by Barbara Paul
But later. She was too tired even to take a shower. She stripped off her clothes, slipped on an oversized T-shirt, and collapsed on the bed. Within seconds she was asleep.
When she awoke the next morning, Holland was sleeping beside her; she hadn’t heard him come in. She eased herself out of bed carefully so as not to wake him.
She turned the showerhead setting to its most needlelike spray. Marian felt a lot better this morning; that deep, undisturbed sleep had done her good. Yesterday wasn’t a washout at all; they’d nailed a child molester and simultaneously eliminated him as a murder suspect. Not a bad day’s work.
On the dining table lay a Carnegie Hall program with yesterday’s date. Kiri Te Kanawa. So that’s where he’d gone last night.
Marian started the coffee. But the concert wouldn’t have lasted until 1 A.M.; he’d gone someplace else afterward. She wouldn’t ask.
He came in while she was spreading cream cheese on a toasted bagel. Wearing only black silk mini-briefs again. Dark shadows under his eyes; not enough sleep. “Caffeine,” he muttered.
Marian poured him a cup. They sat at the table and she waited until he started to look more awake. “So, how was Kiri?”
“Magnificent, as always.” He reached over and took the other half of her bagel. When that was eaten, he said, “After the concert, I picked up a couple of chorus girls and we did the town.”
She got up to toast another bagel. “Did you have fun?”
“Oh, yes. A ton of fun. We snorted a couple of lines and went to an illegal gambling den on West Forty-fifth.”
“Hmm! Living dangerously.”
“And when we ran out of money, we sold our bodies. I had more customers than the girls did.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
“Then Sigourney Weaver came along and asked me to marry her.”
“Congratulations. When’s the wedding?”
“Egad, woman, will nothing make you jealous?”
“Not when you’re clever enough to tell the truth but treat it as a joke so I won’t believe it. But it didn’t work. I truly believe you did do all those things.”
“I went back to the office and did some work,” he muttered. When she laughed, he said, “Well, this has turned into a working weekend, hasn’t it? You’ll probably have to go in again today.”
“Probably.” She looked at him with a gleam in her eye. “But not just yet.”
15
Hector Vargas, private detective and employer of the slain Julia Ortega, did not get back from Atlantic City until almost noon on Sunday. Parked outside his building and waiting for him were Walker and Dowd.
“Vargas took it real hard when we told him Ortega was dead,” Walker told Marian a little later. “She was his niece, Lieutenant.”
“Oh jeez,” she said. “And he wasn’t worried about her? He didn’t report her missing?”
“Remember, Ortega was a cop in Brooklyn for nine years? Well, there’s a reason she left the force before making retirement. The lady picked up a habit during her years on the street. Brooklyn sent her for treatment, but she didn’t stick to it. So they kicked her out.”
“And her uncle took her in.”
“Yeah. He said losing her job as a cop pretty much put the fear of God into her, and she made a real effort to stay clean.” Walker frowned. “But she backslid once, about a year ago—went missing for six days. Vargas just thought the same thing had happened again.”
Marian nodded. “So he didn’t want to get her into more trouble by filing a missing person report.”
Dowd spoke up. “It had to be a pretty big habit. Brooklyn wouldn’t have given up on one of their own unless it was. And that has to be why she went to work at her uncle’s fleabag agency—nobody else would hire her.”
“How fleabag?”
“Vargas, Ortega, one part-time op to do some of the legwork. That’s the whole agency. Their cases are all petty stuff—skip-tracing, like that. Office is two tiny rooms in a building one step up from a slum.”
Walker said, “Vargas is eager to cooperate, Lieutenant. You ready to see him now?”
She was.
Walker went to where he’d left Vargas sitting in the squad-room and brought him back. Dowd stood up to let the private detective have his chair, and Walker stayed in the doorway after making the introduction.
Vargas was short and stocky; he wore a white shirt that was frayed at the collar and trousers that had a bit of a shine. His hair was coal black: he could have been anywhere from forty to sixty. Vargas didn’t immediately meet her eyes; the man was uncomfortable in a police station.
“I appreciate your coming in, Mr. Vargas,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he replied in a subdued voice. “You think a client killed Julia?”
“It’s almost a certainty. I know you’ve already talked to the detectives, but I’d appreciate your going over it again with me.”
“Anything. Tell me what you want to know.”
“How many cases was your niece working on?”
“Just one. Things have been a bit slow lately, you know how it is.”
“Tell me about that one.”
“Well, a guy named Arlen, Tony Arlen, wanted somebody to check up on a woman named Rita Galloway—”
“Mr. Vargas, start at the beginning. How did this Arlen first contact you?”
“Phone call. He said he was disabled and it was hard for him to get around, but he’d send somebody with the cash if I’d take the case.”
“Did he?”
“Oh yeah. Not more’n an hour later. A big guy named Nickie brought it.”
Marian opened a drawer of her desk and took out a picture of Nick Atlay.
“That’s him!” Vargas said. “That’s Nickie. Hey, how’d you happen to have his picture?”
“What was it that Tony Arlen wanted you to do? Exactly.”
Vargas sat up straighter, suddenly aware that more was going on than just his niece’s murder. “He wanted to know if I could provide him with someone to pose as a cleaning woman. To get some information for him.” Vargas paused. “He dint say she had to be Hispanic, but I figured he wouldna called me if he wanted Snow White. So I gave him Julia.”
Marian said nothing about entering private premises under false pretenses. “Did they ever meet? Face-to-face?”
Vargas scratched the side of his nose. “Well, I ain’t real sure that they did. I know that first time he just called her at the office and told her where to go and what he wanted her to do. They coulda met later, I guess.”
“What did he tell her to do?”
“He said go to this cleaning service, Maids-something, and apply for a job early the next Tuesday.”
“Did she have phony bond papers with her?”
“Naw, we don’t do no fake paper.”
“The owner of Maids-in-a-Row says she was bonded.”
“He’s lying.”
Or you are. “Okay, she gets the job. Then what?”
“Then she’s supposed to go through this Rita Galloway’s checkbook, looking for deposits of five thousand dollars. Sounded to me like the guy was being blackmailed anonymously, and he suspected this Galloway broad of being the one.”
That’s what he wanted you to think. “Then what?”
He shrugged. “Then somebody in the house caught Julia goin’ through the checkbook and threw her out. But not before she’d found two deposits of five thousand each. Arlen was satisfied, and he kept her on the payroll.”
“Doing what?”
“Tail jobs. She tailed this Rita for a while and then her brother. Photographer, name of Fairchild.”
“How’d she report to him? Did he give her a phone number?”
“Naw, he called the office. Some people won’t give their phone numbers out to nobody.”
“What about an address?”
“No address neither.” Vargas looked at her closely. “And his name ain’t really Tony Arlen, is it?�
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“You can bet money on it. But whatever his name is, he’s the one responsible for Julia’s death. Mr. Vargas, the man who killed your niece also killed Nick Atlay—Nickie, the big fellow who brought you your money. He also tried to have Rita Galloway’s little boy kidnapped. This guy is bad news from every angle.”
Vargas’s mouth dropped open. “Ay, díos mía!”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“I wish to god there was,” he said earnestly. “I’da never sent Julia out if I’da known. But why did he have to kill her?”
“He killed Nickie because he could identify him. Most likely that’s the same reason Julia died.”
He sat there, stunned. Marian looked at Walker and Dowd. They both shook their heads; no questions. Marian thanked Vargas and told him to call in immediately if he thought of anything else.
Walker moved aside to let the private detective pass. Vargas paused in the doorway and looked back at Marian. “You really are gonna look for this guy?”
“You’re damned right we are,” she said emphatically. Reassured, he left.
Dowd waited until Vargas was out of earshot and then snorted. “He thinks the killer called him because he wanted a Hispanic. He called him because he wanted some low-rent outfit that’d do anything for a buck, no questions asked.”
Marian barely heard him. “Interesting how he zoomed in on two people with, ah, defects. Nickie with his slow wit and Julia Ortega with her drug problem.”
Dowd was skeptical. “He knew about Ortega’s drug problem before he called Vargas?”
“Oh, probably not. It just struck me as curious. Well, any thoughts?”
Walker said, “Only two possibilities. First, Ortega and the killer did meet face-to-face and he got rid of her to protect himself. Or, second … he panicked. Killed someone he didn’t need to.”
Marian nodded, pleased he’d caught that. “A chink in the armor?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“But Ortega’s still just another dead end,” Dowd said sourly. “Vargas was our only line to the killer, and he didn’t tell us nothing we didn’t already know. Or not much.”
“So we look elsewhere.” Marian opened the Galloway case file. “The killer is someone who knows the Galloways. Rita and Hugh both drew up lists of people they know who might be suspects, and I want you to start checking them out.”
They both groaned. “Needle in the you-know-what,” Dowd said.
“Maybe not.” Marian handed one list to each detective. “Make copies and return the originals to the case file. Look for names that appear on both lists—start with those. Ignore any women’s names—two people the killer has talked to on the phone have identified him as male.”
“Two?” Walker asked. “Vargas and who else?”
“The woman he bribed to quit Maids-in-a-Row so Julia Ortega could move in. Listen, you two … push on this. Push hard. And push fast. We’re running out of time.”
“Yeah, the trail gets a little colder every day,” Dowd said. “Okay, Lieutenant, we’ll push.” He and Walker left.
There was another reason Marian wanted them to push. She was afraid Jim Murtaugh might be running out of patience.
Late that night, Marian called Kelly Ingram. She needed to hear a cheerful, upbeat voice.
But the news from Hollyweird was gloomy. “These people are idiots!” Kelly screamed. “They’re doing everything they can to turn a beautiful, original play into a clone of everything else they grind out here! Abby and the director are about to come to blows!”
Abigail James, who’d written the screen adaptation of her own play. “But you’ve just gotten started,” Marian said. “Maybe—”
“I know, that’s the worst part! If they show this little respect for the script the first week, think what it’s going to be like later!” Kelly went on at length, detailing all the shortsighted changes that had been made, until at last she was able to speak without exclamation points. “They’re making changes just for the sake of making them,” she moaned. “Ego games, that’s all it is.”
“Who’s making the changes?”
“The director, the producer, the umpteenth assistant director, the set designer, the F/X man—”
“F/X? Special effects in The Apostrophe Thief?”
“Yeah, would you believe it, they’ve got me riding a roller coaster during a fireworks display that gets out of control. Ducking and dodging rockets, that’s what I’m doing. The director says that when it’s edited, the final cut will be ‘real surreal.’” She made an unladylike noise. “Real surreal.”
Marian groaned in sympathy. “And Abby can’t stop it?”
“Abby has less clout on the set than the guy they send for coffee. Once the script was finished, she was just a fifth wheel. Ian and I back her up every time she objects, but it doesn’t help. This movie is going to hell in a handbasket. Why do they say handbasket? What else would you carry it with—your teeth? Anyway, I thought Abby was going to belt the director this afternoon.”
“Maybe that’s what he needs.”
Kelly laughed. “He’s six foot six and weighs close to three hundred pounds. Abby’s … what, five two? She’d have to stand on a chair.” Then, more seriously: “I’m really discouraged, Toots. I had such high hopes for this movie.”
They talked for a while longer, commiserating over work gone wrong. Marian told her friend she was stuck on a case but gave no details. They wished each other luck and promised to talk again in a few days.
Marian went into the room where Holland kept his computer. He looked grouchy; he’d spent all of Sunday afternoon and evening at the keyboard without finding what he was looking for. Something was out of kilter at his agency; nothing major, just little things not working the way they were supposed to. The professional breacher of other people’s computer systems suspected that someone had breached his system.
She went up behind him and rested her chin on the top of his head. “About ready to be interrupted?”
“One moment.” The screen changed five or six times before he gave up and shut down. “Every gateway we use is secure. Everyone who’s been using them has a legitimate reason for doing so. So where’s the problem?”
“In the modem,” Marian said.
He moved his head from under her chin and twisted to look up at her. “In the modem?”
She shrugged. “It’s a word I know.”
He grunted. “That makes as much sense as anything else.” He stood up and stretched. “Did you talk to Kelly?” Then, without waiting for an answer: “I need to get away from this for a while. Let’s go out.”
“Do you know it’s after midnight?”
“Oh.” A pause. “Bed?”
“Bed.”
16
Monday dawned without anything new having been learned. Captain Murtaugh summoned his lieutenant in for an accounting.
“The Ortega line of investigation is a dead end,” Marian explained. “Vargas never saw the man who hired them. Presumably Julia Ortega did and that’s why she’s dead. But Vargas can’t give us what he doesn’t know.”
“What about Atlay?”
“We’re still looking for the office building where he worked. It’s a tedious process, Jim. Nobody paid much attention to Nickie Atlay. He was just available muscle for hire, nothing else. Perlmutter and O’Toole are following through on every lead they can get.”
“Say you find the office building. Then what?”
“Then we take a list of the tenants to the Galloways to see if they know any of them. The killer must have office space there or work for someone who does. How else would he link up with the likes of Nickie Atlay?”
Murtaugh thought that over and nodded. “What else are you doing?”
“Checking out a list of possibles supplied by the Galloways.” It sounded like pitifully little. Marian sighed. “If you can think of another line of investigation, I’m open to suggestion.”
He was ponde
ring something. “Not a line of investigation—but what about a prod? If we’re at a dead end, let’s goose this guy a little. Look.” He picked up a copy of the Daily News; the front page prominently displayed a picture of Bradford Ushton and an article about his arrest on a child molestation charge. “This is a second-day story. Think what they’d do with a new murder story to milk for all it’s worth.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“Hear me out. So far the news media have not made the connection between Nick Atlay and Julia Ortega. Just two more bodies fished out of the East River on different days as far as they’re concerned. Say you call a media conference. You announce that Atlay and Ortega are victims of the same murderer, a man who has twice attempted to kidnap the young son of a prominent New York family—don’t mention the Galloways by name.”
“Jim—”
“Admit the police are still trying to identify the building where Atlay worked as a janitor and ask for the public’s help. We’ll set up a hot line to handle the calls—most of them will be nuisance calls. You further announce that you have a suspect and you expect to make an arrest shortly. Then make a quick exit without answering any questions.”
“That would be a big mistake,” Marian said heavily. “Jim, this is a guy who solves his problems by killing people. We can’t take that risk—it’s just too dangerous.”
“Who’s left to kill? He’s eliminated the two who could identify him.”
“Who’s left? Annie Plaxton in Hoboken. Hector Vargas. Whoever sold the killer his gun. Someone who might have seen him talking to Nickie Atlay. Other people we haven’t even thought of.”
“Oh, that’s a stretch.”
“No, it’s not. We don’t know for sure that Julia Ortega could have identified him. It could have been a panic killing. What do you think he’s going to do when he reads that we’ve got a suspect?”
They went on arguing about it. Captain Murtaugh could have just ordered Marian to make the announcement. But before it came to that, they reached a compromise. Marian would make the announcement, but she’d omit the part about their having a suspect. She’d say instead something like We are pursuing several lines of investigation.
