Murder Off the Page

by Con Lehane

  He didn’t brace himself for Lisa Young’s visit, yet he was prepared for disagreement, for conflict. Over time, he’d found it worked best to give in to her on most things and make a stand when it was crucial. She was used to getting what she wanted and had resources to unleash when she didn’t. She or her husband might well socialize with the judge who sentenced John and attend fund-raising dinners with the DA in charge of the prosecution.

  Ambler couldn’t match what she and her family could do for Johnny. The school he went to was a pathway to the best colleges. She bought him clothes from stores Ambler read about in the papers. Johnny’s bedroom at the Young’s Central Park West apartment was bigger than Ambler’s apartment and had in it a big screen TV, an Xbox, and video games that boys Johnny’s age wanted. Johnny had watched the Yankees from the Young’s law firm’s corporate box and Rangers games from rinkside seats at the Garden. Now, the boy complained about Ambler’s nosebleed seats at Knicks games.

  So far, Johnny had navigated his two worlds pretty well, from the rent-stabilized walk-up in Murray Hill to the mansion on Central Park West. Still, Ambler treaded lightly. If he crossed Grandma Young, she’d come after him with another custody battle, turn loose her battalion of high-priced lawyers, and call in favors from whatever elected officials her husband and his white-shoe law firm had in their pockets.

  Lisa Young arrived a few minutes after four, greeting Ambler with a kind of easy charm, friendly and effortless, gracious but reserved. It was the type of friendly greeting she might use for the doorman or other subordinate who wasn’t involved in her life in an appreciable way. At least, she came alone. In the past, when it was just them talking they’d at times found a kind of sympathetic understanding of one another. Beneath the polished public persona who hobnobbed with the city’s elite and the crown heads of small European countries lurked a woman with some sensitivity. Ambler was one of only a few people who knew she’d once lived a very different life as an avant-garde poet and semi-notorious bohemian.

  “You spoke with Adele,” Ambler said as soon as she was seated across the library table from him. They’d shaken hands when she arrived, their only salutation when they met. He knew, from the very few social engagements he’d attended with her, that she usually favored a brief hug and peck-on-the-cheek greeting. For some reason, such a greeting never clicked for them. He brought up her conversation with Adele because if that was why she was there, he didn’t want to pretend she was there for some other purpose.

  “I’m not unsympathetic.” She nodded toward the door. “Perhaps you could leave work a little early and we could get a drink. I have an engagement at six, so it would need to be now.”

  He answered quickly. “I probably shouldn’t.”

  She would understand this as a rebuff. He was okay with Adele taking matters into her own hands; she did it because she loved Johnny. He wasn’t okay with Lisa Young’s disparaging his son. He and Lisa Young had never spoken about her daughter and his son. The two had never married. Lisa Young never met Ambler’s son John. She’d deserted her own daughter when Johnny’s mother was about Johnny’s age. Nor had Lisa Young known about or taken any responsibility for her grandson until after her daughter’s death.

  “Just as well.” She cleared her throat, a sign of anxiety unusual for her, yet looked steadily at him. “I understand there are extenuating circumstances surrounding your son’s incarceration.” She paused, expecting him to say something. He didn’t so she looked away. “It’s difficult for you to see my position. I doubt you will. All the same, I want you to understand what it is. My husband has strong beliefs about family, about heredity. It was difficult for him to accept a grandson who wasn’t his by blood.”

  Ambler wanted to say, “We’re not talking about a Thoroughbred.” Used to viewing herself and the wealthy around her as superior to everyone else, she wouldn’t know she was being insulting. Ambler had no interest in arguing, but his reaction to her arrogance must have shown in his expression because she seemed to reconsider what she’d said.

  “Arnold is a kind man. As you know, I have my own youthful indiscretions to be ashamed of. He’s done well in adjusting to Johnny. He’s quite fond of him and will grow fonder of him as time goes on.”

  She wasn’t saying what he’d expected her to say, so Ambler tried to make sure he heard what she said instead of what he thought she was going to say. What he hadn’t understood right away was that his son John coming back into the picture brought with him not only his prison pallor but his presence recalled Johnny’s humble beginnings, the wayward life of Lisa’s daughter, as well as Lisa’s own wayward past. He understood her position, yet what happened in the past did happen and most often wasn’t inclined to stay there.

  Ambler chose his words carefully. “I more or less understand your problem.”

  Her tone was firm. “Johnny’s father took no interest in the boy until you forced the issue. He’s in prison and likely to stay there. No purpose is served by dragging Johnny up there to see an absent father whose only interest is that the boy might help him get out of jail sooner.”

  Ambler’s heart stopped. A chill like cold rain soaked through him. The room darkened around them. He knew what was coming. He saw a battle in front of him and defeat looming over it. He felt like he was falling even though he was seated, so he clutched at the arms of his chair. He knew the expression she saw on his face was one of helplessness, a useless begging for mercy.

  She paused to stiffen her resolve. He could see it in the tightening of her face muscles. “I’m asking that you cease Johnny’s prison visits, at least for a few years until he’s older and less impressionable.” She held up her hand to stop what he would say, not sensing how far beyond him speech was. “I’ve spoken to my attorneys and I’m confident I’m on firm legal ground. I don’t want to take that route; litigious battles aren’t good for Johnny.”

  The timbre of her voice changed to something that she might think was sympathetic but to him reeked of condescension. “You and I have worked through disagreements in the past. I’m sure we can with this.” She spoke with a kind of “buck-up-old-chap,” cheerfulness, the tone a winner uses to a sucker who lost his paycheck in a poker game. “In a few years, with good behavior on your son’s part, Arnold and I might help with parole or a new trial.”

  Anger surged through Ambler, rose in his throat like bile. His thoughts blurred. His hands tightened into fists. He feared if she said another word, he’d smash her across the face and knock her and the chair she sat in into the hallway. “You’d better leave,” he said.

  Her eyes widened and she thrust herself out of her chair, reaching the door before she’d fully stood up. She straightened to her full height and left without another word.

  Chapter 23

  “Oh God, Raymond! You’re as white as a ghost. Was it as bad as I think?” Adele stood transfixed in the doorway.

  He told her about Lisa Young’s threat.

  She came in and sat down in the chair across from him, the chair Lisa Young had vacated. “She can’t do that. It would break Johnny’s heart to stop seeing his father.”

  “I guess it’s back to the courts.” Ambler’s voice wavered.

  “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have talked to her.”

  It wasn’t Adele’s fault. He told her that and she acted like she believed him. Despite that, she’d blame herself. Really, there wasn’t anyone to blame. This was how people like Lisa Young were. If they didn’t have control of something, they made some calls. She could always find something on him to take to the family court judge. Nothing stuck to her, despite the fact she’d deserted her own daughter.

  “We’ll figure something out.” Adele said before she left to go back to work. “She’s not going to do this to Johnny.”

  Adele was right. They would do something. He had no idea what, and whatever it was might not work. But if it didn’t work, they’d go down in flames together, he, Adele, and Johnny.

  As if things weren’t
bad enough, an hour later as Ambler got ready to leave for the day, Harry knocked on the crime fiction reading room door. This seldom happened and was never good news when it did happen, especially troubling when Harry looked at him sympathetically as he did now.

  “What?” Ambler asked.

  “I think as your supervisor I should be entitled to hazardous duty pay.”

  Ambler threw up his hands “How do you think I feel?”

  Harry nodded, the nod slight, barely perceptible, yet he kept nodding, the thought of whatever woe he was bringing to Ambler sticking with him that long.

  “Yes?”

  “Father Jerome, the priest in Connecticut, your emissary to Simon Dean, called.” He began his barely perceptible nod again. “Mr. Dean believes you’ve taken materials belonging to Jayne Galloway that you were not authorized to take.”

  “That’s not true.” Ambler told him the deed of gift from Galloway included all of her notebooks, including those she was continuing to work in. Those were to come to the library when she died.

  “I’m told you surreptitiously removed them from Mrs. Galloway’s house after her death when they’d become part of her estate and properly belonged to Carolyn Dean her heir.”

  “You were there when we arranged for me to go and get the materials.” Ambler told Harry about the trip to Jayne Galloway’s house with Simon Dean’s sister, Andrea. “Dean was preoccupied. Nothing underhanded, the notebooks and papers were part of the collection Jayne Galloway gave to the library.”

  “What would be the harm in letting Mr. Dean have the documents with the understanding he’ll return them when the estate is probated?”

  Ambler knew why he wanted to keep the notebooks. Something Jayne Galloway wrote in her journal might point to Sandra Dean’s killer. He didn’t know why Simon Dean was making a fuss. Simon Dean had not had anything to do with Jayne Galloway for years. And as far as he knew his wife hadn’t had anything to do with her mother either. Except Sandra Dean had gone to her mother’s house right before her death. But Simon wouldn’t know this. The police hadn’t released any information about Jayne Galloway’s death. The only reason for Simon to start a fight about the journals was to make things difficult for Ambler and thereby for McNulty.

  He tried to explain this to Harry. “Simon Dean is sure McNulty killed his wife and he thinks I’m trying create doubt and confusion about the murder so McNulty gets to go free. There’s no reason he’d want the journals except to make things difficult for me.”

  Harry pursed his lips. “It’s not in the library’s interest to have a dispute with a grieving man whose wife was murdered.”

  “The library has a legal right to the papers. He can sue us if he doesn’t think so.”

  Harry’s expression was sympathetic. “You’re wrong, Ray. The man lost his wife. I thought you’d be more understanding. Think over his request. We can talk in the morning.”

  That evening, Ambler and Johnny had just finished dinner when Mike Cosgrove called. Johnny was especially quiet this evening, answering questions about school and his day and anything else Ambler asked with mumbling, mostly monosyllabic, answers. It was as if Johnny had a premonition that something was wrong in his life. Ambler normally didn’t press him when he didn’t want to talk but the boy usually came around. This night, Ambler was hoping he didn’t come around, afraid where the conversation might lead.

  “Go watch TV in the bedroom,” he said after he answered the phone.

  “Why can’t I listen?” Johnny knew it was Mike on the phone and the call would be about McNulty. He’d been especially worried about his honorary uncle since the arrest.

  “I’ll tell you later. I’d like some privacy now.” This usually worked because Johnny saw it as a request, not a directive. He’d still try to listen through the door.

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” Mike said, “about what we talked about at lunch. You met Simon Dean a couple of times. What can you tell me about him?”

  Ambler was intrigued. This was the second time Mike brought up Simon Dean. They were silent for a moment. Ambler ran some thoughts through his mind, realizing as he did that he hadn’t formed much of an impression of Dean at all. After their first meeting he thought of Dean as a guy destined from birth to be conventional: a respectable professional job, in his case architect, a house in the suburbs, the house and the suburb for him on the upper end of upper middle class, a wife, a child. Dean probably played golf, drank California Chardonnay and Merlot. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Ambler liked him when they first met, a down-to-earth guy, few pretensions, now a man with trouble and sorrow, a wife he thought he knew but didn’t who was now dead leaving him a young daughter to raise.

  Ambler had never thought he himself was destined for the suburbs; at one point a long time ago, he, too, had a wife and child and had expected that to last, so much so he paid too little attention to the family he had and it got away from him. His wife was swallowed up by the nightlife; John, his son, left to fend for himself until something happened in a split second that altered his life forever and put him in prison.

  It was easy for Ambler to think Dean judged him too quickly and unfairly as he sought to prove McNulty innocent of Dean’s wife’s murder. But to be fair, Dean’s judgment was understandable also. So what he felt about Dean was mostly sympathy tinged with irritation for getting in the way of his investigation. He told Mike most of this. “Strange he should come up now.”

  “Not so strange for a husband to be questioned about his wife’s murder,” Cosgrove said. “You told me Sandra Dean talked to him after Ted Doyle was murdered. I take it that comes from the bartender. What did they talk about?”

  Ambler told him as best he remembered that the calls were about Sandra asking her husband to let her return home.

  “So the husband knew she’d done something he disapproved of or she would have just gone home. Did she tell him about the murder?”

  “He knew something about what his wife had been doing. I don’t know what. McNulty said she didn’t tell him about the murder. What are you looking for?”

  “Connecting dots. I want to establish where everyone was at the time of Ted Doyle’s murder. When I think about it now, I find a lot of holes. Sandra Dean was murdered before I’d even got my boots on to go after the Ted Doyle case.” He paused. “McNulty didn’t by any chance tell you where he was at the time of Doyle’s murder?”

  Ambler had to admit that he hadn’t. “I assume he was someplace else.”

  “Assuming that would get you an F on the homicide investigation final exam.”

  “I’ll ask him. Meanwhile, we have the jealous husband motive. You don’t have a suspect in your case. How about him?”

  “You’re wrong. I have a suspect. A jealous bartender.”

  Ambler didn’t argue. Instead, not sure why he did, he told Mike about his disagreement with Simon Dean over Jayne Galloway’s notebooks. “He’s not very cooperative.”

  “Why would he be? No reason for him to think you’re on his side.”

  “If he wants the truth about his wife’s death, I’m on his side.”

  “To be honest, Ray, I’m not sure what side you’re on. You’re too close to the suspect.”

  Ignoring the criticism, Ambler told Mike again about Dillard Wainwright and Sandra Dean exchanging email messages. “Simon Dean has Sandra’s laptop. The messages are likely on the laptop. I can’t get it from him. You could. Don’t you guys have ways to get into someone’s email even without the laptop?”

  “I don’t know what the department does with computers and I’m afraid to find out.” Ambler knew Mike well enough that he could hear him thinking. He waited until Mike said, “Dillard Wainwright is the one guy on the list I can’t find. What would Simon Dean know about him?”

  “That’s not what I said. I doubt Simon Dean would know anything about him. Sandra was exchanging emails with her mother’s ex-husband shortly before she was murdered. I want to know what that was about.�
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  “You make leaps I can’t follow. How do you know they were exchanging emails.”

  “McNulty.”

  Mike groaned or maybe it was a moan. “There’s a reliable source for you.”

  “Even if you only—”

  “Stop. I heard what you said. You’re confusing me now. I’ll get back to you.” He disconnected.

  Ambler had a lot to think about himself, so he sat for a while until Johnny interrupted his thoughts.

  “Are they going to let Uncle McNulty go?”

  “Not yet. We’re working on it.”

  Johnny took a moment to think over his response. “Are you sure you’re doing it right?”

  Ambler wasn’t at all sure he was doing it right. “I won’t know until I get an answer or find out there isn’t one.”

  “You’ll find an answer. It’s Uncle McNulty. You have to. Can I help?”

  “At the moment, you help by taking care of the dog when I can’t and understanding when you need to go to Adele’s or spend an extra day at your grandmother’s.”

  “Are you always going to be tracking down murderers?” Johnny’s voice was quieter than usual.

  The question surprised Ambler, compounding his worry that the detective work he did scared his grandson. “I don’t know. Would you like it if I didn’t do this anymore?”

  Johnny’s tone brightened. “No. Not that. I was thinking when my dad got out of prison he could help. You guys could become partners. And then when I grow up, I could be a partner, too. We could chase all the bad guys. And Adele, too.” He wrinkled his nose. “I mean we wouldn’t chase Adele. She’d help us chase bad guys.”

  Ambler laughed in spite of the dread he felt at the mention of Johnny’s dad. “That’s a good plan.”

  Later, Ambler stared at the bedroom ceiling long into the night battling the belief that he would never find the money to pay the attorney to appeal his son’s conviction. Worse, Lisa Young would sic her lawyers on him, and the family court judge would order him to stop taking Johnny to visit his father. With all this closing in, he was bound to make a mistake, miss something important about the murders, and end up watching McNulty go to prison, too.