Silent City: A Claire Codella Mystery

by Carrie Smith

  “Where’s Muñoz?”

  “At the Mandarin. Keeping tabs on Margery Barton’s boy toy. Where have you been?”

  “All over,” she said. “I even got over to Fairway.”

  “Suddenly had an urge to buy some groceries?”

  “No, but Christine Donohue did.” The wind was blowing at her back, pushing her toward him. She held her ground and zipped her jacket. “And she knows who took that photo of Sanchez and Drew.”

  “Who?”

  “She’s not telling.”

  “You want me to pick her up and get her in an interview room?”

  “Not yet. There’s more. Dana Drew’s lover, Jane Martin? She’s the one in the bulky jacket standing in the corner laundromat.”

  “Jesus! You’ve been busy.”

  “It’s cold as hell out here.” She stuck her hands in her pockets. “I’m going in there. I’ll give Muñoz a call.”

  “Don’t bother,” Haggerty said. “I spoke to him ten minutes ago. Dressler hasn’t left the hotel. Walk with me. I’ll buy you a latté.”

  “I gave up coffee after the hospital.”

  “How about some dinner? There’s a vegan place on Amsterdam. I’ve never been in there but I pass it all the time and it’s always crowded.”

  She frowned. “You’re serious? You’re going to eat at a vegan restaurant?”

  He smiled. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  She stared at him warily. Anything but visit me in the hospital, she thought. The sky was a heavy charcoal mass pressing down on her, making it suddenly difficult to breathe. She turned her eyes toward the curb illuminated by warm light from the street lamps. Pale yellow gingko leaves had fallen to the ground all over the block, and the crushed, overripened gingko fruit smelled like rotten eggs.

  “I’d do anything to take back how I acted that night, Claire,” he finally said. “I fucked up everything for us.”

  Her eyes moved from the street to the sidewalk and settled on a piece of chewing gum ground into the concrete in front of her boots like an unsightly mole, a melanoma. She shrugged. “You were an asshole—a big one—and yeah, I was so angry, I took a promotion just to put some distance between us. But don’t worry. I’m not angry about that anymore. I forgot all about it the day of my diagnosis. I had bigger issues to think about. So if it makes you feel better, I forgive you. It’s over. It’s the past. You should let it go.” She finally worked up the courage to look him in the eye, just for a moment. “I’m going in now. I’ve got a couple of calls to make.”

  She took a step, but he touched her sleeve. “Wait. There’s something else. I can feel it. Tell me.”

  She closed her eyes. She felt her resistance breaking apart like the fragile crust of ice that occasionally covered the Hudson River during winter. It wasn’t hard or thick enough to contain the strong current of emotions below it. “I need to go,” she said.

  But he grabbed her wrist. “No. You need to tell me whatever you’re not telling me.”

  And then she couldn’t hold it back. “You didn’t come to me once in all those months, Brian. You let me go through all that by myself.” She stepped back from him. Her eyes were blurry with tears. She wiped at them with the sleeve of her jacket. “Shit! You want to know the truth? Fine. You were the only one I would have wanted to see, and you didn’t come.”

  “I did come,” he said quietly. “But I should have come sooner. I came to see you at three PM on July 12th. You were in bed 602-B. I brought you flowers. What an idiot I was. I didn’t know chemo patients can’t be around flowers. You were standing next to the bed screaming for morphine, and I stood outside your door for fifteen minutes listening to you in pain until they finally got your drugs and gave you the injection and you fell asleep in the bed.”

  She looked at him. Now his eyes were glistening with tears that reflected the streetlight. “I was a coward, Claire. I convinced myself you wouldn’t want me to see you like that, that it would only make you more angry at me, but the truth is I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t ready for what I saw. You were holding on with everything you had, and I was standing there falling apart, and I couldn’t let you see me like that. I’m so sorry, Claire. I would be so different if we had it to do all over again.”

  “No thanks.” She wiped her eyes again and laughed. “I don’t want any do-over. You got that?”

  He pulled her into an embrace. She closed her eyes. She felt his stubbled jaw against her cheek. With her nose against his shoulder, she could smell cigarettes and soap. He kissed the top of her head. And then she found herself wanting to kiss him, wanting their lips to find each other, wanting them to dissolve into each other.

  She pushed him away instead. “Show me that vegan restaurant. I’ll tell you what happened today.”

  Chapter 55

  Muñoz pressed his back against the wall of the lobby lounge at the Mandarin Oriental. From his table in the far corner, he could look out on Columbus Circle below and see the steady flow of cars creep east and west across Central Park South, a stream of red taillights like leering eyes. He could also see Chip Dressler perched on an elegant red bar stool to his left. He watched the bartender make Dressler a gin martini. Dressler sipped it slowly, turned, and surveyed the crowded room.

  Seated alone at a small table against a long banquette was a deeply tanned blonde woman. The top buttons of her blouse were open so that her ample cleavage was on deliberate display. Dressler’s eyes returned to her after each broad sweep of the room. Finally, he turned back to the bartender and a moment later, the bartender set a second drink in front of him. Dressler picked it up, along with his own, and walked to the woman’s table. She smiled at him. Dressler smiled back. He set down the drink in front of her. They shook hands. Her eyes scanned the contours of his body. He pointed to the empty chair at her table, and she nodded. Then he sat, pulled in his chair, and they clinked their glasses. Their toast reminded Muñoz of Codella and him clinking their milkshake and tea mug yesterday, but this toast sealed a very different kind of consort.

  Muñoz couldn’t hear their conversation, but he could see that Dressler did most of the talking. The woman was laughing. She reached out and touched his arm from time to time. He ordered a second round. They clinked glasses again. He moved from the chair across from her to a space next to her on the banquette against the wall, and now her hand lingered on his arm as they spoke.

  Had she sat down at the table expressly to become the object of some man’s desire for the evening? Was she on a business trip? Was she the bored wife of a hedge fund guy who was on a business trip? The rituals of anonymous heterosexual sex were unfamiliar to him, like the customs of a foreign country he had never been to. But in any sexual encounter, there was the hunter and the prey. Did a woman like that recognize that she was prey at the watering hole? Did she enjoy the experience of being hunted? Did she enjoy the danger of it?

  Dressler whispered something into her ear. His lips lingered there, and she closed her eyes. He pressed his hand against her thigh. His other hand went up, and a server, who clearly was used to these scenes, immediately brought Dressler’s check. Dressler signed it, and he and the woman slid off their stools and left the bar.

  Muñoz took a last swig of seltzer and followed them out at a careful distance. He watched them walk toward the elevator. Dressler’s hand was on the small of the woman’s back. The elevator doors opened, and they entered. Then the doors closed.

  Muñoz pulled out his phone and dialed Codella.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “He picked up a woman in the hotel bar. They just went up in the elevator.”

  “Stay where you are. Don’t let him leave that hotel without you.” She hung up.

  Muñoz surveyed the hotel lobby. It was going to be a long night. He picked a couch with a view of the elevator bank and sank into it to check his fantasy basketball rankings while Dressler and the woman fulfilled other fantasies.

  Chapter 56

  Marva g
uided her mother from the bathroom to her bed. A year ago, her mother had walked herself into the bedroom. Now she labored with a walker, and Marva had to help her maneuver the feet of the walker around corners and chests of drawers. Marva had to steer the walker so that her mother could plop onto the mattress. Then Marva had to swing her mother’s legs onto the bed. She pulled up the heavy comforter as if her mother were a child. “Sleep well,” she said, and the educator in her almost felt compelled to read her mother a bedtime story. Instead, she switched off the lamp next to her mother’s bed and turned to go.

  “I need some water,” said her mother as Marva moved through the doorway. Her mother’s tone was not exactly demanding, just matter of fact, as if Marva were a paid caregiver being asked to fulfill her employer’s final request of the night.

  Marva could have pretended not to hear. She could have crossed the hall quickly and closed her door, but she didn’t. She went to the kitchen, poured tap water into a cup, and took it to her mother. Then she held it to her mother’s lips rather than force her mother to reach for the cup, because her mother’s dyskinesia was pronounced at the moment and she would have undoubtedly spilled it on her pajamas and the sheets.

  When her mother stopped drinking and gave a perfunctory head nod, Marva lowered the cup and turned the light back off. “Good night, Ma.”

  This time, she crossed the hall quickly and closed her bedroom door, turned off her own bedside lamp, and lay on her back staring into the blackness. She remained awake for a long time, but tonight her insomnia was not unpleasant. For the first time in six years of caring for her mother, she felt transcendent. No longer was her sole identity that of indentured servant, and it was as if she had developed a biological immunity to her mother’s complaints and criticism. She felt able to look upon her mother with pity and empathy, if not exactly love, because now she was more than her mother’s keeper. Now she had something of her own, a secret lifeline, a new identity, a connection to the outside world.

  She rolled onto her side and reached her arm around her pillow. She took herself back to the booth at the Metro Diner. She visualized Milosz sitting across from her. She felt his rough hand pressing against hers. She relived their walk home, his arm hooked through hers. She felt the light kiss of his lips against her cheek, only an inch to the right of her lips. If only she had turned her face slightly, their lips would have met. She would have allowed him to kiss her mouth. She would have welcomed his kiss.

  She could hear him say, “Next time we don’t hurry so much, Marva. I take you to my place and cook for you.” One day, she thought, one day soon her mother would be gone, and she would have her life back. She would be happy. Hadn’t she earned the right to happiness through sustained unhappiness? Hadn’t she more than paid for any joy she might find?

  Marva closed her eyes and hugged the pillow tightly, and all her thoughts concentrated on the geography of that light kiss.

  Chapter 57

  The restaurant was no longer busy—they had been here more than two hours and far outlasted the evening rush of vegan diners—and now their tall, disheveled waiter was being more attentive than necessary. Did she want more hot water? She acquiesced in order to get him to stop hovering.

  Their meal had started off with Haggerty staring at the menu as if it were written in a foreign language. He stumbled over entrees like quinoa and black beans, chickpea curry, and tofu quiche until he settled on the vegan burger, but she warned, “Don’t order that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll be expecting red meat, and you’re going to hate it and complain. Try the chili.”

  He had obeyed with good humor—in fact, Codella could not remember a time when he had ever been quite so accommodating—and she’d found herself relaxing for the first time in days or weeks or months, and she had watched with open, and slightly fiendish, humor as Haggerty stared down at the bowl of chili the waiter set in front of him. He had sampled the intensely spicy mixture of tomatoes, beans, and vegetables and immediately reached for the gluten-free corn bread she knew he was not going to like. At least one problem had been taken off the table. They’d made their peace. She wasn’t sure what she wanted their dynamic to become, but at least he was in her life again, he was someone she could trust.

  Her phone lit up as the waiter poured hot water into her stainless teapot and placed a fresh green tea bag on the saucer. She picked up the phone and read the message. “Strange,” she said.

  “What is it?” Haggerty sipped his coffee.

  “A text from Dana Drew. She wants me to come over.”

  “Now?”

  Codella looked at her watch. It was quarter past eleven. “She must have just gotten home from the theater.”

  “What do you suppose she wants?”

  Codella shrugged. “Jane Martin must have told her she spilled the beans to me. Let’s hope that means she’s ready to be a little more forthcoming about Sanchez. I better go.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  He started to rise, but Codella shook her head. “I think she’ll open up more if it’s just the two of us. Call Muñoz at the Mandarin. If Dressler’s still upstairs with the woman, tell him he can call it a night.”

  She could tell he was disappointed, and she squeezed his arm and said, “Thanks for this,” before she turned, ran out into the cold night, hailed the first cab that passed on Broadway, and gave the cabbie Drew’s Riverside Drive address.

  The doorman waved her past when she flashed her shield, and she got on the elevator. The door to Drew’s apartment was ajar, and the message seemed clear: come in. She pushed it open and listened to the silence within. Beyond the spacious entryway, she saw the river-facing windows and the couch where she had sat just yesterday. She peered into the kitchen glistening with stainless appliances, ironclad cookware, and high-gloss marble that reflected the moonlight. She stepped into the vestibule and called out, “Hello?”

  There was no answer. “Hello?” she called again, louder this time, as her fingers reached instinctively for the grip of her service revolver. She advanced three more steps, stopped once more, and continued to listen. Every silence had a signature voice, she thought, a personality, a message. It could be soft and soothing like a mother’s lullaby. It could be a seductive lover, inviting you to open your mind to secret desires. And it could be a cruel and castigating judge—inducing guilt that could only be absolved through confession.

  This silence was different. This was the kind of silence that surrounded your whole body with a high-voltage current of imminent danger. It quickened the pulse and awakened every nerve ending, sharpened the eyesight, and amplified the hearing. It made you into the animal you had forgotten that you were. It made you predator and prey. It warned you to run, to hide, to be ready, to attack.

  Codella pulled her gun out of its holster and advanced into the living room. The room was undisturbed. The couch looked as inviting as it had yesterday. A half-filled glass of water on the dining room table suggested recent activity. There were dishes in the kitchen sink, and a bottle of Perrier sat on the granite countertop. She doubled back toward the entry hall and turned into the corridor leading to bedrooms. And then she saw.

  They were all sitting in a row on the floor with their hands behind their backs and rags stuffed into their mouths, held there by tape. Drew saw her first, and her eyes flashed panic. Next to her was an attractive Indian woman, a babysitter, Codella guessed. Martin sat next to this woman, and her eyes shifted back and forth between Codella and a part of the room Codella could not see from where she stood. The eyes were a warning. The eyes told her that whoever had tied them up was in that room.

  Codella quickly considered her options. Whoever was in the room had already killed two people and now intended to kill everyone here, including her. She had been lured to the apartment. That was clear. It had only taken her five minutes to leave the restaurant and arrive, and five minutes was not enough time for an intruder to have bound and gagged three women
and a child. Drew had not texted her phone. Someone else had done that, and he was a violent killer who had snapped a man’s neck and sliced so deeply into a woman’s carotid artery that she had bled out in minutes.

  Codella looked away. She made herself take deep, even breaths. If she gave into panic, she wouldn’t be able to think, and she had to think. She had to make a choice, and she had to make it fast. Whoever was in that room knew she was out here. He knew she was debating her next move. She had two options. She could retreat, call for backup, and hope that the women were not dead by the time the backup came, or she could advance and hope to catch the killer off guard.

  She stared at her hands gripping the Glock. They were steady. Whoever was in that room would know she had a gun, and he would not have lured her here if he didn’t have a gun as well. But would he use his? Would he risk a shot inside the building when his exit depended on stealth? Or would he try to overpower her using physical force, the way he had obviously overwhelmed Drew, Martin, and the babysitter?

  She pulled out her phone as quietly as she could and texted four words to Brian. Come quickly. Bring backup. She would wait, she told herself. She would stand right here and wait. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and raised her gun with both hands. She looked from Drew to Martin and back again. If the killer made a move, would she see it in their eyes? Would she be able to move fast enough? A minute passed. Two minutes. How much longer was he going to let her stand here before he figured out that she had called for help and that he had to move against her?

  When she saw a sudden flicker of panic in Drew’s green eyes, she guessed she had bought as much time as she would get. He was coming toward the door—whoever he was—and she had to move first. She took a deep breath and then she was all taut muscles and concentration as she rounded the corner in a flash.

  Milosz Jancek was sitting on the windowsill, and except for the gun in his hand, he looked exactly as he had the first time she’d laid eyes on him. Ordinary. Unassuming. Slightly unattractive with his crooked smile.