Murder in the Manuscript Room

by Con Lehane

  John patted his shoulder. “I got it, Pop.”

  On the train back to the city, Johnny was quiet until Ambler asked what he was thinking about.

  “What did you talk about when you were whispering?” His tone suggested Ambler wasn’t allowed to have secrets with his dad. “Was it about me?”

  “No.”

  “Is my dad going to get out of prison soon? Is that—?”

  He put his arm around the boy. “That wasn’t what we talked about. We’ll do everything we can to get him out as soon as we can. Now we need to make a plan to get you a guitar.”

  “And a dog.”

  “A dog,” Ambler said, turning to watch the Hudson slide by outside the window.

  * * *

  “How did your trip with your grandson to see his dad work out?” Cosgrove asked when he got him on the phone the next day.

  “Except that I have to buy a guitar and may have to get a dog, pretty good. How’d you do?”

  “I think we’re okay.” Mike told him in general terms about his confession to his boss.

  “I guess he didn’t take it well.”

  “How could he? He can’t tell anyone above him what I told him. Campbell would know in five minutes.”

  The mention of Campbell was a surprise. It might have been a slip, or it might be Mike wanted him to know without telling him in so many words. He didn’t press. Instead, he said, “I don’t think Higgins found what he was looking for in his files. I think something was missing.”

  “I thought that too after the break-in at Adele’s, that whatever the Stone woman’s killer was looking for wasn’t in the file. The Stone woman’s apartment was tossed the night or morning after her murder. We held that back.”

  Ambler told him about Leila’s friend in Texas.

  Cosgrove was silent for a moment. “That’s a long way to go on not much of anything. If we knew the Stone woman took the file, that would be one thing. We don’t even know for sure something is missing.”

  “The only one who knows is Paul Higgins.”

  “A lot of times, a person snatches something, doesn’t have much time, hides it close by. If the murdered woman took the missing files, she might have stashed them somewhere near your office, or in your office.”

  “She could have hidden them anywhere.”

  Cosgrove told him under normal circumstances he’d get the manpower to search every file box in the library but not for this one. “I’ll add the woman in Texas to my list. Despite the travel, she’s easier than searching the library. What’s her name?”

  Ambler was surprised again. “You’re doing the investigation now?”

  “Halloran understood my dilemma. He suspended me while he looked into my withholding-evidence arrangement with Campbell. If I do my own investigation of the Stone murder, he doesn’t have to know.”

  Ambler laughed. “Only in New York. What exactly is your status now?”

  “How about the Lone Ranger?” said Cosgrove.

  Chapter 41

  Adele liked to walk and think. Her apartment wasn’t far from Central Park, over to Eighth Avenue, a few blocks up through Columbus Circle, and she was in the park. She’d gotten a text message from Paul Higgins and wanted to think about it. There wasn’t anything suspicious, except that it came from him, and how did he get her cell number and why would he want to talk to her again? She didn’t trust him, but she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. She thought about him differently after they’d talked and was no longer sure he killed Leila.

  Raymond said Johnny’s visit with his father in the prison went well. She’d thought all along it would. Johnny was a wonderful kid; how could anyone help but love him? She wondered what John would think of her or think of her and Raymond … if there was anything to think about her and Raymond. She was closer in age to his son than to Raymond. She crossed over through Columbus Circle, walked a little way into the park, and called him.

  “I got a text message from Paul Higgins asking me to meet him tonight at the Library Tavern.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say.… I tried to call him back and couldn’t reach him. I got a voice mail, one of those automated ones.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “And how does he know about The Library Tavern?”

  “McNulty’s the one who found him. They had dinner together. Maybe they’ve become pals. You told Higgins you’d meet him. I’m not sure you should have done that. What are you asking me to do?”

  Usually, Raymond was protective; now, because she did something on her own, he was petulant, which in some ways was endearing but also kind of controlling. “Maybe you could happen by.”

  He hesitated. His tone was friendlier. “I’ll happen by.”

  * * *

  Everything happened in a blur that evening. Adele planned to meet Paul Higgins at 5:00. It was Sunday near dusk, cold enough, in the twenties heading for the teens, to keep most people inside and the few people on Madison Avenue bundled up and hurrying. Because the street was nearly empty and he was arriving at about the time Higgins was expected, Ambler watched carefully around him to make sure Higgins didn’t see him.

  When a cab pulled up in front of the Library Tavern a couple of blocks in front of him, he slowed his pace, thinking it would be Higgins. A woman walking toward the bar from the opposite direction, about a block away, was most likely Adele. He was about to cross the street to make sure he wasn’t seen when a black SUV pulled out from the curb, close enough to almost brush him. He stepped back and glared at the man in the passenger seat who glared back.

  The SUV sped up Madison, and slammed on its brakes in the spot the cab had vacated seconds before. The man who’d gotten out of the cab and taken in his surroundings turned at the sound of the SUV braking. Next was a quick succession of loud popping sounds. The man’s hands went up in a kind discordant wave, his body jerked violently. He staggered a few steps in a small circle and crumbled to the ground.

  Frozen for a few seconds, Ambler watched the SUV start up from the curb, slow again while more shots were fired. They were shooting at Adele. He ran for her, sprinting past the man on the sidewalk. She’d fallen but was already getting to her feet. Beyond her, the SUV turned right a couple of blocks north.

  “I’m all right,” Adele said. “I’m not shot.” She ran her hands over her coat to make sure. Ambler did so, too, turning her around running his hands along the long camel hair coat she wore. As he did this, she stared down the street at the body lying on the sidewalk. Someone was bent over it. A man and a woman stood back watching. In a moment, the man watching took out his cell phone.

  “Is that Paul Higgins?” Adele’s voice shook. She moved slowly toward the group in front of the Library Tavern. McNulty had come out and said something to the person bent over the body who stood then. Ambler and Adele joined the group looking at the man on the ground. It was Paul Higgins.

  “I’m shaking,” Adele said. “I can’t stop shaking.” Ambler who shivered also put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. Her body stiffened. He thought she was resisting but realized she was trying to stop shaking. She nestled against him.

  A police car, lights flashing, came up Madison. Less than a moment later, sirens wailed from all directions. In no time, the block filled with police cars and ambulances. Ambler, holding Adele with one arm, extricated his cell phone from his coat pocket and called Mike Cosgrove. When he finished with the call, he tried to steer Adele toward the entrance to the Library Tavern. A police officer stopped them.

  They watched as the EMS medics went through their work with Paul Higgins’s body. A couple of uniformed cops worked their way through the small crowd, less than a dozen people, with notebooks in their hands.

  When one of them approached Ambler and Adele, Ambler told the cop what he remembered, including that he had looked into the eyes of the man in the passenger seat. The officer took his information. “You’ll need to talk to the detectives,” he said.

 
When Adele’s turn came, she told the officer what she saw, that the SUV had slowed and the man in passenger seat shot at her. “It was one of the men who abducted me,” she said quietly.

  The officer stopped writing. His eyes opened wider. “Stay here.” He walked away quickly. A minute later, he was back leading a middle-aged man with a sour expression. “Tell him what you told me,” the officer said to Adele.

  She did. When she finished, the detective said, “You can identify them. That’s good. What else can you tell me? You knew the man they shot. Why did they shoot him?”

  “I don’t know,” Adele said.

  “Let me put it another way. What did you, the man who was killed, and the killers have to do with one another?”

  Adele shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “Why were you meeting the man who was killed?”

  “He texted me to meet him here. His ex-wife was murdered in the library not long ago and—”

  The detective threw up his hands. “Hold it. Hold it. Wait here.” He turned and strode off.

  “I’m freezing. I’m shaking,” Adele said. “I don’t want to go over all of this again. Can we go inside?”

  “Sure,” Ambler said. “They’ll find us in there when they want us.” This time no one stopped them.

  Before they were seated, McNulty had brandy snifters in front of them. Ambler noticed he had one of his own.

  McNulty looked at Adele “They shot at you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. I saw the gun barrel stick out the window. It jerked; smoked. The man holding the gun, the man who abducted me, was looking past me. I thought he was shooting at someone behind me.”

  “You’ve been kidnapped, your apartment broken into, and now shot at. You thought about looking for a less dangerous job than being a librarian?”

  Adele laughed and whatever had been holding her up let go. She turned to Ambler, her lip trembling, the whites of her eyes reddening, and then she was crying. He lumbered off his barstool so he could get closer to her and hold her while she sobbed against his chest.

  The detective with the sour expression found them after a few minutes. While he was away, he’d obviously been updated on Leila’s Stone’s murder and briefed on the investigation.

  “You said the victim texted you?”

  Adele said yes.

  “He didn’t have a cell phone on him. Can you give me the phone number the text came from?”

  She looked at her phone and gave him the number.

  He asked a few more questions about the shooting, asked for a description of the SUV and the men in the SUV. Adele answered his questions and told him about her abduction.

  “You’re sure it was the same men?”

  “I’m sure one of them was.”

  “Had you seen them before?”

  “Before they kidnapped me? No.”

  “Was one of them Gobi Tabrizi?”

  “No.” Her brow wrinkled, her eyes narrowed.

  “You said you only saw one of the men.”

  “I didn’t see Gobi Tabrizi.”

  “The other man could have been Tabrizi.”

  She sat up straight and spoke louder than she needed to. “The other man could have been you, for all I know. I didn’t see him.”

  The detective was unfazed. “Ever see the man you recognized in the company of Gobi Tabrizi?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure of that?” The tone of his voice made clear he meant, ‘I don’t believe you.’”

  Adele stood. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m going to the ladies room. I hope you’re gone when I get back.”

  Ambler glanced out the window and wasn’t surprised to see a grim-faced Brad Campbell near the Library Tavern doorway, conferring with a couple of men in trench coats and someone wearing the spiffy uniform of NYPD brass. Campbell wore a black overcoat and no hat. Every now and again, as he talked, he looked down at Paul Higgins’s shrouded body and back up at the Library Tavern. Ambler expected him to come in. But he didn’t. The detective waited until Adele returned from the ladies room. He handed her his card, told her to contact him if she remembered anything else, and that he’d be in touch.

  * * *

  Ambler didn’t usually watch TV news; he read the newspaper, the Times more often than not, the Daily News during baseball season. That night, because of the murder, Adele wanted to watch the TV news, so they did at his apartment. What they got to see was a report on Paul Higgins’s murder that included an interview with the former head of the NYPD Intelligence Division, Brad Campbell. He called Paul Higgins an American hero who’d helped to break up a number of dangerous plots the general public never knew about.

  “That’s how it should, be,” Campbell said. “The work of our counterterrorist forces goes on behind blank walls. It couldn’t be done otherwise. The brave men and women who work in counterterrorism don’t look for glory. Paul Higgins was one of the best of them.”

  The reporter asked Campbell if Higgins’s murder was an assassination. Campbell said the investigation was already underway, and the NYPD would track down the killer. It wasn’t his place to comment on the investigation. He said this in such a way that anyone listening would conclude his answer was ‘yes.’

  “How do you like that?” Adele glared at the television. She sat on the couch, holding a glass of red wine, her legs folded beneath her. Her hair had come loose from the band that held it and strands fluttered around her face, which she blew away as she spoke. With this her second glass of wine, after a couple of solid belts of cognac at the Library Tavern, she was tipsy. “He thinks Gobi did it.” She took a sip of her wine, put the glass down, and stretched out on the couch. From her prone position, she squinted at Ambler. “Do you think Johnny is asleep yet?”

  “He’s asleep.” They hadn’t told him about Higgins’s murder.

  She beckoned with her finger. “Come sit with me.” It was a request, a demand, an invitation. He sat beside her and stroked her hair. “I want you to kiss me … in a minute. First, I want to close my eyes for just one second.”

  Ambler stroked her hair and then touched her lips with his finger. With her eyes closed, she nibbled. He took the wineglass from her hand. In a few seconds, she was asleep.

  Chapter 42

  Ten minutes after he learned of Paul Higgins’s murder, Mike Cosgrove booked a night flight for Dallas. He told Denise and Sarah he’d be gone overnight, popped a TV dinner in the microwave, and packed an overnight bag. At six-thirty, he left for the airport, parking in the short-term lot, and was through security and at the gate an hour before the flight left at 8:30.

  He saw on his cell phone he had a call from an NYPD phone number. He’d wait until he got to Dallas to return the call. He’d called the number Ray had given him for Barbara Jean Allen—the childhood friend of the woman she knew as Susan Brown and Ray and Adele knew as Leila Stone—before he got on the plane so he wouldn’t call too late. He sounded as official as possible, so the woman would think she was in big trouble if she didn’t talk to him. Turned out she was friendly and chatty and would be delighted to see him.

  At DFW, he rented a car and drove to a hotel not far from the airport. He didn’t know who would pay for this trip; probably he’d end up with the tab. Even so, he picked a full service hotel, where he might get a decent glass of wine tonight and a good breakfast in the morning. He hoped he wasn’t too wound up to sleep.

  The next morning, Barbara Jean Allen was as chipper and friendly in person as she was on the phone. With washed out blonde hair, gray eyes, and little makeup, she wasn’t glamorous, but with her cheerfulness, her smile, and her dimples, she was appealing. As soon as they’d exchanged greetings, he knew he’d like her. She cheered him up.

  She offered him coffee and placed a coffee cake with white icing like an Entenmann’s in front of him, apologizing for setting their meeting for 11:00, rather than earlier as he suggested. She needed to get the kids off to school and tidy up some befo
re he got there.

  He let her chatter on. He wanted her to get comfortable with him, to strengthen their rapport, before he got serious. She wanted to know about her friend Susan’s death, so he told her what he knew. When he told her about Paul Higgins’s murder, she was shocked into a moment of silence.

  “Paul was a strange man,” she said after the pause. “Scary because he seemed so capable of violence. Yet for someone from the north, from New York, he had a good bit of southern charm about him. We thought him ‘exotic,’ if that’s the right word, a super cop, undercover, living among drug dealers and mobsters.” He let her talk on about Paul and then about Paul and Susan together.

  He was on his second cup of coffee after two earlier cups at the hotel, wired enough to be jittery, and he had to pee, and then he had to pee again. He had a long drive back to the airport and hated having to rush for a plane, yet he didn’t want to interrupt her. She was getting comfortable with him. He listened and smiled and waited for his chance when what he really wanted was to tell her to shut up. Finally, she caught on that he might have a purpose in being there.

  “I do prattle on, don’t I? You’re so polite to listen. People say about New Yorkers they’re always in a hurry and they’re not polite and actually rude—”

  “Oh, Jesus, she’s off again,” he said to himself.

  After a minute, she caught herself, or maybe she caught the look of terror on his face as he came to believe she might never stop talking. In any event, she stopped.

  “So, what can I do for you besides tell you all of poor Susan’s secrets? I knew she shouldn’t have married Paul, as gentlemanly as he seemed. His world was too violent for her. She was a gentle soul.”

  “Right,” said Cosgrove, loud enough to be heard next door. He for goddamn sure wasn’t going to let her get started again. “We have reason to believe Leila … or Susan … sent you a package or an envelope for safekeeping.”

  Her eyes clouded with suspicion. He had to move carefully; one wrong move and she’d take off like one of those Texas hares he’d sent scampering across the prairie on the drive from the airport.