Four Walls

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  "Yeah, that's right. He takes-uh, Zoloft, I think."

  "Klonopin, actually."

  Sullivan snapped his fingers. "Right, Klonopin. Anyhow, yeah, he took it."

  "What was the procedure?"

  Blowing out a breath, Sullivan said, "Nurse takes out the pill, hands it to him, he takes it, she hands him a glass, he drinks it, down goes the pill." He shrugged. "The usual."

  "He didn't try to palm the meds or anything like that? Hide it under his tongue?"

  "Nah, Washburne wasn't that kinda guy. He was a cop, he knew the drill."

  "Okay, then. Thanks, Officer."

  After Sullivan left, Ursitti said, "Okay, Detective, you wanna explain yourself? I assume you're gonna bring in everyone on that list."

  "No," Mac said, standing and hoisting the clipboard, "I think I've got everything I need. At most, I'd only need to talk to"-he gazed down at the list-"Officers Schuster, Moody, and Gibson. See, I already talked to Officer Andros-he's the one who supervised Washburne the day he died, and I already got his story." Looking up at Ursitti, he handed the lieutenant the clipboard. "That's why I know that Officers Ciccone, Bolton, and Sullivan were all lying just now."

  Ursitti's eyes grew wide. "Excuse me?"

  "They might have told the truth, but you were in the room, and they didn't want to admit that they were complicit."

  "Detective Taylor, what the hell are you talkin' about?" Ursitti put his hands on his hips. His eyes were blazing.

  Mac let out a breath. "Malik Washburne was a devout Muslim. He converted in part because Islam proscribes taking mind-altering substances such as alcohol-and prescription drugs."

  "Yeah, well, my wife's Jewish-goes to temple every Saturday-but she also likes her bacon in the morning. So what?"

  Shaking his head, Mac said, "Washburne took that restriction seriously. Remember, he was an alcoholic who was in jail because he fell off the wagon. Someone like Washburne would've been adamant about not taking any mind-altering substances."

  Ursitti frowned. "So what're you saying?"

  "Call Officer Andros in again."

  "What, you're not gonna tell me?"

  "Give me a few more minutes, Lieutenant, and it'll all make sense," Mac assured him.

  Ursitti glared at Mac but got on the radio and summoned Andros.

  While they waited, Flack came into the room, hands in his pockets. "Mac, I got Mulroney all good to go. You done here?"

  "Not yet. You go ahead, Don, I need to finish this up."

  "What, without me? C'mon, Mac. Washburne's name goes on my record. If you have something cooking-"

  Mac shrugged. "Mulroney's not going anywhere. Join me." While they waited for Andros, Mac filled Flack in on what he knew so far.

  Flack smiled. "I see where you're going with this. That's why you asked Peyton to do that blood test, right?"

  Ursitti growled. "Will you two stop playing this Agatha Christie shit and tell me what the hell you're talkin' about?"

  "All in good time, Lieutenant," Mac said with a cryptic smile.

  Just then Andros came in. "I thought you guys were arresting Mulroney."

  "This is about Malik Washburne," Mac said.

  "Okay, whatever." He took a seat. "I thought Melendez cleaned his clock for him."

  "No," Mac said, with Flack standing over him, "he died of anaphylactic shock."

  "What's that?"

  "An extreme allergic reaction," Flack said.

  "Oh, okay-like my uncle with eggs. Swear to God, you give him anything with eggs, he stops breathing." Andros shuddered. "Scariest damn thing you ever saw. Once a restaurant insisted there wasn't any egg in the pasta they served-we eat there free in perpetuity now, in exchange for Uncle Walter not suing them. So that's how the asshole died, huh?"

  "Yes," Mac said, "and we think that you were there when he ingested the fatal substance."

  "Say what?"

  Ursitti said, "Detective, if you're accusing my man here of-"

  "Officer Andros didn't do anything wrong," Mac said quickly, holding up a reassuring hand. "He simply did his duty yesterday morning."

  "What happened yesterday morning?" Andros asked, now looking quite bewildered.

  "You watched as the nurse gave Malik Washburne his prescribed dosage of Klonopin. After which point he tried what you called yesterday 'the usual crap' with his medication."

  Andros snorted. "Yeah, that's right. Tried to palm it. Real bush-league stuff."

  "And that's what killed him."

  "That's crazy!" Ursitti said. "You heard my COs, he'd been taking the drugs for weeks. How could he suddenly be allergic?"

  "Because your COs were lying like cheap rugs," Flack said. "When they were describing how Washburne took his meds, they were also talkin' about what a good guy he was, right? That he was a stand-up guy, an ex-cop, that whole bit?"

  "Some of 'em, sure," Ursitti said.

  Andros said, "I don't get it-you're saying he was allergic to the Klonopin?"

  Before Mac could answer, the door opened to Captain Russell. He was holding his cell phone in his hand. "Detective Taylor, I have a Dr. Peyton Driscoll from the medical examiner's office on the phone. She says it's urgent that she talk to you and that it has to do with the Washburne case."

  "Thank you, Captain," Mac said, taking the phone from Russell. "If you could stay a moment, please?"

  "I have a prison to run, Detective, and I don't appreciate being made to be your errand boy."

  "It's for a good cause, Captain, since you won't let me bring my phone in here." He put Russell's flip-top phone to his ear. "Peyton?"

  Peyton told him exactly what he was expecting to hear. He thanked her and closed the phone, then handed it back to Russell. "The ME has confirmed that Malik Washburne was fatally allergic to Klonopin," he said.

  "That's impossible!" Ursitti said. "The man's been on Klonopin since he got here."

  "No," Flack said, "he wasn't. He didn't believe in mind-altering drugs, so he didn't take any."

  "And the COs looked the other way," Mac said. "They liked Washburne, they respected him, and they were willing to help him out. But Officer Andros here wasn't in the loop."

  Andros was rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. "I don't believe this. You're saying that by making him take the pill, I killed him?" He sounded more than a little devastated.

  "Again, Officer Andros, this isn't your fault."

  "No," Flack said, "it's the fault of the jackasses who didn't share their AA plan with you."

  "'Cause they think I'm a rat." Andros pounded a fist on the table. "Jesus! I should just go back to Sing Sing."

  "There's no need for that, Randy," Ursitti said. "This isn't on you-it's on everyone else."

  "Damn right it is," Russell said. "I can't believe that this sort of abuse was happening on my watch. There's no excuse for letting a convict get away with not taking his prescribed medication."

  "The prescribed medication would've killed him," Mac said. "Even leaving that aside, his religious beliefs prohibited him from taking them."

  "Then he should've said something!" Russell shook his head. "I liked the man, too, Detective, but that was just irresponsible." He looked at Andros. "Don't worry, Randy, you won't take any heat for this." Then he glowered at Ursitti. "You may be the only one who doesn't."

  Mac glanced at Flack. "That's up to you, Captain, but I think our investigation is complete. Washburne's death was accidental. Turns out you only had one murderer here."

  Flack added, "And I'm taking him off your hands."

  "You're welcome to him," Russell said. "And thank you both for your excellent work."

  "It's our pleasure," Mac said.

  "But not as much of a pleasure as it will be to take Mulroney out of here," Flack said. "C'mon, Mac, let's go."

  As Mac followed Flack out into the corridor, he couldn't help but notice that Flack was walking gingerly-and wondered how he missed it before. He put a hand on Flack's arm to get him to stop walking
for a second. In a low voice, he said, "Listen, Don-have you been taking the painkillers they prescribed?"

  Rolling his eyes, Flack said, "Jesus, Mac, don't you start. Bad enough I got Terry and Sheldon on my ass."

  Mac chuckled at Flack's histrionics. "All right, all right, I'm sorry. I'm just concerned, is all."

  Flack took a breath. "I appreciate it, Mac, but I'm fine. Really."

  "If you say so."

  "I say so. Now c'mon, let's take a bad guy out of jail and put him in another jail."

  21

  STELLA HAD TO ADMIT to having a great deal of fun going through Marty Johannsen's apartment.

  Marty lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in a large complex on Henry Hudson Parkway East. It was a fairly typical "bachelor pad": dirty laundry everywhere, huge piles of unwashed dishes in the sink, moldy food in the refrigerator, and piles of stuff all over the floor.

  Marty was already home from Feldstein's when Stella buzzed his apartment number from the lobby. His voice distorted over the old speaker, he asked, "Who is it?"

  "NYPD, Mr. Johannsen. Please let us in."

  There was a long pause, and Stella feared that he was bolting down the fire escape or something-but eventually the distorted voice came back. "Yeah, okay."

  After that came the low buzz of the lobby door unlocking. With that, Stella, Angell, a medtech, and four uniforms from the five-oh went in and took the elevator to the twelfth floor.

  Johannsen was standing in the open doorway. "What's this about, Detective Bonasera? Yeah, I remember you. Thought it was cute the way you asked about Chris, too, like I wouldn't know you were just asking about me. But you're wasting your time. I didn't do anything wrong."

  "Maybe, maybe not." Stella held up the warrant, signed by Judge Montagnino. "But we're gonna find out for sure."

  Johannsen snatched the warrant from her and looked down at it with distaste. "Christ. Fine, whatever, guess I don't have a choice, huh?"

  "Nope," Stella said. "First thing I'm going to need is some blood and DNA-and I also need to photograph your face."

  While the medtech set up to draw blood and scrape Johannsen's cheek, Stella picked up her Nikon and photographed the bruise on the man's cheek, both by itself and with him (reluctantly) holding up an L ruler next to it. She then removed the memory card from her camera and placed it in her phone so she could e-mail the pictures to Lindsay at the lab.

  Snapping latex gloves onto her hands, Stella started going through the dirty clothes scattered around the apartment, eventually finding a black sweatshirt that was inside out. She took several pictures of it before turning it right-side out.

  A fingernail shook loose from the fabric and fell to the floor.

  Stella took several pictures of that as well, and was overjoyed to see that there was purple nail polish on it. Then she grabbed a pair of tweezers and placed the nail in an envelope.

  "Is that our San Diego sweatshirt?" Angell said, walking over to join her.

  Stella held up the shirt to show Angell the city's name embazoned in sparkly letters. "Yup. This is what our guy was wearing two nights ago-and looky what I found." She held up the small envelop. "A purple fingernail."

  Angell raised an eyebrow. "I just had them bag his laptop. But there's no printer."

  "What about the laptop itself?"

  Angell shrugged. "Couldn't find the love poems."

  "I'll have our guys go over it-he might be hiding them, or they may have been deleted. As long as they weren't purged, we should be able to pull them out."

  Smirking, Angell said, "Well, this guy didn't think to wash the clothes he killed a girl in, so I doubt he thought he'd need to do more than delete the files." Then she let out a long sigh.

  "What's the matter?"

  "It's nothing."

  Stella stared at her. "Jen."

  "I wanted it to be Morgenstern, just so I could stick it to Bracey," she finally said. "Now I have to actually leave him-and her-alone. Doesn't sit right."

  Chuckling, Stella said, "I'm sure you'll live."

  * * *

  As soon as Lindsay received the photos from Stella's Treo, she called them up and compared the size and shape of the bruise on his face to the autopsy photos of Maria's fist. It was a good match. Again, not perfect, but at least you couldn't say with any certainty that the bruise wasn't caused by the fist, which was often the best one could do in such circumstances.

  A bit later, a uniform came by with several sample envelopes: the fingernail that was lodged in the sweatshirt, and Marty Johannsen's blood and cheek scraping.

  Her first stop was with Adam, to give him the blood sample. Next was Jane Parsons's office. She yawned as Lindsay entered. "Another late night with the ER doc?" Lindsay asked with a grin.

  Jane simply waggled her eyebrows. "What have you for me now, Ms. Monroe?"

  "A new reference sample-except this may be our perp."

  "This is the blood from the necklace, yes?"

  Lindsay nodded.

  "Spiffing. I'll let you know as soon as I've crosschecked."

  Her next stop was the morgue.

  Sid Hammerback was waiting for her, along with Maria Campagna's autopsied body. "Good timing," Sid said when she walked in. "We just got a call from the Campagna family wondering when we can release the body."

  "Well, how soon we do that depends on this." Lindsay held up the envelope with the fingernail.

  Reaching behind him, Sid found a specimen dish, and Lindsay then opened the envelope and tapped its side so the fingernail would come out. Though it had obviously been removed from the body violently-the interior edge was uneven and jagged-you could still see the purple nail polish.

  "Wonderful thing, nail polish," Sid said. "You know, some say that it got its start in Japan five thousand years ago. Others say it was in Italy-and others say that's complete hokum. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it started in the Orient-sorry, they call it the Far East now, don't they?"

  Lindsay smiled. "Yeah, nobody uses 'Orient' anymore, Sid."

  "Well, I guess I'm just easily dis-Orient-ed."

  At that, Lindsay groaned, loudly. "Sid, that was bad even by your low standards."

  "We aim to please," he said with a grin as he picked up the nail with a pair of tweezers and put it up against Maria Campagna's right forefinger.

  It was a near-perfect fit. And the nail polish was the same color.

  Sid peered at Lindsay through his spectacles. "Looks like she is the one who danced with the prince."

  "Yeah, but this prince won't live happily ever after. Thanks, Sid."

  The next thing Lindsay did was scrape off flakes of the nail polish from Maria's corpse, placing those scrapings in an envelope; then she did the same for the errant nail found in Marty Johannsen's apartment.

  Adam was waiting for her upstairs. "That blood you gave me was AB-negative."

  "Same type as what was on the necklace."

  Nodding, Adam said, "But that doesn't prove anything-just that your guy has the same blood type."

  "Every little bit helps," Lindsay said. "Come on, I could use a hand with this."

  With Adam alongside her, she brought the samples over to the gas chromatograph. Sealing the sample from Maria's corpse inside, she started the machine up, letting the gas break the flakes down into their component parts. The computer provided the specifics: nitrocellulose, pigment, and all the other usual elements of nail polish. When that was done, Adam removed the first sample and replaced it with the flakes from the fingernail found in Marty Johannsen's apartment.

  Everything matched: the molecular structure of that pigment and the proportions of the different elements.

  Staring at the computer screen, Lindsay noticed something she was expecting to see missing from both reports. "Okay, that's odd. There's no dibutyl phthalate."

  "Gesundheit," Adam said.

  Lindsay glowered at him. "Very funny. But every nail polish sample I've examined has that."

  "Not for muc
h longer," Adam said. "Phthalates have been linked to testicular problems in lab animals and humans. So last year, the nail polish companies started phasing out its use in their products. Speaking as an owner of testicles, I'm rather grateful."

  "Okay, how did I not know that?" Lindsay asked. "I mean, I wear the stuff."

  Adam shrugged. "We can't all be incredibly brilliant like me."

  Playfully punching Adam in the arm, Lindsay said, "Of course not. Still, the two match."

  "Yup."

  Lindsay pulled out her phone and called Stella.

  "Hey, Lindsay," Stella said. There was considerable background noise.

  "Good news, Stell: the blood's AB-negative, the fingernail's a match, and the bruise is the right size. Still waiting on DNA."

  "We should have it by morning, and I like the idea of Johannsen stewing in the five-oh's tank all night. It's too late for him to go to processing anyhow."

  "Where are you?"

  "On the Henry Hudson coming back to you. I should be there in ten minutes."

  "Please tell me you're using a hands-free." Talking on a mobile phone while driving was illegal in New York state, unless one was using hands-free technology of some kind.

  "Yes, Mom," Stella said with a chuckle. "Trust me, in this traffic, I want both hands on the wheel. I'll see you in a little while."

  "Okay." Lindsay hung up.

  * * *

  Marty Johannsen couldn't believe the way he was being treated.

  It wasn't enough that he had to have all those cops just pawing through his stuff like that, but then they had to arrest him? There was no feeling in the world worse than being handcuffed. Marty had done it once at the request of a girlfriend, and he hated every second of it-lost his hard-on and the girlfriend all in one shot, but if she was gonna go for that sort of thing, he didn't want her for a girlfriend. Handcuffs hurt, biting into your wrists the way they did, and Marty felt completely helpless in them. Wearing them willingly in the bedroom was bad enough-having them forced on him by cops who were pawing through all his stuff was much, much worse.

  Then he had to sit in the damn holding cell. Marty had spent all night in jail once before, but that was in college, and he was so wasted, he didn't really remember it. (Come to think of it, he was probably handcuffed then, too, but that had been lost to the booze.) The NYPD hadn't been kind enough to let him go on a bender, so he recalled every miserable second of it, from the homeless guy in the corner who hadn't bathed since the first Bush administration, to the mean-looking Hispanic guys in the other corner, to the wooden bench that it was just impossible to get comfortable on, either sitting up or lying down.