by Lisa Unger
He closed his eyes a second and rested his head back against the seat. When he opened his eyes, he saw Clifford Stern come around the corner of Sixty-Sixth Street and walk up Fourteenth Avenue. He was a small, weaselly-looking man, with a shiny balding head and small, darting eyes. He walked quickly, looking around him nervously, then jogged up the stairs that led to his front door. Dylan noticed that he didn’t turn his back completely to the street as he unlocked the door, but stood awkwardly sideways so that he could see behind him.
Jesamyn was right; there was something weird about all of this. He knew Stenopolis had a temper. He’d been on the receiving end of it. But having a temper and being the kind of soulless killer you had to be to beat a woman to death with your fists were not the same thing. He decided he’d give Clifford Stern a few minutes to relax; he seemed jumpy and afraid. Let him think he was home and safe for a few minutes. Then Dylan would have a few words with him, find out how well his story held up outside the safe environment of a police station.
This was not the best choice of activities for someone already being investigated by IAD for a shooting. But what could he do? The woman he loved, who currently hated his guts, needed him. He’d be crazy to pass up the opportunity to help her.
He dialed Jesamyn but got her voicemail and hung up. He thought about dialing Elena but thought better of it. After Jesamyn had wigged out that night, he’d broken it off with Elena, which pained him because of her outrageous ass, perfect tits, and silky blonde hair down to her waist. But she wasn’t Jesamyn. He wanted to try to be faithful to Jez, even if there was no relationship at the moment. Maybe because he’d screwed up so many times, he’d have to be faithful to her before she took him back. That was his strategy anyway. He’d tell her about it after he helped her and she was feeling grateful. He knew he could make her listen. He could always make her listen; it was just getting her to believe that would be a challenge.
He turned the rearview mirror so that he could makes faces at himself for a second… sexy face, tough face, innocent face… and instead saw something behind him that caught his attention. He lowered himself in his seat and looked out the sideview mirror as a white van cruised slowly up Fourteenth Avenue. He slunk down farther and closed his eyes to slits, feigning sleep, as the van passed by his parked car. The windows were darkly tinted, too dark to see the driver. This was illegal in New York City now, but older-model cars that were already tinted before the law was passed couldn’t be ticketed. The van was well kept but definitely an earlier-model vehicle.
As the van passed by him slowly, he saw the New Day logo on its side.
“Huh,” he said to himself. “How about that?”
Part of him had figured Jez was just being paranoid. She did have paranoid tendencies, especially where Ben was concerned. But there it was. The van made a U-turn and drove past Stern’s house, pulled into a parking space, and came to a stop. Maybe Dylan was catching Jez’s paranoia but he felt the hairs rise on his arms. There was something menacing about that van. He slunk down a little farther and waited.
***
You shouldn’t have done this,” said Matt.
“My son is going to rot in prison? No,” his mother said with an emphatic shake of her head. “No.”
“Where’d you get the money?” he asked from the backseat of their 1990 Dodge Minivan.
“Don’t worry about it,” his father said sternly.
“Dad.”
“They’ll get it back,” said Theo, putting a hand on his arm, which Matt promptly shook off and gave him a black look. How could he let them do this?
“After the trial,” Theo said, like he needed to explain the law to Matt. Matt turned away from his brother’s face; it was so earnest and young that he couldn’t bear to see it. He would have rather stayed in jail than have his family risk their future to make the $500,000 bond. Even the ten percent they needed… where had they gotten that kind of money?
“They’d have killed you in there, bro,” Theo whispered. “You’re a cop.”
Matt didn’t look back at him or answer. He just stared at the river, at the other cars on the highway. The world seemed so changed. Grayer, colder. He envied the girl he saw singing along with whatever was playing on the radio of her sky blue convertible bug. He envied the kid talking into the wireless cell-phone headset, smiling. Their lives were blissfully intact. Maybe not perfect, but not shattered. They probably didn’t even know how lucky they were.
“Your lawyer says that there are a lot of holes in their theory. He says he bets the charges will be dropped before this goes to trial.” His brother was nervous, worried, filling silence.
“The truth will set you free, Mateo,” said his father, raising a finger in the air. “The system works. They won’t send an innocent man to jail.”
He looked at the back of his father’s balding head, his tearing eyes in the rearview mirror. Matt found himself, as always, simultaneously bolstered and enervated by the old man’s optimism. Matt wanted to believe his father was right, but in his heart feared that his father was just hopelessly naïve about the way the world could grind you up if you got yourself caught in the wrong groove. Theo was more like their father, always facing the hard times with an outstretched chin, believing that the light was on their side. Matt was more like his mother. In the courtroom and in the sideview mirror now, he could see that her face was a mask of fear and sadness. In her brow resided the knowledge that something black had come for her son and it would likely as not succeed in taking him from her. She rested the side of her head in her palm, as if she didn’t have the strength to sit upright.
“A prostitute,” she said softly and then jumped as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“That’s not all she was, Ma,” Matt said softly.
She released a noise that effectively communicated her disdain. He closed his eyes. His father turned on the radio, some oldies station where Bing Crosby was singing “White Christmas.” They rode home in silence.
He was glad for the solitude when everyone stopped hovering and falling over themselves to feed him and comfort him, offering words of solace and encouragement. His aunts and uncles, a couple of his cousins had been waiting at his place when he returned, obviously cooking all day as a way to comfort themselves. The Greeks believed that there was no bad thing that could not be made bearable with enough food. He loved them all for what they were trying to do, but he’d never been so glad for the quiet of his own home. His mother urged him to come back and sleep in his old room, which they kept like a shrine to him and Theo. But he had refused. She’d looked at him with the hurt and angry expression that she’d had all day and eventually stopped insisting.
He lay on his bed in the dark and breathed in the heavy scent of oil and garlic that still hung in the air; in fact, he was comforted by it for a time. A heaviness, a terrible inertia had come over him. He should be out there, trying to find out who killed Katrina, trying to prove his innocence, trying to find Lily Samuels, but he felt like his legs were filled with sand, like there was lead in his belly. He knew fatigue on a level that he’d never experienced. Maybe it was all the baklava, but more likely it was the fact that no matter how he looked at it now, his life was over, or so changed as to be unrecognizable. They had taken his gun and shield; his career was over. Even if the charges were dropped or if he was acquitted, he’d never be a cop again. The thought of it was almost too much. He felt a heavy despair settle into his chest and his shoulders.
He was about to call Jesamyn and tell her he was out on bail when the phone rang.
“Hello?” he answered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up on the bed.
“You sound tired, Detective Stenopolis.” It was a sweet female voice, young and mellifluous. “I’m not surprised with all that you’ve been through.”
“Who’s this?” he said.
He heard the sound of a car alarm somewhere off in the distance outside his window and realized he was also hearing it on the phone. He walked to
the window and on the street across from his house, he saw a young woman dressed in blue jeans and a short leather jacket, holding a cell phone to her ear. She smiled at him and his heart thumped.
“Lily?”
She laughed and gave him a little wave. As he turned and bounded down the stairs with the cordless still in his hand, he heard the line go dead. He threw open the door and ran out onto his front stoop, wearing only a pair of navy blue sweatpants. The street was empty but he jogged down the steps and onto his drive, the frigid concrete burning his feet with its terrible cold.
“Lily!” he called hugging himself and running up the street. “Lily!” But she was gone. He turned the corner and saw no one. There was no way she could have disappeared so fast on foot. He walked a little farther up the block, then turned around. The excitement he’d felt turned to fear and embarrassment. Some neighbors had gathered at their windows and were looking at him with worried faces.
“Did anybody see her? Did anybody see a woman standing here?” he yelled, looking from window to window.
But no one answered him; they moved back from the windows and soon it was only him on the cold street, half naked. Theo was coming up the block hurriedly, carrying a coat for his brother.
“What’s going on, man? Who was it? Who did you see?”
“Did you see her?” he asked urgently as he accepted the coat and wrapped it around his big shoulders.
“No, I didn’t see anyone,” said Theo, looking at him strangely. “I just heard you yelling. Shit, man. The whole neighborhood heard you yelling.”
The younger, smaller man put his arm around his big brother and pushed him back toward the house. Theo glanced back over his shoulder and looked around him, glaring, as if daring anyone to still be staring at his brother.
Matt saw his parents coming out their door and suddenly realized how crazy he looked. He pulled the coat tighter and moved faster toward his house.
“Who did you see?” Theo asked again.
“Lily Samuels,” he whispered. “I saw her.”
Matt looked at his brother’s face and saw something there that frightened him. Pity.
Twenty-Two
Your boy’s in trouble,” said Dax.
Lydia was lying on one of the queen beds in the hotel room they’d taken to wait for nightfall. The place was a dump. Lydia had scanned the faux wood nightstands with their worn surfaces and nicked edges, initials carved on their sides, water-stained ceiling, and gritty stained bedspreads the most hideous shade of mauve. Then she closed her eyes. Outside, through glass doors that led to a small porch, the Gulf waters lapped the shore and the salt air almost covered the smell, some combination of cigarettes, stale booze, and puke. Jeffrey tapped away on his laptop on the rickety table by the window.
“What?” said Lydia, not opening her eyes. Dax turned up the volume on the set.
“Detective Mateo Stenopolis was released on bail today. Charged with the beating death of prostitute Katrina Aliti, Stenopolis left the courthouse after his family posted bond. The lawyers for the prosecution were outraged by the decision.”
Lydia sat up quickly, shimmied to the end of the bed. The newscast continued.
“Obviously, special consideration was given to this man because he was a cop,” a polished-looking young woman in a gray suit with dark hair pulled back severely from her face complained into the camera. “Anyone else charged with a crime of this viciousness would be held without bail until trial.
“The prosecution claims,” the newscaster went on, “that they have overwhelming physical evidence as well as eyewitness testimony against Stenopolis and that their case against him is nothing less than airtight.”
“No way,” said Lydia. “Absolutely no way.”
Dax turned down the volume on the set.
Jeff had come to sit beside her on the bed. “I was wondering why we hadn’t heard from him after that message you left,” he said.
“I thought he was just pissed at us because of The New Day break-in. Maybe trying to distance himself,” said Lydia, standing up and walking over toward the glass doors.
They were all quiet for a second. “There’s no way he is capable of something like that,” Lydia said finally with an emphatic shake of her head.
“So what are you thinking?”
“He said that lawyer for The New Day threatened him,” she said.
“So you think that he was set up for this?” asked Jeffrey. He sounded skeptical.
She looked at him. “It’s easier to believe that than it is to believe he killed someone with his fists. He’s a good man, a good cop. Do you know what kind of sociopath you have to be to do something like that? You have to be in a narcissistic rage, utterly without empathy.”
“Lots of seemingly normal men are walking around with a terrible misogyny in their hearts, secretly believing themselves to be superior to women, hating them for the power of their sexuality,” said Dax. He leaned back in the chair that groaned beneath his weight and gave her a smile, proud of himself.
Lydia looked at him; he had a point. He was a complete clod most of the time but every once in a while he came out with something pretty insightful. It always amazed her.
“Trust me, it’s not as secret as they think,” she said. “Any intelligent woman can spot a misogynist a mile away. It’s in the way he looks at you, the tone in his voice. I got the sense of Stenopolis as very respectful, even when he was gruff.”
Dax lifted his shoulders. “But you don’t know.”
“Overwhelming physical evidence and eyewitness testimony,” said Jeffrey, repeating what they’d just heard on the screen.
“Can we find out what that means exactly?” asked Lydia.
“I’ll call Striker and see what information he can gather,” he said, reaching for the cell phone by the bed.
Lydia fished her own phone out of her bag and scrolled through the call log until she found Matt’s cell phone number. His voicemail picked up before the first ring completed; he had his phone off. She hung up without leaving a message. She wasn’t sure what to say. Chances are he wasn’t thinking about Lily Samuels at the moment. She thought about Matt Stenopolis, how he’d looked on the street that day when she suggested he might think about a move to the private sector. Like he couldn’t imagine himself as anything but a cop. She felt a strong twist of empathy and concern for him, even as she wondered if he was capable of murder-or if The New Day was doing this to get him off of Lily’s trail.
She walked over to Jeffrey’s laptop while he talked to Striker on the phone. She saw the satellite image of the New Day Farms that Craig had been able to obtain for them.
Lydia always called Craig “The Brain” behind his back. He stood a full head taller than Jeffrey but looked as thin as one of Jeffrey’s thighs. Clad forever in hugely baggy jeans, a white tee-shirt under a flannel shirt, and a pair of Doc Martens, his pockets were always full of electronic devices… cell phone, pager, Palm Pilot, all manner of thin black beeping, ringing toys. A pair of round wire spectacles, nearly hidden by a shock of bleached blond hair, framed his blue-green eyes. Craig called himself a cybernavigator, though his title at Jeffrey’s firm was Information Specialist. More or less plugged into the Internet twenty-four-seven, more or less legally, Craig could gather almost any piece of information needed at any time of the day or night.
The image just looked like a bunch of trees seen from above to Lydia but Jeffrey had been on the phone with Craig for nearly an hour talking about various elements of the image, Dax looking over his shoulder, chiming in. It annoyed her that they all seemed to be seeing something there that evaded her, like one of those stupid computergenerated images that revealed itself only after you stared at it for an hour. She opened another window and looked at the survey of the property. It showed three structures built on the fifteen-acre property. She looked back at the satellite image. Dax and Jeff claimed to be able to see at least six structures. She couldn’t even see one through all the tree cover.
“Look for the unnatural lines,” said Jeff, coming up beside her. “Nature doesn’t like straight lines.”
“Oh, there,” she said after a moment, touching a finger to the screen where a hard edge showed through the tree cover. He nodded.
An anxiousness washed over her. As she traced the line of the building, the LCD screen turned black beneath the pressure of her finger.
“She’s in there,” she said. It was part declaration, part question. But something inside her told her they were close to Lily.
“If she is, we’re going to bring her home.”
She looked up at him. He had this way of sounding so confident she couldn’t think of doubting him.
Jeff’s phone rang then. He answered and sat on the bed. Lydia turned back to the screen. Another window revealed blueprints of one of the buildings at the New Day Farms. As far as Lydia was concerned, she might as well have been looking at hieroglyphics. Anything like that… maps, blueprints, forms… just shut her down mentally.
“Notice anything weird about this building?” whispered Dax who’d come to stand beside her.
She shook her head.
“No windows,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing good.”
“Interesting,” said Jeffrey, dropping the phone into the pocket of his shirt.
“What?”
“That was Chiam Bechim, the jeweler I saw. Someone tried to move some of those stolen stones. Apparently whoever was behind it paid the team in gems. Someone got anxious for his money and tried to sell a couple of small canary diamonds. Bechim’s people were notified.”
