“Then why would you leave her and go up to Harlem to be with Kylie?”
“Wait a minute—I didn’t leave her to be with Kylie. Kylie needed help. That’s the nature of who I am. When there’s a damsel in distress, I—”
Gerri erupted. “Damsel in distress? Kylie? News flash, Zach: Kylie MacDonald is a pistol-packing, ass-kicking, ball-busting hellcat. The day she’s a damsel in distress is the day I’ll be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. Damsel in distress was a poor choice of terms.”
“More like a profoundly stupid choice of terms.”
“What I should have said was, Kylie is a loose cannon. She went up to Harlem—on her own, without backup—an off-duty cop on a harebrained mission to find her husband’s drug dealer and then strong-arm him into telling her how to find Spence.”
“So to sum it all up, you made a choice. You chose Kylie over Cheryl.”
“You’re oversimplifying.”
“Then let me undersimplify. Let’s say I have magic powers, and with one wave of my hand, I can guarantee you a happy life with the woman of your choice. Who’s it going to be?”
“Cheryl.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know that for sure?”
“Cheryl knows that I love her, and hopefully she understands why I bailed on dinner last night.”
“Zach, I’m not sure you understand why you did what you did last night.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She stood up. “I’m a short-order cook, not a shrink. I’m sorry I said that.”
“Well, it’s too late to unsay it. What do you mean, I don’t understand what I did last night?”
She sat down. “When my daughter Rachel was nineteen, she had an affair with a married man who was thirty-six. A year later, he got divorced, and a few months after that, he asked Rachel to marry him. I told her I was against it.”
“Because of their age difference?” I said.
“No. Because the guy cheated on his wife. I said to Rachel, ‘If he’ll do it with you, he’ll do it to you.’ She married him anyway. Five years later, she caught him in bed with another woman. She was devastated. She left him and moved back home with me. I felt terrible for her, but deep down inside, a little piece of me felt vindicated…justified. I told her that he was no good for her, and I was right. So here’s my final question of the day, Zach. Did you go up to Harlem to protect Kylie from getting in trouble, or did you go to help her pick up the pieces of a marriage you’ve been hoping would crash and burn?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know the answer.
Gerri stood up again. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I think I may need a second opinion.”
“Good idea,” she said. “Try the Metro Diner on Broadway. Even if you’re not impressed with the therapy, you’ll love the mac and cheese.”
CHAPTER 27
I walked around the corner to the One Nine and headed straight for the locker room. I looked like a man who hadn’t spent the night in his own bed, and the last thing I needed was for Kylie to see me and badger me for an explanation.
I showered, shaved, put on clean clothes, and walked into the office looking as fresh as a gangbanger wearing a brand-new suit to his court date.
“I’ve been trying to call you for the last fifteen minutes,” Kylie said, not remotely interested in my appearance. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s pretend we’re equal partners, and I get a vote,” I said as I chased her down the stairs. “Where are we running off to?”
“Murray Hill Medical Center. They got hit last night.”
“What’d they steal this time? Bedpans? Kylie, we’ve got a double homicide on our hands. Why don’t we send Betancourt and Torres to take statements so we can focus on the Travers case?”
“Because our new best friend, Howard Sykes, called to inform us that an already delicate situation just became even more delicate. He’s at Murray Hill now waiting for his two star cops to show up and handle the situation with the utmost diplomacy.”
I followed her outside. “I don’t get it. We’ve been keeping this case under wraps since we started. What got stolen that makes it even more delicate?”
“It’s not what got stolen. It’s who witnessed the crime.”
“We have a witness?”
“Two. But I doubt if they’re going to cooperate. Get in the car. I’ll fill you in on all the ugly politics on the way over.”
I got in the car.
“The room where the equipment was stored had a keypad lock on it, but the perps knew the key code,” she said as we headed south on Lexington. “Guess what they found inside when they opened the door.”
I shrugged. “Unless it’s Teddy Ryder, I’m not sure I care.”
“A doctor shagging a nurse,” she said.
“Okay, I care.”
“And he’s not just some randy intern. This doc generated over two million for Murray Hill last year.”
I’ve been attached to Red long enough to figure out why Howard wanted us at the scene. “So it’s politics over police work,” I said. “Howard expects us to keep the doctor’s name out of the investigation.”
“As Howard put it, he’s a witness, not a criminal,” she said.
Five minutes later, we pulled up to the hospital entrance on East 33rd Street. One of the mayor’s aides escorted us to an office in the admin section, where Howard Sykes was waiting for us with our reluctant witness.
“This is Dr. Richard,” Sykes said.
“Detectives, I seem to be in a spot of bother here, but Howard assures me I can rely on your discretion,” he said in that proper British accent that immediately cloaks the speaker with an aura of erudition and culture.
He was fiftyish, tall, trim, with silvering hair and what the Brits call bearing. Having spent a lot of my time with men of means, I calculated that his worsted wool Armani suit and his Gucci ostrich-skin loafers would run me at least a month’s salary. There was a gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”
“Unbeknownst to me, there is a band of brazen thieves stealing hospital equipment,” he said. “Had I been aware of the crime wave, I would not have been so quick to choose the room where the new spirometry equipment is being housed. I’m rather mortified to admit that I was in there for a late-night dalliance with a member of the nursing staff, whose name I shall not reveal unless I am remanded to do so by the courts.”
“I assure you that won’t happen,” Howard said, speaking on behalf of the entire criminal justice system. “Just tell the detectives what you can.”
“It was shortly after midnight. They opened the door, and I must say, they were as surprised to see the two of us as we were to see the four of them. They were all wearing scrubs, so I assumed they were staff, but then one of them pulled out a gun.”
“Did you see their faces?” Kylie asked.
“Yes, and my first thought was, Now that I can identify them, they’re going to kill me. But upon closer inspection, I could see that they were wearing masks. Not your typical Halloween fare, but skintight Hollywood-quality silicone. Ingenious disguise, actually.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“The one with the gun spoke. He was very calm, very polite—had a bit of a Texas accent, a little like Tommy Lee Jones. He assured us that we wouldn’t be hurt if we complied. Then two of them bound our hands and feet and covered our mouths with duct tape while the other two put the equipment on a gurney and covered it with a sheet. They were in and out in less than two minutes, but it was six in the morning before my companion and I were found.”
Lucky for us, someone found him. If he had managed to get out on his own, we wouldn’t have had a witness. We thanked him, and he left in a hurry.
“Even though they wore masks,” I sa
id to Howard, “we’d like to check the security footage to see what vehicles they used.”
“There is no security footage,” he said. “They wiped the hard drive.”
“These guys are ninjas,” Kylie said. “Do you know if the hospital backs up their video to the cloud?”
“I’m afraid they don’t. From what I understand, an upgrade is scheduled for next fiscal year, but I’m not on the board here. I only stepped in because the mayor and I are personal friends of the doctor and his wife.”
“Do you want to tell us Dr. Richard’s real name?” Kylie asked.
Howard smiled. “No. Like they used to say on Dragnet, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”
“Is there any chance we could get to interview his companion, this member of the nursing staff?” Kylie said.
“I certainly can’t help you there, Detective,” Howard said. “I don’t even know her name.”
“Based on the doc’s choice of words and his avoidance of pronouns,” Kylie said, “I don’t even know if it’s a her.”
CHAPTER 28
“So who do you think wound up with the necklace?” Kylie said as soon as she started the car. “Teddy or our phantom buyer?”
It was a simple enough question, but something about the offhand way she asked it set me off.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are we back on our primary case now? Because my head is still jammed up with this drop-everything hospital mission you decided was so critical, and I’m having trouble keeping up every time you change gears. It would really help me if you handed out a schedule first thing in the morning to let me know how you plan to orchestrate my day.”
She turned off the engine and swiveled her body around to square off with mine. “You got a problem with me, Zach?”
I hardly ever get in Kylie’s face, and with her husband running wild, this was definitely not the best time to vent. But it was too late. I lost it.
“Yeah. You’re not my boss. You’re my partner. I understand you can’t always say no to city hall, but next time, check in with me before you say ‘I’ll be right there’ and then drag me along like I’m your pack mule.”
“I did try to call you, partner, but you were too busy licking your wounds, so I made a judgment call.”
“What wounds?”
“Oh please. I walked by the diner this morning, and there you were, wearing last night’s rumpled clothes, pouring your heart out to Gerri. I figured you had a major blowup with Cheryl when you got home. And then a half hour later, you walked into the office looking fresh as a daisy. Did you think I wouldn’t pick up on it? You and I went at it pretty heavy back in the day, so I know what you smell like after you shave and shower, I know that’s the backup shirt you keep in your locker, and I know when you’re pissy because your love life is off the tracks. Plus, I’m a detective with New York’s Finest. A little credit, okay?”
“Fine,” I said, doing my best to spin the word so that it sounded more like “Go fuck yourself.”
She slid back behind the wheel and started the car.
“You want to tell me where we’re going?” I said.
“We’re driving to the Bassett brothers’ to see if they recognize Raymond Davis or Teddy Ryder from their mug shots,” she said. “And if we’re really lucky, maybe they can ID the guy who chased Ryder down the stairs. Does that meet with your approval, Detective—”
“Teddy!” I said.
“Teddy what?”
“Teddy has the necklace.”
“Fifty-fifty chance that you’re right, but how come you sound so sure?”
“You just said it. ‘The guy who chased Ryder down the stairs.’ I think if our mystery man had the necklace, he’d have left the building nice and casual so as not to attract any attention. But this guy went tear-assing down the steps. He was after Teddy, and my best guess is that he never caught him, or we’d have gotten a call informing us that our double homicide has been upgraded to a triple.”
She thought about it for a few seconds. “Y’know,” she said, “you’re pretty smart for a pack mule.”
“We still have to nail both of them,” I said, “but we have a better shot at finding Teddy. Any word from NCIC on Annie Ryder?”
“As of an hour ago, they haven’t yet come up with a viable hit on her. She has a three-year-old Maryland license with a Baltimore address, but she hasn’t lived there in more than two years. Since then, she got a speeding ticket in Nashville and another one on the Jersey Turnpike. She’s not easy to pin down.”
“For all we know she got those tickets on purpose, just to throw the bloodhounds off the scent,” I said. “Q was right. She doesn’t want to be found.”
“Oh, we’ll find her,” Kylie said. “In the meantime, let’s go see if Leo Bassett has had the cocktail sauce removed from his jacket and the broom removed from his ass.”
CHAPTER 29
On the way downtown, I got a text from Chuck Dryden.
“Good news,” I said to Kylie. “We’ve got ballistics back on Raymond Davis’s Walther. It’s a 100 percent match with the gun that killed Elena. Of course, there’s no way we can prove that Raymond was the shooter.”
“No, but on the plus side,” Kylie said, “we don’t have to bring him to trial.”
West 21st Street was back to normal. The media vans and the paparazzi were gone, most likely in hot pursuit of the crime du jour.
Leo buzzed us in and was anxiously waiting for us when the elevator doors opened. “Detectives,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re back. I must apologize for my little hissy fit the other night, but I was beyond distraught about Elena.”
“We understand perfectly,” Kylie said. “There have been some developments in the case, and we have some pictures we’d like to show you.”
“What kind of developments?”
“First, we’d like you and your brother to look at some photos.”
“Suspects?” he said, tapping his fingertips together as if he were applauding.
“Persons of interest,” I said.
“Oh, I love that term,” he said. “Let’s do it. I’ll get Max.”
We sat down at the dining room table with both of them and laid out six mug shots, two of which were Teddy and Raymond.
“I’ve never seen any of them in my life,” Max said immediately.
Leo took his time. He picked up one of the pictures and stared at it. “Oh, of course,” he said.
“You recognize him?” I asked.
“I thought I did, and then I finally figured it out. He looks like a young Richard Widmark.”
“The actor?” I said.
“Yes, but the early years. Like when he played Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death,” he said. “I’m sure this is absolutely no help at all, but at least I’m taking a few minutes to put a name to the face.”
“I didn’t need a few minutes,” Max said, looking directly at me, although the dig was clearly aimed at his brother. “I’ve never seen any of them. Leo said you had some developments in the case. What are they?”
“There was a shooting on the Lower East Side last night. This man is dead, and this one is wounded and on the run.” I pointed to Raymond’s mug shot, then to Teddy’s. “We have good reason to believe they stopped the limo and killed Elena Travers.”
“Who are they?” Max said.
“Raymond Davis and Teddy Ryder. Do either of those names ring a bell?”
They both shook their heads.
“They’re career felons, but this crime is way above their pay grade,” I said. “They may have been turning over the necklace to the person who hired them when the shooting went down.”
“Did you recover the necklace?” Max said.
“No, but we were hoping you might be able to identify the probable shooter.”
I handed Max the fuzzy surveillance screenshot we pulled out of Elliott Moritz’s security video.
He studied it. “The lighting is terrible. It could be anybody. It’s certainly no
body I recognize…from life or the movies,” he added as he handed the screenshot to Leo.
Leo looked at it and shook his head. “Can you get us a better picture? A different angle? Or maybe do some of those crazy computer tricks to make it less blurry, like they do on the TV shows?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bassett,” I said. “It is what it is. We knew it was a long shot, but we had to ask.”
“What do we do now?” Leo asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “We just wanted to touch base with you and let you know we’re making progress. We’ll get back to you soon.”
Leo escorted us to the elevator, and Kylie and I rode down without saying a word. Only when we were back in the car and out of range of their security cameras did Kylie break the silence.
“What’s your take on those two?” she said.
“Max is a coldhearted bastard who cares more about the missing necklace than about the dead woman who was wearing it. And Leo, who doesn’t understand the difference between the movies and real life, acts like he’s starring in a jewelry heist film, and the two of us are extras who play cops. What’s your take?”
“You know me, Zach. I suspect everybody of everything. The problem is, Max seems too smart to hire a couple of bozos like Teddy and Raymond, and Leo seems too dumb to put an operation like this together. So based on what we know about them, it’s hard to connect them to the crime.”
“Then maybe the real problem is, we don’t know enough about them,” I said, taking out my phone. “Yet.”
CHAPTER 30
Leo Bassett stood behind the drapes, peeked out the window at West 21st Street, and watched as Detectives Jordan and MacDonald drove off.
“They’re gone,” he said.
“They’ll be back,” his brother said.
“Two or three more times, maybe,” Leo said with a toss of his hand. “The last time around the cops barely bothered to talk to us. Don’t worry. These two will give up soon enough. They always do.”
They always do. Max closed his eyes and marveled at how blissfully ignorant his brother could be.
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