Murder Off the Page

by Con Lehane

  “What kind of things?”

  “She was trying to make things better with him, she said, so she shouldn’t even be talking to me. Except I was a cop. I could tell her what to do. When I said I wanted to be with her, her tone of voice would change, become sweet, even if she was saying it wouldn’t work out. It was like she was in my arms again. Yet she could turn it on and off. I’d call her and the tone would be gone. She’d sound angry and distant; I’d feel like a stranger.” He looked up at the sky again. “I was a stranger.”

  Cosgrove didn’t know what to make of Hoffman. He said he hadn’t seen or spoken to her since she asked him about the gun. You could take what he said as the truth. Or you could wonder if he left something out. In his own way, he was obsessed with her, like Esposito was in his way. Hoffman did own up about phoning her, about her asking him to get her a gun. You had to wonder, too, why she wanted it: to protect herself, to get rid of someone who was a problem to her—her husband, Esposito, someone else?

  Cosgrove needed to be careful with Hoffman. He liked the guy and that made it too easy to sympathize with him, to overlook something, to let something go you wouldn’t let go with someone else. It was like Ray with McNulty the bartender. Ray wanted too much for McNulty to be innocent. This made him less reliable than he usually was. Cosgrove would need to be extra careful with Hoffman.

  Chapter 21

  Adele found Raymond in the crime fiction reading room a few minutes after he returned from McNulty’s arraignment. “How’d it go?”

  “It was awful.” Raymond was as dejected as she’d ever seen him.

  Her mood deflated quickly, too. She watched him for a few minutes paging through a notebook Jayne Galloway had used to work out an idea for one of her books. He was fixated on Jayne Galloway’s parrot and he continued to believe Galloway was murdered, though not by McNulty and Sandra Dean.

  He had too many things on his mind, driving himself crazy trying to find an explanation for the murders that didn’t include McNulty. On top of that, he didn’t know where he was going to get the money to pay for his son’s appeal, something else he was determined to do because he believed it was his fault his son was in prison. Lisa Young, Johnny’s grandmother, had plenty of money. Raymond should ask her for help, but as was his way, he dragged his feet, hemming and hawing. Old-fashioned sort of guy that he was, he had a difficult time asking for help.

  “Are you going to talk to Lisa Young about paying for your son’s attorney?” Adele had asked him this before and knew the question irritated him. The muscles in his face tightened and he stared at the notebook he was holding. Adele didn’t know Mrs. Young very well. She’d met her and she’d known her daughter, Johnny’s mom. The Young side of Johnny’s family was wealthy. On the days Johnny spent with his grandmother—Lisa Young and Raymond had joint custody of Johnny—he was a little rich kid. On the days he spent with Raymond, he was the grandson of a civil servant. Raymond was too proud to take what he saw as charity from rich people. On the few occasions Lisa Young suggested he and Johnny visit the Young’s ski-slope chalet in Vail or their summer home in Newport, Raymond turned her down.

  This afternoon, Adele waited as she skimmed through a notebook from Jayne Galloway’s files while Raymond brooded. After a while, she said. “You’re not asking her for you. You’re asking her for Johnny, for her to pay legal expenses for her grandson’s father. It’s not going to put a dent in her savings.”

  “I know that.” Raymond spoke sharply.

  Adele didn’t mind. He was fighting with himself, not with her. Johnny came into her life at the same time he came into Raymond’s life. She’d been the one who’d found him trudging up Ninth Avenue lugging a shoeshine kit at a time of night a boy his age shouldn’t have been on the street. It was a night she’d never forget; nor would she forget the tragic events that unfolded after that night. She loved Johnny as much as a mother would, though she’d never say that to anyone, not even Raymond. Johnny knew how much she loved him. That was all she needed, and to be with him often.

  Raymond was good about that. She was as much involved in Johnny’s life as Raymond was. Raymond and Lisa Young had their battles but things were peaceful now, a formal relationship. Lisa had won some battles—Johnny went to the tony private school that Lisa Young’s family had attended for generations. But the school was here in Manhattan, not a military academy upstate she proposed sending him to. Lisa Young was reasonable enough, and rich enough, that Raymond shouldn’t be so reluctant to ask her for help. As much as Adele respected and cared about Raymond—and maybe loved him—she wasn’t going to let his pride and his grumpy old-man stubbornness keep Johnny’s father from coming home to his son.

  After puttering around the Jayne Galloway collection for another few minutes, opening a notebook, glancing at it, and then glancing at him, she said, “Mrs. Young is going to be at a lunch in the library tomorrow—”

  Raymond spoke through clenched teeth. “I’ll try to catch her if I’m not too busy.” He buried his head in a file box. It was a clumsy hint to leave. She muttered something that might have sounded like “asshole” and stomped out.

  Late the next morning, Adele sat at her computer trying to concentrate. Persuading Raymond to ask Mrs. Young to help with Johnny’s father’s legal fees was a losing fight. At this very moment, Lisa Young was here in the building, and Raymond was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t like he’d be asking her to fund a prison break. Raymond’s son was the victim of an injustice. He was entitled to a new trial. A new trial would put things right. Or it wouldn’t. Adele didn’t know enough about law to make any guesses about the outcome. Still, it was worth a try for Johnny’s sake.

  A few minutes later, she found herself heading down the marble stairs from the main reading room to the first floor and the annual library lunch. The lunch should be over now and the library friends and the trustees would be milling around the Bartos Forum and the rotunda. If she just happened to run into Mrs. Young, she could reintroduce herself, tell her what a great job she and Raymond, the grandparents, were doing raising Johnny—and casually mention that Raymond planned to speak to her about some new, very positive developments in Johnny’s dad’s legal case.

  She’d never gone behind Raymond’s back like this before—well, hardly ever. He might be seriously angry with her for interfering. She’d never do something like this, except for Johnny. If she stopped to think about it, she’d probably wouldn’t do it at all. So she didn’t stop to think about it.

  And there was Lisa Young across the lobby. The woman really did have an otherworldly elegance, due no doubt to the clothes she wore, the simple floral print dress that would cost a month’s pay for Adele. As it happened, she didn’t need to agonize over her decision because Lisa Young recognized her.

  “Adele, isn’t it?” She held out her hand. “Johnny never stops talking about you.”

  “How nice.… I think.” Opportunity opened like a door in front of her. Or perhaps a precipice. “He speaks glowingly of you also.”

  She laughed. “I doubt it. I seem always to be reprimanding him.”

  “He’s a rambunctious kid. He needs to be reined in sometimes.” Here goes. Adele took a deep breath. “Has he told you the news about his father?”

  Lisa Young’s smile dropped. Her eyes went cold. “What about him?”

  Adele faltered. The woman’s expression was ghastly. She might have turned green, as if the mention of Johnny’s dad made her sick to her stomach. “Oh … It seems as if he might be eligible for a new trial.”

  Mrs. Young was at a loss for words. Well, not so much at a loss as a shocked disapproving silence.

  Adele watched the transformation with dread. Halfheartedly, she said, “It would be wonderful for Johnny if his father was released sooner than expected.…”

  Mrs. Young’s eyes widened. “How wonderful! To have a convicted murderer in the family. What great dinner party conversations.”

  Adele’s back went up. She didn’t care who she wa
s talking to. “He’s not a murderer. What happened was an accident. He loves Johnny. He wants to get out of prison so he can be with him. To raise his son.”

  “God help us.” Lisa Young shook her head as if to clear it; she looked like she might need smelling salts. “I’d put that man out of my mind I hoped for good. He was locked away. The man never had anything to do with his son in the first place. It’s as if Johnny didn’t have a father. If it hadn’t been for Johnny’s grandfather, I’d have demanded he relinquish his parental rights.” She’d become imperious. Adele saw now what Raymond meant by the rich pulling rank. “I should have put my foot down when Ray took the boy to the prison. What harm could it do, I thought. Hah!”

  Adele tried again. “Johnny loves his father—” the expression on Lisa Young’s face stopped her. The stone-like face said beyond a doubt that Lisa Young had no interest in anything Adele would say. It was a dismissal. There was no hope at all in asking for help with the legal costs. What would she tell Raymond?

  Chapter 22

  Ambler met Mike Cosgrove for lunch the day after McNulty’s arraignment at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, a favorite spot for Mike who considered himself something of a gourmet. Mike had learned French cooking and preferred French restaurants but made an exception for the Oyster Bar.

  Ambler had called Mike the night before, and Mike had called back this morning while Ambler was trying to make up his mind about talking to Lisa Young. Meeting Mike meant he didn’t have to make a decision.

  “I told you about Peter Esposito,” Mike said, as he poured a glass of Sancerre for each of them. “I wouldn’t say there’s enough to make him a suspect. There’s enough for me to want to know more about him. Nothing really on the others.” Cosgrove waved his notebook at Ambler. “Esposito kept calling her. Obsessed. She might have been afraid of him. She was afraid of someone.”

  McNulty had told Ambler that; McNulty didn’t tell Mike. “How do you know?”

  “The cop I spoke with.”

  “Cop?”

  Ambler sensed Mike’s discomfort. They disagreed on a good few things, but Mike only got defensive when Ambler criticized the police. He had his problems with his fellow workers in blue, especially some unpleasantness with the NYPD Intelligence Division. Yet he circled the wagons when criticism came from the outside, even from Ambler.

  Mike told him about his interview with Al Hoffman.

  Ambler spoke carefully but directly. “Maybe he’s a devoted family man, made a mistake, got carried away, repented, and moved on. That doesn’t work if he won’t let her go, even as he’s telling you he did let her go.”

  Mike looked at his chowder instead of Ambler. “I know what he said. I know what it sounds like. If he happened to be sharing a hotel room with her when she was murdered, I woulda pulled him in to talk to him some more.” He glanced quickly at Ambler and back at the chowder.

  “Okay.” Ambler said. “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s a cop. I don’t think you’d get very much. You asked me to do this. You don’t trust me now?” He drilled Ambler with his cop stare.

  Ambler accepted the rebuke. “She was afraid of someone. That’s what Hoffman said. That’s what McNulty said, too. That’s why he gave me the names in the journal.”

  “Maybe she was afraid of the bartender.”

  “She didn’t know him then.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ambler shrugged. “You might ask Officer Hoffman if she mentioned Dillard Wainwright. She might have reason to be afraid of him.”

  “Why?”

  “They were in contact. I don’t know why they’d be in contact.”

  “He’s in the missing persons database. In theory, he’s being looked for.”

  “Could she have been afraid of Ted Doyle?”

  Something sparked in Cosgrove’s eyes. “So she got a gun to protect herself from him? Maybe the bartender got it for her, so she shot Doyle or maybe the bartender shot him.” His expression was stern. “That’s a serious thought. I don’t know anything about Doyle, except his wife didn’t suspect him of playing around with other women.”

  “Probably Hoffman’s wife and Esposito’s wife didn’t suspect them either.”

  Cosgrove started to go after Ambler. Storm clouds rose in his eyes. But he pulled back. Sadness replaced the anger. “People stand to get hurt in this. Got hurt. Lots of disappointment, folks letting other folks down. You and I don’t get anywhere trying to outsmart each other.”

  The truth of what Mike said struck Ambler in a way he didn’t expect. He thought about Sandra’s husband Simon. How learning about his wife’s undertakings must be especially heartbreaking. He hadn’t told Mike about Sandra’s call to her husband that McNulty mentioned, so he did now.

  “I interviewed the husband with the Stamford cops—” Mike said and stopped. He didn’t say anything further, and Ambler didn’t ask because an interview like that was the kind of police business Mike didn’t talk about. Still, Ambler wondered if something came up that gave Mike pause.

  They’d finished lunch and sat at their cleared table over coffee. The lunch rush was over, the Saloon dining room empty, except for one other table, and bussers setting up the red-and-white checked tablecloth-covered tables for the evening rush. “It’s your turn to get the check,” Mike said.

  When Ambler returned to work, he found an embossed envelope on his desk, the kind of elegant stationery that might contain an invitation to a wedding, formal dinner, or some such thing. In the upper left corner was the name Mrs. Lisa Young and her address. The invitation was to a formal dinner, the text of the invitation in silver ink crossed out in black. Beneath the crossed out lines was a handwritten message: “Please contact my secretary and make an appointment to speak with me as soon as possible. I’ll come to your office.” She’d printed a phone number but not bothered to sign the note.

  Ambler read the note as short as it was a few times, sensing it was the harbinger of bad news. After a few moments, he called the number. The secretary was well prepared. “She can see you this afternoon after four.”

  He didn’t like that but saw no reason to put the appointment off, so he said, “Four is fine.”

  What was left of the afternoon, he spent skimming one of Jayne Galloway’s notebooks, with no idea what he was looking for, hoping something might jump out at him, the looming appointment with Lisa Young distracting him. Her note almost certainly had to do with Johnny but he couldn’t think of anything that had gone wrong lately. Maybe it would be a friendly visit and a chance to ask her about helping with his son’s legal expenses.

  Around three he heard a tentative knock on the reading room door. A second later, Adele opened the door and stepped in. She took some time to close the door behind her and then leaned against it as if she were trying to stay as far away from Ambler as possible. She looked stricken.

  “What’s the matter?” He rose from his seat and moved toward her. She shrank from him, pressing harder against the door. He stopped and moved back until he felt the reading table against him.

  “I’ve got to tell you something.”

  “Sure,” he said stupidly. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “I’ve done something awful,” she said in a whisper. “You’ll never forgive me.”

  He wanted to say, “Of course, I’ll forgive you.” Innate caution made him hesitate. He didn’t say anything. Could she have done something so awful he’d never forgive her?

  “I saw Mrs. Young—”

  “She’s on her way here.”

  “No!” Adele let out a wail and burst into tears.

  This time, he did go to her and put his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he said. “Whatever it is, it will be okay.”

  “You don’t understand,” she sputtered through her sobs. Finally, she took a breath and told him about talking to Lisa Young and Lisa Young’s reaction. “I ruined everything,” she said.

  Ambler had his arms around her while she talked. Her f
ace was close to his, and her misery provoked in him a powerful tenderness toward her. He pulled her tighter until her tears pressed against his face. After a moment, he lifted her chin and then kissed her full on the mouth. She opened her mouth and pushed against his, their mouths pressed against each other so hard and for so long it began to hurt, her teeth grated against his teeth, their mouths entwined until they pulled away from each other gasping.

  “I’m such a fool,” Adele said. “Oh Raymond…”

  His hand against the back of her head, he pulled her gently to his chest. “You’re the most wonderful woman on earth.…” He had to catch his breath. “I wanted to kiss you forever.”

  She laughed, as much a gasp or a choked cry. “If you do it like that, you can kiss me as long as you like.”

  The moment passed and as their senses returned they were shy around one another again. “It could easily have been me putting her off,” Ambler said. “Years ago, my father told me it was very difficult to separate rich people from their money.”

  Adele chuckled. “I should have approached her more carefully.” She looked at him with that guilelessness he found so attractive in her. “I thought she’d know it would be good for Johnny for his father to be with him.”

  “One would think that.” Ambler didn’t blame Adele for taking on Lisa Young. He really wouldn’t have handled it any better. At least, he didn’t have to put off any longer talking about his son’s legal expenses. Adele was right. It was for Johnny. Ambler wasn’t going to apologize for Adele and he wasn’t going to let Johnny’s grandmother off the hook. His resolve was building.

  He bumped his forehead against Adele’s. “You did fine. You softened her up. We aren’t done yet.”

  She leaned her face toward his. They kissed gently and again less gently. She laughed and danced away from him, blowing a kiss from the door.