only when rumors of the scam reached a certain level of management that I’d been contacted and asked to bring along my magnifying glass. It took me about a month to locate a coward among the scammers, but once I did, it was a fairly easy matter of putting the fear into him. His legs went jelly, I got from him what I needed, and I proceeded to set up the sting. My end of things was airtight, which was why the pasty-faced defense lawyer’s attempts to puncture my story were boring me to tears.
“Mr. Malone…” He grasped his hands behind his back and took a few stiff-legged steps, as if his knees were no longer working. “As you well know, my client has a completely different recollection of the events you have laid out for us this afternoon…”
I glanced up at the bench. The judge was sending a yawn down to her feet, I’m convinced.
THE WOMAN’S NAME WAS Robin Burrell. She was twenty-seven years old. Five-eight, 128 pounds. Chestnut-brown eyes, chestnut-brown hair. There was a farm-girl freshness to the face, a few pale freckles on the bridge of her nose. She had been raised a Quaker just outside of New Hope, Pennsylvania, and she still attended meetings every Sunday morning at the Quaker meetinghouse on East Fifteenth Street. I would be told that the Sunday before she died, Robin stood up to address the circle at her meeting, made a halting start as she fought to make eye contact with her fellow worshippers, then dropped back into her chair as sobbing tears overtook her. Support from the Friends had been unstinting. Everyone knew that things had been brutally rough for Robin, especially the past several months. And not just the Friends. Everyone in the damn country knew it.
By all reports, Robin was graceful and limber on her final day, though she was apparently suffering a small cold. The class was advanced vinyasa, which Margo tells me is for fairly committed practitioners. Margo herself sticks with hatha yoga, which isn’t all that slouchy, either, as far as I’m the judge. I’ve let myself into her apartment more than once and been confronted with a Margoesque pretzel in the middle of the floor.
Robin Burrell had set up her mat next to the large plate-glass window that serves as an entire wall of this particular yoga studio. The studio is above a hardware store on upper Broadway. The day after Robin died, I spent some time sitting on a bench outside a Ben & Jerry’s across the street from the hardware store and got a sense of how visible the yoga students were near the large window. A tall, striking woman like Robin Burrell, balancing sideways on a yoga block while moving her long legs like a nutcracker…it’s a show that could have given a curious passerby reason to pause.
“She was one of my most devoted students,” the Iranian instructor would tell me. “When I tell the class to hold a pose, Robin would become like a sculpture. She made exquisite lines. Quite extraordinary.”
Robin made her exquisite lines in the large window for an hour, then left class thirty minutes early, rolling her mat into a tight tube and mouthing, “Gotta go. Sorry,” to her instructor, who at the time was heels over head against the front wall, looking like a frozen salamander.
The fellow at the front desk reported that Robin didn’t slip into the small changing room but instead simply pulled on a pair of UGGs and shrugged into a large navy coat that came all the way down to her boot tops. Her ten-class membership had expired with that class, but she told the guy at the desk that she was in a hurry and she’d reup on her next visit. She pulled a copper-colored wool cap from her pocket and tugged it down over her new haircut.
I’d say I was just outside the courtroom talking to a cop friend of mine around the time Robin took off from the yoga place. He was telling me that there had been some sort of ruckus with the Marshall Fox jury and that Judge Deveraux was calling in several armies of lawyers. That explained the tsunami of reporters and cameras hurtling toward Courtroom 512.
A FINE POWDERY SNOWFALL had begun by the time Robin left the yoga studio and started for her home. Her apartment was seven blocks away, on Seventy-first, half a block from Central Park. She stopped at an ATM on Seventy-seventh, then at Fairway, where she picked up a half-dozen oranges, a half-dozen kiwis, two green apples, a wedge of Manchego cheese and a box of Throat Coat tea.
A few blocks later, on Amsterdam, she stopped at a Korean market and scored a package of tissues, some throat lozenges and a dozen packets of a product called Emergen-C. The clerk was watching a tiny black-and-white television on the counter next to the cash register. The fluffy five o’clock news was being overridden with live courthouse coverage of the latest development in the months-long drama of the Marshall Fox trial. The clerk took the twenty that Robin offered and made change. As he counted the bills into her hand, he looked up at her face.
“You her.” His eyes lit up, and he indicated the television excitedly with his chin. “You her!”
Several other people in the shop turned their heads. Robin Burrell took the change and hurriedly left the shop. She reached her building-a five-story brownstone-several minutes later and let herself in. Hers was a floor-through on the first floor. She’d lived there for six years, the lucky legal holder of a rent-controlled lease. The entire east wall of the apartment was exposed brick. The kitchen was in the rear, overlooking a small patch of backyard that Robin shared with the gay couple in the basement apartment. Her bedroom was a narrow windowless room just off the kitchen, accessible by a heavy sliding wooden door that rumbled noisily on its rollers. She often referred to it jokingly as “the crypt.” Some joke. The front room was the largest room in the apartment, with high ceilings, a large marble non-working fireplace, and a curved front wall featuring nine-foot-high bay windows. Normally, Robin kept her curtains pulled when she was home, especially the past several months. However, the week before Christmas, she had purchased a monstrously large Douglas fir and, with the help of one of her downstairs neighbors, set it up in front of the bay windows. It filled the entire space. She told her friend Michelle that decorating the oversize tree was therapeutic. For two generations, Robin’s family had owned and operated a Christmas-tree farm just outside New Hope, until her father’s unexpected death the previous summer had forced them to sell the property. This had been Robin’s first ever Christmas without a homegrown tree. According to Michelle, Robin had felt particularly close to the street-bought tree, saying that she’d bonded with it, orphan to orphan. The tree was nearly as wide as it was tall, and because of this, it blocked from view anything and everything that took place in Robin’s front room.
Robin came home from yoga class and plugged in the tree’s all-white lights. In the kitchen, she sliced one of the oranges into quarters and ate them standing at the counter. She set the cheese on a wooden tray, along with a small knife and one of the apples. She brought this into the living room.
In the bathroom she stripped off her yoga clothes, tossing them into a corner, then got into the shower. As she stood under the hot jets, she would have seen her own body reflected in the mirror mounted on the wall opposite the showerhead. This was one of the details that the Gentleman Jew (as Robin had dubbed the lead prosecutor) had skillfully managed to prod from her on the witness stand: at her lover’s request, she had purchased the mirror and mounted it on the shower wall.
He liked to watch.
After her shower, Robin probably hand-dried her hair, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a green V-neck sweater. She put on some music. Ravel’s Bolero. I have a friend who can’t listen to Bolero without climbing the walls. He describes his problem as “aural claustrophobia.” The slow relentless build drives him nuts. I sort of know what he means. After Robin put on the Bolero, she lit two new tapers (she dug out the old nubs and tossed them in the trash), three block candles, and four tea candles in holiday holders. There’s no telling precisely when she turned on her television or when she checked her answering machine. What is known is that the Bolero went on around ten past six. The basement neighbor recalled hearing it beginning its build as he left to meet his boyfriend and some friends for drinks on Columbus.
THE CORONER PUT Robin Burrell’s death at anywhere from six-thirty to eight, eight being roughly when the stringer for the Post leaned precariously over the railing from the top steps of Robin’s stoop and saw her mutilated half-naked body lying in its grotesque twist beneath her Christmas tree. No fool this guy. He snapped the picture, called his contact at the Post, the columnist Jimmy Puck, and waited until Puck had roared uptown to the scene before heading with his camera down to the diner next to the Post ’s offices and phoning the police from there.
It was around that same time, across the park, that Rosemary Fox’s maid accidentally dropped a garlic press on her boss’s phone machine and heard the same gravelly-voiced message-word for word-that the police would soon be retrieving from Robin Burrell’s machine.
“I’m coming, you whore. Can you taste the blood yet?”
THERE HAD BEEN an all-out fistfight in the jury room. My cop friend-his name was Eddie Harris, like the jazz guy-had gotten me into Courtroom 512 to witness the fallout. Harris was a member of the arrest team that had taken Marshall Fox into custody the previous spring. He’d gotten his fifteen minutes of fame on the stand in late November, describing for the jury-as well as for the gazillion viewers tuning in-the cooperative demeanor Fox had displayed when the police arrived at his East Side penthouse with their warrant. Fox had known they were coming. At that point, half of America had known they were coming. Harris described how Fox had invited the officers in for coffee and donuts.
“Donuts?” the assistant prosecuting attorney had asked, practically contorting his eyebrow into a calculated question mark. “Sergeant, did you think the defendant was mocking you and your fellow officers? Did you feel that Mr. Fox was making light of what was a very serious situation?”
The officer shrugged. “It’s what he does. He’s a comedian.”
“But did you think that his crack about the donuts was particularly funny? I mean, under the circumstances?”
Harris’s response had been the leading sound bite of the day.
“You mean the cops-and-donuts thing? I’m no expert, but that’s pretty old material, isn’t it? I’d have expected something a little better, a big-deal guy like that.”
Harris cut me loose once we’d gotten inside the courtroom. The place was packed. First and foremost were the ladies and gentlemen of the media, doing the usual spot-on parody of themselves. A high-profile murder trial is, for lack of a better analogy, like an irresistible gigantic piñata, and for the two and a half months of this one, the reporters, columnists, on-air legal specialists, and news-talk hyenas had been giddily landing blows pretty much around the clock, each angling to be the one in the public eye when something colorful and provocative spilled out. Members of the media far outnumbered those attending the trial for more personal reasons-friends and families of the two victims, for example.
The courtroom was buzzing.
Peter Elliott, the assistant prosecuting attorney, was standing at the prosecution table, stretching his back. I managed to catch his eye, and he acknowledged me with a head bob. I’d done some work for Peter in the summer, before the trial got officially under way. Background checks on some of the potential jurors; no real heavy lifting. Kicking over trash cans and looking for rats. Nobody is ever a hundred percent happy with all twelve members of a jury, but Peter had been philosophical about the seven women and five men who had eventually landed on the Fox jury, allowing that he could have imagined much worse. Over the course of the lengthy trial, he had cause to reconsider that opinion. The warning signals had sounded softly at first-grumbles, evident bad chemistry between some of the jurors, notes of complaint and irritation passed along to the judge-the real problems beginning once the defense rested and the case had been handed over to the jury. There were plenty of obvious factors to account for frazzled nerves in the twelve people whose lives had been yanked away from them for nearly two months already. But Peter blamed the Christmas break for the most serious unraveling. When the trial started, nobody had anticipated the proceedings moving past November and certainly not continuing into the holiday season. The jury had been sequestered since the beginning of the trial, but of course the judge made arrangements for time with family in the days surrounding Christmas. It was Peter’s feeling that the days of freedom had done real damage to the fabric of the jury’s exhaustive deliberations rather than releasing some of the pressure. He surmised that the break had only served to sharpen the anger of the more impatient members of the panel. Judging from the rumors that were swirling around Courtroom 512, it seemed that maybe Peter’s fears were correct.
I gave myself up to the natural tides and, after a few jostling minutes, was gently bumped up against the real live version of a woman I was more accustomed to seeing in a plastic box with a square hole cut into the front. Her name was Kelly Cole. A palomino blonde with large chocolate eyes, she was tapping the nonbusiness end of a pen against her slender lips and frowning down at her reporter’s notebook. The little squiggle between her eyebrows was the sole blemish on her milk-smooth face. I pointed it out to her.
“Baby’s first frown line,” I said. “So cute.”
The tapping pen halted. The line evaporated. “Well. Fritz Malone. Can it really be? What brings you here? I wouldn’t have thought celebrity trials were your kind of thing.”
“They’re not. I was down the hall putting the screws to some pirates. The riptide brought me in.” I indicated her notebook. “Looking for your lead?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Though I don’t know why I think it makes any damn difference. Do you think the viewers pay one iota of attention to my syntax?”
I rejected a lame joke about the alluring reporter’s syntax and instead asked, “So what do Ms. Cole’s sources tell her about what’s going on here?”
She gave me a “nice try, buster” look. “Who says Ms. Cole has those kind of sources?”
“The kind of sources that leak good dirt on our airtight jury? I don’t know, I guess I just consider you more wily than the average bear.”
“Well, the defense is itching for a mistrial here, but everyone knows that. That’s hardly a secret. A contentious jury is their best chance, and this one seems to be a powder keg these days.”
“Eddie Harris told me there’d been a fight.”
“That’s the word on the street.”
“You really don’t have the details?”
She shrugged. “We can speculate. Either the truck driver is finally fed up with the schoolteacher or the actress-waitress is tired of being hit on by the guy who owns the bar. That’s how my scorecard looks.”
“What about the foreperson?” I asked.
“Foreperson. Honestly. A person could choke on PC shit like that.”
I pressed. “I’ve heard some rumors.”
“That Madame Foreperson tried to get herself removed? Could be. According to the people who’re keeping score, she’s seemed the most fragile of the bunch.” The reporter pulled something from her blazer pocket and flipped it open. For a second I thought it was a cell phone, but it turned out to be a compact mirror. She checked out the goods, taking a scrape with her fingernail at the edge of her lipstick.
I asked, “So what’s the office pool saying?”
“On Fox?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, the cowboy’s going down for it, no question about it.”
“No question? Mr. Simpson managed to squirm off the hook.”
She slipped the mirror back into her pocket. “Mr. Simpson was an anomaly. There’s no race card here. Besides, that’s Hollywood. We do things differently in New York. We tear down the mighty for breakfast.”
She sounded more than a little eager for a verdict of guilty, and I told her so. “You’re drooling, Ms. Cole.”
Something deep in her eyes pulsed. “I’m entitled to my opinion. So long as I don’t broadcast it.”
“And your opinion is that he did it.”
“Them. The bastard killed both of them. Any idiot can see that.”
The door to the jury room had just opened, and twelve of Marshall Fox’s alleged peers began the shuffle-march into the jury box.
I noted, “All it takes is one idiot.”
“Would you like to put up a wager?”
“Not with you, sweetheart. Not with your inside information.”
If eyes were bricks, I’d have had my head staved in. Her milky skin went red. “Screw you! That is so fucking yesterday, I can’t believe you’re even saying that.”
I raised my hands. “Whoa. You’re right. I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
“You’re damn right it’s stupid! Give me a break already.” She gave her head a toss. How she knew it would make her hair fall perfectly into place was beyond me. “You’ll excuse me. I’ve got to go earn my measly nickel.”
With that, another of Marshall Fox’s former girlfriends moved off, bumping and grinding her way through the crowd to get to the media corral.
THE CORONER DETERMINED that the blows to Robin Burrell’s head, powerful though they were, weren’t what killed her. For certain they stunned her, but chances were-unfortunately-that they didn’t even make her lose consciousness. Her attacker handcuffed her ankles together and, with a second pair of handcuffs, bent one of Robin’s arms behind her back and cuffed her wrist to the chain of the first pair of cuffs. Robin was extremely limber-freshly so-and she probably bent backward easier than most.
It was shards from the broken shower mirror that he used to cut her. He also used them to cut the jeans partway off. The largest shard was the one that killed her. It was surmised that the killer must have seen to it when he smashed the mirror that he came away with at least one large, jagged piece. This was the one found protruding from Robin Burrell’s neck. The reflecting side was facing her.
Just in case she had wanted to watch.
JUDGE DEVERAUX SUMMONED the two lead attorneys to the bench. Each attorney was trailed by several lackeys, but the judge made a backhanded motion dismissing them. This talk was for the big boys only. Peter Elliott made a play to remain included, but his boss, Lewis Gottlieb-the Gentleman Jew-placed a hand on his shoulder and dismissed him.
Generally speaking, Sam Deveraux had been receiving high marks for his handling of the Fox trial. Physically, he was an imposing figure: a six-foot-three, 240-some-odd-pound, fifty-seven-year-old African American with a large expressive face and a voice whose rich resonant rumble seemed capable at times of causing the walls around him to tremble. It was definitely capable of causing the people around him to tremble, as had been evident throughout the trial whenever the judge employed his mountainous energy to bring the histrionic or the shrill or the incendiary back into line. In a trial featuring no shortage of bona fide celebrities, both on the witness stand and in the audience, Sam Deveraux had emerged as the freshest and most impressive personality of the lot.
The two attorneys bounced slightly on their toes as they conferred with the judge. At the defendant’s table, Marshall Fox’s mood seemed inappropriately spry, considering the circumstances. He was bantering with his various attorneys, at least one of whom, it was generally acknowledged, had been included on the team for the sole purpose of providing the defendant with a fawning sycophant, a ready-made audience for the entertainer’s fabled need for attention. His name was Zachary Riddick, and he was known in courthouse circles-and beyond, for that matter-as a headline grabber, one of those self-satisfied bottom-feeders in the profession who’ve determined that being provocative and noisy can go a long way toward covering over a basic lack of legal expertise or skill. He had boyish good looks-a trifle too boyish, in Margo’s view-and had learned how to get his name on some of the various A-lists around town, popping up at celebrity bashes or high-profile fund-raisers, usually with a fresh piece of arm candy. Riddick and Fox had been acquainted even before Fox’s arrest, and when rumors began growing of Marshall Fox’s imminent arrest in the two Central Park murders, Riddick had bobbed immediately to the surface, offering vigorous denouncements of the district attorney, the New York City Police Department, Marshall Fox’s competition in the late-night wars, you name it. Professionally speaking, his presence on Fox’s defense team was considered a joke. But as I say, it seemed to amuse Marshall Fox to have him around.
A burst of laughter erupted from the defendant’s table. Marshall Fox was pantomiming trussing up Zachary Riddick like a rodeo steer. Judge Deveraux’s molten gaze cleared the heads of the two attorneys in front of him as he took in the defendant’s table, and the little party broke up.
“Jesus Christ.”
A man seated near me in the rear pew gave an exasperated sigh and pushed himself to his feet. Fiftyish. Thinning brown hair. A pleasant face except for its currently being creased in irritation. He was wearing an eight-hundred-dollar suit and looked like a million bucks. I recognized the face. Alan Ross, director of programming at KBS Television. Ross was the man responsible for plucking Marshall Fox from a dude ranch in South Dakota and bringing him east to make him a star. Margo had interviewed Ross for an article in New York magazine soon after Fox’s fuse had hit the powder. Intelligent man. Very candid about his ambivalence concerning his role in “creating” Marshall Fox. New York had titled the article “My Fair Fox,” cuing off Ross’s comments comparing his machinations to the egomaniacal meddlings of Professor Henry Higgins in the musical redo of the Pygmalion story. I’d met him-I’d swung by the restaurant where Margo was conducting the interview. He’d been polite, almost courtly, and extremely complimentary of Margo. Since Fox’s arrest on multiple murder charges, Ross had been a frequent presence in the media, soberly but firmly defending his protégé and somewhat famously conducting public hand-wringing for having brought the former ranch hand into the limelight in the first place.
Ross grunted an acknowledgment as he moved past me out of the pew. He made his way to the banister separating the courtroom seating from the defendant’s table. The executive was too far away for me to hear his exchange with Riddick and Fox, but from the expressions on both men’s faces, it appeared that Ross’s message was a duplicate of Judge Deveraux’s. Shut your stupid traps!
The conference at the bench broke up, and the two attorneys returned to their corners. The judge waved a clerk over. Lewis Gottlieb huddled with Peter Elliott, and from where I was sitting, I wasn’t seeing a terribly pleased expression on either face. Alan Ross returned to the pew. As I scooted back to let him pass, he gave me a game smile.
“Welcome to the tawdry follies.” He sat down heavily next to me. “ Franklin, isn’t it?”
“Fritz,” I corrected him. “Fritz Malone.”
“Right, right. Alan Ross.” He offered his hand, and we shook. Ross leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I used to be legendary for my low blood pressure. Amazing what a little celebrity murder trial can do to you, isn’t it?”
“I try to steer clear of them as often as I can,” I said.
“Oh? Did you take a wrong turn on your way to traffic court?”
“I was down the hall on business.”
“Private investigation. Do I recall correctly?”
“You do.”
“Just couldn’t pass on the train wreck, eh?”
I shrugged. “Guilty.”
Judge Deveraux dismissed the clerk. He looked out over the packed courtroom, taking his time, sweeping his head slowly, like a lighthouse beam throttled down to a slow crawl. Taking hold of his mallet, he lifted it with both a solemnity and a certain degree of weariness, as if its weight over the course of the trial had been increasing daily and it had now, at this moment, reached the absolute maximum poundage that the judge would be capable of lifting.
“Give my best to Ms. Burke, will you?” Ross said.
I nodded. “Will do.”
The judge’s mallet fell, making, as it always did, a sound like that of a large bone being snapped in two.
“Order!”
THE SLICING TOOK PLACE in Robin Burrell’s bedroom. The crimson of her pillows alone was testament to that much. Her radio alarm clock was among the numerous items found strewn on the floor next to the upturned bedside table. The clock had come unplugged from the wall: 6:48 was frozen on its face.
Was she dead already or still dying when her body was dragged along the short hallway into the front room? I have to hope she was already dead, that’s all I’ll say about it. She was placed under the huge Christmas tree, cuffed and bent backward, the large wedge of mirror glass protruding from her throat. And then, just as in the case of the two murders for which the star of Midnight with Marshall Fox was currently on trial, Robin Burrell’s right hand had been placed palm down against her breast, inches above the newly stilled heart, and, as with the second of the Central Park victim’s, affixed there with a simple four-inch nail driven all the way in to its head.
THE JUDGE ASKED that the courtroom be cleared of members of the press as well as any onlookers who did not have a direct role in the trial. A collective grumble rose from the ranks of the reporters as they made their way out of the room. Ross excused himself and squeezed past me. I was starting out of the pew when I heard my name being called above the low din.
“Fritz!”
It was Peter Elliott. He waved me over. “Can you stick around?”
“You heard the judge.”
Peter swatted the air. “Forget that. We had you on payroll. You can stay. I’m not sure how this is all going to go. If this jury disintegrates, you might have to keep me from killing myself.”
I took a seat in the now empty front row. Across the aisle from me sat Rosemary Fox. Her extraordinary beauty was as placid and hard-edged in person as it appeared in photographs. As I watched, her husband turned from the defense table and mouthed something to her. Then he gave his trademark gesture, the one with which he had been signing off after his hour and a half on the air for three years, five nights a week, right up until the day of his arrest. He brought the fingers of his right hand to his lips for a kiss, then placed the hand softly over his heart.
Rosemary Fox remained as still as a steel statue. I can’t even characterize the look that was likewise frozen on her face. Molten? All I can say is that it wiped Marshall Fox’s famous smirk right off his face. You’d have thought he’d just rounded the corner into the path of an oncoming train.
Judge Deveraux had turned to the jury. His voice came on like a low rumble of thunder. “One thing I want to make clear to all of you right now, before I go any further. You will be going back into that jury room first thing tomorrow morning. You will continue to deliberate. And you will be delivering a verdict to this court, even if I have to sit in there with you and hold your hand and slap you silly and referee all the crap that’s been going on for too damn long now. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
He placed his hands down flat and leaned forward. He looked like he was ready to bound right out of his chair. “I want to see twelve heads nodding. Now.”
THE SNOW HAD NEITHER let up nor intensified but was still coming down like finely sifted sugar. Nearly a dozen police cars, along with two ambulances, were clogging the narrow street, their lights flashing blue and red tattoos on and off the snow-powdered trees, the parked cars and the gawkers. The latter were growing in numbers and animation by the minute. Yellow crime-scene tape embraced the front of five attached brownstones. But it was the middle one that was receiving most of the attention, the one with the oversize Christmas tree all atwinkle in white in the high front windows.
I followed the scores of footprints to the edge of the onlookers. A bank of spotlights had been set up and directed at the brownstones. The illuminated area looked not so much like daylight as like the light of a flashbulb stilled at the moment of going off. Inside the apartment with the Christmas tree, real flashbulbs were going off.
Not a good sign.
Having gotten as far as I could, I pulled out my cell phone and hit the code for Margo. She answered immediately.
“Fritz! Where are you? You’re never going to guess what’s happened.”
“One of your neighbors has been murdered.”
“Oh. You know.” She sounded disappointed.
“Poke your head out the window.”
I looked up at the top floor of a brownstone across the street from where all the activity was taking place. Several seconds passed, then I saw a form pass in front of a window. The window went up. Margo Burke leaned out into the abyss, holding the phone to her ear. In my ear, her voice said, “I don’t see you.”
“Down here. Not too tall, not too short, just right.” I waved my free hand.
“There you are!” She waved back. “I’ve been watching out the window for about an hour. It’s a murder, right?”
“I believe it is.”
“Oh, Jesus. And you see who it is?”
“I see whose apartment it is,” I said.
“Oh, Fritz, come on. It has to be her.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
I saw her switch the phone to her other ear. “I’m not jumping to conclusions. Come on, this was Marshall Fox’s lover, for Christ’s sake.”
I reminded her, “Former. And what of it? Since when do you have to be involved with a celebrity to get whacked in this town?”
“Whacked. Well, aren’t you Mr. Mob tonight?”
“Besides,” I said, “we don’t know yet if it’s her.”
The line crackled. Even though we were separated by only a few hundred feet, I guess our signals first had to travel untold miles up into space before bouncing back down to us. “You know the policeman’s secret handshake. Why don’t you go find out?”
Which is what I did. And, of course, she was correct. The first official homicide victim of the New Year in the borough of Manhattan was Robin Jane Burrell. Age twenty-seven. Originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania. Or, as one of the tabloids would put it the following day in a caption beneath the grim photo of the woman lying trussed beneath the Christmas tree: NO HOPE.
KELLY COLE WAS REPORTING from the dark snowy steps of the courthouse. Even though there was no logical reason for it, the news department still felt that the courthouse steps were the appropriate backdrop for the story about the fracturing Marshall Fox jury and Judge Deveraux’s refusal to accept a deadlock. The other breaking story, the discovery of the body of Robin Burrell in her uptown apartment, was tag-teaming with the jury story. Margo and I were watching the news on TV.
“Kelly Cole told me no one pays attention to her syntax.”
Margo’s hand froze halfway to her open mouth. The popcorn remained poised for the toss. “Her what?”
“Her syntax.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“At the courthouse. We were shooting the breeze before Deveraux cleared the room. May I add, it was a very light breeze.”
Margo’s wrist snapped. As she chewed the popcorn, her eyes traveled several times between me and the television. “She’s pretty.”
I shrugged. “If you like them blond and curvy.”
“Well…” Munch-munch. “She has lovely syntax.”
We were in Margo’s living room, keeping the couch company. I was also keeping a short glass of whiskey company, dipping into it like a crow at a birdbath, making it last. The bowl of popcorn was on Margo’s lap, and she had her arms wrapped around it like she might sing it a lullaby later. The spines of Margo’s several thousand books stared back at us from the solid wall of bookshelves, along with the television set, which Margo had rolled over from its usual resting place in the corner of the room. The dimmer was on low. The snow outside the window was still sifting down like an ever-falling veil. But the reportage of murders and contentious jurors pretty much killed the mood.
“It looks like they’re not going to mention it,” Margo said.
The coverage had switched from the courthouse steps back to the scene outside Robin Burrell’s building. The reporter on the scene wasn’t saying anything different from what he had said at the top of the newscast. An anonymous call to 911 at around 8:40 had led police to the scene, where they had discovered the murdered body of Robin Burrell lying on the floor in her front room. All that police were saying was that the woman’s death “did not appear to be accidental.” No mention was made of the cuffing of the victim’s feet, or the trail of blood stretching from the blood-soaked bedroom to the front room, or the mirror shard that had been jammed into her throat. But what Margo was referring to specifically was the fact that no one was reporting that the body of Robin Burrell had been arranged in the same fashion as the bodies of the two women for whose murders Marshall Fox, America ’s favorite television bedtime companion for the past three years, was being tried. Not so much the handcuffs, which had appeared on only one of Fox’s alleged victims. And not the mirrored glass, which was unique to the Burrell killing. But the hand placed over the heart. Fox’s signature sign-off. In the case of the first victim, a ballpoint pen had been used, a crude but effective enough means to hold the hand in place. Ten days later, the killer had upgraded to the hammer and nail.
“They’re not telling because the police haven’t let it out,” I said.
“Except they told you.”
“That’s because I know the secret handshake.”
“Besides which, you’re not likely to stand up in front of a television camera and start blabbing.”
“Only if they tickle me in the right spots.”
“Hey. How long have I known you, and I still don’t know the right spots.”
“But I applaud the tenacity of your efforts.”
Before coming upstairs to Margo’s, I’d gotten the lowdown from homicide detective Joseph Gallo, of Manhattan ’s Twentieth Precinct. Gallo was normally a cool customer, a regular Mr. Ice. But this one had rattled him. His face had been pale and grim as he briefly sketched out the scene for me. He was especially grim when he told me about the hand being nailed over the heart. He’d fixed me with a look I’m not used to seeing on Joe Gallo’s face. Little bit of dread, little bit of fear.
“We might not have him. I’d have bet my father’s farm it was Fox. I swear I could see those two dead women in his eyes. But Jesus, Fritz. It might actually not be him. After all this. This thing here is a pure carbon copy. The freak who did those women might still be out there. I don’t even want to think about it.”
I declined Margo’s gesture to refresh my drink. She fixed me with her frankest look. “You are staying the night.” If there was a question mark attached to her words, it was completely silent. I confirmed that I was staying. “That’s good,” she said. “You won’t think less of me if I confess that I’m a bit spooked?”
“Not at all.”
“Good. I’ll go put on my bedroom eyes.”
Which she did, though I didn’t get to see them much. It’s not that there wasn’t sufficient ambient light in the bedroom; it was that the ambient light was still pulsing blue and red from across the street, and Margo’s eyes remained clenched shut the entire time. An hour later, as she lay curled asleep under her quilt, I was out of the bed and leaning on the windowsill, looking across the street through the snow into the apartment on the first floor. The huge Christmas tree remained lit. A peculiar sensation was going through me as-I couldn’t help myself-I imagined Robin Burrell’s destroyed body lying lifeless in her front room. It was a sensation I’ve experienced numerous times. An occupational hazard. It’s a chill that runs through me. A sensation of cold dread, as if the temperature of my blood has suddenly dropped by a good thirty degrees or more and is going to remain there. The feeling is one of my blood being replaced by a maliciously cold silk, threatening to freeze me up. I know what does it. It’s broken bodies. It’s the rupture of violence and then a heart gone abruptly as still as a stone. Dead still. It jolts me more than I think I sometimes know. It’s life made inconsequential. And I hate it.
As I stood at Margo’s window, I had a particularly unsettling feeling. A similar dread had visited me just a week previous, after I spent an hour talking with Robin Burrell in her apartment. The apartment had been uncommonly warm, and Robin had asked me if I could reach around her as-yet-undecorated Christmas tree and shove open the large windows for her. Which I did. That wasn’t when the chill took me. It happened afterward, when I was standing at Margo’s bedroom window-just like this, elbows on the windowsill, frown on the face-watching as Robin perched precariously on a footstool, mindfully stringing the small white lights on her gigantic tree. The chill had come when she glanced up from the tree and caught me watching her.
ROBIN BURRELL WAS an extremely organized person. She had divided the letters and the printed-out e-mails into three categories and set them in separate piles on her dining table.
“These are the general ones,” she had told me, indicating the largest of the piles. “They’re pretty much ‘you go, girl’ letters. A lot of them are very sweet. ‘Keep your chin up. Don’t let them get you down. We’re behind you.’ That kind of thing.”
I picked up a letter from the pile. It was from Karen from Texas. That’s how the author of the letter had signed it. It was written on holiday stationery, a sheet of cream-colored paper bordered with red silhouettes of reindeer. Karen’s handwriting was round and precise. She made her O’s large and, in words with two of them in a row, strung them together so they looked like the eyes of an owl. Karen might have been eleven or eighty, it was impossible to tell.
Dear Robin,
On TV you look very brave. I’m sorry the lawyers are being so mean to you but I guess that is their job. I thought I should tell you that when you look right into the camera you look like you regret everything that happened from the bottom of your heart. I am including you in my prayers. God bless you.
Karen from Texas
“Most of the ones in that pile are from women,” Robin said. “Though with some of the e-mails, if they don’t sign their names, it’s sometimes hard to tell from the e-mail address.”
The other two piles had interested me more. There were fewer letters in these piles. Mostly, they were e-mails that Robin had printed out. One of the piles contained messages from men who wanted to either meet Robin, date her, introduce her to their family, marry her, or take her far, far away from New York. This last category included a proposed thirty-day hike in New Zealand.
“That one actually made me think twice,” Robin said. “Thirty days in New Zealand sounds like a paradise to me right about now.”
“What do you think of Gary?” I held up a photograph of a thirtyish man wearing a red baseball cap and posing alongside a six-foot-tall Minnie Mouse. Gary ’s was a marriage proposal. He wrote that he lived in the Finger Lakes district of central New York State, owned a house and a small boat, and had a contact at one of the local wineries, so he could get “the good stuff” at below cost.
“It says here he’s single and never been married. What’s a grown man with no kids doing down in Disney World getting his picture taken with Minnie Mouse?”
“Please don’t make fun of him,” Robin said. “I’m guessing he’s a very lonely person. That’s what a lot of these seem to be from.”
“Which piles are the kinky ones in?”
“I put those in with the hate mail.” She tapped a finger on the remaining pile. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough for doing this. Are you sure you don’t want any tea or something? A drink?”
“I’m fine.”
“I feel bad imposing myself on you this way.”
“You’re not imposing. Don’t mention it.”
She picked the top sheet off the third pile. “A lot of these are just stupid horny stuff. Still, it’s creepy, being on the receiving end. But some of the others get really nasty. I just figured either way, nasty or stupid, they’ve come from people I wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley, so I bunched them all in as hate mail.”
She scanned the paper in her hand, and tears came to her eyes. She handed it to me. Her voice was choked. “Why is this happening?”
THE POST HIT THE STREETS before dawn with its lurid photograph on the front page, showing Robin lying dead beneath the Christmas tree. It wasn’t evident from the angle of the photo that her body had been arranged to resemble the two murder victims in the Fox case, but it didn’t really make any difference. The leaks had begun. Leaks and rumors. A tabloid can run marathons on leaks and rumors alone. The Post suggested, and the talking heads parroted the suggestion, that Robin Burrell had not been murdered by a copycat killer but that Marshall Fox was innocent after all of the two murders for which he had just been tried and that the original killer was again on the march. Women, lock your doors.
The morning talk shows couldn’t get enough of the murder of Marshall Fox’s former lover. The same faces that had been choking the studios of Court TV and Larry King Live for the months leading up to and during the trial were all risen and shined to weigh in on this latest development. I caught a few minutes of Alan Ross expressing his deep regret for Robin Burrell and her loved ones while at the same time clearly thrilled to be making the case for Fox’s innocence in the earlier murders. I mentioned to Margo that I’d run into Ross in the courtroom and that he’d passed along his greetings.
“’ow is old ’enry ’iggins anyway?” she asked, butchering her own pretty face with god-awful contortions. She was less than thrilled when I suggested she retire her cockney.
As I clicked robotically from station to station, I knew that Joseph Gallo could not be enjoying his morning coffee. I felt a little bad-but only a little-that I had lied to Gallo the night before. When I’d told one of the cops on the scene outside Robin Burrell’s building that I needed to speak with the detective in charge, it was primarily a preemptive move. I wanted to explain why it was that a competent check of the various fingerprints that were no doubt being lifted inside Robin’s apartment at that very moment was going to include the name of Fritz Malone in the results. I’d explained to Gallo that Robin Burrell had asked me into her home a few weeks before to take a look at the mail she’d been receiving as a result of her televised participation in the Fox trial. I told him that I had taken some of the letters and the printed-out e-mails out of the apartment, to give them some additional study. The e-mails weren’t so important-the police would be able to retrieve those from Robin’s computer-but I had the only copies of the letters.
My lie had been in telling Gallo that the letters were in Queens, at Charlie Burke’s house. Charlie is my friend, my former boss, my former partner, Margo’s father, all of the above. I told Gallo that I’d taken the letters and e-mails out to Charlie’s so that he could go over them with me. If the homicide chief had known that they were actually right across the street at Margo’s, he’d have had me fetch them right away. Gallo made me promise to bring the letters into precinct headquarters first thing in the morning.
I showered and broke a bagel with Miss Margo. She was still glued to the tube. I was feeling heavy and sluggish, and I guess it showed.
“Do you want to go back to bed?” Margo asked. “That is one of the advantages of being self-employed, you know.”
“It can also be one of the downfalls.” The TV was driving me nuts. It usually does. A photograph of Robin Burrell came on. I aimed the remote and clicked the set off, tossing the remote on the coffee table.
Margo frowned. “Hey.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, were they saying something new?” I hadn’t intended the note of sarcasm that leached in.
Margo smirked. “If it’s going to be another scintillating lecture about the media, please hold on while I get my notebook. I wouldn’t want to miss something.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll say. You’re dragging around here like you’ve got a hairball you can’t cough up. Maybe you should go back to bed and get up on the right side. What’s going on?”
“I should have told her to get out of town for a while.”
Margo’s eyes narrowed. She lifted her coffee cup with both hands, floating it under her chin. “Oh. I see.”
“What do you see?”
“I see a little blame-gaming, that’s what.”
“She was concerned.”
“Of course she was concerned. There is a world of wackos out there, and she was exposed to God only knows how many of them. That doesn’t mean if one of them got to her it was your fault.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t look like you know that.”
“I could have told her to be more careful.”
“Stop it right there.” Her cup rattled to the table. “Look at me. Robin Burrell did not hire you. Okay? She was not one of your clients. She was not your responsibility. Capisce? She was a neighbor to whom you were nice enough to lend an ear and take a look at some of her screwy fan mail.”
“One of her screwy fans, as you put it, might have slit her throat and trussed her like a calf and run a nail through her heart.”
“Maybe so. And thanks for the graphic reminder while we’re at it. But maybe not. There may be a hundred other answers to who did it, you don’t know. You do know what my dad says about jumping to conclusions.”
I did know. Charlie Burke was a walking, talking rule book of investigation techniques and pointers. Back when he was whipping me into shape, I wanted to strangle him sometimes, the way he peppered me with his aphorisms.
“The Sayings of Chairman Daddy,” I grumbled.
Margo’s voice lowered. “We can turn this thing nasty if you’d like.”
“Now who’s getting up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“Hey, I’m trying to help you here.” She gestured toward the window. “You spent an hour in the woman’s apartment. You came over here with a pile of the woman’s mail. Maybe you even went and talked to her a second time, I don’t know. And now she’s dead. You have no connection with that whatsoever. You were the good guy. I don’t happen to think you have a single thing to regret.”
“I regret that she’s dead.”
I regretted something else, too. Immediately. I regretted saying what I’d just said in the particular heavy tone I’d said it in. I was sluggish. I wasn’t picking up on Margo’s cues quickly enough. Maybe you even went and talked to her a second time. Margo crossed her arms then instantly uncrossed them. Suddenly, they were awkward appendages.
“You’d better get that stuff off to your cop.”
I shook my head slowly. “Not on this note.”
She leveled her look at me. “I saw you standing at the window last night. You thought I was asleep.”
“I wasn’t thinking about whether you were asleep or not.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going to apologize. But I’m not sure for what.”
“Then don’t.”
“Look, a woman who asked me for some help was murdered right across the damn street. I know it’s not my responsibility, but sue me, I feel bad about it. I woke up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I went to the window and took turns feeling sorry for the dead woman and feeling sorry for myself. I can’t justify the pity party, but there it is. I think that’s pretty much the whole picture.”
She let my words hang in the air. “I accept your apology.”
“You forced my apology.”
“I know I did. I accept it anyway.”
I looked at my watch. “This is pretty early for daytime drama, don’t you think? It’s been swell fighting with you, lady, but I’ve got to be going.”
Margo’s voice was without inflection. “You’re going to get involved with this thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m taking the letters to Joe Gallo. I have to do that.”
“But you said you were going to copy them first.”
“That’s right.”
“If you need something to read, I’ve got a zillion books right here.”
I went into the bedroom and grabbed my coat off the chair. I fetched a PBS tote bag from the closet and went into the living room and collected Robin Burrell’s letters and e-mails and put them in the tote. When I popped into the kitchen to say goodbye, Margo was still at the table, holding her coffee cup up near her chin once more.
“Did you see her a second time, Fritz?”
I took a beat. “Would it actually matter if I had?”
Even though she was already stock-still, I got the impression that she froze just a tad more. Maybe it was her eyes.
“Not the answer I wanted to hear.”
I hoisted the tote bag onto my shoulder. “Yes,” I said. “I did. She needed to talk again. We got together a second time.”
Margo took a sip of her coffee. Her eyes narrowed like a cat’s. “I know.”
HOMICIDE DETECTIVE JOSEPH GALLO had never met a mirror he didn’t like. I know that’s an old saw, but its cut is nonetheless true. If Gallo ran his hand down his silk tie once in the twenty minutes we spoke together in his office, he did it a hundred times. Gallo’s face was handsome the way Dracula’s face is handsome. Good bones, seductive black eyes set in deep sockets. There are no fewer than three dapper television detectives Gallo has been overheard claiming to be the model for. The thing is, he might be right. Central casting could do a hell of a lot worse than Joseph Gallo.
The detective was on the phone. As he signaled me to take a seat, he rolled his eyes at whomever it was he had on the line. The sleeves of his pale blue shirt were folded back to his forearms in perfect rectangles. His top button was loose, and his tie was artfully askew. A copy of the Post was on his desk. Facedown.
“Of course I’m looking into it. What do you think? I want to know that just as much…Right. Exactly…No, I’ve got a man on it…Yes, he’s a good man.” A minute later, he hung up. His hard jaw was askew. “Ask me what I think of the First Amendment. No, don’t bother. I’ll tell you. I think it’s not worth the toilet paper it’s printed on.”
“Don’t let yourself get quoted on that.”
“If I weren’t sworn to uphold the law, I’d kill somebody over at the Post.”
“The photo?”
“The frippin’ photo, you’d better believe it. There’s nothing I can do to stop them from printing what amounts to pornography, as far as I’m concerned. They’ve got their lovely First Amendment. But do you know something? That picture was taken nearly forty minutes before the 911 was called in. We had the call traced, naturally. It was a pay phone at that diner next to the Post. We got the waitress to ID the photographer. The whole time this jerk is en route from the murder scene, Jimmy Puck is mucking around outside Burrell’s building, getting the lay of the land. I don’t know why people even read that weasel. The woman could have been in there bleeding to death.”
I placed the tote bag on top of the Post. “She did bleed to death.”
“You know what I mean. Look, I know she must’ve died within minutes. Her throat opened up like that. But those schmucks didn’t know that. All they’re thinking about is beating the other guy. Getting to press lickety-split with their goddamn photo. Their almighty scoop. That’s what your First Amendment does. It lets you screw up your priorities.”
“A cop with a beef about the press,” I said. “I’m shocked, shocked.”
Gallo looked ready to take a bite out of me then relaxed. A hand drifted to his hair and gave it a pat. “Right. Sure. What’s new on the planet three? Sometimes a guy’s just got to bitch.”
“It’s a free country,” I said. “Amendments and all.”
He eyed the tote bag. “Okay, now, run it by me again how it was you got your nose into this. I have to say I wasn’t paying a lot of attention last night.”
“Sure. You know Cafe La Fortuna? It’s down near the end of Robin Burrell’s block.”
“Sure. They’ve got that photo in the window of John Lennon and Yoko Ono hanging out in their back garden.”
“Right. Well, I go there pretty often.”
“I don’t recall seeing any pictures of you in the window.”
“I’m not the guy who wrote ‘Sexy Sadie.’”
“Hey. John Lennon didn’t become John Lennon by writing ‘Sexy Sadie.’”
“What I’m saying is that I pop into the place fairly often. I was there a couple weeks ago, and Mrs. Carella came over to me. Mrs. Carella is the owner. She came over to me and pointed out a woman who was sitting in the back.”
“Let me guess.”
“You guess Yoko and I’m leaving.”
“Robin Burrell.”
“Correct. I recognized her from TV. You’d have to live in a darker cave than mine not to know that face. It wasn’t so surprising to see her. I knew she lived right across the street from Margo.”
“Ever talk to her before?”
“Before La Fortuna? No. But Mrs. Carella said that’s exactly what I should do. I should go talk to her. She said Robin had come in earlier and taken the table in the back and started to cry. I’ll tell you something, you don’t cry around Mrs. Carella without her swooping in. She got Robin to tell her what the problem was. It was all this mail and e-mails from these creeps all over the place. She was spooked. Mrs. Carella knows what I do for a living, she thought maybe I could help. She’s like an Italian yenta. Except with the Sicilian accent. ‘Fritz, meet Robin. Robin, meet Fritz. You two sit here and share some biscotti and get to know each other.’”
“Sounds lovely. So is that what happened? Did you get to know her?”
I shrugged. “I heard her story. You know what they say about private eyes.”
“‘It’s not the eyes, it’s the ears.’”
“Exactly. I listened. Robin was scared. She was depressed. She was blaming herself for the entire mess. You know how it is. If she hadn’t gotten involved with Fox in the first place. Blah blah. All the usual stuff.”
“So you placed a manly hand on hers and told her not to blame the victim.”
“I kept my manly hands to myself.”
“Ms. Burrell was a pretty woman.”
“You noticed that, eh? They sure do hire the best around here.”
Gallo indicated the tote bag. “What’s your gut tell you, Fritz? Is the killer in there?”
“Could be. None of them scream, ‘Lock your door, little girl, I’m on my way!’ She told me there had been some calls, too. As soon as her name and picture started getting bounced around in the press. Eventually, she got an unlisted number.”
Gallo perked up at the mention of nasty phone calls. “Were any of the phone calls explicitly threatening?”
“She said mostly they were just jerks being jerks.”
“But no death threats.”
“None she shared with me.”
“Any repeats? Same guy over and over?”
“She didn’t say. She got the unlisted number pretty quickly, and that ended it.”
“Not quite,” the detective said. “Here. Let me play something for you.”
There was a miniature cassette player on the desk. I hadn’t noticed it. Gallo centered it, pushed the rewind button then hit play. There were several static-filled seconds, and then came a gravelly male voice.
“I’m coming, you whore. Can you taste the blood yet?”
Gallo hit the stop button. “How would you like to come home to that? This was left on Robin Burrell’s answering machine last night. Apparently the unlisted thing didn’t faze this guy.”
“It’s not so hard to get a number if you really want it.”
“Definitely not. Now, here’s your scoop of the day-and you heard it here first. That message? What you just heard? An identical message was left last night on the machine of one Rosemary Fox.”
“Mrs. Marshall Fox herself?”
Gallo nodded expansively. “I’m not saying this is necessarily the creep who got to Robin Burrell last night, but it does give you that funny feeling.”
“What kind of feeling does it give Rosemary Fox?”
“I’m trying to throw a dozen men around her, but she’s balking. The Foxes aren’t what you call benevolent friends of the New York City police at this particular point in time. They’ve got that loudmouth lawyer of theirs saying Fox will hire his own people to protect his family, thank you very much.”
“Riddick?”
“Right. Zack the hack. We’d like to keep all this quiet. I mean, these phone threats. But you know how Riddick operates. He’s called a press conference for noon today. How much do you want to bet he’s going to have a cassette player of his own with him?”
“It doesn’t help his client to advertise death threats made to his wife,” I said.
“You think he cares about that? It helps him. Who the hell do you think is Zachary Riddick’s biggest client?”
“Can’t you stop him? Tampering with evidence? Something like that?”
“We can bust his chops. But believe me, if he wants this tape out there, he’ll get it out there.”
“So what do you think you’re dealing with here?”
Gallo aimed his palms at the ceiling. “You know what? You’ll have to get back to me on that.”
I asked to hear the message again. Gallo hit the rewind button then replayed the message. The voice was clearly being disguised. It was menacing, but in what sounded to me like a calculating way. I asked, “What time was this left? Does Robin’s machine have a time stamp on it?”
“It was left at six-forty-one.”
“That’s just around the time Deveraux was biting the heads off the jury.”
Gallo picked up a stack of black-and-white photographs from the desk and started leafing through them. “We found no signs of a forced entry.”
“So Robin either knew her attacker,” I said, “or, more to the point, knew him and trusted him enough to let him in. Or else she got this message and showed unfathomably stupid judgment in opening the door to the first stranger who came along.”
“Exactly. We’re working on both scenarios.”
“Robin Burrell was not an unfathomably stupid person,” I said.
“I’m sure she wasn’t.”
He tossed one of the photographs on the desk. I picked it up. It was a close-up of a tray holding a piece of cheese still in its cellophane along with a knife and an apple. Gallo went on, “We’ve traced Ms. Burrell from a yoga class she took over on Broadway. On the way home, she buys cheese and fruit. She also buys throat lozenges and Kleenex and other stuff for a cold. Her yoga instructor confirmed that she was sneezing and sniffling in class.”
“It’s cold season,” I said.
“If you’re popping lozenges and drinking Throat Coat tea, I don’t see that you’re eating cheese. Especially set out all nice on a tray like that. She was expecting someone.”
“In that case, why does stupid scenario number two have legs? You’re saying it wasn’t a stranger.”
“Because I don’t want to rule out something that might still hold up. You don’t toss out a scenario just because it might be a little stupid. Think about it. What’s one way to get inside someone’s apartment without forcing your way in?”
I got it. “Be there when they’re opening the door.”
“Right. Leave a message that will scare the hell out of them. A woman in her apartment alone? You get a message like that on your phone, especially on an unlisted number? That’s got to spook her. She’s not going to feel too good just sitting there. So you leave the message and be there waiting when she comes running out the door.”
“Right into your arms.”
Gallo nodded. “Or merge the two stories, if you want. It’s someone she knew who made the call, disguising his voice, and he stood there waiting. Either way, he flushed her out. He got her to open the door.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better, I can sort out the cheese mystery for you.”
“Sure, Fritz. Sort away.”
“The person she was expecting was me.”
Gallo blinked. “You. What are you telling me? You had a date with Robin Burrell the night she was killed?”
“Don’t go smearing me with that brush, Joe. I didn’t have a date. She wanted to talk some more about all the nutsy stuff that had been going on lately. I was testifying on that pirating case, and we’d arranged that I’d swing by when I got out.”
Gallo rested his chin on his fingertips and studied me. “Margo know about this date?”
“I just told you, it wasn’t a date.”
“This little cheese party, then?”
“Is that question relevant to your investigation?”
“So the answer is, she didn’t. What’s going on here, Fritz?”
“Nothing’s going on. I make a living out of other people’s problems. Robin Burrell had some problems.”
“Was she your client?”
“Now you’re sounding like Margo.”
“Oh. So you’ve had this conversation with Ms. Burke?”
“A similar one.”
“And she’s okay with your breaking cheese with the pretty lady across the street?”
“Joe, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re prying.”
“You don’t know any better.”
“Okay. Margo’s nose is out of joint. I’m doing what I can to put it back in place.”
“We’ve established that Robin Burrell was a pretty woman.”
“From where I sit, Margo’s no side of burnt toast. Robin Burrell was upset. If I was able to calm her down some, that’s not a crime. Check your codes. Have you got one for ‘unlawful assisting of damsel in distress’?”
“Okay. None of my business. But I wish you’d told me about this last night.”
“Cops scare me,” I said.
Gallo picked up one of the crime-scene photos and shook his head sadly at it. He dropped the photograph back on his desk, leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers carefully against the back of his head.
“The guy did a real chop job on your cheese friend. We’re looking at one sick, angry bastard here. And when word gets out that Ms. Burrell was found with her hand mutilated against her chest like those other two…” Gallo let the sentence hang.
“Any more thoughts on whether it’s a copycat or if this guy actually did the Central Parkers?”
“The answer to both those questions is maybe. But I sure as hell hope it’s the first one.” He indicated the tote bag. “I wish you could tell me he’s in there.”
“Sorry, Joe.”
Gallo came forward in his chair and plucked one of the e-mails from the bag. As he read it, I took a few of the other photographs and flipped through them. It was a reckless thing to do. I knew there was likely to be at least one of them that could get under my skin. There was. The wiseass crime-scene photographer had fashioned what he’d probably thought was an art shot. The photograph was taken looking down from the crown of Robin’s head as she lay on the floor. Her hairline, her eyebrows and her nose were in the foreground, slightly blurred. The focus of the shot was on the mirror fragment protruding from Robin’s neck, just above her collarbone. The photographer had angled the shot to capture the reflection of a portion of Robin’s face. This wasn’t exactly the last memory of the woman’s deep hazel eyes that I’d have preferred to hold.
Joe Gallo finished reading the e-mail. He set it faceup on his desk, squaring it perfectly. “Suspect number one.” He made a rueful face. “So begins the glamorous side of law enforcement.”
I’VE NEVER BEEN SITTING on top of the world myself, so I don’t honestly know what that’s like. For that matter, who can say that having the number-one-rated late-night show in the midnight slot and getting mountains of money thrown at you truly qualifies as “sitting on top of the world,” but that was the tag that Time magazine had given Marshall Fox when they’d put his grinning mug on their cover just three months before the murdered bodies of Cynthia Blair and Nikki Rossman surfaced in Central Park a little over a week apart. Fox’s emergence on the entertainment scene three years earlier, almost literally from nowhere (“South Dakota isn’t nowhere,” Fox joked during the first week of his show, “we prefer to think of ourselves as just south of nowhere”), and his blurringly fast trajectory to stardom had made the high school dropout and former ranch hand a household name almost overnight. Fox’s particular combination of easy charm, faint naughtiness and at times downright reproachful wit struck an immediate chord with viewers. The Time story called it “a near-fluke-ish alchemy.”
One has to conjure the incongruous image of a cowboy Lenny Bruce wandering in from the heartland. Like Bruce, Mr. Fox is not one to mince his words, a trait that also lands him in the grand American populist tradition of Will Rogers or Mark Twain. But ask any female fan of Marshall Fox if she thinks either of those two venerable sagebrush sages had even a fraction of the edge or especially the sex appeal of this new kid on the block, and you’re likely as not to hear a resounding “As if!”
Within months of its debut, Midnight with Marshall Fox was a ratings gold mine for the network. The diamond-blue eyes and the slightly damaged nose peered out from newsstands all over the country. The guy was hot goods. Even Margo, who is not one to be easily starstruck, contracted a case of Fox fever and stayed up past pumpkin time to get her dose of the man. When Fox took up with socialite beauty and celebrity heartbreaker Rosemary Boggs within a year of landing in New York and the two tied the knot a mere three months later, they were given the sort of ink once reserved for royal couples. The media could not get enough of them. Vanity Fair reportedly paid the Foxes over a million dollars to pose as scantily clad modern-day Antony and Cleopatra (Cowboy & Cleopatra) for the cover of their magazine, snakes and all. Rosemary was rumored to have balked at the idea and made the photo shoot a living hell. Regardless, the results pumped sales to the top of the publication’s all-time figures, and when Fox convinced his wife to come on the show the week after the magazine hit the stands-complete with snakes and the peekaboo gold toga-the show’s already boffo ratings likewise flew right off the charts. The Foxes were a force, the new bionic couple. About as “it” as “it” gets.
Not quite two years into the marriage, the cracks began to appear. Rumors of fights. Whispers of drugs. Suggestions of a serious wandering-eye problem on the part of Fox. During an extended European vacation for the lady of the house, speculation grew that Fox was ready to pull up stakes and make his way back to the heartland. Finally, the trial separation, accompanied by the almost immediate parade of women looping their arm through that of the late-night entertainer. High-profile carousing. High jinks. The unexplained police presence at three A.M. outside Fox’s rented bungalow at Chateau Marmont. An unlicensed handgun setting off alarms at JFK. The incident with the shattered glass table and the bleeding Peruvian supermodel-reportedly seven stitches across the nineteen-year-old’s shoulder blade.
And then April.
The murders.
Blood in Central Park.
The week of Fox’s indictment and jailing for the slayings of Cynthia Blair and Nikki Rossman, Time splashed the single word TUMBLED across their cover photograph of the late-night celebrity dressed in an orange jumpsuit and shackled like Houdini, wrists to waist, ankle to ankle. An ill-timed programming decision the night of the arrest had resulted in the re-airing of Rosemary Fox’s appearance on her husband’s show. Two minutes into the segment, just as one of the snakes was coiling its way down her arm and onto Marshall Fox’s desk, television sets across the country abruptly went black. Some accounts-surely apocryphal but too delicious not to report-had the sound of Rosemary Fox’s furious shriek traveling the full distance from the couple’s Park Avenue penthouse all the way across Central Park to the West Side. Not likely. Even so, an actual witness to the scene of Rosemary’s incensed phone call to Alan Ross at the network did report the base of her telephone cracking as she slammed the receiver down over and over again.
THE WORD ON CYNTHIA BLAIR was that the ambitious thirty-two-year-old was strung about as tight as a person can be strung while managing to function. Some of it was simply Cynthia-she’d always been the classic type A-but a lot of it was her job. Cynthia had been fast-tracking her way up the KBS ladder from the word go, impressing her bosses with her ability to transform her entry-level “shut up and fetch coffee” position into one where she could and did make a real contribution. She had the hunger. More importantly, she had the talent. The network knew it had a comer. When the plan was devised to bring in the charming cowboy and give him his own show, Cynthia had lobbied successfully to be the risky show’s producer and had launched into the enterprise with the full force of her tigerlike energy. It was hair-pulling work. In order to siphon off some of the stress from her work, Cynthia would steal away from the office whenever possible and put herself through various tortures at a nearby health club. The cords on either side of her slender neck stood out like hard cables as she strained against machines set to resistances that were patently inappropriate for the woman’s trim 112-pound body. But Cynthia Blair liked to push limits. She attacked the StairMaster as if she were charging to the top of a burning building to rescue a stranded child. She performed military-style sit-ups until she was on the verge of puking. She put serious fear into some of her kickboxing partners. It was her style, what she needed in order to contend with her natural tendency to engage with life at a highly pitched intensity.
When she couldn’t make it to the health club, she sometimes emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet across the hall from her office.
Over the course of the Marshall Fox trial, the nature of Fox’s working relationship with Cynthia was dissected in great detail, the consensus being that the contrary bullheadedness of the two personalities had contributed to an atmosphere in the offices that could range anywhere from slightly ginger to all-out war zone; at the same time, some damned good television was born of the star and his tenacious producer squaring off. For a show that was essentially about laughter, the success of Midnight with Marshall Fox was revealed to followers of the trial to be in many ways dependent on the good stuff extracted from blow and counterblow.
“This is how Marshall works,” Alan Ross had testified. He had explained that, contrary to the impression of most television personalities, Marshall Fox was not at all interested in surrounding himself with yes-men. That wasn’t the world he’d grown up in. “With Marshall, it’s not something so basic as being friendly. He likes to spar. It’s all about provoking and being provoked. That’s just how he is. Those jokes and quips you hear every night? Trust me, some poor soul on the staff has to suffer deeply before Marshall signs off on them. His best work comes from knocking heads with someone. He’s a digger. He likes to rattle around in places people would just as soon keep private. That’s where the really good stuff is. Marshall has an instinct for that. It’s why the show has been such a success. You laugh your brains out while you’re watching, but you’re also nervous. He’s brilliant, the way he goes about it.”
Ross went on to say that Cynthia Blair had been the perfect producer for someone like Fox. He described her “solid backbone” and her unwillingness to cave in gracefully to her boss’s bullying. Instinctively, she knew that Marshall thrived on “the fight.”
“Personally, I thought that Cynthia moving on from the show was inevitable. Working with someone like Marshall is exhausting. Believe me, I know. I’ve been there. No question the dynamic between the two was creating some great television, but ultimately there’s going to be a burnout factor. Even with someone as driven as Cynthia was. At least that’s my view. Marshall was a definite challenge to Cynthia, but she’d mastered it. Marshall and I even had some discussions about it. He agreed with me that Cynthia was ready for something new to sink her teeth into. She was definitely going places.”
Most of Fox’s associates who testified took pains to stress that the “combat” between Cynthia and her boss had always been strictly professional, just the way the two of them chose to do business. Lawyers for the prosecution hammered away hard at this point but were unable to solicit a statement from anyone that, in fact, Fox and Cynthia Blair had not liked each other. Even so, nobody who testified attempted to pretend that the termination of the professional relationship hadn’t been particularly nasty. Or sudden. Around two o’clock on the afternoon of March 22, shouting and yelling-much more than usual-had been heard coming from behind Marshall Fox’s closed office door. Two voices. Marshall Fox and Cynthia Blair. No one who heard the muffled battle was able to identify the precise point of the argument, although the single most agreed-upon quote heard distinctly by those testifying was: “Liar! You fucking, fucking, two-faced liar!” It was Cynthia Blair, not Fox, who hurled that one, and she had said it over and over again. Eventually, Cynthia emerged from Fox’s office and stormed into hers, which adjoined her boss’s. There was a loud crash and the sound of broken glass, followed by a steady pounding sound that went on for about a minute. This was followed by several tense minutes of silence, after which the producer’s door flew open and Cynthia stomped to the elevator clutching a cardboard box under one arm. She stood at the elevator, glaring up at the ceiling, slamming her hand against the down button over and over and over until the elevator arrived and the door slid open. Cynthia swore harshly under her breath as she got on the elevator, though no one’s testimony squared on the specifics of what she said.
The pounding that was heard coming from Cynthia’s office had resulted in a large hole that was found in the Sheetrock wall-the wall she shared with Fox-that looked as if she had attempted to launch a cannonball through the wall and catch her boss at his desk. The cannonball turned out to be Cynthia Blair’s Emmy Award (the crashing sound had been the glass of the small display case across from Cynthia’s desk), which was fished out from the hollow area within the wall, along with the framed photograph of a smiling Marshall Fox embracing Cynthia (who was embracing her Emmy) that had previously held the place of honor in the display case, next to the award. The glass of the frame was broken, spiderwebbing out from a point directly in the center of Marshall Fox’s face. As one of the secretaries testified, “It looked like she’d punched him out.”
Three weeks later, an early-morning dog walker in Central Park came across the clothed body of a young woman lying at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle, the stone Egyptian obelisk rising from a small hill behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A red scarf that was later identified as belonging to the victim was knotted around her throat, and her face was covered with tiny puncture wounds from what proved to be a ballpoint pen, the very pen that had been used to fix the victim’s hand in place over her heart.
The body of Cynthia Blair was discovered on April 16. What with the grisly nature of the murder and the location of the body, the story led the local newscasts. Once the woman’s identity was released a day later, the story strapped on rockets. Overnight, Cynthia Blair achieved star status. Her angular visage saturated the airwaves. The attractive, hardworking, go-get-’em “woman behind the man” story got immediate traction. From the offices of Midnight with Marshall Fox, a statement was released offering condolences to Cynthia Blair’s family, along with the announcement of a $500,000 award for the capture and conviction of Cynthia’s murderer, half of which was being put up personally by Marshall Fox. The show went on immediate hiatus. It resumed a week later-several days after Cynthia Blair’s celebrity-heavy funeral-with a program that felt like the Titanic the day after. Fox had wept openly several times. The plug was pulled on a video tribute to the show’s former producer partway through, it was so distressing. Midway through the program, the band performed a dirge that seemed interminable, during which Marshall Fox wandered between his desk and various parts of the stage like a man in a haunted dream.
Margo had insisted on watching. I’d lobbied for whiskey and a couple of games of pool at Dive 75, but Margo won the toss. She’s a freelance writer, and her beat requires her to keep an ear to the ground concerning all things cultural, fluffy and otherwise. So I watched the show with her, both fascinated and disgusted by the chutzpah of Marshall Fox and his people for dragging America through such a moribund hour of television.
High marks to Margo for prescience. At one point during the grim proceedings, she turned to me on the couch and said, “So what do you think? Did Fox do it?”
“Do what? Kill his producer?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
She did a head-bob thing that she does, her eyes going up to a corner of the ceiling. “I don’t know. Not really, I guess. Maybe.”
At that point, a week after Cynthia Blair’s murder, the police had not released the detail of the dead woman’s hand having been affixed to her breast with the ballpoint pen. That all changed three days later-a Sunday-when a second body turned up in the park. Unlike Cynthia Blair, this one showed signs of rape, or at any rate sexual activity, in the hours prior to death. And whereas the cause of death in the case of Cynthia Blair had been strangulation, the second victim had received several severe blows to the head and then had her neck opened up. Blood everywhere. In addition, a pair of handcuffs dangled from the left wrist. As with Blair, this new body had been deposited at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle. Most telling to the police, its right hand had also been affixed over the heart, this time with a four-inch nail. Only this time, that last detail leaked out.
Slowly at first, but gathering momentum soon enough, the eyes of the country began to take a second look at the devastated Marshall Fox.
I LEFT GALLO’S OFFICE and walked to the copy shop on Broadway where the photocopies I’d had made of Robin Burrell’s notes and e-mails were waiting for me in a paper bag behind the counter. I picked up a copy of the Times and took the subway to Forty-second Street and hoofed it over to the Keppler Building, where I keep my office.
Miss Dashpebble was out. That’s my nonexistent secretary/receptionist. Being nonexistent, she’s always out, but that never seems to stop me from noting her absence. When Margo and I want to take a break from behaving intelligently, we’ll sometimes amuse ourselves with whimsies concerning the latest Dashpebble escapade. Quite the life this gal leads-no wonder she can’t find the time to lick my stamps and answer my phones.
I went into my office and set my feet up on the desk. There was nothing in the Times about Robin’s murder that I didn’t already know. Marshall Fox’s lawyers-particularly Zachary Riddick-were saying to anyone who would listen that the Robin Burrell killing proved their client was innocent of the murders of Cynthia Blair and Nikki Rossman. They claimed that Robin’s murder proved the original killer was still at large. Riddick was calling for Fox’s immediate release from prison. He was caterwauling for Sam Deveraux to declare a mistrial. In addition, he wanted a televised apology from the United States district attorney’s office. God knows what else the grandstander wanted. Maybe a key to the city for the poor persecuted Mr. Fox?
I threw the paper on the floor. Newspapers don’t throw well. I was dissatisfied. Some people actually enjoy being grumpy and out of sorts, but I’m not one of them. Being out of sorts only makes me more out of sorts.
I picked up the phone to call Margo, then set it back down. A quick replay of our morning’s tiff didn’t suggest any new tack. I could understand Margo’s jumpiness about a gruesome murder taking place directly across the street from her building. No question about it. I think the problem we’d had was that Robin Burrell’s murder had also unnerved me-though in a different fashion-and it didn’t seem that Margo was willing to grant me the latitude to be spooked by it. Charlie Burke and I have chewed this fat numerous times, and we concede that there are times when you just don’t bring your work home with you. Or maybe the better way to put it is that you do bring it home (how the hell are you going to leave it behind?), but what you don’t do is share it. “You have to suck it up,” Charlie says. “You keep your problems to yourself. My wife is my wife, she’s not my shrink.” Half of me thinks he’s right about it. And honestly? The other half of me doesn’t have a clue.
I swung my chair about to look out the window. The sky above the calliope of tall buildings was steel gray. Twenty-three floors below, the snowy rectangle of Bryant Park looked like a large white slab, like a behemoth gravestone fallen on its face. As I watched, two bundled figures entered the park on the west side and began making their way east, hand in hand, cutting through the precise middle of the park. Halfway across, the figures dropped onto the snow, on their backs, and began flapping their arms and legs.
I turned back to my desk and sorted through the photocopies of Robin’s “fan mail.” I skimmed through and divided them into two piles as I went: Passive and Aggressive. Basic psychology suggested that more likely than not, most of the writers in the “aggressive” pile were essentially cowards, mean-spirited worms who got off on sending crude, nasty notes to an attractive woman who had been dragged through the mud on national television. The tone of many suggested Marshall Fox fans who were enraged over Robin’s testimony and by the seamier side of their hero that had been extracted from her on the stand. There was the standard string of Fuck you, bitch, cunt that one would expect, as well as aggressively colorful suggestions concerning anatomical actions that Robin might want to consider performing on herself or have conducted on her person by second and even third parties. What can I say? It’s a human subset that has always existed, and although it was certainly possible that the writer of one of these notes could have decided to act on his or her misogynist hostility by viciously butchering Robin Burrell in her home, my sensors weren’t alerting me to any clear candidates.
I took longer with the second pile. Where I could distinguish between male and female, I did, and I set the female ones to the side. This left me with a collection of men who had admired Robin Burrell sufficiently to take the time to grab pen or keyboard and reach out to her. No doubt there were some authentic souls of compassion represented in this group. I’m not so cynical that I won’t allow for the existence of the truly good-hearted. Maybe even the majority of the various marriage proposals and offers of companionship had been put forth with the purest of intentions. We can only hope that the world still holds more angels than devils. But if there was a true freak lurking in the e-mails and letters, my sense was that he wouldn’t be in the overtly hostile missives, the aggressives. He was going to be here, lurking among the sweethearts.
From this second pile, I extracted the letters that included names and return addresses as well as the e-mails that readily identified their sender. This reduced the number of so-called passive correspondents to twenty-seven. Now all I had to do was bring in a medium who could let her hands hover over the two piles then pick out the killer. Hell, I’ve got the easiest job in the world.
I abandoned the piles and unlocked my lower desk drawer and took out my Beretta 92. I broke down the gun and gave it a cleaning on a piece of cloth that I keep for that purpose. The smell of copper solvent is a poor man’s intoxicant, but I’m not making any excuses. I think clearly when my hands are occupied with small habitual tasks. I could have as easily taken apart and put back together one of those wooden cube puzzles you can still pick up for a buck in Chinatown (I had one in my desk drawer as well, though not under lock and key), but in the end I’d have the same wooden cube I started with. At least this way, when I was done, my “personal assistant” was newly cleaned and shiny.
I put the gun back into the drawer and locked it. I draped the oily chamois I’d used to clean the gun over Nipper, which is the name of the RCA Victor fox terrier that sits cock-headed in front of the large gold gramophone horn. I’ve got a life-size antique of the dog and record player in the corner of my office. A client gave it to me once in lieu of making good on his bill, telling me it was worth considerably more than he owed me. Like a considerable fool, I’d let him get away with it.
I locked up the office and headed over to Grand Central, to the food circus downstairs, where I grabbed a couple of slices from Two Boots, after which I spent a few minutes holding up a wall in Vanderbilt Hall, taking in the dim cavernous room and eyeballing the people moving every which way across the marble floor. It doesn’t take much to entertain me. On the news just a few days earlier, I had learned that there was a stretch of now-unused train tracks well below the level where I was standing that had been used in the thirties and early forties to bring Franklin Roosevelt into the city from his home up in Hyde Park. And not just Roosevelt but his car and driver as well. The tracks led right to a specially built freight elevator so the car could be loaded in and brought up to street level; that way the president could make a discreet exit onto Park Avenue, all a part of keeping the public unaware of his inability to move freely without the aid of crutches or a solid elbow nearby. I thought of Charlie. Ten years earlier, a bullet half the size of a thumbnail had nullified his ability to ever walk again. End of story. No secret train tracks and fancy arrangements. Charlie was parked in his wheelchair out in Queens, restless and resigned.
More snow was threatening as I headed back up Forty-second Street. The gunmetal sky had darkened considerably. I popped into the coffee shop at Coliseum Books and picked up what I still call a medium-size cup of coffee. I have no clue what they call it. The baristas were talking about the Robin Burrell murder. The one serving me-a tall skinny kid with buckshots of acne scars on his cheeks-cracked a joke about it. The kind of crap you hear from people these days, especially kids. His coworker took him on.
“You better not be saying that. Someone come cut up your throat, how you gonna like it?”
The kid handed me my change. He was still chuckling at his own joke. “That be all?”
I felt the lecture rising in my throat, but I swallowed it. What was I going to do, grab this kid by the collar and slap him around like the original Mr. Heavy? For Christ’s sake, I was only here to buy a cup of joe.
I took my mysterious-size coffee over to Bryant Park, and even though the temperature was hovering near the freezing mark, I fished a newspaper from a trash bin to clear the snow from one of the slatted park chairs and sat down at a metal table. I had the snow-glazed park to myself, no one else in the immediate vicinity being quite so idiotic as yours truly. I recognized that the kid joking behind the counter had affected my heart rate. I could feel the hinges of my jaw holding tight. I looked out over the empty park, trying to spot the snow angels I knew were out there somewhere.
No luck. No angels.
I hugged the cardboard cup with both hands and watched the mist of my breath mingling with the steam coming off the brew. They formed their own sifting cloud, and with the peculiar mood I was in, I went easily into the blur.
ROBIN BURRELL HAD FELT that she needed to justify to me her former involvement with the likes of Marshall Fox. She didn’t need to do anything of the kind, not from my side, anyway, but I guess she’d needed to do it for herself. It was on my second visit to her apartment that she told me the story. A little wine, a little cheese, a little cautionary tale.
Robin met Marshall Fox the night that Kelly Cole threw the contents of her martini into his face and instructed him to get the hell out of her life. The incident took place on a warm summer evening on a large tiled patio overlooking the yachts of Long Island ’s South Fork. The party was being thrown by Alan Ross and his wife, Gloria, the end-of-summer bacchanalia that the couple threw every September at their sumptuous estate in East Hampton. The Rosses’ annual bash regularly featured among its guests the cream of the entertainment industry’s A-list. Actors. Actresses. Movie and television directors. Supermodels. Writers. Studio heads. The hot bodies. A collection of the shakers and movers and so-called beautiful people kibitzing under the Chinese lanterns, toasting one another in the cool marble salons and occasionally fornicating in the comfortably refurbished boathouse at the edge of the property. Gloria Ross’s talent agency, Argosy, represented nearly half of the party’s attendees, while most who were not on the Argosy client list yearned for inclusion. The affair was unofficially referred to as “the audition,” it being well known in the industry that key calls went out from the Argosy offices both in New York and Los Angeles in the days following the Rosses’ annual party. Other agencies braced for the inevitable raids on their client list. Simply knowing that one of their hot actors or actresses or directors had attended the infamous East Hampton affair was enough to rattle the bladder of the related agent. Gloria Ross’s industry nickname was “the Comanche,” for the ruthlessness of her raiding parties. It was a nickname that brought the head of Argosy no end of delight. She often referred to her new acquisitions as her scalps.
Marshall Fox was an Argosy client, though Gloria Ross had hardly needed to steal him away from anyone. When Alan and Gloria Ross first came across the brash young wrangler and tour guide during a vacation in the Black Hills, the only organization with any claim on Marshall Fox was Moose River Guest Ranch, where Fox was employed. The story became showbiz legend. Captivated by the wit and easy sex appeal of their talkative guide, the Rosses had devised a plan midway through their weeklong trail ride and proposed it to the cowboy at week’s end. Beaming like a brand-new father, Alan Ross had clapped a hand on Fox’s shoulder. “I’ve been angling all my life to say something this corny. Kid, how’d you like to be a fucking star?”
ROBIN HADN’T ATTENDED the Rosses’ party as a guest. She was part of the hired help. An acquaintance who ran a catering business had called her at the last minute in a panic: “How would you like to spend the weekend in the Hamptons?” Two of the caterer’s helpers had gone AWOL, and the woman was scrambling to fill their places.
Robin had been forced to make a real effort not to gape. Celebrities seemed to pour out of the woodwork. Brad. Nicole. Justin. She thought she might weep at the sight of Meryl Streep-a personal favorite-whose simple elegance and wicked little laugh were beyond captivating. Robin trolled the party with a drinks tray, dispensing champagne and martinis. She spotted Marshall Fox soon after he arrived at the party. The popular talk-show host was accompanied by a striking blonde, Kelly Cole, the reporter from Channel 7 News. In her plunging silk blouse and capri pants, Kelly Cole looked anything but the earnest reporter clutching the microphone in front of City Hall. As for Fox, he was sporting a radiant tan fresh from a week in Maui and was-no surprise-the life of the party, charming all comers, passing his celebrated banter around for all to sample. Robin admitted that she had always considered the entertainer deadly handsome. “Disturbingly appealing,” as she would later say on the witness stand. The infectious and exceedingly mischievous smile. The slightly damaged nose. The alert blue eyes. Fox’s lean, muscular frame moved easily in bone-white slacks and a simple gray V-neck sweater. Under a vigorous cross-examination, Robin would confess to having difficulty taking her eyes off the entertainer as he moved about the party.
At the time, Marshall Fox had been several months into his well-publicized estrangement from his wife, Rosemary, an estrangement that had already seen a number of high-octane if short-lived affairs with women of notorious beauty. The word on Fox was that he was a decidedly passionate and skilled lover. “Voracious,” came the grinning report from a particular Hollywood actress who was not known for suffering klutzes in her bed. Interviewed on one of the entertainment tabloid shows, the actress had looked directly into the camera and pronounced, “Let’s just say this is one hungry cowboy and leave it at that, okay?”
Robin’s first direct encounter with Fox came midway through the party, when she found herself cornered on the large patio by a large drunken British film director who had snared the last drink from her tray then locked a grip on her free arm as he looked her up and down with red bleary eyes.
“By fuck, if I couldn’t bend you over this rail right now and give that lovely USDA a proper nailing.”
In the process of attempting to free herself, Robin lost control of the empty tray, which clattered loudly to the patio floor. The director tightened his grip on her arm. As he moved closer, Robin was treated to a putrid exhaust of Scotch fumes.
“Let’s have us a fuckin’ kiss. Come here now.”
“Jeremy!”
Robin whipped her head around. It was Marshall Fox. As Fox made his way across the patio, he tossed his drink glass into the shrubbery. My God, Robin thought. Cowboy saves the day.
The Englishman gave Fox a sloppy smile. “Hallo, Marshall. Stinkin’ little bash, in’t it? I take it you’ve seen these lovely appetizers?”
“Let her go, Jeremy,” Fox said evenly. His voice held a low, liquid menace.
The director scoffed, “Fuck all, Marshall. Don’t be a prig.”
Fox glanced at Robin, then addressed the director. “Jeremy…old chap. How about for just one moment you pretend you’re not an asshole. Hmm? I know it’s hard, old chap. None of the rest of us have ever been able to do it. But why don’t you give it a try?”
Without warning, Fox’s left arm shot out, his open hand catching the Englishman square in the chest. As the director went tumbling into a deck chair, Fox grabbed Robin’s other arm and yanked her free. She stumbled up against him. Fox grinned and took a chivalrous step backward.
“I apologize for Jeremy. We don’t know who it was that let him off his leash.”
Still muttering, the director attempted to rise from the deck chair, but Fox placed a foot on the arm of the chair and succeeded in toppling it. The Englishman tumbled onto the tiles and went silent. Fox bent down and retrieved the tray that Robin had dropped and handed it to her. “It’s so hard to get good guests these days.”
He squeezed off another smile and left the patio by a nearby set of winding stairs, rejoining Kelly Cole, who was standing barefoot down on the grass, tolerating the stories of two overexcited young screenwriters. Robin had a sense that the entertainer knew full well she was watching him.
It wasn’t long after midnight that Kelly Cole lifted a martini from Robin’s tray, instructed Marshall Fox to get the hell out of her life immediately and then proceeded to launch the contents of her martini glass at him. The reporter’s aim was perfect, and the drink landed squarely in Fox’s face, the olive bouncing off his cheek. Robin had never seen a face as red with fury as Kelly Cole’s. The reporter’s expression was volcanic. For his part, Fox took a beat, then reached down to pick up the olive off the ground and blithely handed it over to his infuriated date. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I think this fell out of your ass.”
Cole’s slap seemed to echo back all the way from the boathouse. She stormed into the mansion. Fox produced a handkerchief and dabbed at his face and the front of his shirt. Conversation in the immediate vicinity had stopped, and Fox shared a bemused expression with astonished faces.
“Favor? The next time Ms. Cole orders herself a martini, could someone please ask the bartender if he can’t make it really, really, really dry?”
Soon afterward, Robin was down on the lawn, taking a moment to look out at the moon-blue water and the several boats that were anchored just offshore, when she became aware of a couple tangled together in a nearby hammock. Just as Robin realized that the couple were doing exactly what it sounded like they were doing, someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind.
“Hello there.”
Robin wheeled around. It was Marshall Fox. He offered his hand.
“The name’s Fox.”
Robin realized she was blushing mightily. She hoped it didn’t show in the moonlight. Fox made a show of guiding her hand into his and giving it a small squeeze.
“This is where you tell me your name. My name, your name. Then we’ve had what is called a communication.”
Robin withdrew her hand. “I’m…My name’s Robin Burrell.”
“It’s good to meet you, Miss Burrell. Though I feel like we’re old friends at this point, don’t you?”
“I meant to thank you before.” She indicated the patio.
“Jeremy? Hell, don’t mention it. By tomorrow that gin sponge won’t even remember it happened. He won’t remember a damn thing about the entire party. Which, now that I think of it, might not actually be such a bad thing. Tell me the truth, hasn’t this party been boring the pants off you? I’m dead serious, I can think of three thousand places I’d rather be. I love Gloria and Alan and all that, but this just ain’t really my kind of orgy.”
“I’ve never been to one of these parties,” Robin stammered.
“Well, you don’t want to make a habit of it, trust me.”
“People seem to be enjoying themselves.”
As if on cue, low moans rose from the couple in the hammock. Fox’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose they are. It’s a regular bunny farm around here, isn’t it? How about you? Are you enjoying yourself?”
Robin felt the color rising again to her cheeks. “I’m not supposed to enjoy myself,” she said. “I’m the hired help.”
Fox asked, “So where do you hail from, Miss Burrell?”
“I’m from Pennsylvania originally. New Hope. But I’ve lived in Manhattan the last six years.”
“Do tell. What part?”
“ Upper West Side.”
“Jews and Commies, I know it well. Which are you? Are you a Commie?”
“Me?” She laughed. “No.”
“Jew?”
“I’m a Quaker.”
“Quaker? Good Lord woman. I love thou people’s oatmeal. Upper West Side, huh? Ever since I hit town I’ve been an Upper East Sider myself, though the fact is I ran away from home a few months ago. Maybe you heard. You probably have. My so-called private life seems to have taken up residence on Page Six these days. Now I guess I’m a Jew and a Commie.”
“Excuse me?”
“ Upper West Side. I’m holing up on Central Park West.”
“I’m on Seventy-first,” Robin said. “About halfway down from the park.”
“You don’t say.” Fox touched her lightly on the arm. Robin could have sworn she felt a tiny electric shock. “How sweet is this? You’re practically the girl next door. You and I should meet up in the park sometime and walk our dogs together.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
Fox made a face. “I thought all of Manhattan ’s beautiful women had dogs. We’ll have to do something about that. I’ll tell you what, New Hope. May I call you New Hope?”
Robin laughed. “If you want.”
“I want. Listen, New Hope. Maybe I can come by your place sometime and you can take me out for a walk. How does that sound? Forget the dog. Walk the Fox. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think you-”
Fox clapped his hands together. “Good. Excellent. I like this. This is good. You know, I’ve been hanging out with the wrong sort of people long enough. This will be good. So when are you free?”
“I’m not sure if-”
“Tuesday?” He put a hand to his ear. “Is that what you said? Good Lord, I’m free Tuesday, too! What are the chances? Now, please don’t go getting yourself another dog between now and then, dear New Hope. I happen to be well trained, but I do still bite. Sometimes. Maybe you can do something about that for me. We’ll have to see.”
Up on the patio, one of the guests let out a peal of laughter that sounded exactly like that of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fox glanced over his shoulder then turned back to Robin. His voice lowered, as did his manic energy. He leaned closer. “Whatever you’ve heard about me, New Hope, I want you to know that only half of it’s true. Swear to God.”
In the wee hours of the morning, as Robin bunched her pillow under her chin and opened herself to the oncoming sleep, a voice in the deep recesses of her mind thought to ask the right question.
Which half?
THE COFFEE WAS COLD long before it was gone. I poured the final inch onto the snow. A squirrel that had been clinging stock-still to a nearby tree scampered down to investigate. He sniffed at the mocha snow then looked up sharply at me. With attitude. That’s your New York squirrel.
A light snow had started to fall. I was halfway across the park when my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket.
“Where are you?” It was Charlie Burke.
“You’ll never guess. You caught me on a beach in Tahiti. I wish the girls back home would take up this whole grass-skirt thing. It’s a winner.”
“You wish. Come on, where are you?” He sounded urgent.
“I’m in Bryant Park.”
“Well, you want to get up to Central Park right away. To the Boathouse.”
“And why do I want to do this, Charlie?”
“I spoke with Margo earlier today. She told me you’ve been helping that girl that got killed last night.” He paused, and I expected him to say that Margo had also told him we’d had an argument about it, but he didn’t go there. “She says you’re nosing around in the girl’s murder.”
“I never said that.”
“Right. Margo mentioned that, too. But she can tell. My kid’s got good instincts, Fritz. Besides, you don’t always hide things too good.”
“There are people who might consider that a virtue,” I said. “So what’s happening at the park?”
“I’ve been monitoring.” Ever since losing the use of his legs, Charlie had transformed the office in his house into what his wife called the House of Wires. Charlie was more up to speed on computers and the Internet than I’d ever be. He also had two television sets; he kept one tuned to NY1 and used the other for channel surfing. Plus, he monitored the police and fire department frequencies religiously. He went on, “Your girl with the cut throat? Looks like she’s got company.”
I stopped in my tracks. Literally. “There’s been another murder?”
“Somebody out there is a very busy boy,” he said dryly. “Not to mention a very angry one. This doesn’t look good, Fritz.”
“Who says it’s related to Robin Burrell?”
“First officer on the scene got a little too excited just now. Called in a thirty-c then started blabbing, ‘Same as last night, same as last night.’”
Thirty-c is police code for homicide by cutting. I switched directions and angled toward Sixth Avenue. “You said the Boathouse?”
“That’s what I’m hearing.”
“And you got this when?”
“It’s fresh, buddy. Not two minutes ago. You hurry, you’ll beat the mobs.”
I pocketed the phone and took off running.
THEY WERE STILL STRETCHING the tape when I arrived. A crime-scene photographer was leaning against a police van, fiddling with his camera. The snow was coming down a bit harder, and he was shading the camera from getting wet. The body was just off the trail leading up from the small parking area of the Boathouse Café into what’s called the Ramble. If you want to take a curvy path through the woods of Central Park, or if you want to go see rats the size of small dogs, or if having sex with a fellow anonymous adventurer of the same sex is your bag, then the Ramble is your place. The person who had happened upon the body and phoned it in was a pasty-faced blond man with a walrus mustache, a faded Greek fisherman’s cap and leather chaps. I don’t know, maybe he was looking at the rats.
Joseph Gallo was conferring with one of his officers. His long camel coat hung on him beautifully. Of course. He and his fellow officers were standing next to a large boulder, the trail twisting out of sight behind it. Atop the boulder, a pair of crows were pecking angrily at the snow. I waited next to a small tree until Gallo looked up and saw me. He said something to the uniformed cop then stepped over to me.
“Let me guess. You were just cutting through the park on your way to the ice rink.”
“Those aren’t the kind of guesses you can build a career on.”
“You seem to be my brand-new shadow, Malone. What gives?”
“Charlie Burke plucked the thirty-c out of the air. He says it smells like Robin’s killer.”
“Yeah, I was just giving Officer Loudmouth over there a talk about that. I told him next time why don’t you just call the media directly.” He shot his cuffs to tap a finger against his watch. “I give them five minutes tops.”
“You could seal off the park.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the precious First Amendment? What do you take me for, a stinking Commie?”
“Sorry, Joe. Must’ve confused you with someone else.”
Gallo grunted a laugh. “Believe me, after today I’m going to wish I was someone else. Goddamn back-to-backs not more than eighteen hours apart. This is most definitely not the way we’re supposed to start the New Year.”
“And we’re talking the same killer?” I asked. “You’ve already determined that?”
“We haven’t determined a thing. I only beat you by five minutes. I haven’t even introduced myself to the corpse.”
The lieutenant brushed at the snowflakes settling on his shoulder. “If you want to make yourself invisible, feel free. You’ve got to keep out of the perimeter. I like a clean crime scene.”
I pointed at the boulder. “How about that rock?”
“If you feel like mountaineering.”
Another cop was using a tree next to the boulder as one of his corners for the crime-scene tape. I ducked under the tape and scrambled up to the top of the boulder. With the leaves gone, I had a nice view of Central Park Lake below me, the row of overturned rowboats running along the south shore, the cast-iron Bow Bridge arching over the lake. The intensity of the snow was already increasing, and in just a matter of minutes, the overturned rowboats had already started fading to white. The lake itself was partially covered with a thin film of ice in a shape reminding me of a piece from a jigsaw puzzle. Directly below was the large flat rock where people like to go sunning in warm weather. It was abandoned now, of course, except for a trio of uninterested mallards.
The body was lying about twenty feet from the base of the boulder. I couldn’t see much at first, as a pair of forensics experts and someone in a long black coat were squatting on either side of it. I could see pants legs and a pair of men’s brown dress shoes. Through the legs of the forensics cops, I could make out a large area of bloodstained snow and leaves. As Gallo approached the scene, he looked up to where I was standing. “How’s the view?”
“It’s a man,” I said.
Gallo tapped the side of his head. “We could use a natural like you on the force. What else can you see from up there?”
“Nothing. Your men have the better seats.”
The figure in the long black coat turned and looked up at me. “Some detective.” She rose and gave her lower back a solid stretch. Like the two forensics cops, she was wearing a wool NYPD cap, her short hair tucked in so that none of it would become part of Gallo’s crime scene. Her smirk arrived as if on wings.
“Hello, Detective Lamb,” I said.
She squinted up at me. “Fritz Malone. Long time no see.” Maybe not the strongest Long Island accent I’ve ever heard, but strong enough to defend itself.
“I guess we’ve just been haunting different corners of the city.”
“Yeah, well. No shortage of corners.”
Megan Lamb was a junior detective in Joe Gallo’s homicide squad out of the Twentieth. I’d known her for several years. We first met when she invited me to a diner in the Village one afternoon to chew me out for what she considered my interference with an investigation she was involved in. I was guilty as charged, and we’d had a spirited fight over it. Generally speaking, I found her somewhat guarded, but it’s not uncommon for women cops to keep their armor at the ready just as a matter of course. Still, I liked her. She had a passion for her job. She’d wade in plenty deep in the interest of the victim. The previous winter Megan had landed herself in the headlines by fatally shooting a serial killer and rapist in the line of duty. The Swede. Both Megan’s partner and her closest friend had been slaughtered by the Swede minutes before Megan’s arrival on the scene. Though she’d been hailed in the press as a hero and eventually been given the all clear by the department’s investigatory panel (standard procedure when a police officer fatally dislodges their weapon), a degree of murkiness had lingered around the circumstances of the shooting, and only a few weeks after her return to active duty, Megan had put in for extended leave. Some weeks after, rumors reached me that Megan was having a rough time of things and that she wasn’t exactly conducting herself in the healthiest of fashions, and I’d made a point to cross my path with hers one night, trying to pass it off as a coincidence. She’d sniffed me out and told me exactly what she thought of my “charity mission.” Nobody likes a hovering angel. I know I don’t. She’d remained off my radar screen until this past May. She was back on active duty, and her next fifteen minutes of fame came for being the cop who had slapped the cuffs on Marshall Fox when he was taken into custody for the murders of Cynthia Blair and Nikki Rossman.
Now Megan went into a pocket of her coat and pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. She’s a fairly small-framed woman; the long coat threatened to swallow her. After methodically folding the wrapper and sticking it back in her pocket, she squinted up at me again. “Don’t go falling on my crime scene, Malone, okay? It’s deteriorating fast enough as it is. You just make like a statue and stay put up there.”
“You’re the boss.”
Megan indicated Gallo. “He’s the boss. I’m just the working stiff.”
I could see more of the victim now. A tie. An overcoat. The head was twisted to its left and partially submerged in a clump of red snow and dead leaves. Even from up on the boulder, I could tell the location of the source of the blood.
Megan turned to Gallo. “Fresh as a daisy.”
Gallo grunted. “Dead daisy.”
One of the forensics specialists spoke up. “She’s right. This guy isn’t an hour cold.”
From my perch, I was able to see one of the local television news vans pulling into the Boathouse Café parking area.
“Your favorite vultures have arrived,” I announced to Gallo.
Gallo turned to the cop whose radio call Charlie Burke had picked up and directed him to go head off the press. “Read my lips, Carr. No comment. Think you can handle that?”
Megan Lamb had pulled a small notebook from her coat pocket, and she scribbled down a note. “We need to get a tarp up here, Joe. This guy’s going to be a snowman in another five minutes.” The wind had kicked up and the snow was driving sideways. Megan brushed some of it from her sleeves and stepped gingerly around to where one of the forensics teams was carefully removing a clump of leaves and old snow from the victim’s face. She looked like a kid in that large coat. She bent down to take a look. “Jesus Christ.”
All I could see from my vantage point was the look on Megan’s face when she straightened again. She looked as if she’d taken a brisk slap.
Gallo asked, “What’ve you got?”
Megan indicated me. “Okay if he hears?”
“Yeah, sure. What is it?”
She puckered her lips. It looked almost like she was giving a smooch to the falling snow. Her breath frosted around her face as she exhaled. “It’s the lawyer, that’s what it is. The loudmouth.”
Gallo stepped closer to the body and bent over for a look. “Son of a bitch. That’s exactly who it is.”
I edged closer to the edge of the boulder, careful not to tumble off the slippery edge as I got a better look at the uncharacteristically silent, cold body of Zachary Riddick.
EXCEPT FOR THE CABBIE who drove Zachary Riddick to Central Park, the lawyer had last been seen alive at 12:20 on the day he was murdered. This was at the news conference, where Riddick had bellyached for a mistrial to be declared and for the immediate release of Marshall Fox from custody. He had been pure Riddick, decrying “the abysmal miscarriage of justice” and working up the sort of lather that Joan of Arc could have only dreamed of from one of her defenders. He also managed to slip in the phrase “my good friend Marshall Fox” or “my personal friend Marshall Fox” fourteen times, according to Jimmy Puck’s column in the Post. And as Joseph Gallo predicted, Riddick had produced a tape player and played the phone threat that had been recorded on Rosemary Fox’s answering machine.
I’m coming, you whore. Can you taste the blood yet?
The police did what they could to track Riddick’s whereabouts in the several hours between the end of the news conference and the discovery of his body in Central Park. Rosemary Fox reported speaking with him briefly on the phone some minutes after the conclusion of the news conference. Riddick had told her he would come by her apartment later in the afternoon to discuss where things stood. He did not disclose his plans for the intervening hours. One would presume lunch. But the contents of Riddick’s stomach, once his body was turned over to the medical examiner for the up-close-and-personal, showed nothing since the twin stack he had shoveled down at his local diner-where he was a regular-at approximately 7:45 that morning. One of the local stations went ahead and dug up the waitress who had served him, a moon-faced Ukrainian who informed the viewing audience, “He luks fine when he leaves here. You think, He vull be back tomorrow like always. Who can know he vull be kilt like that? I hud no idea.”
The police had questioned everyone they could round up in Central Park in the immediate minutes after arriving on the scene. They showed photographs of Riddick. A few people said that they might have seen him, but the information provided no real insights into the murder. Riddick had entered the park from the southeast corner, dropped off by a taxi. The cabbie was tracked down. He had picked Riddick up at Church Street, a few blocks from the courthouse. On the ride uptown, the two shared an animated conversation on the subject of Marshall Fox’s guilt or innocence (the cabbie saw the new murder the same way Riddick did, proof that the real killer of Cynthia Blair and Nikki Rossman was still out there); however, Riddick failed to reveal what his purpose was for heading into the park. The cabbie reported a good tip. He last saw his fare heading into the park via the walkway that runs by the zoo at approximately a quarter to one.
Speculation centered on the possibility that Riddick was on his way to meet someone for lunch at the Boathouse Café-he’d been known to eat there on more than one occasion-but no one surfaced claiming to have been stood up by the lawyer for a lunch date.
Essentially, Zachary Riddick took a cab to the park, briskly walked the quarter mile to the area of the Boathouse and saw his life end amid blood and snow and dead leaves on a nub of a hill overlooking Central Park Lake.
The police weren’t saying much. I’d had to poke and prod just to pick up what little I knew.
IT WAS DIFFICULT to go anywhere in Manhattan the next several days without getting caught up in a conversation about Marshall Fox and this new set of murders. In point of fact, it was difficult to get anywhere in Manhattan in general, unless you were going by subway. Eight additional inches of snow had fallen on the city in the space of twenty-four hours, slowing street traffic to a skidding crawl and leaving the curbs lined with large cloudlike mounds. After the snow stopped, the temperature had tumbled to record lows, locking the city in an arctic freeze. An elderly woman in Fort Apache froze to death in her unheated apartment. A visitor from Columbus, Ohio, lost a leg to a skidding taxi. In Sunset Park, two sisters aged six and nine died when snow leaching from the roof into their bedroom ceiling melted and dripped onto their space heater, igniting a fire that gutted the entire second floor of the house. The mayor put out a call for all nonessential businesses to remain closed. Stores were shuttered. School classes were canceled. Trash collection was suspended. In general terms, as much as a city of nine million restless inhabitants can ever truly grind to a halt, that’s what happened.
Two nights after Zachary Riddick’s murder, Margo and I attended a talk on Wicca given at the American Museum of Natural History. The museum is only several blocks from Margo’s place, but getting there was half the fun. Margo went down on her lovely can as we approached Columbus Avenue but then got the last laugh a minute later as my lunge for a lamppost failed to keep my feet beneath me and I slid to the ground like a cartoon drunk.
Margo had done a recent piece for The Village Voice on the woman giving the talk, so she was curious to hear the presentation. The woman was a Wiccan herself, though in civilian life, she ran a small advertising agency out of her apartment in Chelsea. You know what they say, scratch an ad exec, find a Wiccan. It turned out to be a good talk, much more engaging than I had expected, but even so, the buzz in the auditorium during the reception afterward barely included the word “Wicca.” The murders of Riddick and Robin Burrell had taken place a mere quarter mile from the museum, and their grip on the crowd was palpable. Even the Wiccan, when Margo introduced us and told her what I did for a living, shrugged off my compliment on her presentation and asked my opinion on Marshall Fox in light of these recent killings. The woman was in her sixties, overweight in a hippie-gone-willingly-to-seed way. She was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a gold breastplate necklace that shot off reflected light every time she moved. A thick graying braid nearly as stout as one of her arms snaked down her broad back.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” I said colorlessly.
“But your opinion. I’ll share mine. Mr. Fox is serving as a touchstone, if you will.”
“Touchstone.”
“I see these as ritual killings. Maybe not so much sacrifices. But more a ritualized and symbolic cleansing. Purifying.”
“You’ll excuse me, but I fail to see what is purifying about slitting innocent people’s throats.”
The Wiccan brought her fingers together as if in prayer. Her tiny smile was astonishingly smug. “Innocence is in the eye…or, should I say, the heart of the beholder. From the sphere the killer or killers are operating on, these subjects were clearly anything but innocent. In fact, they were probably considered a poison, or represented a poison, and so it was necessary to remove them from the world.”
I glanced at Margo again to see how she was taking this. She had slipped on her inscrutable mask. “So where does Marshall Fox fit into all this?”
“He’s the touchstone. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say the godhead.”
“I’m sure he’d be flattered to hear that.”
“Mr. Fox held a position of great significance for millions of people. Don’t forget your Simon and Garfunkel: ‘And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.’ The television is our society’s alternative altar. A person such as Mr. Fox takes on the symbolic role of the deity.”
I said, “And religion makes some people go cuckoo.”
She nodded. “There is a history of excess and frenzy, yes.”
Excess and frenzy. I liked that. You could slap that headline on the morning paper each day of the year, and you’d never be wrong. I asked, “So you don’t think that Fox murdered those two women last year?”
The Wiccan pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “I don’t. I believe each killing was performed by a unique participant.”
Margo’s mask dropped. “You mean a different person for each killing? That’s four separate murderers.”
“That is correct.”
“My God. That’s crazy.”
“From the perspective of our sphere, absolutely. But you recall Charles Manson and the so-called Manson family? This was a group of people completely at peace with their actions. Ritualized killings. Purgings. Cleansings. Symbolic. Iconic. However you wish to term it.”
I blurted, “What was so iconic about Robin Burrell? Or any of them?”
“I could hardly say with any certainty. All were intimates of Mr. Fox. We know that much. Perhaps the killer or killers perceived that the victims had betrayed Mr. Fox or were a source of danger to him. Or that they were in some way corrupting him.”
“That’s a joke.”
Margo asked, “Do you really think it’s some kind of a cult? Four different killers? The idea makes my skin crawl.”
“It’s merely a theory, dear.”
I said, “I can tell you the police wouldn’t be too happy with your theory.”
She gave her tiny smile again. “People do not kill in order to make the police happy.”
The morning after the Wicca talk, Margo and I had another tussle. It started while I was shaving, though the seeds had been planted ten minutes earlier, right as Margo was stepping into the shower, when I had told her that I was planning to go to Robin Burrell’s memorial service that morning. I’d fudged somewhat. I was actually planning to attend Robin’s weekly Quaker meeting, not precisely her memorial service. A phone call to one of the Quaker elders in charge of the meeting had informed me that Robin’s death would be the unofficial agenda that Sunday morning. Margo had taken the information in deafening silence, pulling the shower curtain closed with a little extra something.
I was running a razor down my cheek when Margo, in her robe and with a twisted towel piled high on her head, passed behind me on her way out of the bathroom.
“Got to look good for your big date?”
She moved into the apartment, tightening the sash on her robe. The bathroom was warm from her shower, but her exit left behind a chill nonetheless. I took a deep breath and squared off with my reflection. “Let it go.”
Margo barked from the next room, “I heard that.”
I should have counted to ten. Instead I barked back, “If you did, then you were eavesdropping. I wasn’t talking to you.”
The face in the mirror shook its head sadly. Not good. Margo gave a response that I didn’t hear. But I caught its drift. She went on to the kitchen. I quickly finished up the shaving, rinsed off my face and followed her. She was running water into the kettle, staring a hole deep into the sink.
“This isn’t like you,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
She cranked off the water. “Let me check. You are talking to me this time?”
I made certain of an even tone. “I’m talking to you.”
“Nice.” She set the kettle on the stove and kicked up the flame. It’s one of those stoves that makes a click-click-click when you’re activating the pilot light. Maybe it was just me, but I thought she let it click a few seconds longer than necessary. “This isn’t like you, either,” she said.
“What isn’t? Attending funerals and memorial services for the victim is straight out of the handbook. You know that. If you don’t believe me, ask your old man.”
“I’m aware of that.” She turned to face me. “But a victim is not necessarily a client. Do they say anything about that in the handbook? Or is your pretty little client writing you checks from beyond the grave?”
I didn’t say anything. Margo knows a cheap shot when she hears one. She pulled the towel from her head and coiled it tightly in her arms. She might have been counting to ten.
“Okay, let’s back up a second,” she said. “I know you feel bad about what happened to that woman. Of course you do. So do I. For Christ’s sake, so does anyone in America who is paying attention, which, as best I can tell, seems to be pretty much the whole damn country. But I’m sorry, Fritz, whether you spoke with her a few times or not, it’s none of your business. I’m sure you have this fantasy that you could have protected the beautiful maiden across the street, but that’s not how it played out. Some crazy psychopath got in there and slit her throat. But we have a police force in this city, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. They’re looking into it. That’s their job. Robin Burrell is their client. She’s their responsibility.”
She unwrapped her arms and set the towel down on the counter. One of the edges was too near the stove flame, but I didn’t say anything.
“What is it exactly that you don’t like about this?” I asked. “It’s not as if this is the first time I’ve taken up a case on my own. You know that.”
“I do know that. Daddy used to do it, too, and it drove Mom nuts.”
“I’m not your daddy. And you’re not-”
I stopped myself. One of our relationship’s more tender spots was Margo’s fear that in being with me, she was on track to replicate her mother’s life. On its face, the concern was absurd. But it was an argument we had agreed not to enter into. Many times.
I went on, “You know what I’m saying. There’s someone running around this city slicing people’s throats. And too damn close to home to suit my tastes. I know the police are investigating. They’re doing their thing. And Joe Gallo’s a good cop. He’ll probably nail the guy. But another set of eyes never hurt. For Christ’s sake, Margo, this is what I do. What do you want, for me to take up bridge?”
The kettle began to whimper. Margo shut off the flame and picked it up. “I don’t like being jealous,” she said flatly. “It’s one of the most pathetic emotions.”
“There’s nothing to be jealous of. What do you-”
The kettle went down with a rattle. Her eyes were hard black pebbles. “You were quiet about her! You didn’t tell me that you went over there more than once. You tried to hide that from me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, bullshit, Fritz. It is true, and you know it. You never really said to me what it was you two talked about.”
“Not true. She showed me her letters and the e-mails she’d gotten. I told you that.”
“That takes two visits? You brought that stuff up here after the first time you saw her.”
“Perhaps you can remind me of the last time you came home from one of your interviews and recited everything back to me word for word.”
“This is different.”
“Why is it different?”
“Because she lived right across the street. Because she was a beautiful woman.”
“This city is lousy with beautiful women. Present company very much included.”
Margo fingered the ends of her wet hair. “Right. My name is Medusa, it’s nice to meet you.” She fetched her favorite teacup from the drying rack and set it on the counter. “Listen, Fritz, I’m not going to let you charm your way free of this. I’ve already said I’m jealous, and that’s embarrassing enough. We both know I’m not normally the jealous type. So I’m asking myself, what is it? Maybe it’s just that she was on TV all those weeks and she was all that people were talking about. The woman had an affair with Marshall Fox, for Christ’s sake. A very vivid affair, I might add. Thanks to that stupid trial, I practically know more about that woman’s sex life than I know about my own.”
“I’m here to remind you whenever-”
“Shut up. All I’m saying is that every horny hound in America must’ve had that woman in their dreams, and the next thing I know, you’re dropping by to lend her a shoulder to cry on and being just a bit too blasé about it.”
“What was I supposed to do, run up here and-”
“Let me finish.” She very nearly stomped her foot. It had been a long time since I’d seen her this upset. She took a sharp breath. “I watched you sitting at that window the other night. What can I tell you, Fritz, girls don’t like that. I can’t know what you’re feeling when you go to that place. You go very far away. No Margos allowed. Nobody allowed, as best I can tell. I hate it. And now it’s Sunday morning, and you’re going off to the dead girl’s funeral or whatever you want to call it. And I know you. You’re going to get into her head. That’s how you do what you do. I know you. You’re going to get into her head and you’re going to get into her life and you’re going to get into her ugly, stupid death. And I just wish this one time that you wouldn’t.”
She snatched up the kettle again and began pouring water into her cup.
“You forgot the teabag,” I said gently.
With lightning speed, she rattled the kettle to the stove, snatched up the teacup, and smashed it against the side of the sink. She was left holding the broken cup handle, attached to nothing. She threw that into the sink as well.
“You should just go. Really. Go. This is all now officially very stupid. Just go to your stupid funeral. Do whatever it is you need to do. Just do me a fucking favor, will you, and don’t come home dead.”
THE FRIENDS MEETING that Robin had attended was at the old Quaker meetinghouse on the edge of Stuyvesant Park, off East Fifteenth Street. Technically, the park wasn’t named for Peter Stuyvesant, early Manhattan ’s first director general, but for his wife, Judith. It would have rankled old Pete to see anything other than a Dutch Reformed church built on land that was originally part of the Stuyvesant homestead, but the Quakers had wisely waited until 189 years after the Dutchman’s death before building their house of worship, so they were spared the pugnacious peg leg’s fabled wrath.
The meeting room was a large rectangle capable of holding several hundred people. It was arranged with rows of pews facing the center of the room. A photograph of Robin Burrell was taped in the middle of one of the front pews. The photograph was black and white, a solemn posed shot dominated by Robin’s dark eyes. Painful to look at, difficult to turn away from. I took a seat in the pew opposite. As others came into the meetinghouse and took their seats, they folded their hands on their laps and closed their eyes for several minutes. At some point I attempted to follow suit-when in Rome -but an afterimage of Robin’s face from the photograph sizzled in the darkness, and I opened my eyes.
Quaker meetings are as much about silence as they are about talk. Maybe more about silence. At no signal that I could discern, the gentle shuffling and settling in were dispensed with and a stillness settled over the room. The meeting had commenced. There were close to a hundred people attending. Some remained with their eyes closed, but just as many sat with eyes open, gazing down at the floor or off into the middle distance.
After maybe ten minutes of the silence, a man rose to his feet. I placed him in his mid-thirties, with tortoiseshell glasses, a clipped brown mustache and a plaid sweater vest. His hands were clasped in front of him, and he rotated his head slowly as he spoke, taking in the room. The voice was soothing, smooth as butter.
“I’m struck by the affection for Robin that I am feeling here this morning. The enormous…affection.” Here he paused to make eye contact. Slowly. Methodically. Person by person. He continued, “I’m struck with the thought that under different circumstances, if another of us had passed on, Robin would have been here this morning, participating. Robin’s affection, her sense of concern, her caring, they would all be here in the air, just as our thoughts and concerns for her are now passing among us. I’m struck by that thought. What I’m struck by is not so much Robin’s absence but her presence. It’s in this way that I feel Robin is still very much with us. We think of her, as we are all doing this morning, and she is alive to us. The affection and the concern that Robin showed for all of us while she was still among us-that’s what I still feel. That Robin hasn’t died. And I suppose I’m hoping that in some way, maybe in this way, through us, Robin can continue to live on.”
He scanned the room again then sat back down and bowed his head. Seated next to him was a young Asian American woman with tears flowing freely down her cheeks. A minute later, a large, fleshy, red-haired woman got to her feet and cleared her throat. “Robin used to always ask me how Pepper was doing. Some of you know Pepper got hit by a taxi in August. You can still tell when I take him out for his walks. His hips aren’t right anymore. He walks funny. It was the best they could do at the hospital. I mean the animal hospital. Anyway, um, Robin, she always asked about him. It was real…It was nice of her.”
She began to blush, and she sat back down. Only a few seconds passed before another person stood up and muttered a few sentences about God knowing more than we do. Others followed. Most of the messages were brief. A thought. An aphorism. A prayer. One middle-aged man stood up and started to tell a story about him and Robin rushing around the neighborhood getting donuts before one of the meetings. There didn’t seem any real point to the story, and midway through it, the man’s voice cracked and he sat back down.
A long silence followed, and I found myself-as I’m sure others were doing-staring once more at the photograph taped onto the pew. I didn’t want it to happen, but as I sat looking at the picture, the crime-scene photographs I’d seen in Joe Gallo’s office-the cruel, garish, mindless damage-shimmered into focus in my head, interfering with the simple solemn face in front of me. Sometimes I hate my job.
At the conclusion of the meeting, a coffee-and-pastries reception was held in a small gymnasium in the adjoining building. The red-haired woman who had spoken about her dog was standing behind one of the folding tables, feeding pastries onto several plastic trays. As I took one of the Styrofoam cups of coffee, she gave me a sugary smile.
“Hello. I don’t know you. Are you new to meeting?”
“I’m…Yes. This is my first time.”
“First time at all or first time here?”
“First time at all.”
She asked, “Were you a friend of Robin’s? We expected some of her friends might show up this morning.”
“I knew her, yes,” I said.
She shook her head sadly. “Isn’t it awful? I just can’t believe she’s gone.”
An elderly couple angled in for some pastries, and I moved over to give them room.
“What about you?” I asked. “Did you know Robin well?”
“Me? Not really. I mean, not outside of meeting or anything. There was one time Robin and I did end up at the same brunch afterward. But, you know. By coincidence.”
I indicated the people milling about. “What about some of the other people? She must have had some close friends here?”
The woman smiled again. “We’re all close Friends.”
I got her meaning. “Right. Of course. I don’t mean strictly in the Quaker sense.”
Other people were coming in for the sweets and coffee. I was still blocking access, so I slipped around behind the table. The red-haired woman handed me a box of pastries. “You just volunteered. I’m Martha, by the way.”
“Fritz.”
I laid out the pastries on one of the plastic trays just as a large lumpish man came by. He moved like a lava flow, nabbing three pastries at once and continuing on without a word. “Lots of people here were very fond of Robin,” Martha continued. “I guess you could tell that. The community really rallied around her when all that horrible trial stuff began happening. Except we didn’t see a lot of Robin during most of that. She wasn’t going out much, it was too big a hassle for her. The way she was being hounded. But we’d get word how she was doing from Edward.”
“Edward?”
“He’s the elder who spoke about Robin in meeting.”
“The guy with the mustache?”
“Yes.”
I scanned the crowd and found the man in question standing in conversation with the Asian American woman who’d been crying off and on during the meeting. Another man was standing just behind them, leaning against the wall with his thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his faded jeans, as if hoping to be mistaken for James Dean. He was about my height and build, with longish stringy blond hair, a narrow nose and a noticeably small mouth. There was a slightly rodentlike quality to his face, and he appeared to be following the conversation closely, though I couldn’t tell if he was part of it or merely eavesdropping. The man named Edward was impassioned, punctuating his words by slapping the back of one hand down into the other, over and over.
“You say he’s an elder?” I asked Martha. “Obviously you’re not talking about his age. Does that mean he’s a muckety-muck in the Quaker hierarchy?”
She laughed. “I guess you could put it that way. Edward is one of our leaders. We call them elders.”
“And you’re saying that he stayed in touch with Robin while she was going through her difficulties?”
“We’re a community. We’re a family. That’s part of the role of the elders, to be available to members of the family who are in distress.”
“Does Edward have a last name?”
“Well, of course he does. It’s Anger.” I gave her a look. “No, I’m serious. That’s his name.”
“Ed Anger?”
“Edward Anger. You say it enough times, it sounds completely normal.”
I looked over again at Edward Anger. He’d taken the young woman’s hands between his. “Who’s the woman?”
“Oh, that’s Michelle,” Martha said. “Michelle Poole. She’s a friend of Robin’s.”
Edward Anger released the woman’s hands and steered himself into the crowd. I turned to Martha. “Permission to unvolunteer.”
She gave me a peculiar look, then laughed. “Oh. Sure. Thank you for helping. It was nice meeting you, Fritz.”
“Same.” I swung around from behind the table and made my way across the room. The rat-faced James Dean was on his way to the food table. Our shoulders bumped by accident, but only one of us murmured, “Sorry.” Not him.
I stepped over to Robin’s friend. “Michelle?”
“Yes?”
“Hi. My name is Fritz,” I said. “I understand you were a friend of Robin’s.”
Her face could have been a piece of porcelain. Not a blemish to be found. Her jet-black hair was cut in one of those forever-mussed styles-in Michelle’s case, an “I might look like I just rolled out of bed but don’t I look great” look. Her eyes were quite large, particularly for a person of Asian extraction, her mouth was small, her cheeks liable to cause riots among women of weaker bones. She was wearing a stylishly ripped T-shirt, one side way down off the shoulder, over a black leotard and a pair of faded blue jeans that might as well have been wrapped around two pipes as a pair of human legs.
She eyed me with caution. “Yes.”
“I was wondering if we could talk.”
The caution melded into clear suspicion. “About Robin?”
“I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into what happened to Robin. It would be wonderful if-”
She interrupted me. “I know who you are.”
“You do?”
“You’re the detective. You live across the street from Robin’s.”
“I don’t actually live there.”
“But it’s you. Robin talked about you a lot. She said you were a real calming influence. That’s a quote.”
I asked, “Could we sit somewhere?”
“Sure.”
I followed her over to a bench near the door, and we took a seat. She crossed one pipe over the other and shifted around to face me.
“Yeah. She liked you. I mean, this whole past year it’s like everyone was always trying to get a piece of her. First that asshole Fox, then all the magazine and TV people. Those creeps who were calling her up and writing to her. Who could blame her for getting all paranoid about people? All Robin wanted to do was crawl into her bed and put her head under the pillow. She said you seemed different. Like you really cared. It’s really cool to get the chance to meet you. But, I mean, well, not under the circumstances.”
“I’m sorry about what happened.”
“It still creeps me out. I mean, I still can’t believe it. You couldn’t meet anyone sweeter than Robin, I swear. Her hooking up with Fox in the first place was the craziest thing, I’m telling you. It was like some kind of weird fantasy. When he got arrested for killing those two women, Robin literally threw up. Literally. She’d slept with this guy for something like three months. I mean, I’m not pretending she was some kind of saint or anything. I’m not saying that. She had her thing.”
“Her thing?”
“Sex. Robin had a healthy sex life. Normally healthy. Not a freaky sex life, like they tried to say during the trial. She was a healthy American girl living in New York City in the twenty-first century, hello? You don’t go out and slaughter a person just because she wasn’t a virgin.”
“Is that your theory? That someone killed Robin because they were disgusted with what they considered an immoral lifestyle?”
“God, I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud. Who can get into the mind of a freak? She was a good person. She was a good Quaker. It’s Robin who got me into the whole Quaker thing. She brought me along one day, and I really enjoyed it. You don’t have to sign up or anything like that. That’s part of what’s so cool about it. They accept you however you are.”
I spotted Edward Anger over by the sweets table. “What about him?” I said.
She followed my gaze. “Edward? What about him?”
“I understand he kept in touch with Robin while she was holing up.”
“Sure. He called her now and then. I think he went over to see her a few times. Checked up on her.”
“Any Quaker queasiness on his part about Robin being caught up in this whole Fox thing?”
Michelle laughed. “Oh, you mean like a scandal? No way. I just told you, the Quakers are very cool people. They’ve got that whole thee and thou rap, but come on, have you ever been to a Catholic church? I’ll take thee and thou over smite and hellfire any day.”
“Mr. Anger was quite eloquent,” I said.
“Oh, sure. Edward can’t say ‘good morning’ without turning it into a beautiful speech. That’s just the way he is.”
I let it drop. “Did Robin ever talk to you about Zachary Riddick? I remember seeing some of her testimony. Riddick did a real sleaze number on her.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “No kidding. I was right there in the courtroom when he started up with that crap. Robin asked if I could be there for moral support on the days she was testifying. Were you watching the day he actually hit on her right there on the stand? Unbelievable. This is a defense attorney? The man is cross-examining the witness and he’s practically reaching a hand up her dress. I don’t mean literally. But really, he might as well have been. Robin told me afterward that was exactly how she felt up there. It was disgusting. Explain to me what is the relevance of a witness’s personal life, anyway. That whole thing was so disgusting, what they did to her. Fox is the one who seduced her, not vice versa. He’s the one with the reputation. But Riddick was trying to make Robin out as the aggressor. Like she was some sort of slut. Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
“I know he was,” I said. “He was wrapping his whole defense around the fact that Fox and his wife got back together once he’d managed to free himself of all these wanton women who’d been taking pieces of him just because he was a celebrity down in the dumps. Riddick was just trying to find the angle to make the guy look wholesome.”
Michelle exploded. “He murdered two women! What the hell kind of wholesome is that?”
Heads turned our way. Tears had leaped to Michelle’s eyes, and she wiped at them angrily with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, but he was a real freakazoid. I mean, Riddick. Fox, too. But Riddick. Do you want to know what he did?” She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “When he was getting ready to put Robin on the stand, he called me into his office. I don’t know why I went. It was a stupid thing to do. But I don’t know how these things work. I thought, Anything I can do to help Robin. I got there, and he tried to get me to give him dirt on her. On Robin. I couldn’t believe it. But here’s the thing. He’d actually investigated me. He started telling me about stuff I’d done, he had a list with some of the men I’d dated, stuff like that. Like I was relevant to any of this? There was this one guy I’d gone out with just a couple of times, but there really weren’t any sparks. Riddick had dug this up. We hooked up with Robin one night, and there was actually some chemistry between them. Things were already fizzling with us, and he called up Robin and asked her out. Robin checked with me first. There’s no way she would have gone out with him if it had bothered me, but I could’ve cared less. I told her to go for it. They dated a bit. I think they slept together a few times. And it ended. Nothing to it. Life in the city.”
“But Riddick was trying to pump it up?”
“You bet. He kept trying to get me to say that I was secretly pissed off at her, that she was sexually aggressive and was a man-eater and all this crap. I told him to go to hell.”
“It’s an old ploy,” I said. “Lawyers try that move all the time.”
“Well, here’s the thing. While I was in his office? He came on to me. Big-time. It was just like he did with Robin when she was on the stand. The guy’s digging into my sexual history, and I don’t know, I guess it gets him all turned on. For some reason, he thinks he’s God’s gift to women. But I can tell you, he was no gift to me. I probably should have contacted some lawyers’ association or something. That couldn’t have been ethical, what he was pulling. You know what his basic move was? He started telling me what I looked like. I mean, like, describing me in detail. To me. As if I don’t know what I look like? Maybe he thought he was coming off as complimentary and sexy, but no way. I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. Then two days later, I was at a café near where I live. A place I always go. And there he was, just sitting there. Like he was waiting for me. With this big smile on his face.”
“Are you saying he was stalking you?”
“I don’t know. But it happened another time, too. I saw him on the subway platform. I mean, I guess it could have been a coincidence. But it was so soon after seeing him in the café. And there was that smug look on his face again. He started to come down the platform, but the subway pulled in right then, and I got on it. I hopped off at the next stop and waited for the next train.”
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
“About Riddick stalking me? Not really. I mean, I told a few friends. But I made a point not to mention it to Robin. Things were tough enough for her already. Still, it spooked me. I’ve been looking over my shoulder ever since.”
“I guess there’s no need for that now.”
“You mean with Riddick being dead? Yeah, well, you’d think so. But can I tell you something?” Her eyes traveled around the room again before returning to me. Her voice lowered, and she scooted closer to me. A scent of vanilla scooted over with her.
“Even though he’s dead and everything? I’ve still been having this really creepy feeling that someone is still watching me. Or, you know. Following me. I’m probably nuts, but I really feel it. It’s like…I don’t know. It’s like somebody’s eyes are literally on my skin. I can’t describe it, but it’s kind of freaking me out.”
“Have you actually seen anybody?”
“Seen seen? No. But someone’s there. I just know it. Right after I heard about Riddick being found dead in the park, I was heading back to my apartment, and I could have sworn there was someone following me. And it’s happened once or twice since. I don’t like it. First Robin’s killed, and then Riddick. And the phone message that was on Robin’s machine? I don’t know what to say. This town is beginning to freak me out. I’m getting really scared.”
I gave her my card. “If it happens again, call me. Chances are you’re just being paranoid, which is perfectly understandable. But call me anyway. Just get yourself somewhere very public and call.”
Michelle shuddered. Tears had come again to her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “I just can’t believe what happened to Robin. I mean, one day she’s alive and then…I can’t even begin to think how scary that must have been for her. Jesus. What kind of monster would do something like that?”
I tapped the card. “You’ll call me.”
“Oh yeah.” Her moist eyes blinked at the card. “You’d better believe it. I’ll cry bloody murder. Top of my lungs.”
I prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
TWO BLOCKS WEST of the Quaker meetinghouse, I ran into Megan Lamb. She was behind the wheel of a departmental Crown Vic, which was angled against the curb. A man was behind the car, leaning his full weight against it, while Megan called out to him through the open driver’s-side door.
“Get to the middle! The grid’s going to take out your leg!” She glanced up as I approached, showing no sign of surprise. “Malone. Do you want to make yourself useful?”
I continued past her and positioned myself next to the guy who was leaning against the trunk. Young guy. Fresh-faced. “Watch out for the grid,” he muttered. “It’ll take out your leg.”
The Vic had fudged the turn onto Fifteenth Street, and the left rear tire had found an icy groove of snow. No traction. A thin rectangular metal mesh grid had been wedged under the tire. The two of us leaned against the trunk.
The guy grimaced. “She’s going to race it.”
He was right. Megan laid on the accelerator as if kicking out of the gate at Daytona. The tire let out a giddy squeal as it spun in place. The rear of the car trembled but otherwise didn’t budge. Megan’s voice sounded above the squeal.
“Push!”
The guy and I shared a look. “You tell her,” he said. “I’m less than zero.”
I stepped over to the open door as Megan let off the gas. “All you’re doing is polishing the ice,” I told her. “We’ve got to get you rocking forward and back. On the forward, just tap it.”
She gave a noise that seemed to be an assent, and I returned to the rear of the car. We managed to get it rocking slightly, and after a few back-and-forths, Megan began tapping the gas. Third time was a charm. The fresh-faced guy and I leaned hard in to the car. The acid burn went through my arms, and the car swerved slightly to the right then stuttered back onto the street. A blur sailed past my knee. The metal grid. It impaled itself in a snowdrift.
As Megan eased the car over and double-parked, the fresh-faced guy turned to me. “Ryan Pope. You’re Fritz Malone.”
Nice of him to handle both sides of the introduction. I asked, “You’re Megan’s partner?”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe she should be letting you drive.”
“Do you know what the sane man said to the control freak?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Megan got out of the car. Her hands were bright pink and she cupped them, blowing into them. “He telling you about the flat?”
“You had a flat, too?”
“Uptown. On Lexington,” Pope said. He indicated the knees of his pants, which I now saw were soaked and soiled.
“And then you got down here and skidded into the curb.”
“I guess there’s no point in my buying a lotto ticket today,” Megan said.
“I don’t know. I came along. Maybe your luck has changed.”
“Are you coming from the Quaker place?”
“I am.”
“I guess it’s all over?”
“Yes.”
Megan frowned. “Then my luck hasn’t changed.” She looked up into the blank sky for a few seconds, then back at me. Her cheeks were two fierce pink spots. “Joe warned me you’d probably be poking around on the Burrell murder.”
“Keen instincts your boss has got.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in my even going over there.”
“To the meetinghouse? There are probably still some people hanging around. They do the coffee-and-pastries thing afterward.”
Megan addressed her partner. “Ryan, why don’t you get over there and see who’s left to talk to. If you find any live ones, hold on to them. I’ll be right there. I want to debrief Mr. Malone here first. I have the sense that he got all the goodies.”
Pope nodded wordlessly and started off down the street.
I turned to Megan. “Newbie?”
“Pope? Not any longer. He’s growing up fast. Joe paired me with him when I came back in April. The kid didn’t exactly have the clout to say no.”
“Why would he want to say no? Not because you’re a woman?”
“Please. The woman thing was the least of it. You know perfectly well why.”
“Madden.”
She nodded. “Cops get spooked about cops who lose their partners. It was easier for Joe to assign me a greenie.”
She was referring to Detective Christopher Madden, Megan’s partner the night she unloaded her entire service weapon into Albert Stenborg, the Swede. Having just nailed the identity of the monster who had been brutalizing young women in the city for over two months, Megan had radioed Madden from Chinatown that she was headed to Stenborg’s houseboat in Sheepshead Bay and to meet her there. She’d arrived to find her closest friend mutilated and dead at Stenborg’s feet, and after taking the monster out, she’d also discovered Chris Madden’s body on the galley floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. His heart had been carved out of his chest and stuffed into his mouth.
“Let’s go someplace,” Megan said. “I’m not built for this cold.”
We found a Joe Jr. on Third Avenue and took a booth by the window. Megan pulled out her cell phone and punched in a number. “Who am I looking for? At this Quaker place.”
I was shrugging out of my coat. “You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me.”
“Edward Anger.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me then spoke into the phone. “Ry? Megan. See if someone named Edward Anger is still there. If you find him, call me.” She disconnected the call.
The waitress came by, and we ordered a pair of coffees. Megan asked, “What gives? Did you speak with this Anger guy?”
“No, but you’ll want to. He’s big cheese at the meetinghouse. They call them elders. It seems he was checking on Robin’s mental health from time to time.”
“Interesting. In person?”
“I believe so. I got this from a friend of Robin’s. Michelle Poole.” Megan was jotting the names down in her notebook. “Edward Anger gave a nice speech about how Robin’s spirit was still with us.”
“Lovely. It’s what happened to her body that’s my concern.”
“I assume you saw it,” I said. “I mean the body.”
“Oh, I saw it all right. What kind of sick bastard does that thing with the mirror glass? Do you know about that? He shoved a piece of her bathroom mirror right here.” She placed her fingers on the upper part of her throat. “Like he wanted her to watch herself die. Real cute.”
“I saw the photos.”
“Try it in living color.”
“No, thanks.”
She flipped her notebook closed. “All I keep thinking about is her up on the stand testifying. You could see she knew she’d made a mistake, ever mixing herself up with Fox. She regretted the whole thing. Do you remember what she said? When she broke down on the stand?”
“I missed that part.”
“‘I just want my life back.’ That’s what she said. ‘I just want my life back.’ I don’t know where you happen to stand on the great hereafter, but if there is one out there, what do you think that poor girl is cooing now? Same thing. ‘I just want my fucking life back.’”
Our coffees arrived. Megan ignored hers. Her gaze went out the window to where a snowball battle was taking place on the sidewalk. One of the snowballs hit the glass just below Megan’s face. She showed no reaction.
She turned from the window. “Joe says you knew her? Robin Burrell.”
“Not really. I talked with her a few times.”
“A few times. I guess she made an impression. I’ve got to figure there are better places you could spend your Sunday mornings than a Quaker meeting.”
I felt as if I was slipping into a version of the conversation I’d had with Margo. The difference was, Megan Lamb sounded genuinely interested. She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. “What gives?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes things get under your skin. You must know about that. Robin Burrell was ninety-nine percent a total stranger to me. A few short meetings, nothing more. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t like that someone thinks they can burst in on someone else’s life and take it away like that. It pisses me off.”
“You take it personally.”
“I don’t take it personally. Don’t try to put that on me. It’s one of the things I do. I root out the creeps who do this kind of thing to people. I get a better night’s sleep when I can drag them through your door and hand them over to you. If I’d been the priest my mother wanted me to be, I’d have a different take on it.”
“Good night’s sleep. I think I read about that once.” Megan released her chin and poured some milk in her coffee, stirring it slowly with her spoon, in miniature figure eights. “I’ve got a brother. Josh. A couple of years younger than me. Do you know what he makes me do? My little brother? Whenever I catch a body, Josh makes me describe the victims to him. He sits me down and draws out the details.”
“Is our Josh a moribund little fellow?”
Something flashed in her eyes. Just as quickly, it vanished. It looked like anger. She set down the spoon. “Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact. I’d be dead without Josh.”
“What’s with the curiosity?”
“It’s not curiosity. It’s for my own good. He doesn’t want it festering inside me. I’m sure it sounds silly, but Josh is a very intuitive person. It’s ugly. A murdered person is ugly. You’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. It’s ugly. I’m trained to overlook the ugliness and get on with my job. Josh thinks what I do is poison. His making me describe it to him in detail is sort of a detox, for lack of a better word. He thinks it helps me to get it out of my system.”
“Does it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you feel better after you’ve done it?”
“Better?” She weighed the empty space above her hands. “It’s nice that there’s someone who cares. I’d feel a lot worse without that.”
She looked out the window again. It wasn’t difficult to see that something troubling was rolling around in her head. When she turned back to me, her energy had shifted.
“You’re a cowboy on this case, Fritz. You’re just galloping in for reasons of your own. Whatever they are, that’s your business. I don’t really care. What I want is to catch the person who killed Robin and Zachary Riddick. And it’s not a pride thing with me. I don’t give a damn how I catch him. I’m not going to waste my breath telling you to steer clear. You know the drill. We’ve had this conversation before. You know the difference between inquiries and interference. Don’t interfere. That’s the message. The end. Pope and I are the leads on these killings, and don’t think Joe Gallo’s not right on my back. We can’t let this get out of hand. The city doesn’t need a mad slasher running around, turning our beautiful new snow red. Thank you for Mr. Anger. I’ll follow up. I’ll talk to the Poole woman, too. If it hadn’t been for my damn flat tire, I’d be reading you the riot act for interfering, but like I said, all I want is to nail this bastard. Whatever it takes. I really don’t like sitting in a chair describing dead people to my baby brother. It makes me feel like a cripple.”
“A cripple.”
“Yeah. I don’t like it.”
“Have you described Robin to him yet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“So then the ugliness is still in your system.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to.
I GRABBED A CAB uptown. My phone had vibrated while I was talking to Megan, but I hadn’t answered it. It was Margo. She’d left a message.
“Do you remember that time you came with me when I was meeting a bunch of other writers for drinks? We talked shop and about pitching ideas for articles and who’s the biggest ass on the ass-ignment desks? Do you remember what you said to me later? How you couldn’t find a way in? That it just wasn’t a language you spoke? Maybe…maybe you want to think about that when it comes to us sometimes. I’m sorry, Fritz. We’ve gone over this before. I don’t know these murdered people of yours, and I don’t want to. They’re dead. But you go and slip into their lives and get this whole thing going that I just can’t relate to. And I don’t want to relate to. It’s not a language I speak, you know? I…I don’t know exactly what I’m saying. Nothing. I’m saying nothing. Forget it. I hate leaving messages. Look…I’m having dinner with some friends tonight in the Village. How about you stay at your place tonight? Make it easier. I know you’ll be bereft without me, but you can handle it, tough guy like you. We can talk about all this when…God. Never mind. This is nuts. Margo Motormouth, signing off.”
I pocketed the phone and stared down the cabdriver, who was eyeing me in the rearview mirror. Tough guy like me. This wasn’t a new dance, this thing with Margo, though it had been a nice long stretch since the last time we’d gotten out of synch like this. I try not to be knee-jerk defensive, so I didn’t put the blame on her. Not all of it, anyway. The problem with what I do for a living is that it doesn’t stay at the office. Hell, I am the office. It’s mobile work, but as much of it gets done with the head as with the feet. Margo was right-I do slip into the lives of dead people. Usually, they’re already cold when I meet them, but sometimes not. Sometimes they’re like Robin Burrell, and I get a taste of the live item before he or she meets the abrupt fate. Margo wasn’t like Megan Lamb’s brother, Josh. That’s what she was reminding me in her phone message. Three’s a crowd, and when the third one is, to put a blunt point on it, fresh kill, Margo wants no part of it. Or, to be fair, a limited part. She’d been disingenuous during our argument earlier. She does get jealous. My focus turns to other people when I’m working. Sometimes too much of my focus. Tough guy like me. I hate the sight of broken bodies. It disgusts and disturbs me every bit as much as it drives me to seek out who the hell is responsible. I don’t blame Margo for not wanting to hear about it. I don’t want to share. “You just suck it up,” Charlie used to tell me. “A butcher’ll wash his hands before he heads home. You do the same. If you can’t do it, think about maybe not going home for a while.”
The cab dropped me off at the Church of the Sacred Heart just as the second service was letting out. Shirley Malone was standing at the door at the top of the steps, testing the staying power of Father Manekin’s ear. As the priest spotted me coming up the steps, I could have sworn he breathed a silent prayer.
“Fritz. How good to see you.”
“Father.”
“I’m afraid you’re too late. I’ve already issued the congregation its marching orders for the week.”
“Shame. What was your topic?”
My mother answered for him. “Equanimity. That means you’re no more important than anybody else.” She gave me her version of the evil eye, something to which I long ago developed a Kevlar-like resistance. Father Manekin saw his opportunity to make a break for it.
“Don’t remain a stranger, Fritz.” He gave my mother’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll remember what you said, Shirley.”
“What did you say?” I asked after the priest had slid off to another of his flock. Shirley presented me with her elbow so that I could walk her down the steps in regal fashion.
“That’s between Theo, myself and the Lord.”
I felt blessed for the exclusion.
We picked up an armful of lilies at a shop on Ninth then made our way to the subway and caught the number 7 to Queens. It’s been said that my mother looks like Maria Callas by way of Audrey Hepburn, which might also stand for a description of the quicksilver blend of her personality, though what is generally meant is that she is a skinny thing with a swan’s neck, a strong flirtatious face, and a jet-black hairdo. She’s hovering near sixty, but if you mention that to her, you might get a black eye from her tough little fist. Stuff a force of nature into a size-four dress and there you have her. Shirley grew up in Hell’s Kitchen-as did I-and remains there still with only her memories of the place as it once was, before developers and gentrification-level rents steamrolled not only the color out of the area but the very name itself. It’s now tagged Clinton, which is a designation that’ll put you to sleep before you’ve even finished saying it. Shirley is a bona fide ghost of the old neighborhood. Far fewer haunts, but those that remain she clings to with her notorious tenacity.
We got off at Fortieth Street in Sunnyside and walked the several blocks to Calvary Cemetery. Shirley crossed herself before entering, shooting me a look.
The recent snowfall had left the cemetery with a smooth white covering, broken by the thousands of chalky stones poking out of the ground like uneven teeth. We walked several hundred feet along the road before making our way over the snow to the simple stone that read: PATRICK MALONE. Shirley let out a gasp. “There it is.”
“It” was not the stone itself. She was referring to the small bouquet of daisies sitting atop the stone. I started forward, but Shirley put her hand on my chest. “Don’t walk.” She scoured the site. “Damn it all. There should be footprints.”
She was right. Assuming that the flowers had been left off earlier in the day-which was the anniversary of my uncle Patrick’s remains being identified, and the date agreed upon for the official registration of his death-there should have been footprints in the fresh snow. But there were none.
“He’s too clever,” Shirley hissed. “He knew the forecast and he got here early, damn his eyes.” She stepped forward and planted her lilies in the snow. Then she plucked the daisies from the tombstone, crossed herself and buried her face in the flowers.
A year before I was born, an undercover cop in the NYPD’s Organized Crime Task Force working to infiltrate the gangs in Hell’s Kitchen lost one of his informants, nineteen-year-old Patrick Malone. My mother’s twin brother. The undercover cop had worked diligently for months to flip Patrick, recognizing in the young tough a muted streak of humanity and tending it diligently, the way a good gardener tends his plants. What the cop failed to tend with equal care were safeguards to protect Patrick from his ruthless cronies should the facts behind the relationship ever come to light. Which is exactly what happened. The cop was found out, and ten days after Patrick’s disappearance, an extra-strength black trash bag washed up on the sand at Rockaway Beach in Brooklyn. Five days after that, Shirley Malone stood with her head bowed as the scant contents of the bag-no other bags were ever recovered-were lowered into a grave at Calvary Cemetery. My mother allegedly uncorked her first bottle of whiskey that same afternoon and managed to work her way halfway down the label before the cop came by to check on her and put a stop to it. It was a week after the funeral that the cop and Shirley began their affair. It would last all of four months. The cop was married. One child and another on the way. He wouldn’t find out until several months after breaking things off with Shirley that she was pregnant with me and planning to see it through. Her relationship with the bottle was moving along nicely by that point as well. After I was born, the cop made a point of keeping tabs on me and my mother when he could, dropping in on us now and again. Sometimes I was invited to leave the apartment for an hour while the two hashed things out. To some extent, despite his spotty presence in my life, my old man managed to mold me, if not directly as often as I’d have preferred then at least by dint of his considerable persona and the name he made for himself as he rose steadily up the ranks of the police department. I steered in the direction of the NYPD myself for a while-managed one year at John Jay-though I fell with a pronounced bounce from that particular path. Eventually, my father was named police commissioner for the city of New York. Commissioner Harlan Scott. But one summer afternoon four years into his post, he stepped down without notice or explanation and, five days after that, disappeared forever from the face of the earth. One would have had to be watching closely-which I was-to see that my mother’s relationship with the bottle moved to a deeper level after the old man’s disappearance. Even fifteen years later-eight years after Harlan Scott was officially declared dead-she never tires of reminding me how the important men in her life have a habit of disappearing.
The freaky thing about the daisies on my uncle’s grave was this: Harlan Scott had made it a point every year on the anniversary of Patrick Malone’s declared death to join my mother at her brother’s gravesite and leave off a clutch of daisies. In the fifteen years since his disappearance, every year without fail, the daisies had continued to appear. I knew it wasn’t my father. The lead weight in my stomach told me that he was every bit as dead as the uncle I’d never met. But my mother has another way of viewing matters. It’s not stretching the truth to say that she looks forward to the annual anguish of discovering the mysterious daisies on her brother’s tombstone. Even though she married (and, later, divorced), no other man on earth was going to take my father’s place in her emotions. The inexplicable daisies gave my mother the kind of false hope that fuels constant low-level heartache, a pain with which the small tough woman was, unfortunately, all too comfortable.
After several silent minutes, we left the gravesite. As she always did, my mother paused just outside the cemetery. She slowly scanned the buildings running both ways in front of us. One year she’d brought binoculars. But generally, the tactic was to remain visible for a minute or two, in case someone was watching. The windows of the buildings stared back blankly. Hundreds of opaque empty eyes.
Shirley wanted a drink. I’m not my mother’s keeper, so we ducked into a place called the Lounge. Dark. Stale. I could swear the same elbows were on the bar as the year before, and the year before that. We took a table next to a silent pinball machine, and I fetched an old-fashioned for the lady and for myself an Irish coffee, heavy on the Irish.
Several months after Commissioner Harlan Scott disappeared, I’d gotten a referral to Charlie Burke, private investigator out of Queens, and procured his services to snoop around and see what he could find. I’d never trusted the official investigation. It’s easy to make enemies when you’re a cop on the rise, especially once you’ve reached the top. Easy target. Fair game. Charlie managed to shine his light on any number of characters who might have been happy to assist in the obliteration of Harlan Scott, but ultimately nothing rock-solid. Along the way, I picked up my PI license and put myself under Charlie’s tutelage. It was a better fit for me. Attempting to follow in the old man’s footsteps had been downright quaint of me, or just plain stupid. I’m better suited for contract work or just being nosy on my own. Charlie declared that I had the raw material already in place, it was just a matter of fine-tuning, picking up some of the tricks and the bumps and bruises of experience. He also did a smart thing. Or, if not smart, extremely shrewd; the equivalent of attaching an endless belt of ammunition to a weapon. He sat me down one evening at his local, a bar not that far from the Lounge. I remember his every word.
“Your old man. What do we know? I’ll tell you. We know one of two things. He either disappeared because he wanted to, and he’s got no intention of being found except on his own terms, or he was taken out. Forget the first one, it’s the less likely. That second one? Listen. Somebody bad killed your father. Someone with the poison in their blood. My advice to you is that when you take on a case, it doesn’t matter what kind it is, you keep in mind that what you’re looking to do is nail someone with the poison in their blood. Doesn’t matter if it’s only a little poison. Embezzler, guy cheating on his wife, insurance scammers, doesn’t matter. It comes from the same source as the creep who took your old man away from you. They’re cousins, all these schmucks. That’s what you go after. Every time. It’s their blood you’re sniffing for, Fritz. Poison blood. Get it off the street. Every time. You want to do right by your old man? There’s your ticket.”
When I reminded Shirley that she wasn’t allowed to smoke in the bar, she quietly cursed the mayor. She dropped the celery-green pack back into her purse.
“I noticed where the girl lived who got her throat slashed the other night,” Shirley said. “That’s little missy’s front yard, isn’t it?”
“She goes by the name of Margo.”
“I figured you knew who I was talking about.”
“The murder happened right across the street.”
“Did she know her?”
“Did Margo know her?”
“I know it’s not fashionable to know your neighbors in this city, but stranger things have happened.”
“She didn’t know her,” I said.
“If I were an associate of this Marshall Fox character, I’d be leaving on the next train. You know who did this, don’t you?”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. Not the specifics, but it was a fan. A demented fan. An obsessed fan. Someone’s trying to make it look like the original killer is still out there, like Marshall Fox is completely innocent of those two murders last year. He wants to sow the seeds of doubt in the jury’s mind so that they don’t come in with a guilty verdict. Everyone knows this is the world’s stupidest jury and they can’t make up their minds even when it’s as clear as a bell. You wait, you’ll see. Some nutcase with pictures of Marshall Fox plastered all over his walls. That’s your killer.”
“And the reason for these particular victims?”
“Friends of Fox. Like those first two. They’re just trying to go with the pattern.”
“The pattern was women with whom Fox had been involved,” I pointed out. “Zachary Riddick is a square peg.”
“Did I say the killer was brilliant? The lawyer probably just got under his skin and he decided to do Riddick in while he was at it. I’m not the police. I don’t have all the answers.”
Her drink was finished, and she wanted another one. I’d cut her off after two and then hope we’d have to wait in the cold air awhile for the elevated subway. I replenished my mug while I was at it. Cold gray Sunday would have been perfect in front of a toasty fire with little missy. My day was feeling like the booby prize.
“Except for roses and black-eyed Susans, daisies were about the only flower your father could identify. You knew that, right?”
Of course I knew that. She pointed it out to me every year. She picked up her glass and took a noisy sip.
“He was devastated about what happened to Patrick. He took the blame. Thing is, your uncle had too big a soft spot. He ran with all those crazies, but his heart wasn’t in it. Not really. He was a good boy. Harlan spotted that. You’ve never seen a man so miserable with remorse. I should have hated him. I should have ripped his eyes out. He killed my brother. Sweet Patrick.” She picked up her glass again and held it near her chin.
“I’ve been trying to be furious with your father from the day they found Patrick. What happened between us made no sense. I should be furious. And you know…I might be. I don’t care what you think, Fritz. He’s out there. Your father is alive and he’s out there and he’s letting you and me know it. He’s either stark raving mad or he’s scared half to death or he just has his reasons. Or all of the above. But one day I’m going to catch that bastard laying his little daisies on my brother’s grave. You’ve never really seen me furious. You think you have, but you haven’t. You’d better be there when it happens. Your father’s going to need you there to protect him.”
She sniffed back a tear and raised her glass. “Patrick Malone.”
I tapped her glass with my mug. “Patrick Malone.”
She stared at me as she downed her drink. Never took her eyes off me. “You look just like him, you know,” she said.
Of course I knew. She told me so every year. And she didn’t mean my uncle Patrick, either.
THE TUESDAY AFTER the Hamptons weekend, Robin swore to herself that she was not remaining home after work simply because she had told Marshall Fox that she had the night free. Michelle had called up suggesting that the two meet up in the Union Square area for drinks, but Robin had begged off, claiming she was tired and looking for an early night.
“It’s not Fox, is it?” Michelle said. “He hasn’t actually called you, has he?”
Michelle didn’t believe for a minute that Marshall Fox had been serious. Robin agreed with her. He’d been drinking, she reminded herself, plus God knows what else. Robin couldn’t claim to be up on all the drugs of the moment, but she had seen enough bizarre behavior during the Hamptons party to know that there had been more consumed than just the cocktails she’d spent all night circulating. She had already played over and over in her mind her encounters with Fox and determined that she’d been taken in-almost taken in-by the celebrity’s prodigious charm and his serial flirting. It’s absurd, she told herself. The man goes out with supermodels and Hollywood actresses. I was the hired help. Get a grip.
In fact, Fox hadn’t called. Not the Sunday after the party, not Monday, and not Tuesday. Of course he hadn’t. It was absurd. For all Robin knew, Fox had patched things up with Kelly Cole, and the two of them had shared a good laugh about the crazy martini-throwing incident, and that was that. Robin had stayed up and watched his show Monday night just to see-she told herself-if Fox made any mention of the event in the Hamptons. He didn’t, though he had made a joke that sounded to Robin like it might have been an oblique reference to the striking blond newswoman and the drink-throwing incident. But maybe not. Robin had caught sight of herself in the mirror on the wall next to the television set and told herself to snap out of it already.
To her regret, Robin had talked about the party at work, letting slip the fact that Marshall Fox had flirted with her and had sort of asked her out. Denise from Graphics was a huge Marshall Fox fan.
“Has he called yet?” The question came on what seemed to be a half-hourly basis. On Tuesday Denise was nearly beside herself. “Has he called? You are checking your machine, aren’t you?” Denise had even offered to check Robin’s home answering machine for her. “Look. When he does call, you do not erase that message. I’m serious. I swear, I’ll pay you to let me record it. You have to promise me. Oh my God. Marshall Fox.”
But he hadn’t called. By two o’clock, Robin had made a particular point about not calling home anymore to check her machine. At the end of the day, Denise had demanded that Robin call one more time.
“He starts taping the show at five. He might’ve called right before.”
There’d been no messages. Good, Robin told herself. That’s that.
LATER THAT NIGHT, her chin pressed hard against her pillow, Robin had panicked. What was she doing? This was insane. As she twisted her head to look over her shoulder, what her eye fell on first was the television set atop her dresser across the room. The set was muted, and Marshall Fox was signing off. He placed his hand over his heart.
Robin shifted on her elbows and tried to bring her hands together to form a T, for “timeout.” She sputtered, “I…please…stop…please.”
Marshall Fox took a grip on her shoulder and squeezed. “Shhhh. Come on, New Hope. Just relax, baby. Go with it.”
And he didn’t stop. Quite the opposite. Robin closed her eyes against the flickering light on her bedroom wall and did as she was told. No need to panic, she told herself. He’s right, just go with it. It’s not really so bad. In fact…
As her cheek moved along the pillow, she had a fleeting thought of Denise. Oh my God, if she could see me now. This was followed by another thought, and it made her laugh out loud. He’s the fox; I’m the chicken house.
Behind her, Fox continued to croon. “That’s right, New Hope. Thatta girl. You’re getting it…”
PETER ELLIOTT CALLED ME at home around ten. I was sitting in my perfectly ratty armchair, eating wasabi peas and thumbing through a copy of The Horse’s Mouth, trying to get into it. A Margo recommendation. It seemed like it might be good if I could actually focus on it. But the going was tough. The ringing phone got me off the hook. Which is a pun, if you think about it.
“There’s been another phone threat.”
I set down the book and sat up in the chair. “You’re kidding.”
“Word for word, exactly like the other ones. I just got a call from Joe Gallo.”
I asked, “Who got it?”
“That’s the thing, Fritz. This one doesn’t make any sense. At least not yet. It’s a total blank. The person has no connection with Marshall Fox whatsoever. I mean zero. She doesn’t even watch the show.”
My radiator began clanging. It does that when it’s pressed into action for too long. It sounds like someone is swinging at it with a ball peen hammer. I switched ears. “So what’re the details?”
“There aren’t many. It’s a woman who lives on East Eighteenth Street. Thirty-four. Single, with a boyfriend. She and the boyfriend were off on a ski trip this past week, but they didn’t miss any of the news. Woman says her boyfriend is a real news junkie, so they had CNN on all the time when they weren’t out skiing.”
“Sounds romantic,” I said.
“The point is, they caught a couple of the replays of Riddick playing that damn tape at his press conference. CNN must think it’s the audio holy grail, they’ve been playing it so often. You just wait, it’s going to find its way into a music mix of some sort. That’s the world we live in these days.”
Music mix. I vaguely knew what he was talking about.
Peter continued, “Anyway, this woman heard it a couple of times when they were out in Colorado Springs or wherever it was. She told Gallo that Robin’s murder already had her sort of freaked out. She and Burrell are the same age, and according to Gallo, the two look a little bit alike. Not that it makes any difference. My eighty-three-year-old grandmother is freaked out by what’s going on, and she’s long past her girlish beauty. But it’s out there. I’m sure you can feel it, right? People are on edge. It wasn’t helped by the Post publishing that damn photo.”
“Jesus. Don’t get Joe Gallo started on the Post.”
“Started?” Peter laughed. “That would mean he actually stopped.”
“So let’s hear what happened.”
“What happened was that they got back to the city this afternoon, and the boyfriend dropped her off. She lives in Chelsea. The woman told Gallo that when she takes a vacation, she doesn’t call in and check her machine. Cell phones these days, I wouldn’t want to be in the answering machine business. So she gets home and checks her messages, and there it was. ‘Can you taste the blood yet? Whore.’ The whole thing. It could practically be a prerecorded message. The woman lets out a scream that you could probably hear halfway down the block.”
I thought a minute, biting down on a few wasabi peas to help stimulate things. “You said it was so much like the other messages that it could have been a recording. Maybe it was a recording. Maybe it was a prank from some not-so-funny friend.”
“Right. Gallo thought of that, too. But it was recorded on her machine the same day that Robin Burrell was killed, and Riddick didn’t broadcast Rosemary Fox’s tape until the day after Burrell was killed. Gallo’s people are running tests on the answering machine just to triple-check everything, but Joe has already told me he can tell it’s not a recording being played back. It was live. The same loony who left the message for Robin Burrell and Rosemary Fox left one for this woman on the same day.”
“What’s her name?”
“Allison Jennings.”
I took another pause to think it all over. “Why are you calling me, Peter?”
“I was wondering when you were going to ask that.”
“You can stop wondering.”
“How’s your plate looking, Fritz?”
“My plate is full of wasabi peas. For that matter, my plate isn’t even a plate. My plate is a bowl. Why do you ask?”
“The Jennings woman is freaked out.”
“So you said. I can imagine she is. But she has a boyfriend, Peter. I know you think I’m swell and all, but you’re not calling me up so that I can go comfort her.”
“Margo would have my head on a platter,” he said.
I muttered, “If there’s room.”
“What? Trouble in paradise?”
“It’s nothing. Like you said. A lot of people are freaking out.”
Peter asked, “Can you go see Allison Jennings tomorrow?”
“Why should I do that?”
“It makes no sense that someone completely unrelated to Marshall Fox would get one of these same phone threats that the others got. The police are missing something. I thought you could talk to her, maybe nose around in her life and see if you can come up with the connection. It could be important.”
“I’m assuming the police are already doing that,” I said.
“They are. But that doesn’t mean adding you to the mix might not be helpful.”
“Who’d be paying my freight on this? It can’t be Mr. Gallo and the good people of New York.”
“I’m hiring you. Actually, just call it an extension of the work you did for us vetting the jury in the spring.”
“Did you tell Joe that you were putting me on the trail? I’ve already crossed paths with his lead investigator.” I had the sudden image of Megan Lamb seated across the room, wringing her hands and describing gory details for me. Or rather, for her.
“Gallo knows,” Peter said. “He said what you said. You’re already his shadow on this thing. I got the rap. Anything you uncover, you take to him immediately, blah, blah, blah.”
I sniffed. “A law lecture. At our age.”
“Gallo wants this thing nailed and finished. I mean, who doesn’t? I told you about my granny. Shelly’s got it, too. The heebie-jeebies. To be honest, I can’t shake the ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ feeling, either. Riddick and Burrell within twenty-four hours. I know there’s been nothing for three days. But maybe it’s the weather and all this snow that has him socked in like it has the rest of the city. That’s the feeling I have. This guy’s holed up, but there’s still unfinished business out there.”
“You’re thinking Rosemary Fox?”
“I was. And now I’m thinking Allison Jennings. I just don’t know. Gallo told me he recommended she get back out of town if at all possible, but she says after just taking the week off for skiing, she’s way too swamped at her job.”
I could hear noise in the background. A child’s screaming laughter and a woman responding. Peter’s wife, Shelly, I presumed.
The attorney lowered his voice. “You know what, Fritz? I don’t want to spook Shelly any more than she already is, but I’ve actually been thinking of getting her and the kids out of the city until this whole thing blows over. I’m sure it’s nerves about the trial. My damn jury is ready to explode, and I’m getting this awful feeling that even if they don’t, Fox is going to walk. Either way, I’m looking at my wife here and I’m thinking, Don’t be an idiot. Some nut is out there. Who knows what he’s thinking? Get her the hell away from here.”
“I’ll talk to Jennings,” I said. “We need to establish her link with these phone threats. That’s something we could actually run with.”
“Excellent. Let me give you her cell number. She’s not staying at her place tonight. At Gallo’s suggestion, she won’t be at her boyfriend’s, either. She’d be just as easy to track down there. She gave Gallo the address of where she’d be staying tonight, and he said he’d post a car outside. He didn’t tell me where it was. You call her cell in the morning, and the two of you can set up a place to meet. If you can, could you swing by my office after you’ve talked to her? There’s something else I need to go over with you.”
I agreed to stop by, and we hung up. I returned the rest of the wasabi peas to the bag and stowed it in the cabinet. The radiator had ceased its banging while I was talking to Peter, but now it started up again. The room was stuffy, so I cracked a window. I poked my head outside for some air and spent a minute looking down the block at the green and red holiday garlands straddling the street farther down Mulberry. The lights of the Italian restaurants were popping and blinking, but the street itself was nearly abandoned. It seemed like the entire city had gone to ground.
Before I got into bed, I jotted down some notes, circled a few of them, drew an arrow here and there, and layered in a number of question marks. I considered calling Margo to let her know that I was now officially on the case. I had a client. A paying client. Maybe that would mollify her. The radiator in the front room clanged and banged again as I picked up the phone. In the distance, I heard the urgent blaring horn of a fire truck. The sound grew louder as the truck passed a block or so away, and then it faded again into the night.
I set the phone back down and turned off the light.
ALLISON JENNINGS WANTED me to meet her in Brooklyn Heights. First thing in the morning, I took the subway under the river to the Clark Street stop. My low-level claustrophobia kicked in when we were under the East River, but I’ve got some tricks I use to deal with it. On the crowded cattle elevator up to the street level, there was a rabbit-fur hat in my face, and I wanted to snatch it with my teeth and spit it out onto the floor. But I maintained a civil composure and got through the short ride.
Allison’s boyfriend came along. His name was Jeffrey. I met them at a pastry shop on Piermont Avenue. As I came in, Jeffrey rose from his chair and met me at the door. The first thing he did was ask to see my PI license. He took it with a trembling hand and stared at it as if it needed deciphering.
He asked, “Do you carry a gun?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you carrying one now?”
I tapped the area of my heart. “I’d introduce you, but he’s shy.”
Jeffrey handed me back the license. “She’s really freaked out. Anything you can do to make her feel safer, I’d appreciate it.”
Allison was sitting at a small table about fifteen feet from the door. Jeffrey’s security check completed, the two of us joined her. She was a brunette. She looked hopeful and scared all at once. Jeffrey sat down and took her hand. I considered taking the other one, but we weren’t here for a prayer meeting. I introduced myself and asked Allison to tell me the story. I knew it already, but details get dropped and added as tales move down the line. In this case, the details were few, and Allison’s rendering essentially matched the version I’d gotten on the phone from Peter Elliott.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked, a tremor in her voice. “I’m really confused. Why does this man want to hurt me?”
“We’re going to figure that out,” I said. “Let me ask you some questions. From what I understand and what you just told me, you have zero connection with Marshall Fox.”
“None. I don’t even watch his show.”
“Okay. Put Fox out of your head for the moment. We can look for the Fox link later. I want to focus on who might have some sort of problem with you directly. Why don’t you tell me what you do for a living?”
She told me that she worked for Reuters news service. I knew the building-it’s in midtown, not far from my office. Allison worked as the manager of human resources.
“That’s hiring and firing?”
“Basically, yes. Though most of my time is spent in recruitment.”
“You check qualifications, references, do interviews? That sort of thing?”
“Correct.”
“Have you fired anyone recently?”
She paused. “We announced a large layoff right before Christmas.” She managed a small laugh. “Nice and Dickensian, isn’t it? Some people went immediately. Others received notice that their positions were being phased out over a matter of a couple of months. We give good severance packages. But yes, I guess I’ve fired a lot of people recently.”
“How does that work, a mass layoff like that?”
“It’s a grueling couple of days. I see everybody one at a time, and I give them the news.”
“That must be fun.”
“Most people are surprisingly okay about it. Layoffs are part of the culture these days. That’s not to say they’re happy. I get the word that we have to make so-and-so many cuts in such-and-such department. I talk with the department heads, we go over their staffs. Except in rare cases, it’s almost always a matter of seniority. I mean, sometimes there’s a bad job report that can move someone up on the list, but usually it’s last one in, first one out. Either way, it’s painful. It’s like I’m the village executioner.”
“You say people are pretty good about it. But do some people get angry? Have you ever had anyone threaten you personally?”
She and Jeffrey shared a look. “Go on,” Jeffrey said. “Tell him.”
Allison turned back to me. “It’s nothing. Yes. Some people do get upset. Of course they do. Who wouldn’t? Like I said, these last cuts came right around Christmas. Which I argued against, by the way. Plus, the job market really stinks right now.”
“You’re reluctant to give me a name, is that it?”
She looked like she was ready to cry. Jeffrey squeezed her hand tighter and answered for her. “There’s an implied confidentiality in the work Ally does.”
I ignored him. “Ms. Jennings, were you also reluctant to give this name to the police last night?”
“I could lose my job if one of our former employees brings a lawsuit. I’m sure this guy isn’t the one who left that message. It makes no sense. The last thing I need is him finding out I sicced the police on him.”
“Okay. Let’s put him aside for a minute. I assume you also interview people for new positions. Have there been any job candidates in the past six months or so who struck you as peculiar?”
“Peculiar?”
“Excessive in some fashion. Too eager. Too friendly. Too boastful. Too secure or too insecure. Someone who behaved like he had the job in the bag when in fact he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Yes to which?”
“Yes to everything you just said. That’s what you get in my position, all the types you just listed.”
“Let’s concentrate on the ones who didn’t get the job.”
“That’s the majority. One position, scores of candidates.”
“I’m looking for a man, someone who stands out. Maybe he wasn’t necessarily aggressive. Something off in the body language. Or he had an odd way of putting things. Did any of the candidates come on to you? Even subtly?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“I’m just fishing. If someone unhinged thought he’d made a personal connection with you and then he didn’t get the job. In his eyes, you rejected him not only for the job but also personally. Does anyone like that come to mind?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”
I was getting nowhere. But most times that’s how you have to play the game. You rack up the miles on fruitless roads. I tried a new tack. “Back to the people you had to let go. Did any of them ever say to you that losing their job was going to make things difficult for them or their family?”
“I guess so. It really depends. The ones who are single, they have a little less to worry about, and most-”
I had a thought. “Hold on. Clear your mind for a second. Stop looking for a man. Think of the women. Specifically the married women. I’m not expecting you to know the circumstances of everyone’s private life, but I’m sure sometimes you get a sense. Does any woman stand out who seemed upset over how her husband was going to take the news? Maybe someone who mentioned that her husband was recently laid off himself or was out looking for work or maybe just made a large investment? A house. Or the kids’ tuition. Someone who worried that she was really going to be strapped by losing her job? Did anyone seem uncommonly scared?”
Jeffrey spoke up. “You mean like a woman who was afraid her husband was going to yell at her or even beat her up for losing her job?”
“Exactly. That’s one example. The violent spouse. Does anything like that come to mind, Allison?”
“Possibly.” She nibbled lightly on her lower lip before continuing. “There was a woman during the pre-Christmas layoffs who said exactly what you just said. But people say stuff all the time. I mean, it’s a figure of speech.”
“What’s a figure of speech?”
“‘My husband is going to kill me.’”
I took out my notebook and slid it across the table. I handed her a pen. “It’s time for names, Allison. I want this one, and I want the man you mentioned who got angry when you fired him. This is no time for you to be protecting anyone. Do you remember the names?” She nodded. I reached across the table and tapped my finger on the notebook. “Write them.”
She scribbled down a pair of names. “I’m not going in to work today. I’m just too freaked out. But if you’d like, I can call my assistant and have her pull the files on these two.”
“That’ll be good. I know where your building is. Tell her I’ll stop by later this afternoon.” Allison produced a business card and handed it to me. I tucked it into my notebook and thanked her for her time.
Jeffrey accompanied me to the front door. He looked like he could use some air.
“I don’t get it. Why would somebody want to kill Allison? Do you really think it’s got something to do with her job?”
“I plan to find that out.”
“I’m afraid to leave her side.”
I looked back at Allison. She was staring a hole into her hands. I turned back to Jeffrey. “If I were you, that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d be on her like glue.”
PETER ELLIOTT STUCK his thumbs in his maroon suspenders and put his feet up on his desk. I settled into a brown leather chair that smelled faintly like a new shoe. “All you need is a stogie in your mouth, counselor.”
Peter laughed. “Shelly hates it when I smoke cigars.”
“Shelly is a civilized woman.”
“No argument there. So you met with Ms. Jennings?”
I gave him a rundown. He listened without interrupting, consulting the ceiling as I spoke. When I was finished, he brought his feet back down to terra firma and drummed his fingers on the desk.
“Okay. Those sound like lukewarm leads.”
“That’s how I see it, too. But they should be tracked down.”
“Give them to the police. It’s the Fox connection we want.”
“That’s a zero,” I said.
“Anything to the Jennings woman looking like Robin Burrell?”
“I didn’t see it,” I said. “I mean, she looks more like her than you or I do. Though maybe you’ve got dishy legs. I’ve never had the privilege.”
“Ms. Burrell did have a nice set of sticks, didn’t she?”
“She was not an unattractive woman.”
Peter scoffed, “Come on, Fritz. The woman was gorgeous.”
“But no sexual predator.”
The attorney held up a hand. “Please. If I never hear that term again, I’ll be grateful. You’ve got to give Riddick credit for that one. He really pounded it into the jury. Basic brainwashing 101. What was I supposed to do, go up there and ask the witness to explain to the jury that she wasn’t a sexual predator? That just keeps the damn term floating out there longer.”
“You weren’t exactly painting Robin Burrell as a nun.”
“It’s an ugly business. We had to bring out the extent of Fox’s sexual deviance. That was key. The man liked it rough. He liked his toys. Especially his handcuffs. Burrell was our best witness to Fox’s fun and games. I’m not saying I enjoyed dragging her through the mud.”
“ America enjoyed it.”
“Yeah, well. America enjoys all sorts of things.”
Nikki Rossman, the second victim, had been found with one end of a pair of handcuffs fastened around her left wrist. Under Peter Elliott’s questioning, Robin had revealed that early in her five-month affair with Fox, she had relented to his urgings that the two indulge in various bondage games, particularly the ones including the use of handcuffs. The testimony had been damning to Fox. What Peter hadn’t anticipated was that Fox’s defense team would take up the challenge and attempt to portray Robin as the aggressor, the one who had encouraged country boy Fox to loosen up and try some new things. Unfortunately, their cause was bolstered when they invited to the stand a man who testified about “some pretty inventive sex” with Robin Burrell back when the two were undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania. The man described several episodes that had involved his binding Robin’s ankles and wrists with knotted socks and securing them so she was essentially immobile during the ensuing sex. Worse for the prosecution, he had insisted on the stand that the idea of the bondage had not generated from him but from Robin. Peter Elliott objected to the testimony and tried to get it struck from the record, but the judge had allowed it. From that point on, Fox’s defense team never missed an opportunity to portray Robin as not only a willing and eager partner to the colorful sex she and Fox had indulged in, but as the initiator. The notion took hold, and soon enough, Robin’s image in the media rarely appeared without at least a passing allusion to her spirited sexual history. Riddick had also managed to dredge up the fact that while she was an undergraduate, Robin had become pregnant not once but twice, each time terminating the pregnancy. Judge Deveraux did order this irrelevant factoid stricken from the record, but even so, Robin’s stability as a witness for the prosecution had taken its hits.
The buzzer on Peter’s phone buzzed. The call was short.
“That was Lewis,” Peter said, hanging up. “He’d like us to come into his office.”
If I thought the fragrance of Peter’s office chair suggested a new shoe, state’s attorney Lewis Gottlieb’s entire office positively reeked of a tannery. Gottlieb was acting as lead prosecutor in the Marshall Fox trial. For a man nearing his seventy-fifth birthday, he was still in impressively good physical condition, tall and unstooped, rumored to jog three miles every morning before taking the train down to the city from Westchester. It had been widely rumored that Gottlieb was on the cusp of announcing his plans for retirement just before the indictment of Marshall Fox on multiple counts of murder and that Peter had been instrumental in convincing his mentor to stay on and crown his career with what would no doubt be recorded as one of the more notorious prosecutions of the Manhattan criminal court system. Word along the grapevine was that Gottlieb was apoplectic at the possibility of losing such a white-hot spectacle of a case as the Marshall Fox prosecution. The notion was unimaginable, the sort of wrong note that a person like Lewis Gottlieb quite simply would not tolerate.
Peter had admitted to me on our way down the plushly carpeted corridor to Gottlieb’s office that the esteemed attorney was especially nervous about the jury’s increasing fractiousness.
“A hung jury is the least of his worries. Lewis has Deveraux’s promise-off the record-that he’ll do everything humanly possible to get everything through to a conclusion on this go-around. It’s not the mistrial that’s got Lewis worked up, it’s the prospect that the jury will actually let Fox go free. If things were to go that way…I don’t even want to think about it.”
Lewis Gottlieb was cordial with me but cool. The lawyer rose from behind his imperial desk and gave me his large freckled hand to shake. “Mr. Malone. I understand you are back on board.”
“So I’m told.”
As I took a seat, Gottlieb addressed his younger colleague. “What does he know?”
“Fritz knows nothing,” Peter said. I thought I detected a slight smirk, but I might have been mistaken. Gottlieb stared at me for several seconds.
“The foreperson,” he said at last.
“Nancy Spicer. What about her?”
Gottlieb steepled his large hands and lowered his chin onto them. “You vetted her for us.”
“I vetted all of them. What about her?”
Gottlieb raised a frosty eyebrow. The watery brown eyes moved to Peter, who cleared his throat. “Mrs. Spicer had a nervous breakdown. I don’t mean since she’s been on the jury, though she’s cruising in that direction. This was six years ago. She lost it completely, Fritz. Took a real dive. She spent thirty days in an institution.”
I let out a low whistle. “We don’t like that.”
Lewis Gottlieb agreed, “We don’t, Mr. Malone. We don’t like it in the slightest.”
I asked, “Does the defense know?”
Peter answered, “Not yet.”
“How did you find out?”
“It’s complicated,” Gottlieb said. “And not relevant. We can go into that later.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what else to say. I ran everyone down as best I could. Something like that should have been flapping in the wind. It should have hit me in the face.”
“Spicer’s husband had it suppressed,” Peter said. “You would have had to dig for it.”
“That’s what you were paying me-”
Gottlieb interrupted, “That’s not important right now. You’re not in here for a scolding.” He looked again at Peter and nodded.
“Lewis doesn’t like the husband,” Peter said. “Bruce Spicer.”
I remembered Spicer. Vaguely. He worked as a clerk in a hardware store on Third Avenue. I remembered swinging by and talking to him in his cherry-red vest. The vest had made more of an impression on me than the man. “What don’t you like about him?”
Gottlieb answered, “He’s born-again. A Bible thumper.”
“A born-again Christian,” I said. “Is that really a basis to not like someone? I mean, in a professional sense?”
“I’m not anti-Christian,” Gottlieb said flatly, lowering his hands to his desk. “What I’m saying is that the man is unstable.”
“I thought it was the wife who was unstable.”
“Both of them, Mr. Malone. Our jury foreperson has been institutionalized and treated with depression medications, and her husband has thrown a handful of chicken livers at a doctor who was on his way into the office.” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms on his chest. In case I had fallen asleep during any part of the last ten seconds, he repeated, “Chicken livers.”
Peter spoke up. “Bruce Spicer was arrested six years ago as part of a group of anti-abortion protesters outside a clinic that performs abortions. In Livingston, New Jersey. Same year as his wife’s breakdown. Big year for the Spicers. Spicer’s arrest has been expunged from the record. It was part of a plea arrangement.”
Gottlieb said, “Mr. Malone doesn’t need to know the details. The point is, Bruce Spicer is a lunatic. And his wife wants off the jury.”
Peter added, “In a big way.”
“Along with eleven of her peers, from what I understand,” I said.
Gottlieb waved his hand dismissively. “Our twelve peers good and true can go hang themselves from the Brooklyn Bridge when this is all over, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t give a damn about them. The point is, I want this to be over before they do it. Now, Mrs. Spicer wants out, but Sam Deveraux isn’t having it. The lemmings would all try to follow. I’m letting Sam take care of that. What we have here, Mr. Malone, is a related but separate issue that concerns us all on a more profound level.” He paused. “Peter? I will let you do the honors.”
Peter took a breath. “Lewis wants us to consider that Bruce Spicer is responsible for the murders of Robin Burrell and Zack Riddick.”
“Spicer?”
“It’s just a theory. But you remember that whole big fuss when Zack brought up Robin Burrell’s abortions. It sounds far-fetched, I know. But think of it for a minute. Nancy Spicer’s been in there bawling her eyes out to get off the jury. Bruce Spicer is no big fan of people who get abortions; he’s got a history of being very much an in-your-face person when it comes to that issue. Hard to call this a motive for murder, but hang in there. We’ve also got Zachary. Riddick’s playboy reputation isn’t exactly the kind of thing that endears the born-agains. What Lewis is saying is you’ve got a situation here where a person like Bruce Spicer could have been looking for some creative ways to get this trial tanked, free his wife, and rid the earth of at least two infidels.”
“Infidels?”
“I’m just saying Lewis wants us to take a strong look at this. Face it, someone is killing these people. Someone is royally pissed off. Where the hell do we start?”
I pulled out my notebook. Gottlieb demanded, “What have you got there?”
“A list of people I want to talk to in connection with Robin Burrell and Riddick.”
Gottlieb aimed a fat finger in my direction. “Put Bruce Spicer at the top of that list. Do you hear me? Chicken-liver-tossing son of a bitch. Go after him first. Born-again bastards like that should choke on their own intestines, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got no goddamn time for those people. Him. You go get him.”
PETER ACCOMPANIED ME downstairs. There were several other people in the elevator with us, so we didn’t say anything. The moment we were outside, Peter spoke urgently.
“This is tricky territory, Fritz. Very tricky. I’m sure you understand that. We’ve got a real balancing act to figure out here. Lewis has said categorically that we are not taking his theory to the police. It’s not the most ethical call, but that can’t be helped. It’s a matter of containment. We don’t want word getting out about Nancy Spicer’s mental health problem or about her husband having been arrested. Nancy shouldn’t be on the jury-that alone would provide the defense with some serious artillery to push for a mistrial-so we don’t want them to know. But here’s the other thing. If Bruce Spicer gets approached by the police or, for that matter, by you, he could blow the whistle himself. If he simply lets the papers know that he is under suspicion of any kind for these murders, it all explodes in our face. Husband of the foreperson? There’s nothing even Sam Deveraux would be able to do at that point. The trial would be officially out of hand. Everything would collapse.”
“But if Spicer actually is the killer, he’s not going to go blabbing to the press.”
“We have no idea what he would do. Maybe it’s a catch-22 and maybe it isn’t. The point is, there’s nothing but risk involved no matter which way you look at it. It’s certainly possible that Spicer isn’t the killer. I admit, it’s a wild hunch. Then again, Lewis Gottlieb didn’t become Lewis Gottlieb with bad hunches. That old man’s got an awesome track record.” Peter glanced around, as if afraid that someone might be listening in. “Look, I know Lewis tried to whip you into action just now. And I’m not necessarily countermanding his orders. But if you’ve developed any leads on these murders that you really like, it wouldn’t bother me if you run after them first. I’m not officially chasing you off Spicer. Like I said, Lewis has a phenomenal instinct.”
“He’s also got a phenomenal hatred of born-again Christians.”
“It’s not even that. Do you remember that abortion doctor in Albany who got gunned down a few years ago? He got all sorts of threats and there was all this vilification on different right-to-life websites? You remember that?”
I did. The doctor had been shot at point-blank range as he was leaving his clinic. The shooter didn’t even try to escape. Some passersby grabbed him, but he offered no resistance. He just stood there holding a damn placard and waited for the police to come.
Peter held up two fingers. “Two things. The guy who did the shooting? He was a member of the group that Bruce Spicer is mixed up with. He was one of the people who got hauled in along with Spicer during the chicken-liver incident. Lewis did a little investigating on his own and discovered that.”
“I did crap work for you, Peter. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. Number two. Big number two. The doctor who was killed was a close personal friend of Lewis. They went back over thirty years.”
I allowed the information to seep in. “Then we might not be talking ‘awesome instincts’ here, Peter. We might be talking someone who’s leading with his anger. What you’re telling me is that your boss wouldn’t mind revenge.”
Peter let his breath out slowly. “I don’t know what I’m telling you. That’s the whole damn problem. I know I don’t have to remind you how important this case is.”
“I know it’s important, counselor. I just hope you’re ready to let it go if things start to fall in other directions. Look, I know you and Gottlieb have spent the better part of the past ten months trying to nail Marshall Fox to the wall for Blair and Rossman.”
“But?”
“But Robin Burrell and Zachary Riddick were killed in the same fashion as those two women. If you’re cutting me loose to find out who did these recent murders, you just have to understand that I’m not going to be operating with a closed mind about Marshall Fox’s guilt or innocence. If I-”
Peter exploded. “Fox’s innocence? Jesus, Fritz, cut me a big fat fucking break right here, you have got to be kidding!” He implored the heavens. “That son of a bitch slaughtered his…uh-uh. Forget it. Don’t even go there. We’ve got him. I don’t care if that jury does fall apart and blow away, we got the bastard who killed those two women! Our case is solid. Someone is trying to blow smoke all over the whole damn thing. That’s what’s happening. If it isn’t Bruce Spicer, it’s someone else.”
“All I’m saying-”
He wasn’t finished. “These are copycat killings. Come on, don’t get yourself all turned around. That’s exactly what the killer wants. I need you thinking straight here.” He pointed a finger at me. “We got the right killer. We got Fox. There’s nothing to investigate there. Zero. You do what we’ve hired you to do. Is that understood?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but turned abruptly and pushed back through the revolving door. It was one of those ultra-smooth revolving doors. It took the power of Peter’s force, swallowed him up instantly, and continued revolving after he was well out of it and back inside the building. I stood a moment watching my own reflection flashing in the door panels.
I SWUNG BY THE Reuters Building. A folder was waiting for me. It contained two résumés. Back at my office, I gave the résumés a look. I was just reaching for the phone to call Megan Lamb when it rang.
“Mr. Malone? This…” The wavering signal gobbled up the rest of the sentence. It was a woman’s voice.
“I didn’t catch that,” I said.
“It’s Michelle Poole. From the Quaker meeting. He’s here!”
“Who? Who’s where?” I bolted upright in my chair. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my apartment. Remember I told you I’ve been feeling like someone’s following me all the time? I felt it again when I was coming down the block just now. He’s really there. I saw him. He was definitely following me. I…I peeked out my window a minute ago, and he’s still…oh my God.”
“Give me your address!” I grabbed a pen and scribbled down the address. “Give me your phone numbers. Home and cell.” I scribbled those down as well. “I’m on my way. Listen to me. Call my number every five minutes. You got that?”
“But what-”
“Call! If you get voice mail, just say hi and hang up. Whatever you do, stay away from the window. Just hang tight.”
“I’m scared. Hurry. Please. I don’t-”
I nearly took out the tax accountant who works two doors down from me. He was shuffling toward the men’s room, holding a key attached to a clipboard. I missed him by an inch.
I HIT THE STREET in five minutes. Four of them were spent on the elevator going down from my office to the street. It was lunchtime. The elevator eased to a stop over and over again.
Twelfth floor…
Eleventh floor…
Ninth floor…
Eighth floor…
Fourth floor…
Third floor…
Outside, I hailed a cab. I tossed a handful of bills on the front seat and told the driver to go reckless. Eight minutes later, I had him pull over a block from Michelle Poole’s building.
Michelle lived on Twenty-seventh Street, near Third Avenue. Close enough to where Zachary Riddick had lived, I realized, to account easily for Michelle’s several sightings of the lawyer. As I got out of the car, I registered this factoid and tucked it away in a deep file. Riddick hadn’t necessarily been stalking Robin’s friend. The woman was just jumpy. In that case, maybe-
I spotted him.
He was standing outside of a stone church in the middle of the block. The church had large red doors, and he was leaning up against one of them, smoking a cigarette. My heart slammed against my rib cage.
It was Ratface. The guy I had noticed at the Quaker meeting. He was wearing a baseball cap, but otherwise he was dressed the same as before. As I watched, he pulled a fresh cigarette from a pack in his coat pocket, lit it off the first one and flicked the old one to the sidewalk, just missing a man walking by. The man must have said something to him. Ratface gave the man the finger, took a drag on his new cigarette and refixed his gaze on the building across the street. As I rounded the corner, he looked up and saw me. The red door behind him opened, and as an elderly woman exited the church, Ratface flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and ran inside the church. I picked up my pace. Full speed.
The church was dark except for the altar area. In the rows of shadowy pews, I could make out a dozen or so people sitting quietly in the dark. There was a center aisle as well as aisles running down either side of the church. They appeared to be empty. There was no way Ratface could have already raced down the length of any aisle and disappeared into another part of the church. He was here. In the dark. I started to pull out my gun then hesitated. Not here. Not yet, anyway.
I started slowly down the center aisle, checking the faces of the people in the pews. I couldn’t imagine that he would have had the wherewithal to slip into a pew and try to blend in. My mind gave me an image. A man shrinking with tremendous quickness, his clothes dropping to the floor as if he has vanished altogether, and a black hairy rat scurrying out from under the clothes and darting into the shadows.
I was nearly right.
“Hey!” Partway down the pew I was approaching, a man leaped to his feet. “What in the world…?”
Ratface bobbed to his feet at the far end of the pew. As soon as he’d entered the church, he must have hit the floor and scurried beneath the pews, making his way forward on knees and elbows. He took off running. He was through the door at the end of the aisle before I was halfway down the narrow pew. I leaped onto the pew, where I could run faster.
“Move!”
The man sitting in the pew lurched forward. I cleared him, pounding my way to the end of the pew. I hit the aisle and raced to the door. Behind it, a set of winding stairs led to the basement level. I heard a sound from below-a clanging-and took off down the stairs. They wound down to a basement hallway that ran under the altar. A small kitchenette. Two restrooms. A large open room with a piano and folding chairs. And a door directly to my left. I paused. I tried the door. Locked. Or perhaps the doorknob was being held. I squeezed the knob and tried to twist it. It seemed like it was giving a little.
Wrong.
I heard a sound behind me and turned in time to see the women’s room door swinging open. The door caught me directly on the jaw. Sparks pierced my vision. At the same time, I felt something happening in my left side. Ratface shoved me to the floor, leaped over me and started running down the hallway. I looked down to see a long black piece of plastic sticking from my side. I tugged on it. It was a kitchen knife. The blade felt cold as I pulled it out. As soon as the blade cleared my jacket, blood began pumping onto my fingers.
Immediately, my mouth went dry. In the darkened hallway, the blood looked like oil. I staggered to my feet. I guessed that the other end of the hallway could only lead to a similar set of stairs and back up into the church. I made the calculation and, clutching my side, plunged through the sparks and back up the winding stairs. I swung myself around the railing at the top and emerged at the altar area, right next to the choir stalls. Off in the pews, shadowy figures were moving about swiftly. Someone cried out, “There he is!” But they might have meant me.
I moved across the front of the altar just as Ratface appeared, running up the far side aisle in the direction of the front door. I veered and aimed for the center aisle but lost my footing as I hit the marble steps leading down from the altar. I went down. Ratface was yanking the door open as I got back to my feet. I looked down and saw a swirl of blood on the marble. Somewhere in the darkness of the church, a woman screamed.
I lurched forward.
Outside.
He was a good block ahead of me, heading east. I took off after him. He dodged the cars on Third Avenue more deftly than I was able to, though at one point he surfed precariously on a patch of ice and allowed me to gain on him. I was grunting like a gimp racehorse, the vapor of my breath coming out in husky bursts. The wound in my side felt like it was packed with nails.
He was opening distance between us. As I dodged a woman pushing a baby stroller, I felt my cell phone vibrating. No time for that. I bore down. There were only two more blocks before we’d hit the FDR Drive, and beyond that, the East River. If he attempted to cross the FDR, my job was done. There was no way he could negotiate all those lanes of speeding traffic. As he neared Second Avenue, he barreled past an Asian woman, and she fell to the sidewalk. An instant later, I grunted, “Sorry,” and hurdled cleanly over her, my lungs warning me they were ready to explode.
At First Avenue, he veered to his right. Son of a bitch. There’s a residential complex called Waterside Plaza at Twenty-fifth Street and the FDR. An angled walkway crossing over the highway leads to the complex. Ratface hit the walkway at full speed. I was losing him. Fear is a mighty fuel, and he was burning it well. I pounded up the cement walkway, which spilled onto a large plaza. I saw my quarry leaping down a short set of steps to a narrow walkway that fronted the river. It also led to one of the complex’s apartment towers.
I pulled my gun and stormed forward, nearly tumbling down the short flight of stairs to the lower plaza. My vision was starting to play games with me. There was a large glass entranceway to the apartment tower. It seemed the only place he could have gone, and I headed for it.
I never made it.
The son of a bitch had ducked behind a stone support pillar opposite the entrance. I saw his reflection in the glass just as he lunged from his hiding spot and hit me full force, his lowered shoulder connecting with my ribs. He drove me sideways all the way to the low cement wall overlooking the river. I hit the wall hard, my gun rattling to the pavement. What little oxygen I had in my lungs left me. Ratface was still with me, still down low. The sparks returned to my vision, and my arms came down on the man’s head and neck as uselessly as if they belonged to a rag doll. When I felt a grip tighten around my ankles, I knew exactly what he had in mind.
As he rose, he brought my legs up with him. I saw his face for just an instant. His cheeks were hot red. Frothy saliva was overflowing his mouth. Then my arms were pinwheeling, and my head whipped backward. I spotted the Huxley Envelope sign upside down across the river, then looked down at the bruise-colored films of ice along the shoreline below me. Ratface let out a powerful grunt.
I saw my feet. They were above me. Then they were below me. In the air. I was falling. The burning in my lungs this time was my own voice crying out into the cold air as the river ice rushed forward. The last thing I remember-funny-was my cell phone vibrating again. My world went black even before I hit.