Cold Day in Hell

by Richard Hawke

  “I’ve been trying to be furious with your father from the day they found Patrick. What happened between us made no sense. I should be furious. And you know…I might be. I don’t care what you think, Fritz. He’s out there. Your father is alive and he’s out there and he’s letting you and me know it. He’s either stark raving mad or he’s scared half to death or he just has his reasons. Or all of the above. But one day I’m going to catch that bastard laying his little daisies on my brother’s grave. You’ve never really seen me furious. You think you have, but you haven’t. You’d better be there when it happens. Your father’s going to need you there to protect him.”

  She sniffed back a tear and raised her glass. “Patrick Malone.”

  I tapped her glass with my mug. “Patrick Malone.”

  She stared at me as she downed her drink. Never took her eyes off me. “You look just like him, you know,” she said.

  Of course I knew. She told me so every year. And she didn’t mean my uncle Patrick, either.

  14

  THE TUESDAY AFTER the Hamptons weekend, Robin swore to herself that she was not remaining home after work simply because she had told Marshall Fox that she had the night free. Michelle had called up suggesting that the two meet up in the Union Square area for drinks, but Robin had begged off, claiming she was tired and looking for an early night.

  “It’s not Fox, is it?” Michelle said. “He hasn’t actually called you, has he?”

  Michelle didn’t believe for a minute that Marshall Fox had been serious. Robin agreed with her. He’d been drinking, she reminded herself, plus God knows what else. Robin couldn’t claim to be up on all the drugs of the moment, but she had seen enough bizarre behavior during the Hamptons party to know that there had been more consumed than just the cocktails she’d spent all night circulating. She had already played over and over in her mind her encounters with Fox and determined that she’d been taken in-almost taken in-by the celebrity’s prodigious charm and his serial flirting. It’s absurd, she told herself. The man goes out with supermodels and Hollywood actresses. I was the hired help. Get a grip.

  In fact, Fox hadn’t called. Not the Sunday after the party, not Monday, and not Tuesday. Of course he hadn’t. It was absurd. For all Robin knew, Fox had patched things up with Kelly Cole, and the two of them had shared a good laugh about the crazy martini-throwing incident, and that was that. Robin had stayed up and watched his show Monday night just to see-she told herself-if Fox made any mention of the event in the Hamptons. He didn’t, though he had made a joke that sounded to Robin like it might have been an oblique reference to the striking blond newswoman and the drink-throwing incident. But maybe not. Robin had caught sight of herself in the mirror on the wall next to the television set and told herself to snap out of it already.

  To her regret, Robin had talked about the party at work, letting slip the fact that Marshall Fox had flirted with her and had sort of asked her out. Denise from Graphics was a huge Marshall Fox fan.

  “Has he called yet?” The question came on what seemed to be a half-hourly basis. On Tuesday Denise was nearly beside herself. “Has he called? You are checking your machine, aren’t you?” Denise had even offered to check Robin’s home answering machine for her. “Look. When he does call, you do not erase that message. I’m serious. I swear, I’ll pay you to let me record it. You have to promise me. Oh my God. Marshall Fox.”

  But he hadn’t called. By two o’clock, Robin had made a particular point about not calling home anymore to check her machine. At the end of the day, Denise had demanded that Robin call one more time.

  “He starts taping the show at five. He might’ve called right before.”

  There’d been no messages. Good, Robin told herself. That’s that.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, her chin pressed hard against her pillow, Robin had panicked. What was she doing? This was insane. As she twisted her head to look over her shoulder, what her eye fell on first was the television set atop her dresser across the room. The set was muted, and Marshall Fox was signing off. He placed his hand over his heart.

  Robin shifted on her elbows and tried to bring her hands together to form a T, for “timeout.” She sputtered, “I…please…stop…please.”

  Marshall Fox took a grip on her shoulder and squeezed. “Shhhh. Come on, New Hope. Just relax, baby. Go with it.”

  And he didn’t stop. Quite the opposite. Robin closed her eyes against the flickering light on her bedroom wall and did as she was told. No need to panic, she told herself. He’s right, just go with it. It’s not really so bad. In fact…

  As her cheek moved along the pillow, she had a fleeting thought of Denise. Oh my God, if she could see me now. This was followed by another thought, and it made her laugh out loud. He’s the fox; I’m the chicken house.

  Behind her, Fox continued to croon. “That’s right, New Hope. Thatta girl. You’re getting it…”

  15

  PETER ELLIOTT CALLED ME at home around ten. I was sitting in my perfectly ratty armchair, eating wasabi peas and thumbing through a copy of The Horse’s Mouth, trying to get into it. A Margo recommendation. It seemed like it might be good if I could actually focus on it. But the going was tough. The ringing phone got me off the hook. Which is a pun, if you think about it.

  “There’s been another phone threat.”

  I set down the book and sat up in the chair. “You’re kidding.”

  “Word for word, exactly like the other ones. I just got a call from Joe Gallo.”

  I asked, “Who got it?”

  “That’s the thing, Fritz. This one doesn’t make any sense. At least not yet. It’s a total blank. The person has no connection with Marshall Fox whatsoever. I mean zero. She doesn’t even watch the show.”

  My radiator began clanging. It does that when it’s pressed into action for too long. It sounds like someone is swinging at it with a ball peen hammer. I switched ears. “So what’re the details?”

  “There aren’t many. It’s a woman who lives on East Eighteenth Street. Thirty-four. Single, with a boyfriend. She and the boyfriend were off on a ski trip this past week, but they didn’t miss any of the news. Woman says her boyfriend is a real news junkie, so they had CNN on all the time when they weren’t out skiing.”

  “Sounds romantic,” I said.

  “The point is, they caught a couple of the replays of Riddick playing that damn tape at his press conference. CNN must think it’s the audio holy grail, they’ve been playing it so often. You just wait, it’s going to find its way into a music mix of some sort. That’s the world we live in these days.”

  Music mix. I vaguely knew what he was talking about.

  Peter continued, “Anyway, this woman heard it a couple of times when they were out in Colorado Springs or wherever it was. She told Gallo that Robin’s murder already had her sort of freaked out. She and Burrell are the same age, and according to Gallo, the two look a little bit alike. Not that it makes any difference. My eighty-three-year-old grandmother is freaked out by what’s going on, and she’s long past her girlish beauty. But it’s out there. I’m sure you can feel it, right? People are on edge. It wasn’t helped by the Post publishing that damn photo.”

  “Jesus. Don’t get Joe Gallo started on the Post.”

  “Started?” Peter laughed. “That would mean he actually stopped.”

  “So let’s hear what happened.”

  “What happened was that they got back to the city this afternoon, and the boyfriend dropped her off. She lives in Chelsea. The woman told Gallo that when she takes a vacation, she doesn’t call in and check her machine. Cell phones these days, I wouldn’t want to be in the answering machine business. So she gets home and checks her messages, and there it was. ‘Can you taste the blood yet? Whore.’ The whole thing. It could practically be a prerecorded message. The woman lets out a scream that you could probably hear halfway down the block.”

  I thought a minute, biting down on a few wasabi peas to help stimulate things. “You said it was so
much like the other messages that it could have been a recording. Maybe it was a recording. Maybe it was a prank from some not-so-funny friend.”

  “Right. Gallo thought of that, too. But it was recorded on her machine the same day that Robin Burrell was killed, and Riddick didn’t broadcast Rosemary Fox’s tape until the day after Burrell was killed. Gallo’s people are running tests on the answering machine just to triple-check everything, but Joe has already told me he can tell it’s not a recording being played back. It was live. The same loony who left the message for Robin Burrell and Rosemary Fox left one for this woman on the same day.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Allison Jennings.”

  I took another pause to think it all over. “Why are you calling me, Peter?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask that.”

  “You can stop wondering.”

  “How’s your plate looking, Fritz?”

  “My plate is full of wasabi peas. For that matter, my plate isn’t even a plate. My plate is a bowl. Why do you ask?”

  “The Jennings woman is freaked out.”

  “So you said. I can imagine she is. But she has a boyfriend, Peter. I know you think I’m swell and all, but you’re not calling me up so that I can go comfort her.”

  “Margo would have my head on a platter,” he said.

  I muttered, “If there’s room.”

  “What? Trouble in paradise?”

  “It’s nothing. Like you said. A lot of people are freaking out.”

  Peter asked, “Can you go see Allison Jennings tomorrow?”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “It makes no sense that someone completely unrelated to Marshall Fox would get one of these same phone threats that the others got. The police are missing something. I thought you could talk to her, maybe nose around in her life and see if you can come up with the connection. It could be important.”

  “I’m assuming the police are already doing that,” I said.

  “They are. But that doesn’t mean adding you to the mix might not be helpful.”

  “Who’d be paying my freight on this? It can’t be Mr. Gallo and the good people of New York.”

  “I’m hiring you. Actually, just call it an extension of the work you did for us vetting the jury in the spring.”

  “Did you tell Joe that you were putting me on the trail? I’ve already crossed paths with his lead investigator.” I had the sudden image of Megan Lamb seated across the room, wringing her hands and describing gory details for me. Or rather, for her.

  “Gallo knows,” Peter said. “He said what you said. You’re already his shadow on this thing. I got the rap. Anything you uncover, you take to him immediately, blah, blah, blah.”

  I sniffed. “A law lecture. At our age.”

  “Gallo wants this thing nailed and finished. I mean, who doesn’t? I told you about my granny. Shelly’s got it, too. The heebie-jeebies. To be honest, I can’t shake the ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ feeling, either. Riddick and Burrell within twenty-four hours. I know there’s been nothing for three days. But maybe it’s the weather and all this snow that has him socked in like it has the rest of the city. That’s the feeling I have. This guy’s holed up, but there’s still unfinished business out there.”

  “You’re thinking Rosemary Fox?”

  “I was. And now I’m thinking Allison Jennings. I just don’t know. Gallo told me he recommended she get back out of town if at all possible, but she says after just taking the week off for skiing, she’s way too swamped at her job.”

  I could hear noise in the background. A child’s screaming laughter and a woman responding. Peter’s wife, Shelly, I presumed.

  The attorney lowered his voice. “You know what, Fritz? I don’t want to spook Shelly any more than she already is, but I’ve actually been thinking of getting her and the kids out of the city until this whole thing blows over. I’m sure it’s nerves about the trial. My damn jury is ready to explode, and I’m getting this awful feeling that even if they don’t, Fox is going to walk. Either way, I’m looking at my wife here and I’m thinking, Don’t be an idiot. Some nut is out there. Who knows what he’s thinking? Get her the hell away from here.”

  “I’ll talk to Jennings,” I said. “We need to establish her link with these phone threats. That’s something we could actually run with.”

  “Excellent. Let me give you her cell number. She’s not staying at her place tonight. At Gallo’s suggestion, she won’t be at her boyfriend’s, either. She’d be just as easy to track down there. She gave Gallo the address of where she’d be staying tonight, and he said he’d post a car outside. He didn’t tell me where it was. You call her cell in the morning, and the two of you can set up a place to meet. If you can, could you swing by my office after you’ve talked to her? There’s something else I need to go over with you.”

  I agreed to stop by, and we hung up. I returned the rest of the wasabi peas to the bag and stowed it in the cabinet. The radiator had ceased its banging while I was talking to Peter, but now it started up again. The room was stuffy, so I cracked a window. I poked my head outside for some air and spent a minute looking down the block at the green and red holiday garlands straddling the street farther down Mulberry. The lights of the Italian restaurants were popping and blinking, but the street itself was nearly abandoned. It seemed like the entire city had gone to ground.

  Before I got into bed, I jotted down some notes, circled a few of them, drew an arrow here and there, and layered in a number of question marks. I considered calling Margo to let her know that I was now officially on the case. I had a client. A paying client. Maybe that would mollify her. The radiator in the front room clanged and banged again as I picked up the phone. In the distance, I heard the urgent blaring horn of a fire truck. The sound grew louder as the truck passed a block or so away, and then it faded again into the night.

  I set the phone back down and turned off the light.

  16

  ALLISON JENNINGS WANTED me to meet her in Brooklyn Heights. First thing in the morning, I took the subway under the river to the Clark Street stop. My low-level claustrophobia kicked in when we were under the East River, but I’ve got some tricks I use to deal with it. On the crowded cattle elevator up to the street level, there was a rabbit-fur hat in my face, and I wanted to snatch it with my teeth and spit it out onto the floor. But I maintained a civil composure and got through the short ride.

  Allison’s boyfriend came along. His name was Jeffrey. I met them at a pastry shop on Piermont Avenue. As I came in, Jeffrey rose from his chair and met me at the door. The first thing he did was ask to see my PI license. He took it with a trembling hand and stared at it as if it needed deciphering.

  He asked, “Do you carry a gun?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Are you carrying one now?”

  I tapped the area of my heart. “I’d introduce you, but he’s shy.”

  Jeffrey handed me back the license. “She’s really freaked out. Anything you can do to make her feel safer, I’d appreciate it.”

  Allison was sitting at a small table about fifteen feet from the door. Jeffrey’s security check completed, the two of us joined her. She was a brunette. She looked hopeful and scared all at once. Jeffrey sat down and took her hand. I considered taking the other one, but we weren’t here for a prayer meeting. I introduced myself and asked Allison to tell me the story. I knew it already, but details get dropped and added as tales move down the line. In this case, the details were few, and Allison’s rendering essentially matched the version I’d gotten on the phone from Peter Elliott.

  “What’s going on?” Allison asked, a tremor in her voice. “I’m really confused. Why does this man want to hurt me?”

  “We’re going to figure that out,” I said. “Let me ask you some questions. From what I understand and what you just told me, you have zero connection with Marshall Fox.”

  “None. I don’t even watch his show.”
r />   “Okay. Put Fox out of your head for the moment. We can look for the Fox link later. I want to focus on who might have some sort of problem with you directly. Why don’t you tell me what you do for a living?”

  She told me that she worked for Reuters news service. I knew the building-it’s in midtown, not far from my office. Allison worked as the manager of human resources.

  “That’s hiring and firing?”

  “Basically, yes. Though most of my time is spent in recruitment.”

  “You check qualifications, references, do interviews? That sort of thing?”

  “Correct.”

  “Have you fired anyone recently?”

  She paused. “We announced a large layoff right before Christmas.” She managed a small laugh. “Nice and Dickensian, isn’t it? Some people went immediately. Others received notice that their positions were being phased out over a matter of a couple of months. We give good severance packages. But yes, I guess I’ve fired a lot of people recently.”

  “How does that work, a mass layoff like that?”

  “It’s a grueling couple of days. I see everybody one at a time, and I give them the news.”

  “That must be fun.”

  “Most people are surprisingly okay about it. Layoffs are part of the culture these days. That’s not to say they’re happy. I get the word that we have to make so-and-so many cuts in such-and-such department. I talk with the department heads, we go over their staffs. Except in rare cases, it’s almost always a matter of seniority. I mean, sometimes there’s a bad job report that can move someone up on the list, but usually it’s last one in, first one out. Either way, it’s painful. It’s like I’m the village executioner.”

  “You say people are pretty good about it. But do some people get angry? Have you ever had anyone threaten you personally?”