The Death Dealer

by Heather Graham

Page 7

 

  “Members are always free to bring guests. It’s simply a matter of paying for their meals. And can you imagine anyone trying to tell my mother that she’s not welcome to bring her daughter and a friend?”

  Gen had a point. Eileen had the power to open a lot of doors.

  He stood up. The world didn’t rock. A shower would fix him, he decided.

  “All right, I’m going home, but I’ll be back in time to go to the meeting with you. And you’ll stay here until I come back for you. ”

  “Joe…” She said his name in a soft whisper, accompanied by a weary sigh. “I am not a hothouse flower. I’ve been taking care of myself in the city for some time now. I do not intend to stay cooped up in my apartment all day. ”

  He arched a brow. “It’s a really nice apartment. ”

  She flushed. It was a nice apartment. She lived here because of Eileen; the building was supposed to have the best security system in the city.

  “Joe—”

  “Give it a rest, Gen. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Depending on traffic,” he added dryly, wondering how long it would take to reclaim his car at the impound lot.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. If we’re going to this meeting, let’s do a little Poe research first, huh?”

  She stared back at him, a slow smile curving her lips, a light entering her eyes.

  Damn, she was a beautiful woman.

  “Oh, Joe, that’s great!”

  She leapt up and threw her arms around him. Her scent was intoxicating, and the feel of her warm body as she crushed herself against him was like a taste of heaven.

  He unwound her arms and stepped back. “You, uh, you stay here till I get back, promise?”

  She looked at him with a frown.

  “Just this morning, Gen, please? Until I get a handle on this. ”

  “I’m not a Raven. It’s my mom we’re worried about, remember?”

  “Gen?”

  “Yes, fine. ”

  He started out.

  “Joe? You don’t have your car,” she reminded him. “You can take mine. It’s in the garage. ”

  He was certain that the garage fee in this building was probably more than most Americans paid for an apartment. But he couldn’t take her car. It was time to rescue his own.

  “I’ll just grab a cab for now. ”

  “I can call you a car—”

  “And I can run out to the street and snag a cab. I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

  Genevieve didn’t mind spending a few hours in the apartment. In fact, she loved the apartment and liked killing time there. What she did mind was being told that she needed to stay somewhere, anywhere, even though she knew that she should be grateful she had friends who cared.

  At least he intended to involve her in the investigation, although he definitely wasn’t happy about how things had played out last night. He was never happy if he wasn’t in control. Not so much of others, but he was the kind of man who wanted to be in control of himself at all times, and getting drunk was anything but.

  Restlessly, she paced the room. The morning would go slowly. She was sure of it.

  She put a call through to her mother, just to say hello and tell her that she and Joe would be taking her to the meeting that night.

  “I’m afraid it won’t be much of a meeting,” Eileen warned. “All they’ll do is talk about poor Thorne. ” She hesitated at the other end of the line. “I suppose a lot of them are frightened, after what that psychic said. ”

  “But you’re not,” Genevieve chided.

  “Of course not. ” There was another slight silence, then a gasp. “Oh, Genevieve! Perhaps you shouldn’t come. ”

  “Mother, stop. ”

  “But, darling, after all you’ve been through, do you really want to be around a bunch of people talking about murder?”

  “After all I’ve been through, I take great delight in going wherever I choose to go. ”

  “But—”

  “We’ll pick you up at six-thirty,” Genevieve said.

  “Genevieve, I can get there by myself. ”

  “We’ll pick you up at six-thirty,” Gen repeated.

  “At least you’ll be with Joe,” Eileen said.

  “Right. At least I’ll be with Joe,” Genevieve agreed, though she was more than a little irritated by her mother’s words. Even her own mother felt she needed protection.

  Genevieve rang off and wandered over to her desk, where she brought the front page of the paper up on her computer, curious to see if anything new had been written about Thorne’s murder.

  The headline and the main story were on the accident that had taken place on the FDR. She read the story, then clicked a link and watched the video that had been taken by a chance onlooker. Unfortunately, nothing in the story or the video told her anything that Joe hadn’t.

  Genevieve drummed her fingers on the desk. Sam Latham had been in that accident.

  And so had Joe.

  She hesitated, then picked up the phone again. This time she called St. Vincent’s.

  Sam was in a regular room and able to see visitors.

  Again she hesitated. Then she glanced at the clock. She could get to St. Vincent’s and back in plenty of time. She wouldn’t take her own car. She would have Tim, the morning security guard, call for car service, and the driver could just wait for her while she was at the hospital. She could be back in no time.

  Even as she made the arrangements, she felt guilty.

  She told herself that she didn’t owe anyone anything, that she was a free woman who could come and go as she pleased. Even so, she felt guilty.

  After all, she’d promised.

  But it was broad daylight, and she needed to see Sam Latham.

  But she had promised.

  As her mind warred with itself, the phone rang. She was going to let the machine get it, but she heard Joe’s voice and picked up.

  “Hey. ”

  “Hey,” he returned. “Listen, I forgot I had an appointment. I’ll be a few hours longer. Is that okay with you?”

  “I’m sure I can fill the time somehow,” she told him.

  “Okay. Let’s say I’ll be back around two or two-thirty. ”

  “Perfect,” she told him.

  Okay, so she still felt guilty. But, really, the promise had been made during the last conversation, when he wasn’t going to be gone nearly so long. That had to make it null and void. She had said that she would find a way to fill the time, and she would.

  She left her apartment, making sure to lock up, and hurried to the elevator.

  If he’d been blindfolded, he would have known where he was.

  No matter how much antiseptic was used, no matter what kind of air filtration was in place, a morgue smelled like a morgue.

  Even in the entry rooms.

  Joe was grateful to be in good standing with the police. He didn’t even need to show his credentials when he arrived; Judy, at the desk, knew him well.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he said.

  “Hey, handsome. ”

  “You’re too kind. ”

  She was a big woman, round and rosy-cheeked, fiftysomething and always pleasant. She was the perfect person to meet the public in such a place.

  “Hey,” she said, laughing. “The living always look handsome to me. ”

  “Ah, shucks, be careful or all these compliments will go to my head. ”

  “Better be careful—your head could swell up like a balloon if I really got going,” she teased. “But you’re not here to flirt. ”

  “No. Judy, ’fraid not. I need to know who was on the Thorne Bigelow autopsy. ”

  “Oh, that was Frankie. ”

  Not many people could have used such a casual reference. Frankie was Dr. Francis Arbitter, one of the most renowned members of the medical examiner’s office. He was a down-to-eart
h guy, but his expertise had earned him a reverence over the years that made most people speak of him with awe.

  “Is he available?”

  “I’m sure he’ll see you. ”

  A phone call sent him through the double doors and down the hallway to autopsy room number four.

  Francis Arbitter was alone. There was a corpse on a Gurney, but a sheet covered the torso and limbs. There was a huge gash on the head of the middle-aged, bearded man who lay there, but there was no sign of blood. The body had been washed for the exam that was about to take place.

  Frank was at his desk, munching on what appeared to be a ham and cheese on rye. “Joe!” he called with a smile, and he rose. He was a tall, well-muscled man who looked like he should have been playing fullback instead of solving mysteries at a morgue. But his tousled, thinning hair and Coke-bottle glasses gave him a little bit of the mad-scientist look that was more befitting to his chosen calling.

  “Sit, sit,” he said, drawing up a chair from behind one of the other clinically clean desks in the room.

  Joe took a seat. He’d been in plenty of morgues, but he never became as accustomed to working with the dead as Frank, who got right to the point.

  “If you just wanted to shoot the breeze, you’d have called to meet for a beer somewhere. So what’s up? I’m guessing it’s the Thorne Bigelow murder. ”

  “Good deduction,” Joe said.

  “Well, speaking as Dr. Watson here, I’d have to say I learned something from Holmes,” Frank said shrewdly. “You’ve worked for Eileen Brideswell before. She knew Thorne, so I assume she intends to use her resources to help the police find the murderer. After all, she has a lot at stake. ”

  Joe decided not to correct him and explain that he wasn’t working for Eileen but had been pretty much forced to take the case by Genevieve. He wasn’t surprised that Frank had made the assumption that his appearance had to do with the case, but he was surprised that Frank seemed to think that Eileen had a lot at stake.

  He nodded, watching Frank. “Yes, I’m here about Bigelow. ”

  “His son picked up the body the other day. Personally. What with the Bigelow money, he certainly didn’t have to do it, but the kid came in here crying like a baby. Well, hell, he’s not a kid, really. He’s got to be about thirty. ”