“Max said he was your boyfriend.”
“‘Boyfriend,’” Chen said, putting the word in air quotes. “You’re a woman. You know what that means.”
“I’m a homicide detective,” Kylie said, “and we’re not supposed to fill in the blanks from our own life experience. So why don’t you tell us what your relationship was with Jeremy Nevins?”
“Consenting adults,” Chen said as comfortably as if it had been a box to check on a government form alongside “single,” “married,” and “divorced.”
“Could you elaborate?” Kylie said.
Chen smiled—a real smile this time, and I could only imagine that the question triggered memories of her time with the handsome young man lying dead one floor below. The smile turned to sobs, and she folded her arms across her chest to hold it all back.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting down in the leather armchair. Kylie and I sat across from her on a matching sofa.
“Jeremy and I didn’t have a relationship—certainly not in the classic sense. It was more of an arrangement. As a publicist I plan a lot of high-end events. Jeremy loved getting up close and personal with the rich and famous, so I’d bring him along as my plus one. In return, the two of us would get up close and personal together.”
“So it was essentially physical.”
“Yes, and I make no apologies for it, Detective. It’s the age-old story of the overworked career woman. He got access. I got laid.”
“Do you have any idea why he stabbed Leo Bassett?”
“Are you sure that’s what happened? I find it impossible to believe that Jeremy would kill Leo. They were so wonderful together, and Leo was over the moon about Jeremy. He’d do anything for him.”
“Wait a minute,” Kylie said. “Leo was gay. So you’re saying—”
“I’m saying what you think I’m saying. Jeremy Nevins was beyond incredible in bed. You spend one night with him, and you’d remember it for the rest of your life. It didn’t matter if you were a thirty-two-year-old woman or a sixty-year-old man. Jeremy had a gift, and if you were lucky enough to be on the receiving end, it didn’t matter what he wanted in return.”
“You gave him entrée to people he wouldn’t have met otherwise,” I said. “What did Leo give him?”
“I don’t know the details, but Leo loved the finer things in life, and Jeremy was happy to go along for the cash and prizes.”
“One of those prizes was an eight-million-dollar necklace,” I said.
“I heard. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Jeremy was with me when it was stolen.”
Her cell phone rang.
“Excuse me. This is urgent,” she said, taking the call. “Hi, Lavinia. I’m almost finished with the piece. I can email it to you in ten minutes. Talk soon.”
She hung up. “Sorry. Business. Max wants me to get out the news of Leo’s death.”
“It sounded like you were talking to Lavinia Begbie,” Kylie said.
“Yes. She’s agreed to write the story if we give her a twelve-hour exclusive before we send out a release to everyone else.”
“Shouldn’t the news of Leo Bassett’s death be on the front page instead of in the Style section?”
“Sweetie, in my world, the Style section is the front page, and Lavinia Begbie is the voice of the fashion industry. The fact that she agreed to devote an entire column to Max is living proof that every cloud has a silver lining.”
“You said Max. Don’t you mean she’s going to devote her entire column to Leo?”
Chen shook her head. “Detective, you really don’t understand our business, do you? Our company got a black eye when Elena was killed wearing our necklace. Of course Lavinia will talk about Leo, but having her write about Max Bassett’s heroic actions to attempt to save his brother’s life is exactly the kind of ink we need.”
“Is that your job, Ms. Chen?” Kylie said. “To use Leo’s murder as an opportunity to turn Max into a hero to help restore the company’s image?”
“That’s exactly my job,” Chen said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a deadline to meet.”
CHAPTER 57
“I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m not sure Cheryl and I are still in a relationship,” I said as soon as Kylie and I were back in the car. “Can we call it a night?”
“I’m just as tired and hungry, and if you want to talk about relationships on life support, my junkie husband trumps your pissed-off girlfriend,” she said as we headed uptown on Sixth Avenue. “But no, we can’t call it a night. Sonia Chen is talking to the press, and unless we can get the First Amendment repealed in the next few hours, everything that went down at Casa Bassett tonight is going to be public.”
“Not everything,” I said. “She’ll probably leave out the parts where Max lied to us through his teeth and substitute some flowery bullshit about the noble great white hunter avenging his brother’s death by conveniently killing the man who knew the answer to every question we had.”
“Exactly. Which means that in a few hours it’ll be on the front page of every paper and trending on the Internet. And since we can’t stop Annie Ryder from getting the news, the second-best thing we can do is break it to her ourselves, so we can watch the expression on her face when she finds out.”
I couldn’t argue with her logic, and I grunted in agreement.
We hung a right on 34th Street and headed east toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
“You think Annie is still alive?” I asked.
“God, I hope so, because if we find her in a pool of blood, we’ll be stuck at another crime scene till dawn.”
Annie Ryder was very much alive and as charming as ever.
“Don’t you two have anything better to do than harass law-abiding taxpayers in the middle of the night?” she said at her door. “I told you I haven’t seen Teddy, and I have no idea where he is.”
“Jeremy Nevins is dead,” Kylie said, hitting her with our biggest gun first.
The old con woman was a pro. “Never heard of him,” she said, doing her best not to react. But Kylie had been right. The news came as enough of a shock to Annie’s system that a tiny corner of her right eye spasmed involuntarily. She rubbed it and yawned in an attempt to cover it up, but if this had been a poker game, she’d have lost her edge. She’d given up the tell.
“Sure you heard of him,” Kylie said. “Nevins killed Raymond Davis, and he tried to kill Teddy.”
“Then good riddance,” Annie said. “Thank you for coming all this way to let me know. Good night.”
“We’ve also recovered the necklace that Raymond and Teddy stole from Elena Travers,” Kylie said.
The tic kicked in again, and her eye fluttered. “Teddy didn’t steal anything. He’s innocent.”
“Then tell him to turn himself in. We’ll cut him a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“We’ll charge Raymond with the murder and Jeremy as the one who orchestrated the robbery. If Teddy turns himself in now, we think we can get the DA to let him plead it down to involuntary manslaughter. He’ll probably only get eight years. If we catch him first, the deal is off the table, and he’s looking at life.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, girlie,” Annie said. “I told you Teddy was right here with me that night. You might not believe me, but a jury will.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Kylie said. “Juries want to buy a mother’s testimony, but a smart prosecutor will make sure they know that in this case, Mom is a grifter, a professional liar. And if that’s not enough, he’ll make sure they see the traffic-cam footage from the night of the robbery. The two men who jacked Elena’s limo were wearing masks on 54th Street, but one of them was stupid enough to pull his mask off when he got to 53rd. Now who do you think could be that dumb?”
“We’re done here,” Annie said, and shut the door.
“That was quite a picture you painted, Detective,” I said to Kylie as we rode down in the elevator. “I particularly liked the part abou
t the traffic cam. Very believable.”
“I only wish it were true,” Kylie said. “But people are obsessed about Big Brother watching them, and I’ll bet Annie Ryder is more paranoid than most.”
We spent the rest of the trip to Manhattan in blessed silence. Once again it was almost two a.m. by the time I got to my apartment, but this time I didn’t have to wait to get upstairs to find out if Cheryl was there.
Angel, my doorman, handed me a note. “Dr. Robinson left this for you.”
It was a single scrap of paper that had been torn from the bottom of a yellow pad. The rest of the page and the pad it came from was on Angel’s desk. Cheryl had scribbled it out in a hurry as she was leaving the building.
Spending the night at my place. Be at Gerri’s at 6:30 a.m.
I thanked Angel and took the elevator up to my empty apartment.
CHAPTER 58
I shucked my clothes, showered, fell into bed, and reread Cheryl’s note.
It didn’t take a detective to figure out what she meant by “Spending the night at my place.” But “Be at Gerri’s at 6:30 a.m.” threw me. Did she mean “I’ll be at Gerri’s, and I’d love to have you join me”? Or was it “You better be at Gerri’s at 6:30 so I can read you the riot act”?
I set my alarm for five so I could be at the diner early enough to get Gerri’s worldview on my current situation.
She sat down at a booth with me, and I gave her the short version of what happened yesterday. “Any thoughts, Dr. Gomperts?” I said.
“Just one,” she said. “Why do I even bother giving you advice? I warned you the other day about spending your nights with Kylie, but I don’t think you remember a word I said.”
“Of course I do. How could I forget one of your puppet shows where I’m starring as a packet of artificial sweetener?”
“I’ll try one more time.” She slid my water glass to the edge of the table. “This is Kylie,” she said. “Her marriage is on a precipice.”
She stared at me, a devilish look in her eyes as she slowly pushed the glass with one finger. “It’s teetering, Zach. It’s on the brink.”
Just as the glass started to topple, I grabbed it. “You’re crazy,” I said.
“And you’re hopeless. You can’t let go of Kylie, and you always want to be there to catch her if she falls.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
She stood up. “Good question. Why don’t you ask the lady who just walked in the door?” she said, hurrying off to the kitchen.
It was Cheryl. She sat down across from me and got straight to the point. “What happened yesterday? And don’t skimp on the details.”
I told her everything, from Q’s early-morning visit to our post-midnight house call on Annie Ryder. Skilled psychologist that she is, she listened without interruption.
“If you knew you and Kylie were flying to Atlantic City, why did you lie and say you were working?” she said when I was finished.
“It was beyond stupid,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“What really hurts is that you felt you had to lie. Did you think if you had told me the truth, I’d have tried to stop you?”
“Cheryl, I told you the truth Tuesday night when I ran out on dinner, but you were still pissed. And the next night at Paola’s, you said you love being with me, but you’re not sure you can handle living with me.”
“Zach,” she said, resting her hand on mine, “that’s because a big part of living with you is about not living with you. When we were dating, and you got busy, I was at home in my own apartment. I missed you, but I could deal with it, because I understand the demands the job can put on a high-profile detective. But it’s different when I’m at your apartment.”
I shrugged. “Why?”
“Because when you don’t come home, I’m not just lonely, I’m lonely in a place I’d rather not be. Everything I see reminds me of you, but you’re not there. It’s like living with a ghost.”
“So you’re moving out?”
“Not out of your life, but I’m seriously thinking about moving out of your apartment.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I said I’d give it a month, and I’m a woman of my word. It’s only been twenty-eight days, so let’s try again tonight.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the heels of my hands. “I’m not going to be home tonight,” I said.
She laughed. “Why?”
“Kylie and I are running a sting at Hudson Hospital, and we’re going to spend the entire night on a stakeout. It’s not the kind of thing I usually do, but I promised Cates and the mayor’s husband. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Cheryl said. “It’s what makes you such a great cop.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me. A great cop, but a lousy boyfriend.”
CHAPTER 59
Annie could come up with only one reason why a weasel like Jeremy would drop an eight-million-dollar necklace and run: it wasn’t worth eight million.
There was one way to find out for sure. Ask Ginsberg.
“It’s flawless,” Ginsberg said after looking at the necklace through a loupe for less than twenty seconds. “Every stone is perfect.”
Annie smiled for the first time since she left Katz’s Deli. Ginsberg had spent sixty years in the wholesale jewelry business. “So it’s real,” she said.
“No, it’s synthetic. Nature doesn’t make perfect. Science does. These stones were grown in a lab. It takes a few months, so they look better than most of the dreck they use for costume jewelry. But real? No.”
Annie’s smile turned to despair, and Ginsberg wrapped his arms around her. For eight months out of the year they’d go to dinner, a movie, a Mets game, or just spend the night in his apartment on the third floor of her building. Just before Thanksgiving, he’d fly to Florida, and in the spring, they’d pick up where they left off.
“Sorry to give you the bad news, but you know what will make you feel better?” he said, giving her a wink. “A little afternoon delight.”
At eighty-two, Ginsberg bragged that he had the libido of a sixty-year-old, and while the sex wasn’t all that important to Annie, there were times when she needed the comfort of curling up against a warm man instead of a bronze urn.
This was one of those times.
An hour later, she broke the bad news to Teddy.
“So the necklace is junk,” Teddy said.
“Not junk, but it’s not worth enough money to stick our necks out trying to sell it.”
“So, what are we going to do for money, Ma?”
Annie didn’t know. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I have an idea,” she lied. “I just need some time to think it through.”
She was still trying to come up with a plan when the two detectives showed up, told her Jeremy was dead, and offered Teddy a chance to plead the murder rap down. Eight years was a long time, but she’d never forgive herself if he got caught and had to spend the rest of his life behind bars. She decided to sleep on it.
The answer came to her in the middle of the night. It was so obvious she smacked her forehead in mock disgust for not seeing it sooner. She showered and made a pot of coffee, and at five fifteen she left the apartment, walked to the deli on 27th, and brought home a box of doughnuts and the morning papers.
Teddy was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
“What are you doing up?” she said.
“Damn cat woke me, and I’m more hungry than tired. What’ve you got?”
She tossed him the doughnuts and then opened the Daily News to a two-page spread on the Bassetts. “Your buddy Jeremy is dead,” she said. “He stabbed one of those two jewelry brothers, and the other one shot him.”
Teddy grinned. “Cool beans.”
“Yeah, cool,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She went to the bedroom and returned with the necklace. She set it on top of the news story about the Bassetts and took out her cell phone.
>
“What are you doing, Ma?”
“Taking a picture,” she said, trying to get the right angle.
“Why? I thought you said the necklace was worthless.”
“It’s a fake, but it’s far from worthless,” she said, taking a photo and then deleting it. “Did you ever hear of Jack Ruby?”
Teddy took a few seconds and then smiled. “Yeah. He’s the one who shot President Kennedy.”
“Close. Ruby shot the guy who shot the president. He used a .38 that he bought for sixty-two dollars and fifty cents,” she said. “I looked it up this morning on the Internet.”
“So?”
“So what do you think the gun that killed Lee Harvey Oswald is worth today?”
Teddy shrugged. “I got no idea,” he said through a mouthful of doughnut.
“Me either. But I can tell you that in 2008 the gun was sold to a collector for two million.”
“That’s crazy, Ma. Who would pay two million bucks for an old .38?”
“It’s called murderabilia, kiddo, and there are a lot of nut jobs out there who will pay big money for anything connected to a major crime.”
Teddy brightened. “So are you going to sell the necklace on eBay?”
“No,” Annie said, clicking off a half dozen more pictures. “I already found a buyer.”
CHAPTER 60
With only three hours’ sleep in the last twenty-four, my body was running on fumes, and whatever energy I might have had left was sapped by the time I finished my hapless breakfast with Cheryl. I went home, unplugged everything that beeped, buzzed, rang, or chirped, and slept nine hours straight.
By the time Kylie picked me up at six p.m., I was shaved, showered, caffeinated, and braced for the most boring part of every detective’s job: waiting, watching, and wishing some bad guys would show up and make my existence meaningful.
“Spence called me this afternoon,” Kylie said as she weaved in and out of Friday night traffic on the FDR.
“And?”
“There is no and, Zach. The very fact that he called me is a moral victory. You were there last night. He couldn’t stand having me in the same room with him, let alone talk to me.”
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