It Happens in the Dark - M11

by Caroll O'Connell

  Riker smiled. He could dream. “Got any leads?”

  “I found a website posted by one of Bugsy’s fans. Last night, we made a sweep of the subway under Times Square . . . and we’ll make another one tonight.”

  A nod from Riker thanked him for the heads-up.

  Both men turned to see Alma Sutter running out of the cathedral—full throttle in four-inch heels, an accident in the making. She lurched in a stumble of one shoe off and one shoe on.

  Any second—

  Holy shit! Who knew Janos could move so fast? He broke her fall when she tumbled.

  The Rinaldi twins stood on the top step, their backs to the cathedral doors.

  Smiling.

  Freaks.

  SUSAN: What happens after—

  ROLLO: First the funeral, then the worms.

  —The Brass Bed, Act III

  When Alma Sutter had not broken her neck, the Rinaldi brothers lost interest in services for the playwright, and Mallory watched them descend the steps to pass by Sanger on the sidewalk below.

  The detective was wearing his dark suit for funeral surveillance, but flash persisted in the bright splash of his purple shirt and tie. Grinning, he climbed the steps to join her in front of the cathedral doors. “I found Wyatt’s sublet!”

  And when had this man decided to blow off her search for Wyatt’s last bowl of chili? How much time had been lost?

  “I tossed the place,” said Sanger. “He left his cell phone behind, but no laptop or personal papers. The guy who lives in his old apartment tells me Wyatt had a ton of books, and there’s none in the new place. So I figure he rented a storage locker. I’ll keep—”

  “Or you could stick with the chili angle,” said Mallory, dialing back anger, tempering it to the helpful suggestion, “that might be a better lead.” There was no protest, no pissing contest. He simply nodded an acknowledgment that she might be right.

  Her partner had climbed the stairs to stand behind Sanger, and now Riker wore his damned nanny smile—so proud of her for playing nicely with the other kids. She glared at him. His smile persisted. Bastard.

  Riker slapped the younger man on the back. “Nice job. So now we know where Wyatt’s been for the—”

  “No, he spent those two weeks in a private hospital uptown.” And now Sanger had redeemed himself. “Very pricey rehab, but the guys in Narcotics got moles everywhere. Get this. Wyatt admitted to a relapse, but he couldn’t remember taking any drugs. He stuck with that story all through group therapy. So the mole figured it must be true.”

  “And blackouts won’t square with his ninety-day tox screen,” said Mallory.

  “Nope. When Wyatt went into rehab, he tested for trace amounts of drugs. Not my idea of a relapse for a heroin addict. This only works for me if somebody was dosing the guy.”

  Mallory could think of six ways to do that with food items other than brownies.

  • • •

  In the line of duty, homicide detectives attended many services for the dead, and this one had all the hallmarks of a preplanned funeral guided only by undertakers. The priest’s homily had been spare, here and there, dropping in phrases culled from the Times obituary, and not one personal touch volunteered by anyone who might have known Peter Beck.

  The last hymn was sung, and the organ music died down. The priest called for a loved one to say brief words of remembrance. Stone-quiet seconds dragged by. No one came forward. Uneasy, he riffled the papers on his pulpit, perhaps late to realize that no such speech had been planned. A mistake? Yes, a notable one. And what was he to do now? He could not abide the empty silence. The service could not end this way. The priest searched the faces in the first pew, looking there for rescue among those seated in the place reserved for the most bereaved. But those people were staring at the ceiling or checking watches and otherwise ducking his eyes. There were no takers for the pulpit, and the ongoing silence was the real eulogy for the playwright.

  The only sympathy for Peter Beck lay with a detective, Riker, who rarely got personal with the dead. He took umbrage at that miserable slight to a man whose work and life had been ripped away. And now this final cut. So public.

  At the center of the gathering, a woman rose from her seat to stand alone in a plain woolen coat among the cashmeres, camel hairs and furs. No designer purse. No pearls. The priest smiled and beckoned to her. The crowd was dead quiet, and her small voice carried as she made her way out of the pew, passing seated people with her murmured sorries for treading on toes.

  When she had climbed the steps to the pulpit and turned to face the crowd, Riker recognized her. This was the woman who had given him one of the playwright’s lost gloves, and now she introduced herself as Sally Ryan.

  “I was his bartender,” she said. “I didn’t know him long, maybe three or four weeks. He was a real nice guy. Never said a mean word to me, and he tipped big. . . . Peter was a sad man. . . . He didn’t used to drink. Never touched the stuff, he said. But he learned how. At the end, he could hold his liquor, but he’d lost his play, lost his girl, and everyone he knew was against him. He was crazy sad. I seen him cry that last night. Like every night, Peter came in alone, drank alone. And I read in the papers . . . he died in the company of strangers.” She looked out over the assembled mourners and then narrowed her focus to those in the first pew. “Who knew he had so many friends?”

  Riker whispered, “Bring it home, Sally.”

  And she yelled, “You fucking bastards!”

  • • •

  Charles Butler was startled to see Janos filling out the open doorway of the dressing room. Was Bugsy’s location now the open secret of Special Crimes?

  “Change of plans. Mallory’s not coming.” The detective, with one pinky ring delicately extended, held up a white sack that bore the name of a midtown restaurant. “Brunch.” His feet were rather small for a policeman the size of a great ape, and he stepped lightly around the bedroll to clear a space on the dusty makeup table, where he laid out an assortment of sweetmeats in small pastry shells. Then he set down two paper cups, precariously close to the edge. “Cream for you, Charles. And, Bugsy, you take it black, right?”

  “Right,” said Bugsy. “How was the funeral?”

  “Best I ever went to.” The detective backed out of the room, motioning for the psychologist to follow him. When they stood on the walkway before the closed door, Janos explained that no fugitive warrant had been issued for Bugsy. “So you don’t need to worry anymore. No jail time for aiding a—” And now, because Charles’s thoughts were advertised on his surprised face, Janos said, “Mallory never ran that past you, did she?”

  And though this was obviously a rhetorical question, Charles said, “It must’ve slipped her mind.”

  “That funeral was crawling with dicks from Midtown North. They’re out to arrest Bugsy again.”

  Again? Oh, so much had slipped Mallory’s mind. “You think they’ll come here?”

  “No, they figure he’s gone underground. So Mallory wants you to keep an eye on Bugsy for a few hours.” Janos scribbled a TriBeCa address on the back of a card. “Then meet us here tonight.”

  When Charles returned to the dressing room, he found his paper cup on the floor, lying in a river of spilled coffee, and the gopher was on his knees, mopping it up with paper napkins.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry.” Bugsy handed him the remaining coffee cup. “Really sorry. Here, you take mine.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “Sure you can. I got instant.” He pointed to a hot plate in the corner. Then he reached into his duffel bag to pull out a tin of coffee. “I insist. . . . Is that okay by you . . . if I insist?”

  • • •

  The watering hole on Lexington Avenue had zero ambience. Afternoon light streamed through an unwashed window. Drinks were cheap and the sparse clientele was scruffy. Riker had selected this place to make their witness feel more at ease. Saloons were his venue, his church, but he had bowed out of the interview with Peter Beck’s favor
ite bartender. He would not say why.

  Mallory suspected him of making a point—pointing out a flaw of hers. Did he blame her for the poor result their first time out with this woman?

  Sally Ryan had confessed more in the cathedral than she had given up on the night of the playwright’s death, and Mallory might allow some fault of her own. She had no patience with the sacred code of confidentiality between bartenders and drunks. This time, it was an effort to go slowly, Riker style, as she sat on a barstool beside Sally Ryan, matching the woman’s shots of bourbon with tea-colored water.

  “So he broke up with his girl,” said Mallory. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Peter was in tears. He told me Alma was the last one on his side, but not anymore.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “The night he died. I didn’t see him the night before. I asked if he went to the play’s opening. Peter said no, he slept through it.”

  “So you figure he started drinking early that day and passed out, right?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not like him. Peter was the loyal type . . . did all his drinking in my bar. . . . Well, that’s what I used to think.”

  All those empty bottles in Beck’s apartment said otherwise. Customer loyalty had broken down—and the man as well. On Beck’s last walk to the theater, he had stopped at least twice to drink himself senseless. “You were the first one to serve him that night. What kind of shape was he in?”

  “He had a load on when he walked in the door,” said Sally Ryan. “First time that ever happened. I made a joke about it. Asked him if he was cheating on me, getting smashed with somebody else. Then he looked around, like he lost somebody on the way in the door. Then he cried.”

  He had lost his girl.

  • • •

  The police had come calling, knocking on the door, banging with closed fists. She recognized the voices when Riker and Mallory took turns shouting her name.

  Alma Sutter sat on the floor of her bathroom, squeezed between the tub and the toilet, where the water in the bowl swirled round and round. And down went her pills and powders, every last grain of coke and X, Valium and oxy. All her highs and lows.

  Goodbye.

  But she could never lose all of it, could she?

  No, there would always be something left for the cops to find. Reefer between the couch cushions? Vicodin in a cupboard? A drawer she had missed?

  The police would arrest her. Another actress would take over the role—and never, never understand fear the way Alma could play it.

  Christ! When would they stop the damn banging?

  Shaky and sick, she leaned over the bowl to chase the drugs with vomit. And now her hair was stringy with slime as she reached up to pull the silver lever on the toilet tank. And she froze. Dead still.

  Oh, no, please no.

  The banging and yelling had stopped—no noise to mask the flush. Aw, the stink! So cold, she shivered, queasy, wanting to retch again, one hand jammed into her mouth.

  Were they gone?

  An hour crawled by.

  Were they gone yet?

  • • •

  Axel Clayborne’s lament was a rare one in New York City—too many closets, tall ones built into the walls. And the thousands of square feet also accommodated freestanding armoires that could hide a multitude of ponies.

  The view from his wide windows sparkled with the first city lights.

  Night was coming on.

  Time was running out.

  Where the hell had he put them?

  He opened one last closet, though he suspected that he had already searched this one twice. Ah, success. One by one, he pulled out the boards that had been hiding in the back behind his luggage. He carried them to the center of the room, where he inserted them into an opening between the halves of a dinner table, elongating it by these added leaves until it was the length of a laid-out body.

  The doorman buzzed him on the intercom to announce a visitor.

  And that must be the centerpiece for his table—right on time.

  • • •

  Six unmarked cars were double-parked in front of Axel Clayborne’s high-rise, and the penthouse was brightly lit. “There,” said Mallory, pointing to a delivery van from a liquor store. “They’re restocking the booze.”

  “I’d say that crowd’s loose enough.” Riker stepped out on the sidewalk, a signal to the rest of the squad, and now they were all on the move, crossing the street to stun the doorman, who had never seen so many badges at one time, and the wave of cops carried him backward through the glass doors and into a lobby of shining steel pillars and deep-pile carpet. They crossed a half acre of wasted space to stand before the private elevator for the penthouse. There was no button to summon it, only a slot for a keycard.

  And Riker yelled, “Open the damn doors!”

  A man behind the lobby desk depressed a button to open the elevator, and he was reaching for a phone, when Mallory said, “Don’t! It’s a surprise.”

  To ensure that surprise, Detective Lonahan remained at the desk while the rest of the squad rode up to the penthouse floor, where the doors opened onto a wide vestibule of sofas, chairs and clothing racks holding everything from ratty old parkas to high-end furs. A young man asked if he could check their coats.

  He could not.

  One more door to go. Mallory turned the knob and led the way into a space the size of a gymnasium with a wall-to-wall view of the skyline, a crowd of dancing people—and one corpse. The casket was laid out on a long table and surrounded by bottles of whiskey and wine.

  The room was revved up with music from a live band, and the floorboards thrummed as hundreds of shoes stomped to the beat. Riker spotted the wardrobe lady, alias the Hollywood comedy star. Nan Cooper’s mascara was runny with tears while she grinned and danced to rock ’n’ roll. And more detectives poured in to mingle with the bereaved laughing crowd. Wakes were always prized above backroom interrogations—lots of drunks in the storytelling mode.

  Axel Clayborne yelled, “Hey, everybody! It’s a raid!” And to his uninvited guests, he said, “How cool is that? But everything’s in order—quite legal. No one stole Dickie’s body this time.” He handed his paperwork to Mallory, who let it drop to the floor. Turning his smile on her partner, he said, “So . . . you came to make an arrest?”

  “Naw,” said Riker. “We came to dance.”

  And the first dancing interview began when he grabbed the wardrobe lady’s hand. Nan Cooper wore her own hair tonight. She was all decked out in her best dress and her best face—apart from the teary tracks of mascara. The lady laughed, surprised that a cop could dance to a rocking beat. He twirled her up and down the floor, then raised his gold badge to the bandstand and shouted the title of theme music for an old William Holden movie, “Moonglow!” And they glided into a soft tempo for slow moves.

  “Very romantic,” she said. “Very smooth.” And before they parted, Nan reminisced about Wyatt’s blacklist years in Hollywood. “No, Dickie wasn’t the one who rewrote that old script, but he tried to take the fall so Axel could get away with it. And they both got run out of town.”

  • • •

  The corpse might be the best-dressed man in the room.

  Mallory reached into the casket and drew back one lapel of the dead man’s suit. Next she checked the sleeves and the cuffs of his pants.

  “Enough of that!” Axel Clayborne appeared at her side, grabbed her by the hand and led her into the midst of the slow-dancing mourners. He held her close and they stepped to the strains of Moonglow.

  She pulled back to ask, “When do the reporters show up?”

  “You overestimate me,” he said, drawing her close again. “I didn’t want a media circus for this.”

  “You’re going to waste a perfectly good corpse? . . . That’s not like you.”

  The song ended, but he did not let go of her. Arms around her, he said, “Every one of Dickie Wyatt’s relatives went out with wakes like this one. They�
��re all gone. He was the last of his line.” The sweep of one hand encompassed the whole crowd. “All theater folk. We’re his only family now, and we take care of our own.”

  The band played another slow tune, one she could name from the shortlist of Riker’s favorite black-and-white movies, As Time Goes By. And they danced.

  “I hear Beck had a family fight with Wyatt,” she said.

  “No bloodshed. Only a shouting match. Peter thought Dickie betrayed him, and of course that was true.” He whispered in her ear, “Everybody went along with the ghostwriter.”

  All around them detectives swirled with dancing partners. One would cut in on a woman, and another would threaten to dance with the man left solo. Janos, the least reticent about this, zeroed in on his favorite couple, the Rinaldi brothers, who sat on a couch by a wall. He ripped one twin away and danced the startled actor all over the floor. Done with that one, he chased down the other, and he had to climb over the couch to get at him.

  Clayborne held Mallory close as the tempo ramped up a notch. Closer. Tighter. Almost like sex. And she said, “You told us you didn’t know Wyatt’s current address.”

  And now there was a telling fault in his rhythm—like a polygraph blip. “I remember saying that.”

  She turned her head to look at the coffin. “Your friend is wearing a very nice suit. And no pins. It was tailored to fit him. Very fine work. But funeral homes never get quite that fancy.”

  Back in step, he pressed his cheek to hers, saying, “I paid top dollar.”

  “For a used suit? I don’t think so. You got it from Wyatt’s closet. You lied to us. You knew where—”

  Axel Clayborne laughed. “Do you realize that you’re leading?”

  • • •

  Detective Gonzales danced with Dickie Wyatt’s agent, a stout woman twenty years his senior, and she flirted like a drunken cheerleader as they made slow turns around the floor.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, “they had a history. Back when they were kids, my guy helped Peter Beck get his first play produced. It was a little theater down in the Village.”