“Thank you for your totally unbiased opinion, but let me ask someone who’s not a blood relative. How about you, Zach? What’d you think?”
“Fantastic,” I said. “Best damn brussels sprouts I ever ate in my life.”
He laughed. “Cops are not notorious for their love of leafy green vegetables, so I’m guessing they were also the first damn brussels sprouts you ever ate in your life.”
“They were the second, but they shot straight to the top. A month from now, this place will be booked solid, and I’ll be calling you begging for a table just so I can get more sprouts.”
Shane turned to Cheryl. “This guy’s a keeper. My mom will love him. She’s coming into town next month once we’ve got the kinks out of this place. The two of you have to have dinner with us.”
“I chatted with your mom last night,” Cheryl said. “She already invited us.”
“Of course she did. Mom leaves nothing to chance.” Shane stood up, gave Cheryl a peck on the cheek, shook my hand, and began working his way back through the crowd.
“He’s right,” Cheryl said as soon as he was out of earshot. “His mom leaves nothing to chance.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I didn’t just chat with Aunt Janet last night. I had to listen to her whine about Shane for half an hour.”
“Listening to people whine is what you do for a living. Aunt Janet was probably just trolling for some free therapy. What’s her beef with Shane?”
She squinched up her nose. “‘He’s thirty-five, Cheryl,’” she said, her voice endearingly whiny. “‘The man is not married, and he’s too busy with his damn restaurant to give me any grandchildren.’”
“I’m just an amateur shrink,” I said, “but if I were you, I’d tell Aunt Janet that she’s suffering from a case of meddling motheritis and that her son’s marital status is none of her business. He’ll get around to having kids in due time.”
“Due time? Did you hear what Shane said? The woman leaves nothing to chance. She didn’t come to me because I’m a therapist, Zach. She played the blood-is-thicker-than-water card, and she recruited me to fix him up with someone who will knock his socks off.”
“If she really wants grandchildren, you’re going to have to find someone who can get him to take off more than his socks.”
“You’re not helping, Zach. Most of my friends are married. I need to find someone who is single, smart, and Shane-worthy. Any thoughts?”
My only thoughts were that guys like Shane Talbot didn’t need help getting dates and that Cheryl would be wise not to get caught up in the family drama. I was debating whether to say that out loud when my cell vibrated.
Cheryl has a no-phones-at-the-dinner-table rule, but I’m allowed to make sure it’s not a work emergency, so I took a quick peek at my caller ID. It was my partner.
“Kylie,” I said, explaining why I had to take the call, but that’s not how Cheryl took it.
Her eyes sparked. “Kylie,” she said. “Interesting. Shane has always been attracted to strong women. Classic mommy complex.”
She’d read me wrong. I needed to clear up the misconception, but first I had to answer the phone and let Kylie know that unless it was an emergency, I was too busy to talk to her. “Hey,” I said, putting the phone to my ear. “Can I call you back in five?”
“No,” she said. “I’m at Erin Easton’s wedding, and we’ve got a shit-storm on our hands, Zach.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but the bride is missing. It looks like she’s been taken. I’m at the Manhattan Center. How soon can you get here?”
“Ten minutes,” I said, ending the call and getting out of my seat. “Kidnapping,” I said to Cheryl. “I’ve got to go meet Kylie.”
Cheryl was used to my sudden departures. She stood and gave me a quick kiss. “Ask Kylie if she’d be interested in dating a tall, good-looking guy who can cook.”
“Sure,” I said. But I already knew the answer. Of course she would. Kylie had had a torrid affair with one eleven years ago. Me.
CHAPTER 2
A cab had just dropped people off in front of the restaurant. I jumped in and gave the driver the address.
I was in a hurry, and since not every cabby knows the fastest way between two points, I checked the hack license mounted on the partition. The first two digits were 39. I was in luck. That meant this man had been ferrying people around New York City for at least forty years. He wouldn’t be needing a back-seat driver.
“You’re late,” the cabby said, pulling out.
“Late for what?” I said.
“The Wedding of the Century. Erin and Jamie are getting married in the Hammerstein Ballroom, but it started about three hours ago.”
He reached over the front seat and held up a copy of the New York Post. A picture of Erin Easton, her plastic boobs and sculpted ass straining the integrity of a string bikini, took up most of the front page. There was a two-inch inset of the other half of the happy couple—the one most people didn’t care about—Jamie Gibbs.
“Read all about it,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve got to make a call.”
I hit Kylie’s number on my speed-dial, and she picked up on the first ring.
“I’m up to my eyeballs in crazy people,” she said. “What’s your ETA?”
“I was at a restaurant on Bank Street. We’re just turning onto Eighth Avenue. I’ll be there in less than ten. When did you get the call?”
“I didn’t. I was at the wedding. Shelley Trager and the rest of the big guns at Silvercup Studios were invited. Shelley’s wife got hit with the stomach flu, so he called me around noon and asked if I’d be his plus-one. I don’t have much of a social life these days, so I said what the hell. I was the first one on the scene. I called Captain Cates. She activated a level-one mobilization.”
There was a time when cops would hear a level 1 come over the air, and it would be a holy-shit moment. These days it’s so overused that the sense of urgency is gone. Cops want the details before they drop everything and go. Is it a shooting on a busy street corner? Or did the parents of some Upper East Side high-school kid panic and call 911 because Junior was three hours late coming home from school?
But this was the real deal. When one of the most recognizable people on the planet gets abducted, that’s level 1 on steroids. Knowing Cates, she’d have called for an army of cops to search the venue, canvass the area, and wrangle the crowd and at least two detectives from every precinct to ID and question the A-list guests, most of whom would probably think they were too damn important to be detained.
I figured by the time I got to the Manhattan Center, it would be a sea of flashing lights and wailing sirens with cops pouring in, guests wanting out, and media trucks clogging the road for blocks.
I told Kylie I’d be there as soon as possible and hung up. “You’re not going to be able to get me all the way to Thirty-Fourth,” I told the cabby. “Just keep driving till you hit a wall, and I’ll jog the rest of the way.”
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I can’t give you the details,” I told him, “but let’s just say that the Wedding of the Century is now the Clusterfuck of the Century.”
CHAPTER 3
You’re a cop in a big hurry, right?” my cabby said.
“Detective,” I said. “Affirmative on the big hurry.”
“You won’t have to jog,” he said as he maneuvered around a city bus. “There’s always white hats outside of Penn Station keeping traffic moving. I’ll drive, you flash your tin, they’ll wave us through.”
He did, I did, and they did.
I’d clipped my shield to my jacket, and as soon as I got out of the taxi, a uniformed officer spotted me, moved the barrier, and escorted me to the Manhattan Center.
Built as an opera house by Oscar Hammerstein I over a hundred years ago, it is now a state-of-the-art production facility catering to film companies, TV networks, and record labels,
but much of the old-world elegance and grandeur still lives on in the form of two sprawling event spaces: the Grand Ballroom and the Hammerstein, site of the Easton-Gibbs nuptials.
And now the majestic old building would add a new entry to its star-studded history: crime scene.
The officer led me to the nether regions of the huge complex, navigating through cinder-block corridors never seen or even imagined by anyone but service people. Kylie and a man in a charcoal-gray suit were waiting for me.
When Kylie dresses for work, she wears pants, a shirt, a jacket, sensible shoes, and minimal makeup. It’s the unofficial uniform of the hardworking female detective. It does a fairly adequate job of making her look more like a no-nonsense cop than an incredibly desirable woman. But her outfit today—a sleeveless V-neck blue number that hugged her in all the right places—would jump-start any man’s imagination.
“Zach Jordan,” she said, introducing me to the man next to her, “this is the head of Erin Easton’s security, Declan McMaster. We worked together back when I was assigned to the UN General Assembly.”
I knew the name. And the pedigree. McMaster had put in thirty-five years with the department, retiring as a full bird out of Intel. He was a solid block of a man with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut, a square jaw, and a troubled look in his dark eyes. He extended a hand.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Inspector,” I said.
“I’m a card-carrying civilian, Zach, so please call me Declan. I wish it were under better circumstances. I’ve been running security for Erin for three years. Sorry you caught me on the day my post-retirement career officially went in the toilet.”
He wasn’t looking for sympathy. He was simply stating a cold, hard fact. Only lost one asset in three years does not look good on a bodyguard’s résumé.
“I know the protocol,” McMaster said. “I can’t be part of the investigation, but I also don’t want to fade into the woodwork. I know Erin Easton’s world better than anyone. I know her personal life, her business ventures, her friends, her fans, her wild side, and her dark side. I know everyone who loves her, and everyone she’s pissed off. I can help…if you let me.”
I could tell by the way he zeroed in on me that Kylie had already heard his pitch. I turned to her, and she gave me a look that captured what I was thinking: You can’t turn this kind of talent and experience down.
“It’d be an honor to work with you, sir,” I said. “Break it down for me.”
“This way,” he said. We followed him down the corridor to a nondescript wooden door. “This is the back door to Erin’s dressing room.” It was cracked open, and using his pocket square to avoid contaminating any evidence, he opened it wide enough for me to see our crime scene unit inside. Then he closed it.
“This is a service door,” he said. “It’s only used to move wardrobe in and out of the dressing room. It was blocked on the inside by a rack of clothes—I don’t even know if Erin knew the damn door was here. It was locked from the outside.”
“There’s not a mark on it,” I said. “How many people had a key?”
“Too many to count,” Kylie said. “The venue manager told us that most of the doors have universal locks. Master keys are signed out for every event, but not everyone remembers to return them, and nobody in management seems to care. Whoever unlocked this door could have had the key for years.”
“I wanted to post a guard out here,” McMaster said, “but these cable networks are notoriously cheap. They only paid for five men. I had four watching the crowd. One was assigned to the front of the dressing room.”
“Which means whoever took her went out the same way they came in,” Kylie said. “This service hallway leads to the loading dock. The good news is there’s a surveillance camera out there.”
We walked down the corridor to a pair of large metal doors, then stepped outside onto the loading platform. Kylie pointed to a camera mounted two stories above us. “If we’ve got anything on video, this is our best bet. Benny Diaz arrived about ten minutes ago,” she said to me. “Could you ask him to make this area a priority?”
Diaz is with TARU, our Technical Assistance Response Unit. I pulled out my phone and called him.
“Zach,” he said. “I’m already at the CCTV terminal pulling video. This place is geek heaven—forty-two cameras.”
“You got one that says ‘loading dock’?”
“Camera six. I’m looking at you guys on the live feed right now.”
“Put a rush on the footage from that camera. This is likely to be where they exited.”
“Will do,” Diaz said. “And, Zach, can you just confirm one thing for me?”
“What’s that?”
“I just zoomed in on your partner, Detective MacDonald. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is she one smoking-hot cop or what?”
I hung up, looked at the camera, and flipped him the bird.
CHAPTER 4
McMaster took us to a cordoned-off area in front of Erin’s dressing room. Lenny Ringel, the last person to see her, was waiting for us.
“Ringel, tell these detectives what you know,” McMaster ordered.
“What I know?” Ringel said. “What do you mean, what I know? I don’t know anything.”
Kylie held up a hand, and McMaster backed off. “I’m Kylie MacDonald,” she said. “That’s my partner, Zach Jordan. What’s your name?”
“Lenny—Detective Lenny Ringel. I retired from the job about five—”
“Lenny, when did you last see Erin Easton?”
“About an hour or so ago. She came from the reception area and said she was making a wardrobe change. She had on a wedding gown, but she was going to put on something different for the show.”
“What show?”
Ringel shrugged and looked at his boss for an answer.
“She was planning to perform a couple of musical numbers for the crowd,” McMaster said. “It was the network’s idea. They wanted to jazz up the special.”
Kylie turned back to Ringel. “When you spoke to her, what kind of mood was she in?”
“Great. Happy. I mean, she just got married, and she looked like a million bucks.”
“And once she went inside, did anyone try to get in?”
“You mean in the front door, right? Because I wasn’t in charge of the back door.”
Kylie nodded. “Front door.”
“No. I was here the whole time. Nobody tried to get in until that Brockway guy from the network showed up. Erin had told me to keep him out, so I did. Then he left and came back with Inspector McMaster, who had the key. He’s the one who unlocked the door.”
“Do you remember the exact time Erin went into her dressing room?” Kylie asked.
“The exact time?” He looked at Kylie like she had just asked him a trick question and he wasn’t falling for it. “No. I wasn’t keeping a log. I’m thinking it was probably around seven, maybe seven fifteen—whoa, wait a minute. I can tell you the exact time.”
He dug his cell phone out of his pocket, hit a few buttons, and flashed us a photo of him and Erin in her wedding gown. “We took selfies,” he said. “They’re time-stamped. She went into the dressing room at seven oh eight p.m.”
McMaster exploded. “You took pictures? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“Sir,” Kylie said, treading the fine line between I-respect-who-you-are and This-is-my-rodeo. “I just have a few more questions, and then he’s all yours.”
McMaster deferred to her.
“Let’s see what you got, Lenny,” Kylie said.
Ringel scrolled through several more pictures—one with the two of them smiling at the camera, one where Erin stuck her tongue out, and finally one where she was planting a kiss on his cheek.
“Pretty kick-ass, right?” Ringel said. “She did it as a favor for my girlfriend, Darcy. Real nice of her. I hope you find the bastard who took her.”
“Lenny, I’m going to have to take your phone,” Kylie said.
“My phone?
Why?”
“Those are the last known photos of Erin Easton before she was kidnapped. They’ll be very helpful in our investigation.”
“Oh, jeez…you really need my phone?”
“Yes,” Kylie said, holding her hand out. “I’m afraid your girlfriend is going to have to wait before she gets to see them.”
“She won’t have to wait,” Ringel said, reluctantly putting the phone in Kylie’s hand. “I…I texted them to her as soon as Erin left.”
McMaster couldn’t hold back. “Damn it, Ringel, you were hired to safeguard these people, not socialize with them. This is why I put you back here, away from a roomful of celebrities. Detective MacDonald, please give this idiot his phone back so he can call his girlfriend and tell her to delete those pictures immediately.”
“Boss,” Ringel said, not reaching for his phone, “it’s too late. By now those pictures are out there.”
“Out where?” McMaster demanded.
Ringel couldn’t bring himself to say the word. Instead he twirled two fingers in the air as if to downplay the size and scope of the worldwide network that would connect billions of people to the pictures of a New York City cop clowning around with the woman he was hired to protect.
I could almost see the headline in tomorrow’s Post: “Erin Easton Kidnapped While Starstruck NYPD Cop Mugs for Camera.”
Somewhere toward the bottom of the story they might get around to saying he was a retired cop. But the takeaway would simply be “fuckup cop.” The damage-control department at 1PP would be working overtime.
“Out there,” Ringel finally said. “You know…”
We knew. And there was nothing we could do about it.
CHAPTER 5
McMaster fired Ringel on the spot.
It came as no surprise to Kylie or me. Lenny, on the other hand, was predictably blindsided.
“For what? A couple of harmless pictures?” he said as one of the other security guards escorted him out the door.
I knew men like McMaster. He’d take full responsibility for Ringel’s failings, but this was not the time to explain or apologize. He went right to the task at hand. He looked at his watch. “She went in there at seven oh eight. If the kidnappers took her early on, they have close to an hour-and-a-half lead on us.”
NYPD Red 6 Page 2
