What was he doing?
Playing policeman? Looking for clues? Talking to Kid's friends? Finding the Team?
He was crazy, Jack Keller was. Trying to find a murderer. What sense did that make? What goddamn sense?
None.
It could have been over. It could have been all over!
Why was he doing this? Why wouldn't he leave it alone?
Why won't he let me be? Why does he still want to ruin my life?
Why why why why why why why?
Trying to prove that Kid was murdered. Trying to find the murderer.
Okay. Let him try. And maybe he won't have to try so hard.
Maybe the murderer will find him…
The first thing Sergeant McCoy did was to tell Jack to call his lawyer. He didn't want to, didn't think it was necessary, but she told him it was and insisted before she hung up.
Jack stood off to the side as first a police team showed up, then McCoy, about half an hour later, then an ambulance, with medics to take Leslee's body away on a stretcher. Jack took them through what had happened step-by-step, told them all that the only thing he'd done since discovering the body was to turn the water off in the bathtub.
The cops took about two hours to go over the apartment. While they did, Jack sat in the living room on one of the couches. No one paid any attention to him. He didn't demand any attention be paid. He just sat quietly and watched them do their job until nine-thirty, when Herb Bloomfield, Jack's lawyer, showed up. He pulled Jack into the bedroom, asked him a few questions – what exactly had happened, what the hell was he doing there, what had the police said or not said to him – then the two of them went back into the living room and waited quietly.
It was ten-fifteen when Patience McCoy came over to the couch. She sat down next to Jack; he could feel the cushion sag as her weight was added to his. She didn't say anything to him or to Herb for several seconds. Then she turned to Jack, shook her head, and said, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
Herb didn't let him speak. He immediately jumped in and started insisting that this could be done the next morning, but Sergeant McCoy just looked wearily at him and said, "I don't think your client is a suspect, Counselor. I think he's a damn fool but I sure as hell don't think he killed this girl. And I don't want to see him tomorrow morning because I don't want to have to think about this by tomorrow morning. I want it to be over now. So give me five minutes and then we can all go home."
That shut Herb up immediately. He nodded, first at McCoy, then at Jack, a signal for him to say whatever he wanted.
Jack met McCoy's glare head-on. "I don't know what you're looking for me to say," he told her.
"I want to know if you've got any reason to think this is anything but a drug overdose. Our take is that she's the sequel to Kid's death. Maybe both were accidental, maybe not, but they both took too many drugs and they both died."
"You're not serious."
"I'm as serious as anyone you're ever going to meet, Jack. We got nothing to show that anyone's been in here but that poor girl – and you."
"Somebody buzzed me into the apartment."
"So you said. But you also said the door to the building was locked."
"It is."
"Uh-uh. The lock's been broken. So you ain't got a lot of credibility right now. Maybe you rang the wrong buzzer; it's possible. We're checking everyone in the building; a few people aren't home right now. Before we go to all that trouble, do you want to change your story?"
Jack was stunned. He knew the door had been locked. He'd tried it. What the hell was happening? Could it have been broken after he'd come up the stairs? And why? What in God's name was going on?
"Why would I lie?" he said to McCoy.
"You tell me," was her response. "You tell me, Jack."
"Thank you very much, Sergeant." Herb stood up now, took Jack's hand, and yanked him to his feet. "My client's said all he's going to say."
McCoy shook her head, held her hands out as if to signal a truce. "I said he wasn't a suspect and he's not a suspect." Standing now and turning to face Jack, she said, "If you've got any legitimate reason to think this is a murder, tell me now because my boys didn't find a goddamn thing. Pending the lab report, it's going in the book as an accidental OD."
Jack tried to gather his thoughts. Once again, he realized he was stymied. What could he say? The girl was killed by the same person who killed Kid? She was killed by someone who wanted to stop her from talking? She was killed because she knew something that none of them knew and now might never know? No, he couldn't say any of that. Because he had no proof. He knew it was true but he didn't have one shred of logical, irrefutable evidence. All he had was his gut. And his faith in Kid Demeter. And the fact that he knew someone had buzzed him into the Entertainer's apartment…
"No," he said slowly. "I don't have any reason to think it was anything but an accident."
"You called it in as a murder."
"I guess I was mistaken."
Sergeant McCoy nodded grimly, clapped her notebook shut, and nodded at the team of cops that had gathered in the Entertainer's living room. As her team began to disperse, McCoy looked at Jack and said, "I'm not sure why you're here, Jack, although I have a pretty good idea. I'm not gonna ask you because I don't think you'll tell me the truth, so what's the point. But I am gonna tell you something. Which is, whatever you think you're doin', stop it now. Not tomorrow, not the day after, now. Right this minute. Stop pokin' around, stop goin' places you have no business bein' in.
"Sergeant," Herb interrupted, "I've got to object to your behavior and your statement. My client has every right to be visiting a woman in her apartment."
"I'm not saying he doesn't have the right. God knows I'm a big supporter of the Constitution of the United States, Counselor." She smiled her most accommodating smile at the lawyer. "I'm just telling him to stop exercising that right," she said.
– "-"-"HERB HAD USED a car service to come to Leslee's apartment and he'd told the driver to keep the Ford Explorer waiting. They rode back to Jack's apartment in silence. When the Explorer pulled up in front of the building, Herb asked the driver to wait for him again, then, turning to Jack, said, "You want me to come up for a drink?"
Jack shook his head. "I'm fine," he said and opened the car door.
Herb reached for him, touched him lightly on the arm, started to say something. But then he shook his head and gave a sour smile and said, "Damn, this is the first time in my life I don't have any fucking idea what to say." Jack started to step out but Herb tightened his grip. "But that's not gonna stop me from talking," he said. "I don't know what's going on, old buddy, and if you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But as your good pal I'm telling you to be careful. As your lawyer, I'm telling you to be extra careful. That cop said you weren't a suspect but I know cops and she left out a word. And she did it because you're rich and well known and I'm almost as rich and, if not so well known, at least fairly well respected. The word she left out is 'yet.' You're not a suspect yet."
With that, Herb released Jack's arm, watched as he got out of the car, and then nodded wearily to the driver.
In the elevator ride up to his apartment, Jack tried to piece things together. But the pieces all seemed so scattered, so disconnected. He arrived at Leslee's apartment, rang her buzzer. No answer. Someone was in there with her, though, had to be. But doing what? Putting the needle in her arm? Waiting for her to die? And then what? Jack had buzzed a second time, and this one was answered. A short buzz back, letting him into the building. A minute to climb the stairs? Two minutes? And now there was no one in the apartment. No one except the dead girl in the bathtub.
He tried to imagine what could have happened. Someone buzzes him in, leaves the apartment…
Jack realized he was picturing this someone as a woman. Someone Leslee would trust. One of Kid's team.
She had buzzed Leslee from downstairs. Identified herself as a friend of Kid's. Or maybe didn't even have to. Maybe Leslee was already in the tub, assumed that Jack had arrived early, hopped out to quickly press the buzzer, then dashed back to the bath. That made sense. He could picture that.
She got to the top of the stairs, saw the note – and the knife – that Leslee had left by the door. Went inside. Maybe she sat on the edge of the tub and talked to the girl, lulled her into a sense of ease. Was Leslee already shooting drugs? Maybe. Maybe this woman knew it. Maybe she knew it wouldn't be hard to get her going. All she had to do was up the dosage. Or maybe it was a struggle. Or maybe Leslee closed her eyes, relaxed in the warm water, and then here it came, a sudden jab, the syringe stuck in her arm, a quick thrashing and then…
Then what?
Then Jack buzzed. Leslee was already dead or certainly near death. The woman turned the water back on, a good distraction for when Jack arrived. She buzzed him in, stepping over Leslee's note – maybe dripping water on it, maybe that's how it got wet – and then she went up a flight of stairs, perhaps only half a flight. She might have watched him enter. When he closed the door, she went straight downstairs, out the front door to the street. She was gone. Safe.
Stopping first to jimmy the lock on the door? To break it after the fact?
Why? What purpose did that serve?
For one, it made him look like a liar. Or, worse, it made it seem as if he were the one who broke into the building.
It could make him look like the killer.
The elevator stopped now on Jack's floor. The door slid open and he stepped into his living room. His imagination was running away with him, he decided. Why would anyone want him to look like a murderer? For that matter, how would anyone even know he was involved?
Well, one person already knew. The Mortician. Eva Migliarini knew he was gathering information. She knew he was trying to find the other members of the Team. He could picture her talking to Leslee. She could easily have access to drugs. And he could see her pulling out the needle, sticking it into the naked girl, the girl who was compulsively cleansing off the world's stench in her bathwater.
Jack shook his head as if to clear away his overly dramatic ruminations. He went into the kitchen, took out a highball glass, then turned and went into the living room, straight for the bar, poured himself half a glassful of twelve-year-old single-malt scotch.
Forget all this, he told himself. You just had a shock. You saw a dead body. And not just a body, someone you knew, someone you'd heard so much about. It's natural to start imagining things. Christ! No wonder McCoy was looking at you like that. You must have sounded like an idiot. A paranoid idiot. So just forget it, drink your scotch and watch SportsCenter and forget about outsmarting the New York City Police Department.
Jack flicked on the TV, sat in his regular chair, got comfortable as he heard Dan Patrick say, "A slider to McGwire… and a whiffffff." As Jack sipped his drink, he glanced to his left, toward the Hopper painting, prepared to smile, as he always did when he saw it. Only this time he didn't smile. Because he didn't see it. The painting was gone.
Jack jumped up, the scotch swishing over the top of the glass and spilling onto his shirt. He took two steps over toward the bare wall, stopped suddenly, because he saw now that it was not gone. It had been taken off its hook on the wall. Someone had removed it, leaned it carefully against the baseboard. Jack ran to it, saw that it was unmarked and unharmed.
Someone had been in his apartment. But how? It was impossible to break into this building.
And even if someone could break in, why?
Why would anyone…
And then he knew.
His eyes went to the space on the wall where the painting had hung. In its place, in very small letters, two words had been carefully written. It looked like crayon, Jack thought. No. As he peered closer, more like red Magic Marker.
Jack ran back into the kitchen. Checked the walls and the cabinets. Everything was undisturbed. Then into his office. Normal. Next, he ran into his bedroom and what he saw there stopped him cold. There were three words, also in red Magic Marker, scrawled on the wall above his bed. The writing was neat, the lettering precise.
Jack realized he was breathing hard. And he was trembling. He went back to the living room, where the words were now all he could see. They dominated the room.
Stop looking is what they said.
He didn't have to go back into the bedroom to check the words there. The message was similar. The first two words were the same. But there was a third word added. And it was the third word that made Jack shiver and wonder what the hell he'd gotten himself into. And how he'd possibly get out of it.
He closed his eyes and could perfectly picture the message above his bed. In thick, precise, bloodred letters.
Stop looking now.
– "-"-"THE FIRST THING Jack did was call down to the doorman on duty.
"Carlos," he said into the phone that connected directly to the front door of the building, "did anyone come up to my apartment tonight?"
"No. Who?"
"I don't know. Anyone."
"No, sir."
"Can someone get into the apartment?"
"Not unless Frankie or I let 'em up."
"Tell me how you do that."
"What do you mean?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but tell me exactly how someone gets into my apartment."
"Are you kiddin'? You know how."
"Just humor me. How does someone get up here?"
"They come into the building, give their name, we call up for your okay, and whoever's at the door releases the elevator for your floor."
"There's a device at the door."
"Yeah, sure. Right under the stand, you know, when you come in."
"What if I'm not home?"
"If you're not here, we don't let anybody up. Unless you give us a written note with a name on it. Otherwise, ain't no way."
"Is someone always at the door? Could anyone get by you and release the elevator on his own?"
"Did someone get into your apartment, Mr. Keller? You want me to call-"
"No. Do me a favor and just answer the question."
"There's always two of us. Three or four shifts, always two at a time. Pretty hard to get by. I'd say impossible. And they'd have to know exactly how to release-"
"How about if you don't release it? Can someone get by you and just use the elevator?"
"No, sir. Well, they could, but they'd have to have a key."
"Like the one I use to come in through the garage?"
"Yes, sir. Same, exact key. You just insert it in the lock next to the button for your floor."
"And it only works for my floor?"
"Your key works for your floor, Mr. Babbitch's key works for the fifth floor, every tenant's got a key that works for them and them only."
"So my key won't work for Mr. Babbitch's floor?"
"That's right. What's goin' on, Mr. K?"
"How about the stairs?"
"To get up to you? Long climb."
"I know. But how do you do it?"
"Ain't you never climbed the stairs to your apartment?"
"No," Jack said, and he realized that after all these years he didn't even know exactly where the stairway entry was in the lobby. "How do you do it?"
"Gotta have a key for that, too. A key to get into the stairway from the lobby and a key to let you out when you get to your floor. Each floor has a different lock."
Jack hesitated. He didn't know what else to ask.
"You sure everything's okay, Mr. Keller?"
"Yeah, thanks, Carlos. Everything's fine."
He hung up and immediately called down to the garage. He went through a similar routine. No one there had seen anyone come in and use the elevator. No one who didn't belong, anyway. Pablo, the main guy at the garage, wouldn't swear that no one could get in without being seen but it was unlikely. And anyway, he said, nobody could get up to the apartments without having a key. It was impossible.
Jack tried to think who had keys to get into the place. He had one, of course, plus a duplicate set. As a reflex, he stuck his hand in his pocket to feel the key. It was right where it should be. He then went into the kitchen, to the small hook that hung by the refrigerator where the spare was kept. It was there, too. In fact, two spares were there, which puzzled him for a moment, then he realized he had a third set. Caroline's keys had been returned to him, along with her other possessions from Virginia.
Who else? Dom had one and his name had also been left downstairs as someone who could be let in anytime. If anyone was above suspicion, it was Dom. Mattie had had a key and her name had also been left downstairs. But poor Mattie was dead and, even if she were alive, could never have done anything remotely like Jack realized now that there was some kind of commotion out on the street. Strange. Usually you couldn't hear the traffic up this high, but there was frantic honking. Must be some kind of an accident. Jack instinctively turned toward the balcony, at the same time felt a small blast of hot, summer air, and that's when he realized the sliding door was open. No, not just open…
Someone had broken it.
A small section of the large glass pane had been shattered. Right by the handle. And the door had been left open. Maybe six inches.
Jack walked slowly over to it. He stared down at the shards that were gleaming in the carpet. Looked back up at the jagged hole. Then he looked out across the balcony, at the wall that stretched over to the next building.
No one had needed a key to get into his apartment.
Someone had walked across the wall. The ten-foot-long, one-foot-wide wall. Eighteen stories above the street.
Jack remembered Kid, not long before his death, leaping up onto the retaining wall and walking.
Hey, do you know you could actually walk to the next building from here?
Jack remembered his stomach tightening.
Seriously. The buildings are connected.
He remembered his mouth going dry. He remembered getting dizzy…
Someone could walk along this ledge and get to that rooftop. You'd have to be kind of nuts but…
Jack slid the balcony door shut, hard enough so more glass cracked and showered to the floor. He stood there, sagging a bit, holding on to the handle for support, still staring out at the nearby rooftop. No longer just wondering who had killed Kid. No longer wondering who had killed Leslee.
Now wondering if that same person was going to try to kill him.
Jack took one step toward the phone. He was going to call McCoy. Get her over here, let her see this, make her understand what was going on and let her protect him. Then he thought: No. She still won't understand. And cops don't protect, they react. She'll tell me to get a new door. And an alarm. She'll ask me if I did all this myself just to make her think I was right.
Fuck McCoy, he thought.
And fuck whoever did this.
I'm not going to stop looking. I'm going to find her. And I'm going to find her now.