Murder Off the Page

by Con Lehane

Irritation flashed in Dean’s eyes, but he invited Cosgrove in. “I don’t like my daughter being exposed to this sort of thing.”

  “Saying I’m sorry doesn’t help much; I know. Still, I’m sorry to put you through this. I’ll be careful what I say. I’d like to know what your wife told you about the incident in the hotel.”

  Dean sat stiffly on the arm of an easy chair across from him. “She didn’t tell me anything about it.”

  Cosgrove found he was sitting stiffly himself, so he leaned back into the couch he sat on. “That’s strange. You did talk to her? You didn’t mention that the first time I saw you.”

  Dean shook his head. “She was gone a few days. I didn’t know where she was. When she called…” He paused, withdrawing into his memory. “She was confused when she called. I don’t remember when it was, how long before…” His voice trailed off. “She said she was sorry. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what she was sorry for. I told her to come home. Whatever it was, we’d work it out. I was angry. I wanted her to stop whining, come home, face up to whatever she’d done. I was too hard on her. If I’d known…”

  Cosgrove kept quiet. You got more from sympathetic listening than from asking questions.

  “It would be a long road back for us,” Dean said. “I thought with God’s help I would forgive her. Looking back, I realize she was hysterical on the phone. The bartender had his clutches into her, holding her against her will or tricking her in some way—the Stockholm syndrome. You know what that is: when the captive becomes dependent on the captor, thinks the captor is protecting them. I knew the bartender was bad news. I should have gone to get her. I was mad so I didn’t.” He glared at Cosgrove, bitter sorrow in his eyes. “Who wouldn’t be mad? Your wife—”

  “Excuse me. What do you mean you knew the bartender was bad news?”

  Dean hesitated, as if he didn’t mean to be talking about this. But now that he started, he came up with something Cosgrove would bet he hadn’t planned on bringing up. “Brian McNulty was involved in my wife’s life before he killed her. He corrupted her when she was a teenager.”

  Cosgrove didn’t want Dean to know that this was important news to him, at least not yet, so he tried to stay expressionless. He’d wait to ask why Dean didn’t say he knew the bartender when the question came up in the first interview. “Your wife had been in touch with him all along?”

  “Sandra hadn’t seen him for years.” Dean sat back in his chair for the first time. “I don’t like talking about my wife like this. She knew him when she was growing up. I don’t know the entire story. He was a bartender in her neighborhood. When she was a teenager, he served her underage, gave her drugs. She went to his apartment to smoke pot, drink. He was a degenerate who preyed on young girls.

  “Sandra was a wild teenager; reckless, self-destructive when she was young. It wasn’t her fault. She was all but abandoned by her family. Her mother deserted her. Her father ignored her. The bartender took advantage of her.

  “He encouraged her recklessness. Enabled her or whatever you call it. I don’t know everything that happened in her life then, only what she wanted to tell me. I tried not to imagine. She was ashamed, so I didn’t ask for details. The bartender took advantage of her, I’m sure, in every way possible.” Dean fixed his gaze on Cosgrove to make his point. “But something happened. She outgrew him. She got sick and ended up in the hospital. It was serious, an infection. She almost died. A doctor helped her, a woman doctor. It was kind of a miracle that she lived. God was on her side. And Sandra changed. She went to college and then to medical school. We met and married when she was in medical school. She became a mother, a wonderful mother, and a doctor.

  “At some point, I don’t know why, that depraved side of her came back. The bartender found her and brought her back to the debased life she’d left behind, reawakened the reckless, dangerous side of her. She went on trips. I thought the trips were to medical conferences or meetings. Now I know she went to the city to meet him.”

  “You had a lot to be angry at her about.”

  Dean stared at Cosgrove for a moment. “I did have a lot of anger. She betrayed me. She defied me.”

  “But you were going to let her back into your life. A lot of men finding this out about their wife would send her on her way, wouldn’t take her back.” Cosgrove watched for a reaction. Dean had motive, a reason he might want to kill his wife. No surprise. That motive had been there all along—the wronged husband killing the unfaithful wife. They used to say a jury would never convict a man for it. Still, lots of husbands betrayed by unfaithful wives and wives betrayed by unfaithful husbands don’t murder their errant spouses despite the motive.

  “I believe in the sanctity of marriage,” Dean said. “I knew it would be difficult to forgive her. But she had been a dutiful wife and she promised she could be again.”

  On the drive back to the city, Cosgrove went over the interview in his mind. Dean didn’t mention the phone calls from his wife the first time Cosgrove interviewed him. This time he did. The first time, he didn’t mention his wife had a history with McNulty either, although Cosgrove had asked about McNulty. In Cosgrove’s notes, Dean’s answer was, “He’s the bartender who killed my wife.”

  Often, you get a different answer in a second interview; that’s why you do them. The new information wasn’t so good for the case Ray was trying to make for the bartender. Cosgrove didn’t take any pleasure in proving Ray wrong about McNulty; the guy was Ray’s friend. Ray hadn’t told him McNulty had a past with the victim. If Ray knew, he should have told him. Cosgrove suspected Ray didn’t know. Not surprising McNulty would want to keep that to himself, not something to put on an employee-of-the-month application even for a bartender.

  He’d asked Dean if he knew Dillard Wainwright. Dean said he’d never heard of him. Dean didn’t want to hand over the laptop Ray was interested in either. He said it was an invasion of his wife’s privacy. Cosgrove could’ve pressed the issue, but he didn’t, and he didn’t tell Dean why he wanted the laptop. Ray wanted it to follow up on emails between Sandra Dean and Dillard Wainwright. Cosgrove had his own interest he didn’t tell Ray about. He wanted to see if there was any correspondence between her and Peter Esposito.

  Cosgrove felt sorry for Simon Dean who was yet to learn about the half dozen or so men his wife had been with in the months or years before she died. Yet something about the man bothered him. Dean wasn’t evasive; he’d opened up about more than you’d expect him to. Yet what he opened up about fit together almost too well. And “dutiful wife,” what the hell was that?

  Dean said his wife had a reckless side. You’d think that of the bartender, too. A nice enough guy, not mean, no nasty side to speak of. That wild streak was there though. You’d see it in his attitude. A guy who marched to his own tune.

  He called Ray and told him to meet him for a drink at this place on Third Avenue near Ray’s apartment. What he had to tell him wasn’t something he wanted to say over the phone. It wasn’t something he wanted to tell him face-to-face either. Yet it had to be done and Cosgrove, who wasn’t much of a drinker, figured it would go down better for both of them with a drink.

  Ray ordered a scotch and Cosgrove a beer. They faced each other in a booth across from the bar in the fading light of late afternoon. It wouldn’t be right to pussyfoot around, so Cosgrove didn’t.

  Ray took it like a man. You could see the surprise light up his eyes.

  Cosgrove asked anyway. “Did he tell you he had a past with Sandra Dean?”

  “No.” Ray threw back the scotch he’d been sipping. “Where’s this leave us?”

  Cosgrove lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t want to be the bartender.”

  “You’re going to forget the other suspects?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What if one of them turns up in her phone records right before she was killed?” Ray was a bulldog on things like this.

  “I didn’t say I was done. The Stamford investigators have her pho
ne. I’d like to know the last time she spoke with Peter Esposito, or Hoffman for that matter. I’m giving you a heads-up. I thought you should know your friend wasn’t as pure as the driven snow.”

  “Did you ask Simon Dean about the laptop?”

  “He didn’t want to let it go just yet.”

  “Wainwright?”

  “He never heard of him.”

  Cosgrove took a deep breath. In the past, if they were talking about a suspect and something like this—holding back important information—came up, Ray would know you confront the suspect with the information he’s withheld that he doesn’t know you know. Seeing his story fall apart in front of his eyes often pushed the suspect to tell the real story, to come out with the truth. Yet Ray didn’t propose doing that. “Do you want to ask McNulty about the lapses in his story or do you want me to?” Cosgrove waited.

  “I’d like to hear his side of the story,” Ray said after a long moment. He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t think you can call this inquiry over until one of us has spoken with Dillard Wainwright.”

  Cosgrove hadn’t forgotten about Wainwright or Esposito. But Ray was barreling on about emails and something he found in one of the collections in his library. “Plagiarism is a big deal,” Ray said. “It would cost Wainwright his career, his reputation.”

  Cosgrove nodded. He wasn’t sure about plagiarism but a ruined reputation was something. It was a motive, and motive was in short supply in this case. This gnawed at him. All along, he hadn’t felt great about how the case unfolded. Sometimes in the past, he’d started off on the wrong foot, begun with a faulty assumption. You can do everything right in an investigation, but if you start off wrong you won’t get to the right conclusion. Getting it right was finding the connections. When you knew how people connected to one another and what someone got out of the murder—money, revenge, safety, freedom—you could narrow in on who.

  “I don’t have the faith in the bartender that you do,” Cosgrove said. “I’d be okay if I found the solid piece of evidence that nails McNulty. I could take a couple of days off and find an apartment. Everything points to him. Except I don’t have that one piece—a gun, a motive, a witness‚ but most of all a clear motive. The problem was I barely got started on the first murder before the second one happened, so I let that one tell me about the first one.” He stood, feeling a new determination. “I put the horse before the cart so now I’m going back to the beginning.”

  Ray stood also. “It’s ‘the cart before the horse.’ The horse is supposed to go before the cart. ‘You put the cart before the horse.’”

  Cosgrove scowled. “Why would you put a cart before a horse?”

  They left the bar together and stood on the sidewalk in front of the bar watching the traffic, mostly yellow cabs and trucks, jostling for position as they swarmed uptown. “I’m going to stop at the precinct and take a look at the murder book for the Doyle killing. Maybe I’ll find something I missed. What’s up with you?”

  Ray wasn’t a smiley faced guy at the best of times. Today he was more hangdog than usual. “Everything I need to do—my son’s appeal, McNulty’s bail—requires money. I think I’ll rob a bank.”

  “That’s where the money is.” Cosgrove chuckled.

  Chapter 27

  Not long after Ambler got home after talking with Mike, Denise Cosgrove dropped Johnny off. She didn’t want to stay and practically shoved Johnny through the door. “Here. You can have him.”

  “What’s wrong?” Ambler caught the door before she could close it.

  “Ask him. He’s been a shithead to me all the way home.” She paused and cast a sympathetic, sisterly glance at Johnny. “He got in trouble at school today. You have to call the headmaster.”

  Johnny hurried back to the bedroom and attempted to bury himself in his schoolwork.

  Ambler followed him. “What’s up?” The dog had jumped up and nestled in beside him on his bed.

  Johnny groused and mumbled, repeating the word ‘nothing’ after each of Ambler’s questions. Eventually, with fits and starts and long silences, the story came out. He’d been in a fight at school. This was a first.

  “It wasn’t nothin’ just pushing and shoving, me and Jeff, not even a fight. Everyone freaked out, even though we were over it afterward. It didn’t mean anything.… I sort of started it. I pushed him but I didn’t really mean it. We’re friends.”

  The tony Upper East Side liberal private school wasn’t the place for schoolyard fights. That one of the combatants was black set off alarms among the administration of a looming race war. But Ambler wasn’t especially worried. The kid Johnny fought with was a sweet, quiet boy who never stopped smiling. He and Johnny were almost exactly the same size and inseparable at school, both good soccer players who could run like hares. Ambler wasn’t prone to lecturing, so he didn’t. Something else was behind what happened, and he was afraid he knew what it was. Johnny had been his usual upbeat self when Ambler dropped him off at school the previous morning. He hadn’t seen him since then because he’d spent last night at his grandmother’s.

  “If that’s everything, I think we’re okay. I’ll call the headmaster. Should I call Jeff’s mother?”

  “She’ll probably call you. She has to call the headmaster, too. She really doesn’t like it when Jeff gets in trouble.”

  Jeff’s mom, an attorney and a single mother, ran a tight ship. He liked her and she liked Johnny as a friend for Jeff, despite Johnny’s somewhat shady background, which brought Ambler to where he thought the problem lay. “How did things go at your grandmother’s this week?”

  Johnny stiffened. “Okay, I guess.” He stuck his nose in his history book.

  Ambler waited, fighting off the urge to prod the boy. He sat down on the side of the bed.

  Johnny’s tears started before his words came. Ambler wanted to reach for him, to hug him, but held back. “She said I couldn’t visit Dad anymore.… She wasn’t going to let me.” He looked up with tear-stained cheeks. “What’s the matter with her?… I hate her. I’m not going there anymore.”

  Ambler’s chest tightened. His own eyes teared. He was the grown-up; he was supposed to have the answers. This time he didn’t. He didn’t know what to do and he didn’t know what to say, as much at a loss as Johnny was. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” It was the truth, even if it wasn’t any help. He wished Adele was there. She comforted Johnny in ways he wished he could. Johnny knew she was on his side no matter what. More often than Ambler would have expected, he found himself lined up against the two of them.

  He left Johnny to his tears and went into the other room to call her. When he told her what happened, something she’d been expecting, too, she said she’d pick up dinner and come over. He told himself Johnny’s father wouldn’t be taken away from him no matter what Lisa Young did. He’d take Johnny to see his father, Lisa Young and court orders be damned. What could they do to him? They could take Johnny away from him is what they could do. His chest tightened, this time with anxiety.

  He went back into the room. Johnny lay on the bed next to the dog stroking his coat. “Adele’s coming over and bringing dinner. Wanna take a walk with Lola while we wait?”

  Lola was a great city dog. She was fine with going for walks. She quite enjoyed them and took an interest in her surroundings, mostly the scents. Yet she didn’t insist on walking; she was willing to wait for someone to get around to taking her. Once underway, she’d head whatever way the person at the other end of the leash wanted to go. She didn’t yank the leash, and when she did stop to sniff either end of the dogs she came across in her travels, she did so without getting especially excited about it and didn’t yap at them. The only times she sprang into action and had to be wrestled back was when she saw a cat. This didn’t happen often. Both Ambler and Johnny had learned to spot the cat before she did and take evasive action.

  The walk was usually around the block, sometimes an extra block or two up or down Lexington or Third before turn
ing. Once in a while, the walk was over to the river. More often, it was in the other direction to Madison Square Park and the dog run. This was Lola’s favorite. She came to life in an entirely new way. Back among her own folks, she could be herself, running and jumping and wrestling and racing, hanging with the pack. That is where they went this evening. Leaning against the fence watching Lola cavort, Ambler relaxed. He and Johnny hadn’t spoken on the way over. Johnny held Lola on the leash and Ambler walked beside him. Now, here, leaning on the fence, he put his arm around his grandson’s shoulder, and the boy leaned against him.

  “Your grandmother isn’t doing this to be mean. In her own way, she’s trying to do what’s best for you. She doesn’t understand—”

  “I don’t care. She’s a old asshole!”

  Ambler stepped back, his voice rising. “You can’t talk like that. She’s—”

  Johnny stepped back from him, too. “I can, too. I’m not going back there. I don’t care what you say either.” His voice broke and the tears came.

  This was no time to try to discipline him. For one of the few times since Johnny came into his life, Ambler felt he couldn’t control his grandson, and it scared him; despite his utter dependence in most things, Johnny really was an independent entity.

  “I’m on your side, Johnny.” Ambler said simply. “Your dad’s my son. Fathers care for sons like sons care for fathers. I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know what to do. But we’ll figure it out.”

  Johnny brightened slightly. From wherever he got it, the kid had an invincible optimism. “Adele will know what to do.” He called Lola, whose ears went up as she cocked her head and turned to him. “C’mon, girl.” She trotted over. Ambler raised his eyebrows. She didn’t come when he called her.

  Adele was waiting in the doorway with a bag of Chinese food when they got back. Upstairs, he and Adele dished the food onto plates while Johnny fed Lola. He told her what Johnny said in the park. Adele stopped scooping and turned on him. “She’s trying to take his father away from him, the father he’s given his heart and soul to.” She glared at Ambler like Johnny had done in the park. “She is an old asshole.”