by Matthew Iden
A slender woman in her early sixties sat on the couch with her hands clasped, staring into the fire. Straight blond hair going gray fell to her shoulders. She wore an emerald-green sweater that was matched with a knee-length windowpane tweed skirt. Her head came up sharply as I walked into the room, then she stood, hand outstretched.
“Mr. Singer. I’m Sarah Gerson.”
“Mrs. Gerson,” I said. Her handshake was firmer than her husband’s. They gestured me to have a seat and I lowered myself into one of the recliners, while she sat back on the couch, with her husband taking a seat beside her.
“Thanks for seeing me. I think Paul filled you in?” They both nodded. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said. A tremor went through Terry’s face. “Paul said you were actually there when Wendy was killed?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Can you tell us about it?”
Terry paled and I hesitated. Many survivors of homicide victims ask how “it” happened, but they don’t want to know, not really. Or shouldn’t. There’s a natural human desire to deconstruct the scene and the situation of a murder because, in the normal course of our lives, to understand something is to control it. To stop it. To undo it. And, not to be unfair, this was especially true for people like the Gersons, who were probably accustomed to saying “how?” or “how much?” to change the circumstances of their lives.
But murder is like an icy spot on the road, or a fall down the stairs, or a plane crash. Understanding the hows and whys might help society at large—might even stop the next one from happening—but having all the facts has never helped a grieving individual or a family in distress, not in my experience. And it often did more harm than good. Just because you had all the pieces didn’t mean you had the glue, and often the only thing that remained was desolation.
Sarah saw my reluctance. “I’m not interested in torturing myself, Mr. Singer. I want to catch whoever killed my daughter. That’s all.”
“The details aren’t pretty, Mrs. Gerson,” I said. “They never are.”
“I understand.”
I gave them a brief, abridged version of the events. Terry rubbed a hand over his face almost continuously and Sarah Gerson’s mouth turned steadily downward as I spoke, but neither interrupted until I finished by describing my meeting with their son.
“There was nothing you could do,” Terry said, his voice hovering between statement and question.
“Of course he couldn’t, Terry,” Sarah said tartly. “No one expects to see someone get pushed in front of a train. It must’ve happened in seconds.”
Her husband colored at her tone, but said nothing. Most people would jump in at this point, to try and alleviate the awkwardness, but I waited. The victim’s parents aren’t typically suspects in a case like this, but you never count anyone out.
There was a pause, then Terry cleared his throat. “The police have told us that they don’t have a suspect.”
“That’s what they’ve told me, as well,” I said. “It happened quickly, with plenty of eyewitnesses and even some video footage, but no one got a good look at the killer. Even when I chased him, I couldn’t get more than a general sense of his build and his health. He covered five hundred yards at a run, which tells me the man’s an athlete. But that’s about it. And when you don’t get anything from the scene, you have to turn to old-fashioned detecting.”
“Such as talking to the family,” Sarah said.
“Exactly.”
“What can we tell you?”
“The thing that stands out about Wendy’s killing,” I said slowly, choosing my words, “is the intimate nature of it.”
“Intimate?” Terry asked, frowning. “You mean someone she knew?”
“Not exactly. Friends and acquaintances are definitely part of that circle. What I mean is, someone emotionally involved with Wendy, even briefly. Paul told me Wendy wasn’t seeing anyone, but normally in a case like this the first person we’d look at would be a jilted husband or an angry boyfriend.”
“As far as I know, Paul is right,” Sarah said. “And I think she would’ve told me.”
“Intimate could also mean a homeless man she’d told to get away from her or a guy trying to make a pass that she rebuffed,” I said. “Truly random murders are rare. Most people are killed by someone they know. But in the few instances when the murder is committed by a complete stranger, the method is often different. Impersonal.”
“Pushing someone in front of a train doesn’t fit that description,” Sarah said.
“No. It’s also incredibly spur of the moment, which implies rage or passion. If she was like any other daily commuter, we would start looking for someone who knew her schedule and had planned the thing in cold blood. But Paul told me Wendy almost never took the Metro, that he couldn’t remember the last time she had, in fact. This scenario was almost a singular occurrence.”
Her eyes narrowed. “The killer followed her.”
I inclined my head. “So the question is, who knew Wendy well enough—and hated or loved or was attracted enough to her—to follow her and kill her right then and there? No planning, no forethought. Just rage.”
Not having known Wendy personally, the conjecturing was nothing more than part of a working process for me, not an emotional one. And Sarah had been fairly businesslike and quick to grasp much of what I was saying, so I’d felt almost as if I’d been talking with another objective soul about Wendy’s murder. But I hadn’t been paying much attention to Terry Gerson. Without warning, he shot to his feet and walked stiff-jointed, like a tin soldier, out of the room.
Sarah’s eyes followed him out of the room, equal parts worried and irritated, though she said nothing as he disappeared out of view. She turned to me. “How can we help you with that question, Mr. Singer?”
If she was going to ignore her husband, I guess I had to, too. “Paul told me that Wendy was smart, driven, and no-nonsense, and that attitude could seem abrasive to just about anyone. Family didn’t appear off-limits, so I assume friends, coworkers, and neighbors weren’t, either. With the circumstances I just described about her murder, it would help to know if she’d had any run-ins with confidants or anyone close to her.”
“Paul didn’t know?”
“He intimated that he and his sister didn’t see much of each other,” I said, “and that he was the target of her scorn, from time to time. So he may not be the best source. Sometimes daughters will confide things in a parent that they wouldn’t tell a sibling, and vice versa.”
She sniffed. “Paul was always too sensitive. Wendy just wanted him to try harder, that’s all. He’s been skating by his entire life.”
I said nothing. She tapped a fingernail on the wooden arm of the couch. “I can’t think of anything specific. I know she was excited by something happening at work, which was unusual for her. She liked to try and impress me by understating her accomplishments, not celebrating them, so I knew whatever this thing was, it was important to her.”
“No specifics?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sure Paul could get you an appointment with her firm.”
“Been there. They were less than, ah, loquacious.”
“Really? I’ll have to have a talk with someone down there.”
I thought about my hook in the water, the cupcakes I’d bought for Wendy Gerson’s assistant, Caitlin. “Please hold off until you hear from me. That might come in handy later, but I’m working an angle down there and would like to see if it pans out.”
She shrugged. “Very well. Please let me know if I can help. I passed the bar with Brentwood and won’t hesitate to pull strips off him if he won’t cooperate.”
“Peachy,” I said.
I pulled out a notebook and we proceeded through a list of Wendy’s former boyfriends, employers, bosses, law school professors, and so on. It was useful, but frustrating, as nothing and no one stood out to Sarah Gerson as
a threat to Wendy from any of those areas, but good detective work demanded that each avenue be explored. After forty minutes, we’d exhausted most of the possibilities that I could think of. The fire had died down and was little more than a pile of scarlet lumps on the hearth. One of my shoulders was toasty, the other chilled. I stood and shook Sarah Gerson’s hand. “I’d like to come back and talk to your husband later, Mrs. Gerson.”
She tsked and shook her head in exasperation. “I’d better go see if he’s even capable of talking. He’s such a gentle soul. Paul takes after him.”
“And I guess Wendy, after you,” I said.
She smiled. “So I’ve been told.”
When I got home, I set out for a light jog.
I resist exercise like anyone else my age. I know it’s good for me, but that’s a very distant benefit when I’m sitting on the couch, watching the second half of a Redskins game or reruns of The Rockford Files. The biggest encouragement had come from Leah at the oncologist’s, who had practically ordered me to work out during my chemo regimen, since it helped rebuild the white blood cells that had been nuked by the stuff that was fighting the cancer. Since then, I’d tried to keep a twice- or thrice-weekly exercise regimen, and it had helped everything from my appetite to my self-confidence.
Right now, though, what I needed was some time to think. My verbal tête-à-tête with Alex Montero and subsequent sleuthing with the junior staff of Tartikoff and Brentwood had kept me occupied for a day or so, and my trip out to McLean to see the Gersons had been mildly illuminating, but I knew I needed to give some serious thought to one particular subject that had nothing to do with Wendy Gerson.
And had everything to do with Julie Atwater.
I trotted down the front steps of my Cape Cod, went out to the street, and turned left, my breath already visible. I set a sedate pace that would hopefully leave me with enough in the tank to finish two or three miles. Enough time to think about things I’d rather just solved themselves. But wouldn’t.
In 1996, Julie had been the defense attorney for a dirty cop named Michael Wheeler, the guy I’d been convinced had killed Amanda’s mother. The case against Wheeler had appeared airtight…until the loss of a very incriminating recording, damn near identifying him by name. But even if the tape had made an appearance at the trial, I learned later that it might not have made a difference. A milquetoast performance by the prosecutor that I’d originally put down to apathy because of the missing evidence turned out to be intentional sabotage. And not only had he been holding back, he’d been doing the unthinkable: feeding the defense—feeding Julie—everything he knew and everything he was planning.
Only afterwards, when the dust had settled and I was recovering from a gunshot wound, had things slipped into place. That Julie was not only guilty of collusion in that trial so many years ago, but that she also had known about so much more in the midst of our trying to stay alive. It had felt like an unforgivable betrayal at the time, made even more painful by the fact that she and I—pressed together by the shared danger—had gotten involved both romantically and physically.
The memories hurt. We’d spent hours talking to each other about our lives, our pasts, our futures. Her mother had died of cancer while I thought I was in the process of dying from it, too. She’d spent a decade trying to overcome the fear and disgust created by working with Wheeler, a case that should’ve launched a successful career as a defense attorney but turned out to be a black mark against her. She’d been tough under fire, showing courage in the face of real danger, and smarts when it was called for.
All of it had been irrelevant the night I’d figured out what she’d known. What she’d done. That she’d hidden what she knew from me. The fact that she’d been regretful, but not contrite, about what she’d done had stuck in my craw, made her transgressions seem perhaps worse than they really were. And I’d tossed her out of my life, just like she’d said in Amanda’s office at FirstStep.
A pain like an icicle sliding in and out of my lungs stopped the reminiscing. I was sucking wind like I’d just run a forty-yard dash, not set out on a serene three-mile jog. So much for leaving some gas in the tank. I didn’t remember any of the past ten minutes—I’d probably run at a full sprint the whole way. Hands on hips, I walked for a block before trying to pick up my pace again.
Which gave me time to examine some things, ask myself some questions. Like, who the hell was I to pass judgment on someone else? And, how long could I hold Julie accountable for what she’d done? And, did I really give a shit anymore or was I just grandstanding for the sake of my own pride? Julie hadn’t been interested in talking at FirstStep. Not that I could blame her, but I wasn’t even sure what I wanted out of a conversation with her. Did I just want to apologize and leave it at that? Or did I want something more?
Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be any answers to my questions, at least not right away, because that’s when Dods called to let me know that Alex Montero had been found in his car, shot four times in the chest.
Chapter Fourteen
“Walk me through it.”
“Nothing to walk through, Marty,” Dods said, having to raise his voice over the roar of an industrial HVAC system. “Guy waits for him to park and open the door or he does it himself. Unloads the magazine in the guy’s general direction.”
I grunted. “As long as he aimed between the steering wheel and the seat…”
“One fish in a very small barrel.”
Dods and I were standing on the P2 level of the Streir building’s parking garage, looking at the body of the recently caffeinated and verbally evasive Alex Montero. Jittery no more, Montero slumped in the driver’s seat of a black SRT Viper. The exotic sat at an angle in a reserved parking space with the door open. Montero had one outstretched foot on the ground and the other still near the gas pedal. His crisp white shirt was sprinkled with four red blossoms the size of my open hand over the chest, left shoulder, and neck. One round had taken him near the back of the skull—probably the one that had both killed him and pitched his upper body forward so that it slumped over the middle console. Two shots had missed and had starred the windshield five feet apart.
Dods unwrapped three pieces of gum and jammed them in his mouth. He was nearly a foot shorter than I was and outweighed me by forty pounds, looking perpetually rumpled and sloppy. A moon-pie face and a sallow complexion didn’t help. The harsh fluorescent lighting of the garage and the flat gray cement walls gave him the nearly the same coloring as the body in front of us. And Montero had been dead for hours.
I glanced around the stark, subterranean level, checking the ceiling.
Dods answered before I could ask. “Cameras at the parking entrance and elevators only. Attendant’s printing the entry log.”
“Security?”
“None down here, no patrols. Single guard at the front desk. She doesn’t remember anyone out of the ordinary. Claims everyone who walked in, signed.”
“Lovely,” I said. “You’d think a law firm that turns over millions of dollars in real estate deals might have tightened the place up.”
Dods shrugged. “Thoughts?”
I looked at Montero’s body. “Sitting duck. Reserved space with his name on it. Drove a car that would stand out in Las Vegas. He was upper management, so he probably got to work an hour later than the worker bees, which means there was no one around.” I did a slow turn, looking at the pillars and electrical stanchions and other weird contraptions all garages seem to have. “The guy could’ve hidden anywhere. Could’ve been close enough to kiss.”
“Amateur or pro?”
“Amateur,” I said, gesturing at the windshield. “He’s arm’s length away and his two misses are five feet apart? And he empties the magazine? He was panicky. You’ll find a couple slugs buried in the dashboard.”
Dods nodded. I hadn’t said anything he didn’t know. “You saw Montero, what? Couple of days ago?”
“Yeah,” I said. I described
our conversation.
“Evasive, you said?”
“Not in a nervous way,” I said. “More like…professionally. Lawyer evasive. Well-rehearsed. Like he was going to fight me for every scrap of information out of habit.”
“I thought you said he had a lot to say about the whole real estate shebang?”
“It was all information I could’ve gotten from the library,” I said. “As soon as I wanted to talk specifics about what Wendy was working on, he shut down.”
“You getting anywhere with her case?”
I shook my head and shrugged at the same time. “Haven’t spent enough time on it. I talked to her parents this morning, Montero a few days ago, like I said.”
Dods stared at the Viper, pursed his lips. “They don’t feel anything alike. But.”
“But the connection is too much to ignore.”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over his head. He glanced at me. “How’ve you been feeling?”
“I’m good,” I said, stumbling on the words. The one-eighty had caught me off guard. “Nervous about a checkup in a week or two, but I’m expecting to hear good things.”
“You look good,” he said. “Trim, fit. I mean, it’s not the diet I would’ve picked, but…”
“Me neither,” I said, oddly appreciating the fact that Dods could joke about my cancer. It wasn’t that long ago no one would even say the word around me. Still, the topic made me wince, and I had to force a smile. “Personally, I would’ve rather done the Atkins diet.”
