by Carrie Smith
She put the bottle to her lips and tilted it up for just a tiny taste, and then she couldn’t resist any longer. She raised the bottle again, tipped her head back, and sucked out the 80-proof liquid like mother’s milk. She was guzzling the last drops when she suddenly registered that eyes were upon her, and she yanked the bottle from her mouth so quickly that a drop of the amber liquid dribbled down her chin.
Heather Granahan stood in the doorway. She had entered without knocking—or maybe she had knocked. Hodges wiped the droplet from her chin as casually as she could while she lowered her other hand, the one with the bottle, carefully below the horizon line of her desk. For several seconds, her eyes were locked with Heather’s in a magnetic field of uncomfortable silence. How much had the assistant seen? Did she know what cognac bottles looked like? Was she standing there right now and thinking, Constance Hodges is a secret drinker?
It occurred to Hodges that if she were accused of drinking on the job, she would be fired and all her accomplishments would be overshadowed by this short interaction with the small vessel in her hand. At the same time, she realized that the thought did not alarm her. She was pleasantly disengaged from her own emotions. The cognac was already spreading warmth through her extremities. Her tremors were relaxing. She was beginning to float within a bubble of chemically induced calm. She said with confidence, “Yes, Heather. Is there something you need?”
“I can come back later,” offered the redhead uncomfortably.
“No.” Hodges tucked the empty bottle between her knees. “Come in now. I can spare a moment before my next call. Tell me what you need.” And she watched Heather move to a chair. I sound completely normal, she assured herself. Not defensive or overly solicitous. I could just as easily have been drinking ginseng from that little bottle. And Heather would never know the difference. Heather’s not that bright.
“I was wondering,” Heather began timidly, “if I could take next Friday off. My mother is flying in and I’d like to spend the day with her.”
The younger woman’s needs and concerns were so trivial, Hodges thought, and suddenly she wanted to laugh out loud. Instead, she made a show of checking the Outlook calendar on her screen. She stared at the calendar for several seconds, not wanting to appear too unconcerned or too accommodating. And she felt Heather tense with anticipation and hope. Finally Hodges smiled and said, “I think that would be all right, but fill out the usual paperwork of course.”
The young woman sighed with relief. “Thank you, Ms. Hodges. My mother will be so happy. We’re going to go to Ellis Island.”
“How lovely.” Hodges watched Heather rise from her seat and close the office door behind her. Her assistant had seen without seeing, she concluded, like so many unobservant people in this world.
Hodges took the bottle from between her knees, screwed the top on, and returned it to her purse. Next time she would lock herself in the powder room at the end of the hall, she decided. And she ignored the small voice in the back of her mind that whispered, There should never be a next time. Her confidence had returned. She had done the right thing with Codella, she told herself. She had to work with the police. It had been smart to let the detective take those samples. If she hadn’t, Park Manor would look very bad in the press. She would look bad.
CHAPTER 28
McGowan was in front of the men’s room when Codella ran into him. “May I speak with you, sir?”
“What is it?” He turned to face her.
She told him what she had found at Park Manor and the results of the presumptive tests Muñoz had done. “Now we’ve established a chain of oxycodone from Lucy Merchant’s prescription bottle to her medicine cup to the carpet in her bedroom. All I have to do now is prove that the trail leads into Lucy Merchant’s body.”
“That’s shit, Codella. You and those fucking presumptive tests. Are you kidding me?”
“They’re accurate more often than not,” she told him, channeling Muñoz’s words.
“But what does it prove? Old people take pain meds all the time.”
“Lucy Merchant wasn’t old. She was only fifty-six. And she wasn’t on oxycodone or any other narcotic.”
“So what are you proposing?”
“An autopsy.”
“Jesus Christ.” He poked his index finger into his ear. “You know, I skimmed her obit after you left my office, Codella. You need to read between the lines. The woman was a vegetable. She was locked in a dementia ward. Do you really want to waste your time on this?”
“You mean look the other way on a possible homicide?”
McGowan stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and leaned into her with his shoulders. “Do you know how many demented people get slipped a little something to end their misery? It’s better for everyone, Codella. You’d be wasting taxpayer dollars on this. Let it go.”
“Let it go?”
“You heard me.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t—for your sake,” she said. “Can’t you just see the Post headline? NYPD Says ‘Let It Go’ After Broadway Legend Dies.”
McGowan’s face turned cold. He brought his hand up like a gun and aimed it at her. “You wonder why I don’t throw you cases? You’re a loose cannon, Codella. You see whatever the hell you want to see.”
Codella shook her head. “You can’t manufacture evidence, Lieutenant. I’ve got evidence. And I’ve got a couple of people over at that place that I’d like to ask some hard questions.” She thought of Baiba Lielkaja. “All I need is your green light. You’re going to regret it if you shut me down right now.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, talking to me like that.”
She watched the muscles in his jaw clench below the surface of his skin. She’d really pissed him off. She lowered her voice. “Just let me go see Merchant. It’s his wife we’re talking about. Let me ask him to authorize a postmortem.”
McGowan shook his head and laughed. “Okay. Fine. Be my guest, Codella. Actually, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you commit career suicide.”
“Shouldn’t he want to know the truth? If he doesn’t, he looks pretty bad, don’t you think?”
McGowan jingled the keys in his pocket. “Don’t ask me. Do whatever you want. You always do. And I’m going to sit back and watch you fuck yourself. Because all Merchant has to do is pick up the phone and call One Police Plaza and you’re out the door. And the pain in my ass is gone.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She smiled. “But if I get my autopsy and the ME confirms that the death isn’t natural, I’m going to need an investigative team on this.”
“If.” McGowan turned away, pushed on the men’s room door, and disappeared.
CHAPTER 29
Brandon pushed himself up to his elbow to study Baiba’s face. Sleep had replaced tension with calm. Everyone looked so trouble-free when they slept. Even old people looked like children, he thought.
He touched Baiba’s hair lightly with his fingertips. He couldn’t even count how many times he’d imagined lying close to her like this, but now that he was in her bed, he wished he were anywhere else. He didn’t want to be here in the role of comforting friend. He didn’t want to think about her underneath Thomas Merchant, moaning her desire, spreading her legs for him, letting him do those different things he liked to do.
Brandon shut his eyes for the fifth or sixth time and tried to clear his mind. He was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. The metal support bar beneath the sleeper couch mattress dug into his shoulder blade. He climbed out as quietly as he could and sat at Baiba’s small round table. To pass the time, he pulled his pharmacology textbook out of his backpack and reread chapter twelve for the test next Tuesday, but his mind kept wandering. Finally he closed the book and just stared at the motionless outline of Baiba’s body under her comforter. He didn’t even know her, he reflected. He only knew what she wanted him to know about her. Why did he even bother to stay here with her now? And why should he go back to Park Manor tonight and lie for her? Did she reall
y want him to lie just to hide the fact that the drug dispensation rules had been violated? He studied Baiba’s delicate eyebrows, long lashes, and flawless skin as if the answer were written on her sleeping face. Well, he would go back to Park Manor this evening, but not to protect Baiba, Hodges, or Cheryl O’Brien. He would go back there to find out what was really going on. Baiba wasn’t concerned about him. He would have to protect himself.
He went over to the bed, bent down, and smelled the trace of her perfume. She had probably applied that perfume for Merchant before going to his place last night. “Good-bye, Baiba,” he whispered, and he knew he wasn’t just saying good-bye for now. He was saying good-bye to his feelings for her. Then he packed up his books and let himself out of her apartment, careful to lock the door behind him.
CHAPTER 30
In his peripheral vision, Muñoz saw Blackstone glance over at him every ten seconds or so. The bombastic prick was talking at the top of his lungs deliberately. He wanted to catch Muñoz’s eye. He wanted an excuse to say, What’s the matter, Rainbow Dick? Am I interrupting your precious concentration?
And he was, of course, but Muñoz wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing his irritation. Muñoz kept his eyes on the computer screen. He had already accumulated three pages of notes on Merchant. His facility with the NYPD databases had improved exponentially in the last three months. Before then, he’d spent most of his time pounding pavement as a narc. He sat on park benches or strolled up and down St. Nicholas Avenue in ripped jeans and a hoodie buying twists of crack cocaine from low-level dealers and then busting them. And when he wasn’t uptown, he was down on Centre Street reading voucher numbers into the records in front of grand juries so his lab reports could be entered into evidence. It was a grind that might have gone on indefinitely if he hadn’t gotten shot in the shoulder and been promoted to Detective Grade 3.
He’d met Codella on his fourth day in the 171st. Captain Reilly got the call about a body and Muñoz was the only detective available. Reilly hadn’t thought Muñoz was ready to handle a body on his own, so he’d called Manhattan North and McGowan had sent Codella. She had taken Muñoz under her wing and they’d worked the Sanchez case together for five nonstop days. Those had been his best days as a detective so far, and he was happy to be working with her again, even if it was unofficial.
Muñoz had already downloaded Merchant’s history of traffic violations, the dates of his marriages and divorce, and his IRS case number on a tax evasion charge. None of that was going to help Codella very much when she faced Merchant in his executive suite. But now he had pulled up a three-year-old complaint in which Merchant was named. A twenty-four-year-old woman, Jackie Freimor, had accused him of sexually assaulting her at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Unfortunately there were no details in the records, and the complaint had been dropped the next day.
Muñoz jotted the name and badge number of the Midtown police officer who had taken Freimor’s statement. He picked up his phone, dialed Midtown, and got the desk sergeant. “You have an officer named Delibero? Nicholas Delibero?”
“Had,” said the Sergeant. “Left last year.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Don’t know exactly. Out of state. Some guys aren’t made for the city. They’d rather cruise the ’burbs in a cushy Crown Victoria, you know?” He chuckled at his own joke.
Muñoz thanked him and hung up. Freimor, he discovered with a little more digging, had married and now lived in the Westchester enclave of Pelham Manor. Her husband was Jack Hartley, who owned a food distribution company that serviced restaurants in the tristate area. Muñoz looked at his watch. There wasn’t time to drive all the way to Pelham, get Jackie Freimor’s story—if she was home and if she had a story worth getting—and be back in time to meet Codella at Edgar’s Café in an hour.
He went on the Internet instead and started digging through the twenty pages of results that came up when he searched for Thomas Merchant, Bank of New Amsterdam.
CHAPTER 31
Codella pressed the buzzer. When no one responded, she pushed the square black button again and held it down for at least five seconds. Finally a woman’s voice over the intercom said, “Who is it?”
“My name is Detective Codella. Is this Baiba Lielkaja?”
For several seconds, the only response was the hollow roar of the active intercom. Then the voice asked, “What is this about?”
“I’d like to speak to you, Ms. Lielkaja. May I come up? I have identification.”
After a noticeable pause, the front door lock disengaged with a click. Codella pushed the door open and stepped into the parlor floor of a brownstone that had been converted into multiple apartments. She climbed the stairs to the third floor and came face-to-face with a blond woman leaning against the doorjamb in cotton drawstring sweatpants and an oversized sweater. A gray wool scarf was wrapped around her neck. Codella could see that she was striking, but puffy bloodshot eyes and pale skin blunted her beauty. “Ms. Lielkaja?”
The woman nodded.
Codella showed her shield. “May I come in?”
“Sure, but . . . I’m not well. And my place is a mess.”
Codella shrugged. “Whose isn’t?” She stepped through the door and immediately noticed the open pullout bed against the right wall of the room. On the opposite wall stood a laminate bookshelf filled with thick hardbound health care textbooks and paperback novels. Next to the bookshelf was a small desk that held a laptop and printer. There was no clutter. The studio apartment was anything but messy. The layout reminded Codella of her first rental in the city, an East Village one-room walk-up between Avenues B and C that she’d shared with too many cockroaches.
Lielkaja shut and bolted the door behind them. “What can I do for you, Detective? Has someone in the building been robbed?”
“I’m here to ask you some questions about Lucy Merchant’s death.”
Lielkaja raised her eyebrows. “Why?”
“You know how it is when a high-profile person dies,” Codella answered casually. “This is just routine.”
Lielkaja motioned to two chairs at a small round table near the kitchen. “What do you need to know?”
“Whatever you can tell me.” Codella took a seat.
Lielkaja remained standing. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. Did Mrs. Merchant’s death come as a surprise to you?”
Lielkaja frowned. “I suppose. A little.”
“A little?”
“Well, she wasn’t in hospice care. Usually when someone is near the end, hospice support gets involved.”
“Was she frail?”
“I wouldn’t say that. She was still ambulatory.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Sunday evening. I don’t usually work on Sundays but I did that night because we were down one caregiver, and Sunday night dinners are busy.”
“Busy how?”
“A lot of families show up to eat with the residents. It gets pretty chaotic.”
“And how did Mrs. Merchant seem at dinner that night?”
Lielkaja shrugged. “She seemed fine.” Then she quickly added, “I mean, no different than usual. Why?”
“Tell me about Cheryl O’Brien.”
“What about her? You’re not thinking—”
Codella was used to people turning her questions back on her. Posing counterquestions could signal simple curiosity, but it was also a predictable technique of those who needed time to compose their thoughts. “I just need you to tell me about her.”
“She’s the night nurse.” Lielkaja continued to stand. Codella noticed that her fingers gripped the top rail of the chair in front of her so firmly that the veins on the back of her hands stood out. “She works the seven to seven shift four nights a week. She’s been with Park Manor for about six months. A very nice person. Very reliable and caring.”
“And she gave Mrs. Merchant her medicine that night?”
Now Lielkaja’s large
, aquamarine eyes narrowed slightly. They did not shift away from Codella’s in a telltale sign of obfuscation, but neither did they blink in a natural way. “That’s right,” she finally said.
Codella held her eyes. “Or did Brandon Johnson administer the diazepam that night?”
Lielkaja let go of the chair. She walked behind Codella and entered the tiny kitchen so that they were separated by a half-wall. “Julia Merchant told you that, didn’t she?” Lielkaja turned on the faucet and poured water into a glass. “Well, she’s wrong. That didn’t happen. Cheryl gave the medicine. Only Cheryl. Brandon gave her water.”
“You’re sure about that?” asked Codella. “Absolutely sure?”
“Yes.” Lielkaja raised the glass to her lips.
Codella nodded. “Why did you let Brandon into Mrs. Merchant’s room after she was dead?”
Lielkaja set down her glass and sighed. “He wanted to say good-bye to her. I didn’t think there was any harm.”
Codella glanced around the apartment again. “Isn’t it possible you also didn’t think there was harm in him giving her medicine?”
“No,” Lielkaja responded firmly. “That’s different. That’s a Park Manor rule. I don’t violate rules.”
A few minutes later, Codella stood on the steps in front of the brownstone. I don’t violate rules, Lielkaja had said, but she had lied. Would Cheryl O’Brien tell the same lie? Would Brandon Johnson lie, too?
CHAPTER 32
Codella’s favorite table at Edgar’s Café—the one in the window on the downtown side of the door—was vacant, so Muñoz claimed it. He scanned the other tables. Benny, the owner of Edgar’s, wasn’t there. He usually didn’t show up until the evening. Muñoz pulled out a chair and sat. As he stared out the window at Amsterdam Avenue, still slushy from yesterday’s snow, he thought about the inevitable exchange he’d had with Detective Marty Blackstone fifteen minutes ago. Codella had called the squad room, and Blackstone had picked up the phone. “It’s your lady boss, Muñoz,” Blackstone had called to him. And after Muñoz hung up, Blackstone asked, “What’s it like to be her boy? Do you enjoy jumping every time she says jump?”
