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by Konstantin

  Coyle scowled, and thought about it. “The usual shit. Monday and Tuesday, Kenny had me painting. Then there was a plumbing problem in the D unit— we were at that till like nine or ten Tuesday night. Wednesday was garbage day. You want me to go on?”

  “You didn’t work at the club?”

  “It’s closed Sundays and Mondays.”

  “What about Tuesday and Wednesday?”

  “I called in sick,” Coyle said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what J.T. said.”

  His scowl deepened. “So I blew it off. So what?”

  “Why?”

  Coyle looked at the ceiling. His chin quivered and so did his voice. “I thought Holly might be there and…I was pissed at her.” He swallowed. “Jesus Christ…I didn’t want to see her.”

  I nodded. “What did you think was up with her and Werner?” I asked again.

  “I didn’t think—”

  “Did you think she was seeing him again?”

  His face darkened and his big hand clenched around what was left of the ice pack; for a moment I thought we were going to go at it again, but he had no heart for it. “Fuck you,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  I nodded, and thought about dates. If Holly had been talking about Werner three or four weeks before her death, that would’ve been in December. “Did Holly say anything about someone looking for her?” I asked. “Anything about a lawyer coming to see her?”

  Coyle looked confused. He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “When did you realize that Holly was…”

  Coyle stared at his hands, at the soaked T-shirt and his coffee cup— at things I couldn’t see. He dropped his T-shirt on the floor. “I saw the paper. I saw the picture…her tattoo.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that I didn’t know what to do. I went back to looking for Werner. I don’t know why, or what I would’ve done if I found him, but I didn’t know what else to do. Then I ran into you again.

  “After that, I went by her apartment a few times. I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. I just…looked at the building. Then I saw cops there, and split. I figured it was just a matter of time before they came around here, and I thought about taking off— but where am I supposed to go? The last few months, every plan I had had to do with her.” Coyle shook his head and sighed. “I should’ve known better. Jesus, has it been two weeks since I saw that picture? It seems like a hundred years, or yesterday.”

  “What plans did you make?”

  “We talked about maybe moving in together, and maybe getting out of the city. Holly liked Philly— she said space was cheap there. She had in mind making different kinds of films— documentaries, maybe— or writing more plays.”

  Coyle made a fist and examined it. Then he rubbed it over his eyes. “We talked about kids too, if you can believe it. It surprised the hell out of me Holly wanted them, but she did. She said she might be ready soon, if that was all right by me. I said sure, why not.”

  I thought about Holly’s pregnancy, and I looked at Coyle— hunched and staring a hole in the concrete floor— and didn’t ask. If he’d known about it, I was pretty sure he would’ve said; if he didn’t…it wasn’t in me to tell him. I drank some of my coffee. It was cold.

  “Holly ever talk about the guys from her videos? She ever worry about anything coming back at her?”

  He looked up. Life came into his dirty, wrung-out face. “You think that’s what happened? You think one of them—”

  I shook my head. “It’s a question, that’s all. I want to know if she ever talked about any of them, if any of them scared her.”

  His shoulders slumped. “No, she never talked about them, not to me, and I didn’t ask. If she worried, it was only about the ones she was gonna question. That’s why she asked me to back her up those times. But even those she didn’t worry much about. Not enough, as far as I was concerned. She was in charge, she would say. She was always in charge.”

  Coyle went back to studying the floor, and I thought more about Holly and her work. “You told Holly that the story in her videos was always the same. You said that she agreed with you, and that she said the questions she wanted to answer were all the same too.” Coyle looked at me and nodded uncertainly. “What were they?” I asked.

  “What was what?”

  “The story she wanted to tell, the questions she wanted to answer— what were they?”

  He shook his head slowly. “The story was always about a married guy fucking around, and the questions were all about why— why he did it, why he’d screw over his wife and kids that way. It was always the same thing, always about her family.”

  “That’s what happened to her family?”

  “That’s what she said. Her dad was a real asshole, I guess— couldn’t keep it in his pants, and didn’t bother keeping it a secret from anyone, including her mom. The whole time they were growing up, he was fucking around— his secretary, neighbors, even some of Holly’s teachers. The mom and dad went at it pretty good, I guess, and all the time. Her mom never left him, though. After all the yelling and shit, she just took it and took it, right up until the time she got in the tub, ate a few bottles of pills, and opened her veins. Holly came home from school and found her. She was, like, fourteen.”

  “Christ.”

  Coyle nodded. “It’s fucked-up shit.”

  “You never met the sister?”

  He shook his head. “Holly never invited me when she went up there,” he said. “I asked a few times, but she said no.”

  I squinted. “How often did she go?”

  “I don’t know— once or twice a month, maybe. I didn’t keep track.”

  Once or twice a month. “I heard she didn’t have much to do with her family.”

  “She didn’t. She and the sister didn’t get along, so when she went up there, it was mostly to see her dad. He’s in some kind of a home, and pretty out of it— too out of it to fight with much, I guess.”

  I nodded. I thought about Holly’s apartment, and the video camera boxes on the floor. “Did Holly do all her editing at home?”

  “Yeah— she had her computer, and software for the editing, and for burning the disks. But all that stuff was gone when I got there.”

  I thought about the videos, about watching them in Todd Herring’s screening room. And then I thought of something else. “The reliquaries— the little cabinets that went with the videos— Holly didn’t make those in the apartment, did she?”

  Coyle shook his head. “She did that in her studio.”

  “Her studio?”

  “That’s what she called it. It was just a locker in one of those self-storage places— not much more than a giant closet— but she had a workbench in there, and woodworking tools and shit.” Coyle gave me the name of the place and the address. It was in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He didn’t have a key, but he knew the unit number.

  I looked down at my hands. They were throbbing and ugly, and the pain was making it hard to concentrate. A trip to the emergency room was in my near future, and I wondered about driving. I asked Coyle how I could reach him, and he sighed and gave me Kenny’s cell number. His lassitude was contagious; a wave of fatigue washed over me, and washed away what little buzz I’d gotten from the caffeine and the sugar. I hoisted myself up and pulled on my jacket. Coyle sighed again and dragged himself off the cot and to the sink. He ran the water and leaned at the edge— all out of air. I was surprised when he spoke.

  “It was just a matter of time,” he said softly.

  “What was a matter of time?”

  “I felt lucky to be with her— too lucky, like it was all a mistake, like I got somebody else’s good luck by accident. It was like finding a wallet full of cash— you know somebody’s gonna come around looking for it eventually. It was all borrowed time.” Bent over the sink, his broad back shook. His voice was small and choked.

  “You ask these fucking questions I can’t answer, and I realize I didn’t
know a damn thing about her. I had no part in her life. I didn’t know her family, her friends— I don’t even know where she’s gonna be buried, or when, or who’s gonna do it. Will there be a wake or something? If I showed up, would anybody but the cops know who I was?”

  Coyle leaned into the sink and began to retch. I closed the door behind me.

  33

  It was gray and raw on Thursday morning, and the clouds scudding above the midtown skyline were full of ice or sleet or stone. In Mike Metz’s office, it didn’t feel much warmer. I’d told him what Jamie Coyle had said, and that I’d basically believed it, and Mike was silent on the other side of his wide ebony desk. Behind his steepled fingers, his narrow face was blank, but his eyes were skeptical and irritated.

  “Grief isn’t innocence,” he said finally. “Plenty of killers grieve for their victims; they love feeling sorry for themselves, and that’s another way to do it. This guy has a history of violence”— Mike pointed to my bruised face, and my taped and splinted fingers—“and he all but admitted he’d been worried that Holly was seeing Werner again.”

  “He didn’t quite admit to that,” I said, “and he has an alibi. I spoke to the uncle, and it seems to hold water.”

  “This would be the same uncle who’s been lying to you and the cops about Coyle’s whereabouts? How long do you think his corroboration will last?”

  “There were apparently other people who saw him that Tuesday night.” Mike scowled and shook his head. “Besides which, the guy had my gun, and plenty of time to use it, and instead he gave it back.”

  “Which means that with you he had time to think, and with Holly the passions ran higher.”

  “You’re reaching.”

  “And you’re not, and you should be. It’s your brother on the line, and his wife.”

  “If Coyle is no good for Holly’s killing, then I don’t think I’m doing David or Stephanie any favors by making it easier for the cops to find him. If it takes them a couple of days longer to sit him down and figure out he’s clean, then that’s a couple of days more I have to find a viable alternative.”

  “That’s assuming you’re right about Coyle, and assuming the cops didn’t already hear about his great alibi from the uncle.”

  “According to Kenny, they didn’t ask and he didn’t tell,” I said, and drank some water. My aluminum splint made a bright sound on the glass. “Coyle loved her and he’s grieving, and he hasn’t hotfooted it out of town, though he’s had ample opportunity. On top of which, he’s got a better alibi than either David or Stephanie has.”

  Mike’s skepticism was undiminished. “He was our best bet. I think he still is.”

  “He’s not going anywhere, Mike, and if I—”

  “How do you know he’s not going anywhere?”

  I shook my head. “He would’ve gone by now. Look, if I found him, the cops will too, and if they haven’t in a couple of days, we’ll call and give them a hint. In the mean time, Coyle gave me some things to chase.”

  “Werner?”

  “Coyle says Holly saw him sometime in December. That would’ve been right around the time Vickers came to see her.”

  “You’re thinking he had something to do with the blackmail scheme?”

  “The timing could work, and apparently Holly was upset about something then.”

  “If you believe Coyle,” Mike said.

  I shrugged. “Besides Werner, there’s the storage locker.”

  He held up a hand. “And I already know more than I want to about that.”

  I smiled. “Coward.”

  He didn’t smile back, but pointed across the desk. “Just keep the word ‘tampering’ in mind, and be fucking careful.”

  “Always,” I said. “You talk to David lately?”

  Mike nodded. “I call; he doesn’t say much. I gather he’s sticking close to home.”

  “Was he sober?”

  Mike shrugged. “He doesn’t say much,” he repeated.

  “And Stephanie?”

  “She’s agreed to see me this afternoon.”

  “That’s progress.”

  “Not enough,” Mike said, “and I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

  “What happened?”

  “Only the inevitable. McCue called; they want her down at Pitt Street tomorrow morning, to talk.”

  “Still informally?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  * * *

  I walked from Mike’s office down to Grand Central, and caught a 7 train into Queens. I changed to the G in Long Island City, took it south into Brooklyn, and got off at Greenpoint Avenue. I walked east on Greenpoint, north on McGuinness Boulevard, and east again on Freeman.

  Creek Self-Store was on Freeman Street, in half of an old brick factory building, on a block that, perhaps because of its proximity to Newtown Creek and to an enormous sewage treatment plant, bore not the slightest gentrifying trace. The cold air made my fingers ache, but it kept the odor down.

  I pushed through wired-glass doors into a small lobby. There was a wooden bench, well polished by the seats of many pants, and wall posters with tables of container sizes and prices, and lists of rules and restrictions, most of which amounted to “No Nuclear Waste” and “No Livestock.” There was another pair of wired-glass doors straight ahead and a teller’s window to the left.

  Behind the bars was a twentysomething Latina with a gold stud in her nose. She was working on an early lunch or a late breakfast and the lobby smelled of eggs and fried onions. She handed me a clipboard and some forms, and pointed me at the bench. I sat, and fished a pen from my backpack. I took my time on the forms— with my fingers, I had no choice— and I had a good look around the lobby and behind the counter. There was a little office to the right behind the counter, with a fat, bald guy in it. He was busying himself with what looked like a Bud tallboy in a paper bag, and what looked like celebrity poker on the television. On a table beside the girl there were three small video monitors. One showed an oddly angled view of the front doors and another showed a flickering image of a loading dock; the third was gray static. Wholly satisfactory security arrangements, as far as I was concerned. I took out my wallet and brought the forms to the counter.

  I followed the bald guy’s slow shuffle onto a freight elevator. We went up two floors, and I followed him some more, through a dimly lit maze of numbered metal overhead doors. We stopped at unit 137, a lovely ten-by-ten affair with walls of corrugated orange plastic and fluorescent lights in a wire cage on the ceiling. He departed; I waited until I heard the freight elevator close, and then I waited some more. The air was cold— about sixty degrees— and it smelled of plaster dust and plastic. In the silence after the elevator, I heard faint music, hip-hop, but I couldn’t tell from where.

  I closed unit 137, found the stairway, and walked down one flight. Holly’s unit was number 58, and I wandered for a while before I located it. I passed a few people along the way: a bickering couple hauling boxes in; another, better-humored couple, hauling boxes out; a painter standing in the open doorway of his unit, mixing greens and whites on a palette; a middle-aged woman with tears in her eyes, pushing a dolly. None of them paid me any mind. Unit 58 was at the dead end of a silent corridor, and I was relieved to see no police seals or crime scene tape anywhere nearby. The hasp was set into the floor and there was a medium-sized lock on it. It was more tarnished than the replacement I’d brought in my backpack, but I doubted anyone around here would notice. I put my backpack down and looked up the corridor. No one. I reached inside and pulled out my bolt cutters.

  They were hard to maneuver with broken fingers, and I was noisier than I wanted to be, but in five minutes the lock was scrap. I put the pieces in my backpack, along with the cutters, and rolled up the door. I went inside and rolled it shut behind me.

  The fluorescents blinked light onto a fifteen-by-ten-foot space, with yellow plastic walls and a bare concrete floor. There was a workbench along one wall, with vises mounted on either end, a rollin
g stool underneath, and tools stacked neatly on shelves in the back: hammers, handsaws, chisels, planes, clamps, T-squares, bottles of wood glue, small cans of varnish and shellac. A place for everything. There were metal shelves against the back wall, with a router, a sander, and electric drills and drill bits on them; in the far corner, next to a shop-vac, was a small table saw. Opposite the workbench was a large cardboard box full of wood. I took some slow breaths, to drive my heart rate down, and I took a pair of vinyl gloves from my pocket. I worked them carefully over my splints and started with the box.

  It was big— the dimensions of a refrigerator lying on its side— but it held only wood: maple burl, walnut, ebony, and teak boards, in three- and five-foot lengths, and smaller bits and pieces at the bottom. I moved on to the metal shelves, where I found spotless and quite pricey power tools and nothing else. The table saw was well oiled but held no secrets, and the shop vac was ignorant of everything but some wood shavings in the can. There was a layer of dust over things, and nothing seemed to have been disturbed recently. By the time I’d finished with the workbench, I’d concluded only that Holly had had expensive taste in her equipment, and that she’d taken excellent care of it. I pushed the rolling stool back under the workbench and heard a bump. I rolled it out again, knelt down, and looked underneath. I needed my penlight to see them: two cardboard filing boxes, side by side and up against the corrugated plastic wall. I pulled them out and opened one.