by Ben Sanders
Miles said, “You think it’s going to stay in the corner of your eye, not jump out in front of you.”
She nodded and turned the radio off. The sudden quiet felt obvious and solemn, like there was a mood to fix.
She said, “Can I ask you a question? Might seem kind of weird.” Still sounding nonchalant about it, though.
Miles said, “All right.”
Lucy said, “If you had to die, how would you want to do it?”
Miles said, “If I had to?”
“Yeah, like. You got some brutal illness and there’s no way out.”
“I like to think I’d carry on anyway.”
“No, well.” She waved a hand elaborately. “Just say you’ve decided. You don’t want to carry on anymore.”
He thought about it for a few hundred yards and said, “Probably gunshot.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Follow the approved method, I guess they give you drugs and you fade out. But I wouldn’t want to be dozing off and think, Maybe I should’ve waited longer.”
“Whereas you pull the trigger and it’s done?”
He saw Jack Deen dead by gunshot, Jack Deen bleeding on her living-room floor. He remembered going cold, thinking how hard this would be to fix …
He blinked out of it and nodded. “Less chance that ‘oh shit’ is your last thought, I guess.”
Lucy said, “Leave that for someone else, right?”
THIRTEEN
KINGS POINT, NY
Miles Keller
The Covey place had a big turnout. Miles saw Kings Point PD cars, state and Nassau County police cruisers, a couple of unmarked detective vehicles, and news vans from three different networks.
Lucy said, “You get a showing like this at every murder?”
Miles said, “Depends who’s killed. Good zip codes get better news coverage.”
He pulled over a block from the Covey place. No rubberneckers at the crime-scene tape, but there were a few people watching from their front yards. Kings Point had a more refined class of voyeur. He noticed that Rhys’s car was no longer out front.
Miles checked his pockets: cash and his hotel keycard, and another T-Mobile burner phone from DeSean’s collection. He said, “You okay to wait here?”
She nodded. “Brought my own oxygen, don’t even need the window down.” She pointed up the street. “Used to do escort duty when I worked for Manny, few times I went out with these guys, they’d end up in some shithole in the Bronx or Harlem. Never knew what they did, always made me wait in the car. Used to sit there thinking they might not come back, get a free vehicle out of it.”
Miles said, “I’m coming back, I promise.”
He could see a cop heading over, Kings Point PD, the guy looking set for the recruitment brochure cover-shoot: clean cut and squared away, clenched jaw showing firmness and determination. Miles lowered his window and the officer stepped up and gave a stiff little nod.
“Sir. Ma’am. Can I help you?” Trying to move them on.
Miles said, “Miles Keller, NYPD. I’m meeting Tom Miciak.”
The cop told him to wait in the car and headed back toward the house, brisk walk, exemplary posture. Lucy said, “Probably thinks you’re talking shit—no way is this guy law: hasn’t shaved in six weeks, driving some gangbanger SUV. Gas-mask lady riding shotgun.”
Miles didn’t answer. He could see Miciak in plain clothes standing by an unmarked car, the officer approaching him and then turning to point out Miles in the SUV. Miciak lit a cigarette as he started over. He was a fat man in his midforties, blond hair side-combed in wisps over a baby-pink skull, a blue polo shirt tucked into gray golf pants.
Lucy said, “You’re more like a cop than this guy: looks like he’s just played nine holes.” Then: “Who was that Canadian mayor who liked cocaine?”
Miles said, “Rob Ford.” He opened his door. “Back soon.”
Miciak had a big stomach that gave him a big walk, arms at a slight angle from his body to prevent contact on the swing. He held out a hand for Miles and put the cigarette to his lips with the other, leaked smoke as he said, “Keller, how you doing?”
Miles said, “I’m all right. Who found them?”
They headed for the house, Miciak working hard on the cigarette, getting his money’s worth before he was back on-scene. He said, “Lady across the street heard a gunshot about four A.M., went over and checked it out.”
“She not heard of nine-one-one?”
“Yeah, exactly. I asked her that, said she thought it might’ve been a car or something. Nipped over in her slippers, saw a dead guy in the entry hall.”
A news anchor with a cameraman in tow approached for comment, but Miciak kept walking, let the mike bump off his shoulder. A trooper lifted the crime-scene tape and they stepped under.
Miles said, “I better take a look before it’s world news.”
Miciak stopped then, put the back of a hand on Miles’s arm to pull him up as well. He said, “I hope you appreciate I’m doing you a big fucking favor. State Police’s got BCI people coming down, they don’t want anyone going in other than their forensic guys.”
Miles said, “But you want to piss them off just a little bit, right? Otherwise they start thinking they can tell you what to do.”
Miciak deadpanned him. “Heavens, no. But I went to a conference last month, all about interagency communication, fostering strong links, so I guess this is a good opportunity to give it a go, build some mutual trust between me and NYPD.” He paused and looked at the house, seemed pained as he said, “Shit, I was meant to be playing nine holes with my brother-in-law. We get out there early, right? No one around, fucking perfect, I’m literally standing to tee off, club-to-ball”—he acted it out so Miles got the picture—“and my phone goes.”
“Nice.” He followed Miciak to his unmarked, watched him stub out the cigarette on the roof, reach in the window to drop the butt in the center console.
Miciak said, “Anyway. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
Miles just nodded. The garage door was open, and he saw Rhys’s Range Rover parked up beside Covey’s sedan. He almost mentioned it—wondered aloud why it had been moved—and then went cold as he caught himself.
Act like you’ve never been here.
Miciak saw something in his face and smiled. “You okay? No one’s making you go in. Fresh air’s real nice, believe me.”
“No, I’m fine. Let’s just do it.”
There was a forensics tent set up on the driveway, and he had to sign the attendance log to gain admission. He knew it was a risk, putting his name on the form. It was just more evidence of a visit he should not have made. But he had to know what happened, and he’d probably been broadcast on TV anyway. So he signed on the line, and hoped that piece of paper would pass its days in a never-opened file, and wouldn’t constitute the eureka moment for someone out to get him.
He and Miciak donned disposable protective gear—gloves and overshoes and boiler suits—and then like a hostage parody they walked single-file with hands raised between the cars and into the house, Miciak leading.
He could hear the TV in the guest living room, and from the open door he saw CNN still playing. The furniture was unchanged, and for a second he saw their ghosts all sitting there, Miles in the armchair with his gun, telling them everything would be fine, provided he got his money.
A forensic tech was scouring the floor with a black light, and he stood and watched for a moment as Miciak moved on. It was impossible he’d left no trace: clothing fibers, microscopic flakes of skin, maybe even hair. It was already enough to cost him sleep, make him wonder what he’d missed, but one day science would reveal truth at the outset. He couldn’t stand so close to something that had gone so wrong and pretend he hadn’t been there. This kind of deceit had a finite life span.
Up ahead of him, Miciak said, “Here’s your first one. Be my guest, but I don’t need another close-up.”
He stood against the wall and
let Miles move past him to the entry hall. There was blood on the floor by the front door, and a body-shaped mound beneath a white sheet. A forensic tech in a boiler suit was dusting a side table for prints. It was like a dream vision, a glimpse of the cold and loveless future—horror covered up for the sake of sterile order.
Miles stood back, trying to grasp it all at once, wanting the context and the story. He saw the front door standing closed and the chain hanging from its sliding bracket on the frame. It had torn free of the door and left a spiky divot in the timber, clean of lacquer. He lifted the sheet by one corner and saw Edward Rhys on his side, eyes and mouth open and two bullet holes in his chest.
Miciak said, “This is the Rhys guy. Ran his details, he works for a place called Hayman Coates—private security. Called them up, they’ve never heard of anyone called Covey. So he’s either moonlighting or doing favors.”
Miles said, “What are these, forty-fives?”
“Yeah, through-and-through.” He pointed at the wall opposite the door, a pair of tidy holes in the gypsum board. “Haven’t found the rounds yet, but they must be hard-nose to be that clean.” He kept moving along the hall and Miles heard him say, “Got the second one here. This is the lawyer. Same again, through-and-through. One in the guts, another one through the chest.”
“You got any brass?”
“Nah, casings are gone.”
Miles stepped into the hallway again and found Miciak crouched by a shape on the floor. “You want a look?”
Miles said, “No, I think I’m good.”
“Yeah, fair enough. Jesus.”
Miciak’s knees clicked as he stood. He’d looked okay outside, but he’d lost some color, started to pop a sweat. He said, “Shit, I haven’t worked a scene like this in years. BPD, I did fucking fraud, and then missing persons.”
“Don’t faint on me.”
“No, no, it’s just … you know. I’m cool. The wife’s in the bedroom. We’ll make it fast, I need some air.”
There was artwork on the floor heading up the stairs—paintings in mangled frames, a photograph of Lane and Marilyn, obscured by cracked glass. He could sell it to the news crews. They’d love the symbolism.
He followed Miciak past more forensic staff—hunched and fastidious in their dusting—and then through the upstairs hallway to the master bedroom. Marilyn Covey was on the ground beneath a sheet on bloodied carpet, and beside her was the open door of the walk-in closet, in which stood an empty, three-foot-high safe.
Miciak stood over it, looking more judgmental than curious with his hands on his hips. He said, “That tells you a bit doesn’t it?”
Miles didn’t answer. He’d seen it before, via Marilyn’s video call when she collected his money. That would be a good paradox for someone: the two-minute call between Marilyn and Edward Rhys, with their phones in the same location. Maybe they’d write it off as an accidental dial.
Miciak said, “She’s got a close-range head shot, just beside the ear. Obviously fought him coming up the stairs—figure he was hanging on pretty tight, maybe shoved her away once the safe was open, kind of got her side-on as she was falling, you know?”
He mimed the shot to test his theory, and in his mind Miles saw the lead-up: Marilyn in a choke hold, tripping and falling in a half-turn as she was shoved away, and then the bang to finish it.
He stepped to the body and knelt and lifted the sheet, got the same look Edward Rhys had given him: open eyes and mouth, but Marilyn had a bullet wound below her temple. It had leaked a crimson rivulet across her cheek and nose, another down the line of her jaw.
Miciak was looking at the ceiling, breathing very carefully. He said, “They hadn’t gone to bed—you notice that? Four A.M., no PJs, bed’s still made? They must’ve known something was happening.”
“Yeah. And why else would you have security.”
“Well, exactly.”
“Anyone see a getaway?”
Miciak shook his head, seemed to study the light fixtures, his face very glossy. “Not so far. But we’re still canvassing.”
Miles said, “Killer must’ve known where the safe was. Had to be a fast job with all the noise, five shots like that. And he knew it was high-risk, because he would’ve seen the lights on, but he thought it was worth it anyway.”
Miciak stood at the window, a ladder of soft light bent across him from the closed blinds. He said, “Might’ve had a key—opens the front door, Rhys hears the chain, guy panics and kicks it open.”
“Why would he have a key?”
“Because they know him.”
Miles said, “If he knew them, he would’ve played it smoother, got them all in one room before he started firing.”
“Or maybe he picked the lock, didn’t realize they had the chain on. He knew what he was doing though—I mean, how often you see that: multiple homicide, and every shot’s made contact?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“And it’s not flashy, either, you know? It’s just competent. It’s not like a statement killing where they leave them hog-tied in the woods or something.”
Miles said, “Must’ve been silenced too, or he would’ve woken the whole street.”
“Probably did wake them up, but only the lady was brave enough to come look.”
Miles stepped back to the door, tried to get that glimpse again of how it unfolded. He wanted to know if Marilyn had closed the safe when he sent her upstairs, but he couldn’t recall. He’d had to take his eyes off the video. Maybe it had stood open since he left.
Miciak said, “You still with me?”
He couldn’t speculate about the safe being open: why would he even think that? It was too obscure and unlikely, unless you’d happened to be here—
Miles said, “I think there were two of them. She would’ve been fighting pretty hard, so why would he pull her over here to open the safe, and then take her all the way back there again for a headshot? I think someone held her, and someone else opened it.”
Miciak had made a gap in the blinds, didn’t seem too happy with the world as he saw it. He said, “What I want to know: was this what they were staying up for, and it all went wrong, or had it already happened, and this is something else?”
Miles didn’t answer. He figured reticence was safest. He didn’t want good theories looking like inside knowledge.
He said, “Thanks for the walk-through.”
Miciak still had his fingers in the blinds. He said, “Here we go: BCI’s showed up. You want to hang around for the shit fight?”
“Tempting.”
He headed back downstairs, trying not to tread on broken glass. Behind him he heard Miciak saying, “That guy you talked to when you showed up, he only started two weeks ago—did fifteen years in South Central L.A., thought he’d come up here for a change of pace, catches this shit straightaway. He’s funny though, got this habit of looking in the distance, saying deep and meaningful things—he rolls up here, checks it out, comes outside and sorta squints at the horizon and goes, ‘Well. Never let it be said that darkness isn’t everywhere.’” He chuckled. “Reckon he said it in the mirror a few times before he got here.”
Miles headed through to the garage and then outside to the tent, saw that more cars had shown up: three unmarked sedans that must be the State Police’s BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and an SUV marked HAYMAN COATES, parked over to his right. A silver Cadillac sedan had pulled up on the cross street opposite, facing the house, and he figured it must be more Hayman Coates royalty.
He was taking off the boiler suit as two guys climbed out of one of the BCI cars and started up the driveway toward him. They looked about right for murder police: midfifties with dull suits and ties, mustaches as square and careful as redaction marks, like their top lips were classified. Forensic staff, sexless in their crime-scene gear, parted to let them through, and the detective on the left called, “What do you think we mean by close the scene?”
Miles pulled his coat back on and ign
ored the guy, let Miciak launch a speech about this still being his jurisdiction, that BCI was welcome to make recommendations, but they had to recognize where the authority lay …
Miles stayed out of it.
He wasn’t even meant to be here. There was no sense in being memorable, notwithstanding the fact he’d probably been caught on film. He saw, though, that two of the news vans had already moved on—gone in search of better bad things, presumably.
He walked down the driveway and heard someone crying as he reached the tape, looked over to see a woman in tears, totally distraught, beside the HAYMAN COATES SUV. He realized it must be Edward Rhys’s wife. A state trooper was trying to comfort and restrain her simultaneously, an arm around her midriff, with the woman bent almost double trying to break free, sobbing that she just needed to see him, needed to see him. Two more state-police radio cars pulled up behind the SUV, lights flashing, and Miles guessed they must have followed her after giving her the news.
The TV crew had twigged that patience had been worth it, and the anchor was heading over at a jog, microphone thrust forth and the cameraman tugged along by cables, squinting at his viewfinder for the money shot.
Miles stood transfixed, seeing the wreckage of what he’d set in motion. He blinked and tried to block it out. He couldn’t be part of it. Guilt would mean inaction, and that would just be added cost later: yet more guilt for failing to fix something when he had the chance. All he could do was try and find who did it. With a bit of luck, he had years ahead to agonize, grind through all the what-ifs and lists of who deserved it and who didn’t.
He turned away and headed back for Lucy and the SUV, smiled as he saw her wave to him through the windshield, her simple act lifting the weight of the dead, if only for a second. He crossed the street, and in his periphery across the intersection, he saw a guy climb into the driver’s seat of the silver Cadillac. He was fortyish and bald, but he’d changed his tracksuit—blue now, instead of the red one from last night, when he visited the Coveys.
