“Let’s sit over in the corner so we’ll have some privacy,” suggested Peggy.
As soon as they were settled, a waitress came over to take their order.
“I’ll have a hot chocolate,” said Peggy.
“Make that two.”
“It’s the most divine drinking chocolate that you’ve ever tasted,” Peggy said nervously as the waitress walked away. Was she really gabbing about hot chocolate when she was about to discuss murder?
Chapter 49
One wall of the Sea Grill restaurant consisted of large plate-glass windows looking out at the skating rink. Skaters wearing colorful jackets and hats moved in a counterclockwise circle around the ice. Some held on to the railing for support. Some practiced exacting circles and spins. Most were just average skaters out for a couple of hours of fresh air and fun.
The cheerful apparel of the people on the ice, plus the multicolored flags of all the world’s nations, which waved in the breeze above the rink, provided a welcome and uplifting view after the dimness of the cathedral. For the private reception, the tables had been rearranged, mostly pushed closer to the sides of the room, leaving space for people to stand and mingle in the middle. Waiters served wine and passed finger foods to the ravenous guests who were gradually arriving from the funeral service.
After checking her coat, Piper headed straight for the ladies’ room. She found Glenna washing her hands at the trough sink.
“Glad that’s over.” Glenna sighed as she pushed the pump on the soap dispenser.
“Me, too,” said Piper. “I think Travis would have been happy with his sendoff.”
“Yeah, the priest did a good job,” agreed Glenna, “especially for someone who didn’t know Travis personally. Now I have to think of what I’m going to say for the toast.”
“Isn’t Quent doing that?” asked Piper.
“That was the plan,” said Glenna. “But Quent’s assistant just told me that he isn’t going to be coming after all.”
“Why?”
Glenna shrugged. “Apparently, he felt he had more important things to do.” She rolled her eyes.
“Like what?”
“Something about talking to the press people. You know Quent. Nothing is more important than publicity and our ratings.”
As she finished drying her hands, Piper changed the subject. “Is Casey here?”
“No. He had to get right back to school.”
Chapter 50
“There’s no point trying to deny it. You saw what you saw, Peggy.”
“But why?” asked Peggy, her face contorted in incredulity. “Why would someone like you ever do something like that?”
“People do things they normally wouldn’t when they’re desperate. Believe me, I’m not proud of what I did.”
Peggy observed the sagging shoulders, the downturned mouth, the anguished facial expression. She felt a twinge of pity.
“Go to the police yourself,” urged Peggy. “I don’t want to have to tell them. It will go easier for you if you surrender.”
“I have to get a good lawyer first.”
“All right,” said Peggy. “But you must do that right away.”
“You have my word. I will.”
Both were quiet as the waitress brought over the check and cleared away the hot-chocolate cups.
“You know, Peggy, I truly appreciate that you came to me before going to the police.”
“I didn’t want to be the one to ruin your life,” said Peggy, “at least not without giving you a chance to explain yourself or turn yourself in.”
“You didn’t ruin my life. I did that all by myself.”
They walked out of the café. Immediately in front of them were the attractive displays of the Home and Gifts Department. Baskets of painted hand-blown Christmas ornaments, tableware, perfume bottles, picture frames, vases, and all manner of house gifts were artfully arranged to tempt holiday buyers.
“You know what is bothering me the most right now?”
“What?” asked Peggy.
“My mother. She’s going to be devastated when she learns what I’ve done. I can’t even think about the Christmas she’ll have. I guess, before I do anything else, I have to break the news to her.”
Peggy nodded glumly. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
“You’ve got to stop apologizing, Peggy. It’s not your fault.” They both stopped at a display of desk accessories. “Maybe I could get something here. You know, to have a Christmas gift for her when I go over and tell her. What do you think?”
“I guess so.” Peggy shrugged. She thought of how shattered she would be if a child of hers had killed someone. She felt extremely sorry for the woman.
“Let me look at these. My mother loves anything with enamel.”
They picked over the shelves displaying small clocks, boxes, and animal figurines.
“How about this?”
Peggy looked at the enameled letter-opener. It was certainly beautiful, long and smooth and encrusted with crystals on the handle.
“It’s very pretty,” she said. “Does your mother need something like that?”
“I doubt that anyone really needs a three-hundred-dollar letter-opener, but she’ll think it’s beautiful and, hopefully, that will bring her pleasure. She can use it to open my letters from prison.”
Peggy smiled weakly at the attempted joke.
A blast of cold air hit them as they exited onto Forty-ninth Street. Peggy looked at her watch. There was probably still time to catch the end of the reception at the Sea Grill.
They walked together to the corner. Peggy held out her hand awkwardly. “All right then. Good luck. I’m trusting you to do what you said you would. Go to the police right away.”
“You should be hearing about it on the news tomorrow. I’m sure the police will be eager to let the press know they have their killer. Thank you, Peggy, for letting me handle it this way.”
“You’re welcome and I’ll pray for you,” said Peggy as the light changed. She crossed over Fifth Avenue on foot, leaving her companion to hail a cab.
Peggy continued on Forty-ninth Street, telling herself she had handled all of this correctly. What was the worst that could happen? If the killer didn’t go to the police immediately, she would.
I was right to offer a fellow human being the chance to do the right thing.
Still, something felt wrong.
Peggy jostled through the pedestrians walking hurriedly to their destinations. The elevator that led from the street level down to the Sea Grill was near the middle of the block. Peggy went into the glass-enclosed vestibule, pushed the button, and waited, watching out the window as a Zamboni systematically resurfaced the ice in the rink below. One of these days, she was going to get it together, rent some skates, and get out there herself.
Peggy was still facing the ice, wondering if she might still be able to do a spin, when she felt a gust of cold air. Someone had opened the door to the vestibule. She turned around.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, a quizzical expression on her face.
“There was something else we needed to settle.”
Just then, the elevator doors slid open.
“Get in. I’ll ride down with you.”
Peggy’s instincts told her not to get into the elevator, but she stepped inside anyway as the person she knew killed Travis York followed. It was only one quick floor down to the Sea Grill. What could happen in just a few seconds?
Before the doors closed, Peggy’s hands sprang to her neck as the enameled letter-opener, in one swift thrust, was shoved into her jugular vein.
Chapter 51
After about an hour at the reception, Piper was ready to leave. She had spoken to just about everyone. The only person she hadn’t had
a chance to talk with was Peggy, but she was nowhere to be found. Perhaps Peggy had been so upset by the funeral that she had decided not to come to the reception after all.
Knowing that she would be seeing all the same people on the set the following morning, and conscious that by leaving now she could avoid the rush-hour traffic out to New Jersey, Piper headed to the coat check. While she waited for her coat to be retrieved, Piper took a couple of dollars out of her wallet for a tip.
She buttoned her coat and smiled at the receptionist as she walked past the front desk, on her way to the elevator. Before she pushed the button, the doors opened on their own. Piper stood back, waiting for someone to get out. No one did.
As she started to make her way into the elevator, Piper saw that there was someone inside. She immediately recognized the white hair and the navy wool coat.
“Peggy!” cried Piper, rushing to her friend.
Peggy was slumped against the wall of the elevator car. Her eyes were closed, there was blood all over her face, and something shiny was sticking out of her neck.
“Call 911. Get an ambulance!” Piper screamed to the receptionist, but the elevator door had already closed again. She grabbed hold of Peggy to support her. Piper tried to think of what to do. What had she learned in all those first-aid classes that her father had insisted she take?
Piper could hear Vin’s voice. Stay calm, assess the situation.
It looked like a letter-opener protruding from Peggy’s neck. Blood was dripping from the sides of the wound. The jugular vein. If that had been cut, or a carotid artery hit, it still didn’t necessarily mean Peggy was going to die. If she got emergency treatment quickly enough, there was a chance she could make it.
But Piper wasn’t trained and didn’t have the equipment to suture the wound. Again, she thought of her father, suspecting he would have a suture kit in at least one of his various emergency-supply bags. She was never, ever going to roll her eyes at him again.
It took just seconds to go the one floor up to street level. The doors slid open. An older couple stood in the vestibule, waiting to go down. The pleasant expressions on their faces went slack as they saw what was inside the elevator.
“Please,” Piper pleaded. “Call 911. Right away.”
“We don’t have a cell phone,” the man sputtered as his wife clung to his arm and pulled him back.
Piper could see that she was going to have to let go of Peggy and get her BlackBerry out of her bag. She gingerly extricated herself, gently resting Peggy on the floor. Piper made the call, told the dispatcher the situation and where to come. While she kept the connection with the dispatcher open, Piper took off her coat and covered Peggy with it. They waited together for the EMTs to arrive.
Chapter 52
“Lombardi?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Come on up here. I want to talk to you.”
Jack got up from his desk, walked across the squad room and up the stairs to the office of the special agent in charge. Jack already knew the conversation would be about the ongoing data the Bureau was collecting on terrorist funding. Knowing where the terrorists were getting their money was critical in the efforts to fight them. But the network of criminal organizations, money launderers, and illegal drug traffickers who were aiding the terrorists was vast and complicated. While progress was being made in shutting down some of it, there was still a long way to go.
As his boss started to brief him on the new information, Jack forced himself to concentrate. Something else had been on his mind for the past few days. He didn’t like that he could have been wrong about the letter that Glenna Brooks had received. It bothered him even more that someone might have died because of his cavalier attitude.
Jack had been trying to remember the wording of the letter Piper had shown him. The only thing that struck a chord was the phrase from the old poem.
Casey at the bat.
Chapter 53
Piper took Peggy’s limp wrist and felt for a pulse. When she finally detected it, it was rapid and very weak. Her breath was shallow and her skin was cool and clammy.
Piper knew the signs of shock. She also knew that shock could be fatal.
Concentrating as intensely as she could, Piper remembered that it was important to elevate the shock victim’s legs, to make sure blood flowed to the organs and brain. She worried that by doing so she was going to make more blood flow to Peggy’s neck wound. But Piper was scared. If Peggy didn’t get blood to her brain, there could be neurological damage.
Piper stuffed her oversize bag under Peggy’s feet, but it didn’t seem to provide enough elevation. Piper took off her boots, folded them, and shoved them under the bag, gaining a few more inches.
“Peggy, Peggy,” Piper said gently as she leaned over the wounded woman. “It’s going to be all right. Help is on the way.”
Peggy’s eyes were wide open. Her pupils were dilated and she was staring into space.
Chapter 54
New Yorkers barely noticed an ambulance. While they might turn their heads at the sight of an emergency medical crew arriving at a scene of an accident, they didn’t stop and gawk. They kept going.
But sightseers did pause to watch the skaters on the ice rink below. Leaning against the railing made it easy to blend in with them and possible to at least partially see what was going on in the glass bubble that housed the Sea Grill elevator.
Two medical technicians were bent over, attending to someone who was out of viewing range but certain to be Peggy. The techs were spending a lot of time in there trying to save her life.
Please, let them fail.
If there had been more time to plan, the attack would have been better thought-out, more certain in its outcome. As it was, the idea had seemed to make sense. On television, in the movies, and in suspense novels, a stab in the jugular vein inevitably proved fatal.
What if the movies and books were wrong? And what if someone rushing along the sidewalk had witnessed the stabbing? Of course, that was a possibility, but it was doubtful. Peggy had been trapped, her body blocked from view. The letter opener was thrust in a nanosecond, Peggy’s eyes widening as the elevator doors slid shut.
There had been no other choice. The risk of Peggy telling anyone what she knew was too great. The chance had to be taken.
Eventually, the technicians rolled the stretcher out of the glass enclosure. The body was covered by a blanket, but not the pale face.
Peggy was still alive!
Chapter 55
It was dark outside when Piper left the hospital. She was exhausted and shaken. Though her parents’ car was still in the parking garage, and it would cost a small fortune to leave it there, she didn’t want to drive home, didn’t want her parents to see her like this. She hailed a cab and told the driver to take her downtown.
As she sat in the backseat, she called her parents to fill them in on what had happened, before they heard about it on the news.
No answer.
Piper turned off her BlackBerry. There was really only one person she wanted to talk to right now.
The taxi let Piper off at the Twenty-third Street entrance to Peter Cooper Village. Built to accommodate returning World War II veterans and their young families, Peter Cooper Village was within easy walking distance to Gramercy Park, the Flatiron district, and Union Square. Over the years, the apartment complex, nestled in a landscaped park, had housed many FBI agents. The apartments were spacious and the rents were reasonable.
She walked slowly to the closest brick building. In the lobby, Piper pushed Jack’s number on the intercom.
Please, let him be home.
“Who is it?” asked Jack’s voice mixed with a little static.
“It’s Piper.”
“I’ll buzz you in.”
When she got off the elevator, Jack’s ap
artment door was slightly ajar. Piper pushed it open.
“Jack?”
“Pipe?” The voice came from down the hall. “Come on in and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right there.”
Piper stood in the small dining area just inside the front door. She didn’t want to sit down, concerned that she might soil anything she touched. As she looked in the hall mirror and took in her disheveled appearance, she heard Jack’s footsteps coming toward her.
“Hey! This is a surprise,” said Jack as he entered. The smile on his face evaporated as soon as he saw she was covered in dried blood. “My God, Piper. What happened?”
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered. “It was so horrible.” For the first time since the ordeal began, Piper let herself cry as Jack held her in his arms and stroked her long blond hair.
Piper took a hot shower and changed into a pair of Jack’s sweatpants and a long-sleeved Quantico T-shirt. Coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair, she walked to the living room and curled up on the sofa.
Jack came in carrying two plates. He handed one to Piper. Then he sat next to her.
“Mmm, scrambled eggs,” said Piper, suddenly remembering how hungry she was. “One of my faves.”
She took a mouthful and chewed, slowly and deliberately, the way she would eat if she had been ill but was now coming out of it. Her body craved food, but she was very, very tired. The events of the day and the long cry on Jack’s shoulder were taking their toll.
“Ready to talk?” asked Jack.
Piper closed her eyes for a moment, images of blood and Peggy on the elevator floor coming to mind.
“It was terrible, Jack. But I don’t want to go over it again, at least not now. I just want to focus on Peggy. She has to come through this.”
“All right,” said Jack. “But tell me exactly what her condition is.”
Piper swallowed a bite of toast before answering. “They were able to perform surgery to repair the stab wound, but Peggy went into cardiac arrest on the operating table. They restored her heart rhythm, but they don’t know how much damage was done. The doctors are also worried about neurological problems because of the lack of oxygen to her brain. So they gave her drugs to put her into a coma, to give her heart and her brain a chance to rest.”
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