Dead of Winter

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  She stepped back to let them in.

  "Michelle, my agent, called to tell me I should expect you," she said.

  Neither Mac nor Aiden spoke.

  "You suspect me of having killed that man in the elevator," she said calmly.

  Mac and Aiden were expressionless.

  "Please, let's sit," said Louisa. "Coffee? Good manners die hard. Unfortunate choice of words, but…"

  "No, thank you," Mac said for both of them.

  The three stood just inside the door.

  "Well I was just having one so if you don't mind…" she said and headed for the kitchen. "Please, have a seat."

  Mac and Aiden moved to the table by the window. A cold fog had settled over Manhattan. There wasn't much to see besides a few lights through the dense gray and the peaks of skyscrapers over the cloud.

  "I'm sorry," Louisa Cormier said, cup of steaming coffee in hand, sitting at the table in the same seat she had been in the day before. "I've been up all night working. Michelle may have told you I have a book due by the end of the week, not that my publisher will do anything about my being late, but I'm never late. Writing for a living is a job. I think it's wrong to be late for work. Sorry, I'm rambling a bit. I'm tired and I've just been told I'm a murder suspect."

  "Gun residue," said Mac.

  "I know what it is," she said. "Bits, traces of powder left when a gun has been fired."

  "It's hard to clean off," said Aiden.

  Both CSI investigators looked at Louisa Cormier's hands. They were scrubbed red.

  "You want to check my hands for gunpowder residue?" she asked.

  "Gunpowder residue can be transferred from a person's hand to another object they touch," said Mac.

  "Interesting," said Louisa, working on her coffee.

  "When we were here yesterday, you touched a few things," Mac continued.

  Louisa was alert now.

  "You stole something from my apartment?" she said.

  Mac ignored the question. He was giving her as little as possible. Neither he nor Aiden had taken anything.

  "You fired a gun recently," Aiden said.

  Mac thought he detected the hint of a smile on the author's face.

  "You have no way of knowing that," said Louisa. "You've not examined my hands and I doubt you would take an item of my clothing without a warrant."

  Aiden and Mac did not respond.

  "However," Louisa said, "you may do so. I think you will find residue on my right hand. I fired a gun at a nearby range two days ago, just before the storm. I think I should call my lawyer," Louisa said with a smile.

  "Press will find out," said Mac. "But you have the right to call a lawyer before you answer any more questions."

  Louisa Cormier hesitated.

  "I told you I did fire a weapon," she said. "I test all the weapons I use in my books. Weight, noise, kick-back, size. I was at the range two days ago. I told you. It's Drietch's on Fifty-eighth Street. I'll give you the address. You can check with Mathew Drietch."

  "What was the weapon?" Aiden asked.

  "A.22," she said.

  "Like the one in your desk," said Mac.

  "Exactly. I decided to write about a weapon like the one I own," she said.

  "Lutnikov was killed with a.22," said Mac.

  "I found the bullet at the bottom of the elevator shaft," said Aiden.

  "We'll find a weapon," said Mac. "And we'll match the bullet to it. You said you didn't own any gun but the one you showed us yesterday," said Mac.

  "I don't," Louisa answered. "Mathew Drietch has a gun just like mine. He has hundreds of guns. You can chose the one you want to use. Mr. Drietch was quite happy to let me do so."

  "You wouldn't know where that.22 is now, would you?" asked Mac.

  "I presume it's safely locked away at the firing range," said Louisa.

  "You mind if we search your apartment?" asked Mac. "We can get a warrant."

  "I do mind if you search my apartment," she said, "but if you get your warrant and do so, you'll find no weapon here other than the gun in my desk, which you know has not been fired recently."

  "One more question," said Mac.

  "No more questions," Louisa said gently. "My lawyer's name is Lindsey Terry. He's in the phone book. I'm sorry if I'm a bit edgy but I haven't slept and…"

  "I read some of your books last night," Mac said.

  "Oh," said Louisa. "Which ones?"

  "Another Woman's Nightmare, Woman in the Dark, A Woman's Place," said Mac.

  "My first three," Louisa said. "Did you like them?"

  "They got better after those three," he said.

  "I've always thought the first three were my best," said Louisa. "Did You read the others?"

  "Two of them," said Mac.

  "You're a fast reader."

  "I did a lot of skimming. I'm asking a professor of linguistics at Columbia to take a look at your books," Mac said.

  "What on earth for?" Louisa said.

  "I think you know," said Mac.

  "You have my lawyer's name," Louisa said somberly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to finish my book and get some rest."

  When Aiden and Mac were in the small reception area in front of the elevator, Aiden said, "She did it."

  "She did it," Mac agreed. "Now let's prove it."

  They started toward the front entrance, footsteps a chill echo. In front of them, about twenty yards away, stood a lean man in his late twenties or early thirties. The expressionless, pale, clean-shaven man in jeans and a blue T-shirt and a down Eddie Bauer jacket had his hands folded in front of him as he watched Aiden and Mac approach.

  When the detectives were a few yards away from him, he stepped in their path.

  "You're investigating the murder of Charles Lutnikov," he said, his voice even, speaking slowly.

  "That's right," said Mac.

  "I killed him," the man said.

  He was trembling.

  * * *

  "How are you doing?" Stella asked, standing back a few feet so she wouldn't breathe on Danny.

  She was sick, no doubt about it. Temperature, chills, slight nausea.

  Nausea was no stranger to CSI investigators, and Stella was no exception. She seldom wore a mask at a crime scene no matter how foul the smell, no matter how long a body had lain in a bathtub bloating and emitting up a putrid, familiar stench.

  The last time she had held back the unplanned rush of bile had been two weeks earlier when she and Aiden had gone to the home of a cat lady in a brownstone on the East Side. A uniformed cop had been at the door, a look of disgust on his face, which he made no attempt to hide.

  Stella and Aiden had gone in and been hit by the reek, the sound of dozens of cats howling, and a sweltering heat from radiators along the walls. The dark room smelled of death, urine and feces.

  "Let's not play macho," Stella had said.

  Aiden had nodded and they had put on the masks in their kit and made their way to the bedroom where they found the corpse of the old woman in the print dress. Dried vomit was on her chest. Wide eyes stared at the ceiling. Something crawled at the edge of her mouth, and a large orange cat sat on her distended stomach and hissed at the two women.

  "Check with the officer," said Stella. "If he hasn't called Animal Control, have him do it now."

  With that and the sound of her own voice speaking inside her, Stella reminded herself that this was what she did, what had to be done, and that she did it better than anyone else.

  And so she had spent an hour in the filth, which had begun to accumulate long before the woman died. An examination of the body by Hawkes showed that the woman, who looked as if she had been strangled, had instead died after a heart attack, which caused her to choke on her own vomit.

  Danny's back was turned to her. He held up a corked test tube with a yellow viscous liquid inside.

  "Last time," he said. "You're sick. You should be in bed."

  "It's a cold," she said.

  He shook his he
ad.

  "I'm taking care of it. I had some tea," she said.

  "One small step for mankind," he said.

  Stella ignored him and asked, "What did you find?"

  "Whoever produced this vomit, should change his diet," said Danny. "He's using his stomach to store and process fat. He had both pepperoni and some kind of sausage, also a large quantity of pasta with a spicy sauce that on a scale of one to ten I'd give an ah caramba."

  "Danny," Stella said with barely veiled impatience.

  "Flour," Danny said. "Unprocessed, unbleached. This guy has been breathing in flour."

  "You tested the flour?" she said, holding back a sniffle.

  "Traces in the vomit. Marco's Bakery. Perfect match to our sample," he said.

  "And the rubber marks in the hallway of the bakery definitely match the heels of Collier's shoes?" asked Stella.

  "All trails lead back to Marco's Bakery," he said.

  He put the test tube down and turned to her.

  "Mind if I make a clinical observation?" he said. He didn't wait for an answer. "Your nose is as red as a maraschino cherry."

  "Stella the red-nosed CSI investigator," she said.

  "No kidding," Danny said. "You should be- "

  "I thought you said you were finished with playing doctor," she said.

  Danny shrugged.

  "Want to know about the blood work?" she asked.

  He nodded.

  "As expected, most of the samples from the sidewalk and the doorway match Guista's," she said. "He's losing a lot of blood. If he hasn't already, he'll pass out soon if he doesn't get to a doctor. But there's also blood from someone else."

  Danny sat on a lab stool. Stella sank slowly into another one.

  "Guista gets shot by Flack," she said. "He drives his bakery truck to Brooklyn, abandons the truck in front of a deli, takes a car. Gets out and walks half a block. Someone's waiting for him."

  "And someone gets a surprise," said Danny. "My guess: Guista hits him hard. He throws up, bleeds, loses a tooth. Guista's on the run again. Or on a slow walk."

  Stella nodded and said, "Something like that. The kids who took the bakery truck said he used the telephone. Did you check the call?"

  Danny shook his head. "I'll check it now. You go home."

  The look she gave him made Danny decide to end his crusade to get Stella to take care of herself. Finally.

  "Did you check the names of the people in that apartment building?"

  "Thought you'd never ask," said Danny. "All but one has an arrest record."

  "So- " Stella began.

  "The one without the arrest record is a Lynn Contranos," he said.

  "You look absolutely glutinous with self approbation," Stella said.

  "With…?"

  "It's from a Hitchcock movie," she said, wiping her nose. "What about her?"

  "Lynn Contranos aka Helen Grandfield," he said. "Dario Marco's trusted assistant."

  Stella nodded.

  "But that's not all," Danny said adjusting his glasses, eager. "Helen Grandfield's name, before she married Stanley Contranos, who is doing a minimum of ten to twenty for Murder Two, was Helen Marco, niece of Anthony Marco who is on trial as we speak. Ergo, Dario Marco is her father."

  "All roads lead back to Marco's Bakery," said Stella. "Let's pay them another visit."

  "And take a couple of uniforms with us?" he asked.

  Stella nodded and reached into her pocket for the small plastic bottle of tablets Sheldon Hawkes had given her less than an hour ago.

  "Might make you more tired," Hawkes had said. "But it'll numb you down."

  She opened the bottle.

  * * *

  The name of the young man who had confessed to the murder of Charles Lutnikov was Jordan Breeze, who lived on the third floor of the Belvedere Towers in a studio apartment. Breeze, a Drexel University graduate, was a computer programmer for an Indian company on 55th Street. His job was to create software programs to help track and map the universe.

  Mac looked up from the folder in his hands into the eyes of Jordan Breeze and then back at the folder. Breeze had never been in trouble with the police, didn't belong to any radical groups. After questioning the neighbors, Mac had determined that he was a quiet tenant who always had a "good morning" for others. However, he had been seen less and less over the past few months. A number of other tenants had seen him at the Starbucks two blocks away working on his computer and a Grande Latte, but not for a while. Mac turned on the tape recorder.

  "You're sure you don't want a lawyer?" Mac asked.

  "Certain," said Breeze.

  "Why did you kill him?" asked Mac.

  "He called me a queer," said Breeze. "Not just once. Many times. I shuddered when I left my apartment in the morning or went back in the evening, afraid I'd run into him. I see the question in your eyes."

  "What question?" asked Mac.

  "Am I gay," said Breeze. "I'm not, but some of my friends are, and I'm not going to suffer homophobic fools. I took it for almost a year."

  "And then," said Mac. "You killed him. How?"

  "With a gun," said Breeze. "He was on the elevator. I could have avoided him if I had chosen to go down the stairs, but he would have seen me."

  "You had the gun with you?" asked Mac.

  "I did."

  "You planned to kill him the next time he started in on you?"

  "Yes," said Breeze. "I got in the elevator. The doors closed. He started…"

  "He called me a skinny-ass fag," said Breeze. "The gun was in the outer pocket of my computer case. There is some shit I will not eat."

  Mac nodded, looked at the file folder again and then up at Jordan Breeze.

  "Where did you get the gun?" he asked.

  "It was my father's," said Breeze. "He died a few years ago, cancer."

  "What kind of gun?"

  "A.22 millimeter."

  "What were you doing on the elevator to the upper floors?"

  "I followed Lutnikov when he got off and changed elevators," said Breeze. "He seemed surprised and amused."

  "You got on the elevator because you planned to kill him," said Mac.

  "Yes."

  "What did you do with the gun after you killed Charles Lutnikov?"

  "Got off the elevator and sent it up. Then I trudged happily through the snow to the East River and threw it in," said Breeze. "It went through a thin layer of ice. I threw the leather gloves I was wearing into the river too. I'm afraid you have me on charges of murder and polluting the river."

  "How many times did you shoot Lutnikov?"

  "Twice," said Breeze. "Once when he was standing and again when he fell."

  "The doorman doesn't remember you going out," Mac said.

  "I waited till the afternoon and lots of people were going in and out."

  "How well do you know Louisa Cormier?" asked Mac.

  "Never met her," he said. "Don't even know if I've even seen her in the building. I know she's in the penthouse. I haven't been in the building that long."

  "Do you mind if we look at your apartment? We can get a warrant."

  "Please," said Breeze, "by all means examine my apartment and check my storage locker in the basement."

  There was a calm smile on Breeze's face, close to the contented smile of cult members who are certain they know the truth about life and have reduced its mystery to a simple loyalty.

  Mac turned off the tape recorder, rose, and went to the door. As he opened it, Breeze stood on shaking legs.

  When Jordan Breeze had been taken away, Aiden entered the interrogation room where Mac sat tapping the thin folder on the table.

  "You don't think he did it?" she said.

  "I'll look into it. If he didn't do it, someone gave him a lot of information on the killing," said Mac. "And we keep on the with the investigation of Louisa Cormier."

  "You could be wrong," she said.

  "I could be," Mac agreed.

  12

  STEVIE COULDN'T GE
T THE FIRST CAR he tried to start. It had been almost fifty years since he had boosted a car. Sometimes you do forget how to ride a bicycle.

  The car was a green Ford Escort parked half a block from where he had left the two men from the bakery, one doubled over in pain, the other trying to stop the bleeding from his nose. He had been sure they were hurt too badly to try to follow him. He had considered killing them both, but that would leave two bodies. Better to let them crawl away.

  The problem was that Stevie also had to almost crawl away. He was losing blood and trying to think of where he could go.

  One of the back doors of the Escort had been open, the lock broken. Should have been easy. But Stevie had no screw driver, no knife. Nothing he could use to steal a car.

  He had gotten out of the car, looked back at the doorway where he had left the two men. He half hoped they had recovered enough to come after him instead of crawling away. Stevie had taken the gun from the one he had hit first. He wiped his fingerprints from the weapon and threw it over a brick wall a few feet away. He knew how to use his hands. He knew he had more trouble using his mind.

  The second car he tried, a 1992 white Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais, almost renewed his faith in God. The window pushed down with pressure until he was able, just barely, to reach back and open the door. He slid into the driver's seat and tried to figure out what to do.

  He opened the glove compartment searching for a tool he could use. Nothing, but there was a dark leather coin holder. He opened it. A key, a plastic Oldsmobile key.

  The car turned over almost immediately and Stevie was on his way. To where? The Jockey. He wasn't sure he could trust Jake Laudano. What they had was more like an occasional business pairing than a friendship, the slow powerful big guy and the nervous little man. Neither man was quick of wit or ambitious.

  Not much choice, Stevie thought. Either the Jockey or a hospital, if I can even make it to the Jockey's.

  No, there was no "if" he decided as he drove. He would make it.

  The next forty minutes were lost. When he woke up, the dull sunlight was coming through a window and he was lying on a lumpy sofa too small for him.