by Blake Banner
“That’s my girl.”
“Either as part of his cover, or because he’s a real dawg, he shacks up with Katie O’Connor. Then one day, somebody turns up and rings at the door. It seems he knew the caller because it looks like he let him in. The caller got possession of Dave’s Glock, apparently without a struggle, which adds to the impression that Dave knew his caller. The caller then very coolly popped a cap right between Dave’s eyes, without leaving prints on the gun.” She shrugged and pulled a face. “It was early March, he was wearing gloves.” She shrugged again, only half satisfied with her own explanation. “He then puts the gun down on the bookcase, collects the laptop, and all Dave’s papers, and leaves with them.”
“That’s about the size of it. We have to assume also that his killer knew that Katie would be out and Dave would be alone.”
We crossed 3rd Avenue Bridge in silence and followed it onto East 129th, toward Harlem. Then she started nodding and spread her hands. “Okay, so I’m going to state the obvious. It looks like he was killed for the article he was writing, or because of the article he was writing, or both.”
I laughed. “You’re covering all your bases, huh, Dehan?”
“Yuh. But things are not always what they seem. That’s what you’re always telling me, right? And it may also be that he was killed by his wife, or his girlfriend, or both, and the disappearance of his laptop and his papers is incidental to the murder itself.”
“Agreed.”
“Does she know we’re coming?”
“Yeah. I called her last night. She’s an editor on a fashion magazine. She said she’d be working from home today.”
We followed Central Park North onto Cathedral Parkway and then turned left onto Columbus. I parked outside the deli, she shoved her hat on her head, and we made a run for the entrance to the block. In the elevator, as I shook the water from my hair, she grinned at me from under her absurd hat.
“Who’s laughing now, huh, Sensei?”
She opened the door almost immediately and looked at us with angry eyes. She was tall; as tall as Dehan or maybe taller. It was hard to tell because of the huge mop of afro hair on her head. Her skin was dark, but her features were more Indian than African, her eyes were almond, and her nose long and aquiline. The expression on her face was pure Latin American, but when she spoke, her accent was English. I guess it has become a small world, and almost all of it was present there in that woman.
“Yes?”
We showed her our badges and I made the introductions. She sighed and seemed to sag.
“Look, is this going to take long? I am really busy.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, Mrs. Thorndike…”
“Petersen. I married again. And it’s Ms.”
“Ms. Petersen. We only have a few questions, but we would appreciate it if we could come in.”
She sighed again, with a little less irritation than the first time, and stepped aside. “I’m sorry. Come in.”
The apartment wasn’t big. There was an open plan living room and dining room, with a kitchen separated by a pine bar. Most of the far wall was taken up by a large, plate glass window that overlooked the gardens on West 104th. The furniture looked like IKEA. A door beside the kitchen led to a short passage where I guessed there was a toilet and a bedroom. She gestured us to a sofa and sat on the edge of an armchair. She didn’t make herself comfortable.
“I honetly doubt there is anything I can add to what I told the detectives when it happened.” She shrugged. “It’s almost ten years ago. Since then I have remarried and started a whole new life. This really is not very welcome.”
I nodded and made a face like sympathy. “But you understand, Ms. Petersen, we can’t just let people get away with murder because our investigations are unwelcome to the victims’ ex-spouses.”
She looked embarrassed. “Of course.” She sighed for the third time and spread her hands. “What would you like to know?”
Dehan came straight out with it. “Where were you when David was killed?”
She took a deep breath, held it, and puffed out her cheeks. She gazed at the rain-spattered window for a moment, at the heavy clouds, and then blew out and shook her head. It was elaborate, but it looked genuine. “It was ten years ago, Detective. I don’t honestly know. Besides, from what I recall, they didn’t know exactly when he was killed. Wasn’t there a window of twenty-four hours or something?” She kind of winced. “I think I spent the evening with friends. They must have asked me at the time. Whatever I told them then holds true today.”
I nodded. “Sure. When did you first realize that David was having an affair?”
Her face went hard. It may have been ten years but the anger was still fresh.
“I was informed by the investigating detectives that he had been shacked up with some tart when they came to interview me. That was the same day they found him, in the afternoon.”
Dehan was watching her carefully. “When was the last time you saw him?”
Again the long stare at the heavy, gray sky. She bit her lip and gave her head a couple of small shakes. “It’s so hard to be precise. Even at the time…” She frowned at Dehan. It looked to me as though she was searching for some kind of female sympathy. “He’d be gone for weeks on end sometimes. I got used to it, the way you get used to an ache. At first it hurts, then it’s annoying, and finally you just forget it’s there.”
I smiled like I understood. “Can you give us a rough idea?”
“It must have been a couple of weeks at least. We had this…” She made a face that was eloquent of everything along the bitterness, resentment, disappointment spectrum. “Arrangement, for what it was worth. He would often disappear for several weeks when he was investigating a story. He was a good journalist… He was a low-down piece of shit! But he was also a good journalist, very dedicated and very thorough. But we agreed that we would meet at least one day at the weekend during the periods that he was away…”
Dehan interrupted.
“So, excuse me, Ms. Petersen, when he was away, did he not tell you where he was going?”
“No! Good heavens no! He didn’t even tell me what he was investigating. He was extremely secretive about his work. I didn’t even get to see his articles until they were published.”
I said, “Please go on.”
She took a moment, like she was examining her memories and finding them wanting. “The first couple of weeks he’d come home on the Sunday and we’d do something. Then he would start calling instead, with some excuse. Then he wouldn’t even call. In the end, I stopped keeping the weekends free because I knew he wouldn’t show. I’d go out to dinner with friends, or to a show, visit my parents…” She shrugged.
Dehan said, “Your parents in…?”
“Miami.”
I smiled at her and glanced out the window. “That’s one alibi I wouldn’t mind checking up on right now.”
She smiled back. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“Ms. Petersen, is there anybody you can think of who might be able to give us a line on what he was investigating?”
“Like I said, he was very secretive about his work. The only person I can think of would be Bob, his editor on the Telegraph. I am guessing he had to tell him something, or they wouldn’t have approved his expenses.” Her face suddenly contracted with bitterness. “I don’t know what he told his whore.”
I studied the anger on her face. Ten years on and there was still rage and bitterness there. I wondered if it was enough to drive her to kill. I sucked my teeth and glanced at Dehan. She shook her head and I stood.
“Ms. Petersen, thank you for your time. We’ll try not to disturb you again. If you think of anything…” I handed her my card. “Please give us a call. Have a good day.”
Outside, the rain had eased to a drizzle, but the water cascading from the awnings and the gutters was loud and sounded cold and wet. Dehan raised an eyebrow at me and offered me her hat. “You wan
t? It would suit you. You’d look like Indiana Jones.”
“My brain cavity is larger than yours.”
She snorted as I stepped out and ran for my car. She followed me at an easy walk. As she climbed into the car and slammed the door, she eyed me. “You sure about that, Sensei?”
I stared at her for a long moment. She stared back. Finally, I said, “I think she has enough rage and anger in her to drive her to kill, if the right provocation were there…”
“She finds out about Katie somehow, finds out where he’s shacked up, goes to confront him…”
“It’s feasible. But if she killed him out of rage, why was she so cool about it? Why the single shot? Why didn’t she empty the magazine into him? Why did she remove the laptop and the papers?”
I watched her eyes move over my face as she pursed her lips. She gave a little shrug with one shoulder. “In some people, rage expresses itself as something cold and clinical. As to the laptop and the papers, like we said before, that might be something completely unrelated.”
I grunted. “What d’you want to do now?”
“You know what? I’d like to see the apartment where he was killed. You think if we ask nicely, the new tenants would let us have a look around?”
I fired up the engine and winked at her. “I had a feeling you’d say that. I called the landlord last night. He’s between lets. I said we’d be there just after ten.”
She raised a laconic eyebrow. “Geez, Boss! You da best! You treat me good!”
“Don’t you forget it, Little Grasshopper!”
TWO
By the time we got back to the Bronx, the drizzle had turned to the occasional, freezing drop, carried on an icy wind that even made the bare branches of the trees shiver. Dave’s block was a five-story red brick with an orange fire escape. The main entrance was a small courtyard that had been barricaded with a large, wrought iron gate covered in steel mesh and topped off with sharp iron spikes.
The landlord, Sammy Gupta, buzzed us in and we rode the elevator to the fifth floor. I had brought with me a folder with the crime scene photos in it. The door to the apartment was open and I peered in. It gave directly onto the living room. The floor was covered in a rough, gray carpet. On the right there was a window, and in front of the window there was a small dining table with two chairs. Against the wall there was a sideboard and directly in front of us there was a sofa that might have looked new when the Beatles still had pudding-basin hairdos. In front of it there was a wooden coffee table with very thin legs and a glass top, and a lower level where you could put magazines. Opposite the sofa, against the wall on the left, there was a dresser, and most of that was taken up with a TV.
Beside the dresser, there was an open door that gave onto a bedroom. From in there emerged noises of movement. I knocked on the door and shouted, “Mr. Gupta? NYPD. May we come in?”
His voice preceded him, “Oh, yes!”
He was short and thin, in pleated pants, a white shirt and a tank top. He smiled a lot, kept his arms permanently bent at the elbow and his head cocked slightly at a constant, ‘ah well’ sort of angle.
“Yes, please, come in, how do you do? Hello.”
We showed him our badges. “I’m Detective Stone, this is Detective Dehan. We are reviewing the David Thorndike case…”
“Yes, yes, goodness yes, poor David. I remember it well. Very tragic. Please, tell me how I can help you.”
Dehan answered him. “We’d just like to have a look around. Has the layout changed much since…?”
As she asked it, I opened the folder and took out the pictures, but Sammy was already answering her.
“Well, it was ten years ago, and I like to keep things up to date, you know? But, no, it hasn’t really changed much. Not at all. As you can see from the photos.” He grinned.
Dehan took the top photo. It was the same coffee table and the same sofa, in the same position. She pointed to the carpet, between the table and the door, about ten or twelve feet away. “The body was there, lying on its back. The head just missed the table...” She stepped over and turned to face me.
Sammy was nodding. “Yes, that is correct. I opened the door, came in, and there he was, just where you are standing. He looked very surprised.”
Dehan ignored him and carried on. “Which means he was standing about six or seven feet from his killer. The shot was pretty much point blank if the killer had his arm outstretched…”
She took a couple steps toward me and I stretched out my hand as though I were going to shoot her. It would have been impossible to miss. She kept talking.
“So the killer was standing more or less where you are standing now, by the door. He has the door open or he has it closed, we don’t know. He’s either just come in or he’s on his way out. Again, we don’t know. But that’s where he’s standing, by the door.”
Sammy was nodding a lot. “Yes, undoubtedly that is correct. He had to be by the door to effect that shot. No doubt.”
I looked at him and asked, “Did you collect the rent in cash?”
“Always. I would come in the first week of the month, and he was never late. Always on time, no problem. That is why I was worried when he did not open, and no message, nothing. It was not like him.”
“I know it was a long time ago, but can you recall where he worked? Where he kept his computer and all his papers?”
“Oh, yes! Always on the table by the window.” He pointed to the dining table. “Always over there. Whenever I am come to see him, always he was at the table by the window, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee. Always there.”
“But it wasn’t there that day.”
“No, and I am pointing that out to the police. They are saying, ‘There is no robbery!’ And I am saying, ‘Well, look here! They have taken laptop, and also all his papers! What is that if it is not a robbery?’”
“Quite right. How about his gun, Sammy? Did you ever see him with his gun?”
He beamed. “Oh yes! Goodness, yes! He was very chatty, friendly kind of chap. He invited me in for coffee one time, and I ask him, ‘You are no afraid of being robbed? With expensive computer and important work for the newspaper?’ And he says to me, ‘Oh no! I am always take out special insurance!’ And he shows me a pistol in the drawer. ‘I always take precaution!’ He was a tough cookie, all right!”
“And where did he keep it, Sammy?”
He pointed. “Over in the sideboard. He said he wanted to have it close when he was working.”
Dehan frowned. “Why was that? Did he feel he was in danger?”
“He told me he was an investigative reporter, and the people he investigated were very dangerous characters. He always wanted to have his insurance. Always he said it like this, ‘I always have my insurance!’”
I walked over to the table and stood by the chair. I looked over at Sammy and Dehan by the door. “Here? This where he sat?”
Sammy nodded. “Yes, just there where you are standing.”
I tried to visualize it. He’d be sitting at the table, writing, reading, smoking, drinking coffee. There would be a ring at the door, or a knock. The gun is in the sideboard. He goes to the door. He is careful, cautious, he knows he is in danger and likes to keep his insurance handy, so he asks who it is…
I said, “Was there anything else, Sammy, that you thought was odd that the detectives at the time did not think important?”
He danced his head around a bit. “Well, there was one thing, maybe it is nothing, but I thought it was odd.”
“What’s that?”
“It looked to me like he was going to leave. He didn’t tell me anything about leaving, but in his bedroom, the suitcase was unzipped and open on the floor.”
Dehan frowned. “What about his clothes?”
“No, they were all in the drawers and in the wardrobe. It was just the suitcase, which would be normally, you know, in the wardrobe or under the bed. But that morning it was out, on the floor, and open, unzipped.”
I thou
ght about it for a moment, but it didn’t say anything to me. Dehan asked him, “Do any of the neighbors from that time still live here?”
He did his little dance with his head again. “Well, you know, people in apartment blocks like this one, they are mainly transient. They come and they go. But yes. Me. I live on the first floor. I have six apartments in this block. I live in one and I let out the other five.”
Dehan rested her ass against the back of the sofa and crossed her arms. “Do you remember much about what happened that day, Mr. Gupta?”
“Sammy, please. Everybody is calling me Sammy. I always think, if you can bring a smile into somebody’s life, even for a moment, you have done something useful. Isn’t it?” He looked from me back to Dehan. We waited. He went on, “You know, Detective Dehan, I have a very good memory, because I am very observant. I am noticing the little details. And, of course, after poor David was murdered, I was thinking about what I had noticed that day, and also the previous days. I offered these observations to the detective who was investigation, but thought they were not useful.”
Dehan said, “We think they might be, Sammy. We’d like to hear them.”
“Surely, I will tell you. Let me fill you in,” He grinned at us, like he’d phrased it in a particularly enlightening way. “You know that he was here for just over two months, and for most of that time he was sharing it with Miss Katie O’Connor, a very pretty and lively little filly! Oh, goodness! She was very alive!” He laughed. “And she was often receiving visits from her sister and her boyfriend.”
I frowned. “Her sister?”
“Yes. But about a week before he was killed, Miss Katie moved out. David was very upset because he was most in love with her. She was very charming! Very pretty! Really most nice. But they had a big argument and she went with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend or husband, I don’t know, I am sorry. Then!” He held up his finger, grinning at each of us in turn, “Two days before he is dead…”
