He spotted Kenny Katz standing with Sondra Bond, who had her hand on his arm. Kenny’s face was drawn and his already deep-set eyes had even darker circles beneath them.
After the service, Karp glanced ahead at Reed’s mother, a small, round-faced woman in a wheelchair, and Reed’s sister, a tall, stern-looking woman dressed in the uniform of an army captain.
When he’d leaned over to shake the hand of Mrs. Gladys Reed in the receiving line, he noted the red hair and pale blue eyes that suggested she’d once been a pretty Irish-American girl. But her eyes were red-rimmed and weepy, yet when he introduced himself the grip on his hand tightened.
“My son did not kill himself, Mr. Karp,” she stated, looking intensely into his eyes. “Suicide is a mortal sin and my Stewie was a good Roman Catholic. He was also a good son, and he knew how important it was to me that he be buried next to me and his father, God rest his soul. He would never have done anything to jeopardize that.”
Karp didn’t know quite what to say. “I understand, Mrs. Reed. I am so sorry for your loss and for our loss; we are all going to miss him.”
“Do you really understand, Mr. Karp? They won’t let him be buried at St. Joseph’s,” Mrs. Reed insisted, her voice cracking and desperate. “His father is there already, waiting, and I won’t be long. But our little Stewie will not be with us…. Oh, sweet Jesus.” A moan escaped the old woman, who then buried her face in her hands.
Reed’s sister, Meghan, leaned over and put her arm around her mother. “It’s okay, Mom. We know there’s been a mistake. Stew will be with us in heaven.”
“No, no, he won’t,” Mrs. Reed cried. “If he killed himself, he’ll suffer the eternal hellfires.”
“I don’t believe that, Mom,” Meghan said softly. “Even if Stew did this to himself, the God I love wouldn’t be that cruel…no matter what you’ve been told by a priest.” She stood up and looked Karp in the eye. “But I don’t think Stew killed himself.”
Karp nodded. “I have a hard time believing it myself.”
Still looking him in the eye, Meghan asked, “Mr. Karp, would it be possible to have a moment with you after the services? Alone?”
“Of course,” he replied. “And if there is anything I can do, or the DAO can do, just ask.”
“We appreciate that, Mr. Karp,” Meghan said. “And we may take you up on it.”
After the receiving line, Karp viewed Stewart lying in his coffin. He looked as together as he had in life, dressed in one of his expensive tailored suits. He noticed that the mortician had done a good job of disguising whatever mark had been left by the noose.
A few minutes later, he met with Meghan Reed. Much of what she had to say he’d already been through a hundred times in his mind. She’d brought up again his Catholic faith—and its prohibitions against suicide—as well as his role as the doting son “who would have never hurt our mom like this.”
Meghan said she’d talked to several of Stewart’s friends outside of the DAO “and none of them ever felt the slightest inkling that my brother was suicidal. Yeah, he was disappointed in the hung jury, but he was happy that he was getting a second crack at that asshole Maplethorpe. In fact, he was getting downright antsy for the new trial and told Mom that he thought he’d found something important that might help.”
Karp’s radar went on alert. Had Stewbie stumbled upon something? “Did he tell her what that might be?”
Meghan shook her head. “No. He hadn’t checked it out yet and told her it might or might not mean anything. But he was confident about the trial either way.” The woman passed a hand across her eyes. “Mr. Karp, my brother and I were close. Even with me in Iraq, we spoke at least once a week. I would have known if he was contemplating this.”
“When’s the last time you talked to him?” Karp asked.
“Two days before he died. You want to know what we talked about? We talked about meeting in Italy next summer when I get my leave. He always wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and Rome. Now I ask you, does that sound like a man who is suicidal?”
All Karp could do was shake his head and agree with her. “But I have nothing else to go on,” he added. “The police did a thorough investigation. I’ve known the detective who was in charge for more than thirty years and there’s no one better. He insisted on a full write-up from the Medical Examiner’s Office with an eye to foul play. But everything checked out…nothing in the toxicology report. None of the neighbors heard anything unusual.”
“I know all that,” Meghan agreed. “And all I can say to that, Mr. Karp, is that something is wrong with this picture.”
The young woman reached into her handbag, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him. “My brother thought the world of you, Mr. Karp. He said you were the one man who would never stop pursuing justice. Will you at least think about this for my brother? My cell phone number is on the back.”
Karp dropped Marlene off at the loft and returned to the office, where he sat back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. He glanced down at the yellow legal pad where he had written “Casa Blanca,” “art of war,” and “It Happened in Brooklyn,” along with the warning “It’s the worst that could happen.”
My life seems full of riddles these days, he thought. On the one hand, there was Andy and his father. On the other, there was the riddle of Stewart Reed. Something is wrong with this picture. Meghan Reed’s use of the same imagery that he’d been thinking in Judge Rosenmayer’s court days earlier reverberated in his mind.
Karp closed his eyes and imagined the scene in Reed’s apartment the night he died. He tried not to concentrate on any one detail but just let his mind’s eye roam. He sat bolt upright in his chair and punched in the number for Fulton’s phone.
A deep voice answered. “Fulton.”
“Hi, Clay,” Karp said. “You up for a drive to Queens?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Probably nothing,” Karp said. “Just following up on a request from Stewart Reed’s sister.”
“I’ll get the car and meet you out front.”
Karp hung up with Fulton and pulled Meghan Reed’s business card from his wallet and called. “Miss Reed? It’s District Attorney Karp…. Fine, thank you…. I was calling to ask if your mother has received Stewbie’s personal effects…. You have? Would you mind if I dropped by in thirty minutes? There’s something I’d like to check out…. I’d rather not say at the moment…. I’ll fill you in when I get there.”
Meghan Reed was waiting for them in the entry to the redbrick row house in Maspeth, an old blue-collar neighborhood in western Queens. He noted the Blue Star Flag in the window, indicating a member of the family was serving in a war zone. It reminded him of childhood walks he used to take with his mother around their old neighborhood in Brooklyn post–World War II. She pointed out that the blue stars in the windows represented local boys—the high school guys he’d looked up to and their older brothers—who were away fighting in places like North Africa, Guadalcanal, Italy, Saipan, Normandy, and Iwo Jima. Some of the houses they passed—“too many,” she once said, and started to cry—had gold stars in the windows, occasionally more than one. Those were the boys, she said, as she tried to pull herself together, “who won’t be coming home.”
It was his first realization that the life he enjoyed, the safety he always felt in his home, and his freedom that he experienced daily, had come at the expense of real people—young men like the baker’s son, Sam Caputo, and Bobby McPherson, whose father was a New York firefighter, and the rabbi’s kid, Irwin Brownstein. And it was a lesson he never forgot.
“By the way, I appreciate your service to this country,” he said as Meghan stepped into the house and held the door open.
At first she looked surprised, then her expression softened. “Thank you,” she said. “We don’t hear that very often. I believe in what I do.”
“Your brother also made sacrifices for this country,” Karp said, without knowing why he said it. “He could have go
ne into private practice—made more money, worked fewer hours. But he believed that he was protecting the citizens of this county.”
The young woman smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “I know he did, but thanks for saying it.”
She turned and led him and Fulton into the tiny living room where Gladys Reed sat waiting in a large, overstuffed chair. It was as if Karp had stepped back into his parents’ Brooklyn home in the 1950s; floral prints were in abundance—the furniture, drapes, and wallpaper—and a collection of Hummel porcelain figurines adorned the mantelpiece along with eight-by-ten photographs of her son and daughter.
“Mr. Karp, how lovely of you to drop by,” Gladys Reed said. “I know you’re so busy. I’m afraid the…the services…have left me exhausted. Would you or your friend care for a soda?”
“Thank you, but I’m good,” Karp replied. “This is Detective Clay Fulton. He headed up the investigation into your son’s death. Detective, would you care for a soda?”
“No, thank you,” Fulton replied. “Upsets my stomach, and I’m not thirsty.”
Karp’s eyes drifted to another photograph on the wall—a black-and-white of a smiling young man in an army uniform.
“That’s my Dan,” Gladys said. “Stewart was only five and Meghan an infant when he shipped over to Vietnam.” Her voice caught. “He never came home.”
“You certainly did well raising your children,” Karp replied.
“Thank you.” The old woman smiled. “But to be honest, it was easy. They were both such good kids. Never any trouble really.”
Meghan cleared her throat and said, “Mr. Karp, I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to talk about our family. You said you had something you wanted to check out? Something to do with Stewie’s personal effects?”
Karp nodded. “I don’t want to get your hopes up. But something you said about this picture not being right jolted a memory. It might not mean anything, but I wanted to see if my memory was correct.”
“Of course,” Meghan said, and pointed to the staircase. “Stewie’s room is upstairs. Some of his things are in storage. But his clothes and some other things, like his wallet and watch, are still in boxes in his room.”
“That will be great,” Karp said, and followed her up the stairs with Fulton behind him.
Walking into Stewart Reed’s room was like entering the living space of a teenage boy. Apparently, his mother had kept it as it was when he left for law school. There were posters of rock musicians on the walls. A New York Mets baseball cap and another for the New York Jets hung on pegs. A large model of the Starship Enterprise was suspended with fishing line above a twin bed. Over in the corner, a bookshelf was lined with offerings that included The Lord of the Rings, On the Road, The Naked and the Dead, and In Cold Blood, all alphabetized by author’s name. There were several photographs of Stewart on the walls and on the neatly ordered desk: him in the marching band uniform of Maspeth High School, and with different pretty young women, apparently just before going out on a date or to a dance.
Karp noticed that Reed was well dressed even as a boy and a teenager. “He certainly had a flair for style,” he noted.
Meghan Reed laughed. “Yeah, he was always more of a clothes horse than I was,” she said. “Some guys get jobs in high school so they can buy cars or stereos. But whatever Stewart wasn’t putting away for college, he spent on his clothes. And pity the poor younger sister who accidentally spilled something on one of his shirts or stepped on the toe of his shoe.” She pointed to several boxes in a corner opposite the bookshelf. “Those are the things brought from his apartment.”
“Do you know if they contained the clothes he was wearing the night he died?”
Meghan’s eyes widened for a moment, but then she shook her head. “No, I picked those up from the funeral home. The suit is hanging in the closet.”
“What about his shoes?”
Meghan walked over to the closet, opened the door, and leaned over to retrieve a pair of dress shoes. “These?”
Karp stepped forward and carefully examined the Allen-Edmonds. Then he handed them to Fulton. “Clay, do you notice anything?”
The detective looked the shoes over and nodded. “Yeah, the toes and tops of the shoes are scuffed.”
“That strike you in any way?”
“Only that I’ve known Stewart for close to ten years, and in all of that time, not once did I ever see him wear a pair of scuffed-up dress shoes. Hell, the man even kept his running shoes spotless. In fact, I never saw a hair out of place, a stain on his shirt or suitcoat. He was one fastidious cat, man.”
Karp smiled. “Exactly.”
Meghan leaned over to get a better look at the shoes and then looked back to the two men. “What’s it mean?”
“Maybe nothing,” Karp replied. “But that’s what I was thinking about when I, too, thought that something wasn’t right with the picture. When I saw Stewbie that night, I only glanced at what he was wearing. It didn’t seem important, so I didn’t make any note of it. But looking back, it suddenly struck me…Stewbie’s shoes were scuffed. And I knew that was what was bothering me. Put it together with all the rest—the Catholic background, his character as a man—and it doesn’t add up.”
“So what’s your next step?” Meghan asked.
“Well, I think I may want a second opinion on Stewbie’s autopsy,” Karp answered. “I need to get back to the office and make a call to Denver.”
“Swanburg?” Fulton asked.
“Yeah, I want to bring Jack in on this,” Karp replied. He turned to Meghan. “I really don’t know if this will lead anywhere. But we’ll follow it until the road leads somewhere or dead-ends.”
“That’s all we can ask,” Meghan replied, and led them back down the stairs to where her mother was waiting.
When Karp leaned over to shake the older woman’s hand, she reached up for him and hugged him. “Thank you, Mr. Karp. I’m not looking forward to spending eternity without my son.”
“I can’t guarantee anything, Mrs. Reed,” Karp said. “But I promise you, I’ll give it my all.”
“I know you will, Mr. Karp. And I know you’ll prove that my Stewie did not kill himself. There is a reason you came to my home today, Mr. Karp, it was the Lord who asked you to come.”
As he and Fulton left the row house, Karp hoped that he hadn’t given a false hope to the women inside. He had almost reached the Lincoln sedan when Meghan walked out of the door and called to him. She was carrying a briefcase, which she held out to him as she came down the steps of the landing.
“Mom wanted me to give you this. Apparently he left this over here that night when he picked up Mom for dinner and forgot it. He called her just before…before he died and said he’d pick it up the next day. She forgot about it until now. We don’t know what’s in it, but we hope that didn’t cause a problem.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Karp replied, taking the briefcase. “I’ll take a look and see if there’s anything that belongs at the DAO. Then I’ll return it and any personal effects.”
“Go ahead and give it to one of your guys who needs it,” Meghan replied. “It’s a pretty expensive one…Stewie always liked nice things. We gave it to him at Christmas a few years ago, but the engraved ‘SR’ tag comes off. Oh and here’s the key to it from his key ring.”
“Thank you,” Karp replied. “I have someone in mind who I think would appreciate the thought that it was his.”
Inside the Lincoln and headed back to Manhattan, Karp used the key to open the briefcase. There wasn’t much inside of it. Just a photograph of a pretty brunette woman standing next to a young boy dressed in a cowboy hat, a vest with a sheriff’s star pinned to the chest, and fringed chaps. The boy held a toy six-shooter, which he was pointing at the camera.
There was a yellow sticky note on the back of the photograph with the words “pantaloni di cuoio dispari” written in Reed’s neat penmanship. He was reminded of the conversation in his office with Guma, Murrow, Katz, and Ree
d. “I still have a copy of the photograph in the file, he’s all dressed up like a little cowboy…in fact, I’m working on something one of our witnesses—that Italian guy, Hilario Gianneschi—said that may actually be related.”
Karp turned the photo back around and looked at the little boy with the gun. What did Stewbie see in this photograph? he wondered, and then took out his cell phone and punched in a number. A few rings later, a man answered. “Jack? Butch Karp. Have you got a minute?”
19
“YOU’RE A BAD MAN,” THE VOICE SAID. “YOU’RE GOING TO KILL a lot of people.”
“Quit sniveling,” Erik said with disgust. “You’ve always been such a goody two-shoes.”
The voice sounded young, like that of a boy. “One of us has to try to be nice,” it replied. “Or we’ll all go to hell because of you.”
Erik laughed but it was not a pleasant sound, just cruel and mocking. “Well, what are you going to do about it, little brother? You’ve never had the balls to stand up to me. Oh, I forgot, as a perpetual ten-year-old, you don’t have any balls.”
“Oh yeah? I did that time at St. Patrick’s Cathedral when you were going to do a bad thing to my friend Lucy. It ruined your big plans, too.”
“And almost got us killed. I swear, Andy, you are such an idiot.”
“I wanted to die,” Andy retorted. “I wanted us to die. All of us. At least I would have done one good thing.”
“I would have done one good thing,” Erik sneered as he mimicked the boy’s high-pitched voice. “I’d let you die if I could. You make me sick with your holier-than-thou bullshit, you snot-nosed little brat.”
“At least I don’t look like you,” Andy taunted. “You’re the boogeyman!”
The comment had the desired effect. Erik glared and then turned away to stare out the window of the Brooklyn Heights mansion at the Manhattan skyline, which was bathed in the copper light of the late afternoon autumn sun. He caught his reflection in the glass and shuddered, his ravaged lips pulling back from his perfect teeth in a snarl. He’d once been one of the most eligible and sought-after bachelors in New York City, the wealthy scion of the founder of a prestigious white-shoe law firm. Now he reminded himself of a snake shedding its scales, only instead of a fresh new skin, what lay beneath was a rotting, bloody, pus-marked horror mask. In another century, such a visage would have been attributed to leprosy, but that wasn’t the case.
Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) Page 20
