by Mike Lawson
Quinn had been on an eHarmony date with some guy she was meeting in person for the first time. Her back had been to the door of the bar and she’d been facing the table where the victim was sitting. She never saw the shooter sitting at the bar, she didn’t see either the shooter or the victim go down the hall to the restroom, nor did she see the shooter leave the bar and come back inside. She said she’d been busy talking to her date, and that at one point he’d started showing her photos of his dog on his smartphone. Dent wondered why in hell the guy would do that, but didn’t ask.
“The only thing I saw,” Quinn said, “was the killer walk up to the table where that man was sitting, hold his arm out, and shoot him. I didn’t even realize he was holding a gun. Then he turned and ran out of the bar. He ran right past the table where I was sitting.”
“Did you get a good look at his face?” Dent asked.
“A good look? Well, it’s rather dark in here and he went by me pretty fast, but I think I’d recognize him if I saw him again.”
“How many drinks did you have before the shooting occurred?”
“One. A glass of Chablis, and I hadn’t even finished it.”
Then, just because he was curious, Dent asked, “Why was your date showing you pictures of his dog?”
“Because I have a dog, too. It’s one of the things we have in common.” Then she paused and said, “It may be the only thing we have in common.”
Dent had no idea at the time that Rachel Quinn’s owning a dog would turn out to be important.
Kathy Tolliver was a stunner.
Rachel Quinn, the eHarmony lady, was a pretty young woman but not what Dent would call a head-turner. But the barmaid … She was in her early twenties, tall—maybe five ten; she’d be six feet in heels—and had a mass of swirling dark hair and gray bedroom eyes. She was wearing a tank top that showed off a nice firm pair and a tight, short black skirt that stopped about four inches above her knees. If Dent hadn’t been old and fat, he would have gotten down on his knees and begged her to go out with him.
“We noticed the victim was drinking a martini,” Dent said. “Did you serve him?”
“Yeah. He walked into the bar and took a seat over there,” Kathy said, pointing at the corpse, which the medical examiner’s guys were, thank God, finally getting into a body bag. “He sat down, didn’t even take off his coat or his hat, and I asked him what he wanted. He said a Stoli martini with olives. Jack made his drink, but when I took it to his table he was gone. I figured he must have gone to the restroom.”
“Talk to me about the shooter,” Dent said.
“Well, he was sitting at the bar for maybe ten, fifteen minutes before it happened,” Kathy said. “I’m not sure how long exactly but he had a couple of drinks, looking all mopey, like somebody had killed his puppy or something. You know, staring down into his drink, lips moving like he was talking to himself, but not out loud. If I had to guess, I’d say his girlfriend just dumped him or he lost his job.”
“Okay, then what did you see?”
“I was serving drinks, so I wasn’t paying attention to him, but I saw him get up from the bar stool and walk back to the restrooms. A minute later, he comes back out, but before he did, the guy who was killed came back out, too. I mean, the dead guy went to the restroom, too, like I told you, and he came back into the bar before the little, cute guy did.”
“The shooter was little and cute?” Dent said.
“Yeah. He was short—too short to interest me, anyway—but he was cute.”
“Then what happened?” Dent asked.
Kathy Tolliver shrugged. “The guy who got shot sat down … I was over there at the end of the bar waiting for a margarita for one of those old ladies, and when I looked over, I saw the shooter, the killer, standing in front of him. Then he shoots him.”
“Where did the killer come from before he shot him?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, you said the shooter went to the restroom. Did he come back from the restroom and shoot him or did he maybe come from the front door of the bar?”
“I don’t know. When I saw him, he was just standing in front of the guy and he shot him. Then he ran out the door.”
Coghill spoke for the first time, but to Dent. “Who got here first?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dent said, then directed his question to Kathy. “Your bartender said the shooter got here around seven-thirty. Is that right?’
“Yeah, I guess. I wasn’t looking at my watch, but that sounds right.”
“And when did the victim arrive? Was he already here when the shooter got to the bar?”
“No, he came in maybe five, ten minutes after him.”
This was important: It meant the shooter hadn’t followed the victim into the bar. But for all Dent knew, the shooter could have known the victim was going to be in the bar and was waiting for him. At any rate, it was good to know who arrived first.
“How long do I have to stay here?” Kathy asked. “I was supposed to pick up my kid from the sitter’s early tonight, so if this is going to take much longer, I need to let my sitter know.”
The last person Dent interviewed was Edmundo Ortiz, a busboy, a short man about five five, fifty years old, heavy Hispanic accent. And Dent thought: fifty and working as a busboy. That had to suck.
Dent’s next thought was: illegal immigrant—which was the last fuckin’ thing they needed. If Edmundo was an illegal he was going to lie and say he didn’t see anything because he wouldn’t want to come to the attention of the immigration boys.
“Where are you from, Edmundo?” Dent asked.
“Queens,” Edmundo said.
Dent smiled. “No, I mean originally, like before you came to New York.”
“Oh,” Edmundo said. “Honduras.” Now it was Edmundo’s turn to smile—this big, wide smile showing off a bunch of stubby teeth. “But I’m a citizen. Two years now.”
“Well, congratulations,” Dent said.
“Gracias,” Edmundo said.
“So what did you see?” Dent asked.
All Edmundo had seen was the shooter running out of the bar. He didn’t see the shooter sitting in the bar before he shot the man, nor did he see the shooting itself. He was bringing a trayful of clean glasses from the kitchen to the bar, heard the shots, and then a man went sprinting past him and out the door. “He almost ran into me,” Edmundo said.
“But you saw his face?”
“He went by fast,” Edmundo said.
“But you think you might recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Maybe,” Edmundo said. Then he added, “Probably.”
Dent told all the customer/witnesses that they could leave, but that they’d be contacted later to sign statements. They had five eyewitnesses who saw the shooting or could at least place the shooter in the bar: Jack Morris, the bartender; old Esther Behrman; Rachel Quinn, the eHarmony lady; the gorgeous barmaid, Kathy Tolliver; and U.S. citizen Edmundo Ortiz. There were four other people who’d been sitting in the bar when the killing occurred, but they hadn’t seen anything because they’d been facing in the wrong direction or not paying attention, and all they saw, after the shots were fired, was the shooter’s back as he ran from the bar. The piano player had been in the kitchen eating when everything occurred, so he was no help.
Seeing that Coghill and Dent were done questioning the witnesses, one of the crime scene techs walked over and said they’d ID’d the victim from the driver’s license in his wallet. His name was Dominic Anthony DiNunzio. According to a business card in his wallet, DiNunzio was a CPA and had an office three blocks from McGill’s.
So DiNunzio was a wop, as Dent had thought when he first saw the corpse, which made him wonder again if this could have been a mob hit. But he rejected the idea. He couldn’t remember the last time the Italian mob whacked a guy in a restaurant filled with a dozen people.
Coghill called the precinct, asked a cop to do a quick records check, and was told Dominic DiNunzi
o had no criminal history, no prior arrests, no outstanding warrants.
The same crime scene tech who ID’d the victim came back to the detectives’ table just as they were getting ready to leave.
“We got two perfect sets of prints off the glass the shooter used,” the tech said. “One is probably the bartender’s, and the other set has to belong to the shooter.”
Dent said to Coghill: “If there’s a God in Heaven, this mutt’s prints will be in the system.”
That evening, God was at home, relaxing in Paradise.
3
Henry Rosenthal and his wife, Miriam, had just finished dinner when their son walked into their apartment. Henry’s first reaction was anger, followed by disgust. It was obvious Toby had been on a bender—he looked like hell, and Henry could smell the booze on his breath.
Henry knew that Toby had been dumped by his girlfriend—a pretty little thing, but a complete airhead as far as Henry was concerned—but that was no excuse for this sort of behavior. To make matters worse, his son was an associate at his law firm—a clear, undisguised case of nepotism—and Henry had been forced to lie to his partners and say that Toby had the flu when he didn’t show up for work three days in a row.
Henry Rosenthal was the senior partner at Rosenthal, Canton, White, and Brown. RCW&B specialized in corporate law, primarily figuring out ways to merge gigantic companies while avoiding the antitrust laws. Henry billed his time at eight hundred dollars an hour and had billed enough hours over the thirty years he’d been practicing law to have an apartment on Park Avenue. You could see Central Park from one of his balconies.
Toby hadn’t yet passed the bar exam. He’d failed once and would try again in six months. In fact, most of Toby’s time at work was spent studying for the bar. Henry loved his son but didn’t particularly like him and certainly had no respect for him. Toby was spoiled—that was Miriam’s fault—unmotivated, lazy, and, frankly, not all that bright. Even with all of Henry’s money and connections, he hadn’t been able to get Toby into a top law school like Stanford or Harvard. Toby’s law degree was from the University of Miami, the university selected by his son primarily for its proximity to beaches filled with bikini-clad coeds.
“What are you doing here?” Henry said. “And how dare you not show up for work and not return my calls.”
“Dad, I just shot someone. I think I killed him.”
Following Toby’s pronouncement, Miriam rose to her feet, clamping her hands over her mouth, like someone trying to hold back a scream.
“What did you say?” Henry said.
“I just shot a man,” Toby said again. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, my God,” Miriam said, and collapsed onto the couch as if her legs could no longer support her.
“Where did you get a gun?” Henry said.
Toby didn’t answer, just started sobbing.
Twenty minutes later, Henry let David Slade into the apartment.
David Slade was the best criminal defense lawyer Henry Rosenthal knew. He’d defended Wall Street crooks, politicians caught taking bribes, and a bishop accused of molesting altar boys. His most famous case was a Tony-winning actress who’d killed her lover, and somehow Slade had been able to convince a jury that the woman had been temporarily insane at the time. Three years later, the actress was back on Broadway.
Slade was tall—about six two—and slim. He had a hawkish nose, thin lips, and thick dark hair he wore long, swept back over his ears and touching his collar. Had he been dressed in a dusty black suit, a white shirt, and a string tie, he would have looked like an Old West gunfighter. But he wasn’t dressed that way. He was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket, a black T-shirt, jeans, and Top-Siders, because when Henry called Slade had been at home.
Henry had told Slade on the phone that his son had just admitted to shooting a man in a bar—and Slade immediately told Henry not to say another word and that he was on his way. The Rosenthals lived only ten blocks from Slade, and he’d grabbed the bomber jacket, sprinted out of his apartment, then got lucky—considering the rain was coming down in buckets—and caught a passing cab less than two minutes after he stepped outside.
Miriam and Toby Rosenthal were seated in the living room when Slade arrived. Toby was slumped in a chair near the fireplace, staring down into his lap. Miriam was still on the couch, where she’d landed after Toby’s announcement. Her eyes were red from weeping and she was shedding Kleenex, little white flecks dropping onto her robe.
Miriam was only five foot one. She’d probably been as pretty as a porcelain doll when Henry married her forty years ago, but she’d turned into a gray-haired butterball. Slade had spoken to her only a couple of times, at social occasions, and had gotten the impression she wasn’t very smart.
Henry was standing, having just let Slade into the apartment. He looked completely helpless, which was surprising considering that he was such a powerful and successful attorney—but then maybe not so surprising, given that he’d just learned his son had shot a man. Henry was wearing a blue jogging suit with white stripes down the legs. This wasn’t because he’d been exercising; the jogging suit was just what he’d put on after work because it was comfortable. Like his son, Henry was short, but he was stouter than Toby. He’d lost most of his hair; all that remained was a white horseshoe band over his ears. Slade wondered if handsome Toby knew that one day he’d probably look just like his father.
The first thing Slade said was, “Henry, I need to speak with Toby alone.”
“But …”
“No buts, Henry. You and Miriam need to leave the room. This is for your own protection as well as Toby’s. And Miriam, I’d suggest you lie down; your color isn’t good at all. And do not, under any circumstances, call anyone and talk about what Toby said.” He could just see Miriam calling a sister or a friend.
Henry took one of Miriam’s pudgy hands, pulled her up from the couch, and led her from the room.
“Toby, let’s go sit over at the dining room table,” Slade said.
Toby got to his feet slowly and walked over to the table. Slade couldn’t help noticing that he reeked of booze.
“Okay, Toby, tell me what happened.”
“I shot a guy.”
“I know. Your father told me. But why.”
“I, I was drunk. I’m still drunk. I’ve been drunk for three days because my fiancée dumped me and I guess I went, I don’t know, crazy. I was in this bar and I go to the bathroom and I bump into this fat fuck coming out of the men’s room. I mean, it was an accident. But he pushed me and knocked me down and called me a little shit.”
“I see,” Slade said. Slade knew this sort of thing happened all the time—murders committed for no good reason—but not usually with the class of people he represented. Why did you kill your wife, Leon? … She just wouldn’t shut the fuck up, so I stabbed the bitch.
“Toby, did anyone see this man push you or hear what he said to you?”
“I don’t think so,” Toby said. “There wasn’t anyone else in the restroom or in the hall outside.”
“Did he threaten you after he pushed you?”
“No. He just went back into the bar.”
“Okay, then what happened?”
“I don’t know. I just went nuts. Him knocking me down, all the shit with Lauren, I just … I walked out to my car, got my gun, and went back into the bar and shot him. Jesus, I still can’t believe I did it.”
“What happened after you shot him?”
“I ran out of the bar and started driving, then realized as drunk as I was, a cop was liable to pull me over. So I pulled into a parking garage and walked over here to my dad’s place.”
“Where’s the gun? Did you leave it in your car?”
“No. I stuck it in a bag and threw it in a trash can.”
“How far is the trash can from the bar where the shooting happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe six, seven blocks.”
“And you say you put the gun inside
a bag.”
“Yeah. A McDonald’s bag.”
“Is the gun registered to you?”
“No.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I can’t believe I—”
“Toby! Focus! Answer my question: Where did you get the gun?”
“Brooklyn.”
“I mean, how did you get it? Did you buy it from a gun dealer, from a friend?”
“No. I was in a bar, this was like three years ago, and I ran into a guy I went to high school with. The guy was a complete loser”—Slade restrained himself from rolling his eyes—“but we had a drink together and on TV they were talking about some carjacking in Manhattan and I said I wished I had a gun. I was thinking I’m not a big guy, so it might be good to have one. This guy from high school …”
“What’s his name?”
“Jim Turner.”
“And he sold you the gun?”
“No. He said he knew a guy. He gave me the guy’s number and I called him the next day. I met him at a park in Brooklyn and he had a bunch of guns in the trunk of his car, and I bought one.”
“What was the man’s name?”
“I don’t remember. It was three years ago, when I first started dating Lauren.”
“Do you still have the phone number?”
“No.”
“Did you ever register the gun or get a license for it?”
“No. Why would I?”
“How many people know that you own a gun?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I know I’ve told a few people about it.”
“Okay, we’ll get back to the gun later.” But Slade was really thinking that if the gun wasn’t registered in Toby’s name and if they never found it in the trash can …
“What was the name of the bar where the shooting occurred?” Slade asked.
“McGill’s, here in Manhattan, over on—”
“Did you know anyone in this bar? Did anyone know you? Had you been there before?”
“I’ve been there a couple times, but like seven, eight months ago. And I didn’t know anyone there tonight, and as far as I know, no one knew me.”
