“Half an hour?”
“See you then.”
He hung up and looked around the office. No one was looking at him. He wondered if Willis just had very good contacts, or if there was a leak right there in the office.
He hoped it was the former.
Chapter 30
McQueen found Mason Willis waiting for him in front of Lydia Dean’s house.
“You got here quick.”
“I tend to move quickly when I smell smoke.”
“And you smell it now?”
“I think she and her husband burned down their own business,” Willis said. “I can’t prove it.”
“What do you hope to accomplish today?”
“I’m guessing you want to find out if she knows the second victim.”
“You’re guessing right.”
“I just want to ride your coattails, maybe ask a question or two. I want her to know I’m around.”
“Okay,” McQueen said. “I’ll introduce you.”
Lydia Dean smiled when she saw McQueen on her doorstep, but the smile faded when she noticed Mason Willis standing next to him. She had apparently been expecting him to come alone.
“Mrs. Dean,” he said, then, “Lydia.”
“When you called,” she said, “you didn’t say anything about bringing someone with you.”
“This is Fire Marshal Mason Willis.”
“Fire marshal?”
“She’s investigating the fire in your building.”
“I thought your Arson Squad—”
“The fire department tends to conduct their own investigations into . . . suspicious fires,” Willis said.
“May we come in?” McQueen asked.
Lydia hesitated, then said, “Of course.” From the look in her eyes McQueen figured Willis’s presence had created the desired effect.
They entered and she led them into the living room. For Willis it was the first time she’d seen the place, and she was impressed.
“You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you,” Lydia said. “Well, I suspect it’s too early for a drink. Can I get you coffee, or tea?”
“No, nothing, Lydia,” McQueen said. “I don’t think this is going to be a pleasant visit.”
“Oh,” she said. “Have you . . . found out who killed my brother? Have you found Victor?”
“No, neither of those things,” he said. “We . . . there was another body found yesterday, and the condition of it is . . . similar to that of your brother.”
“All right,” she said, staring at them, expectantly.
“What does that mean to me . . . exactly?”
“This isn’t pleasant, Lydia,” McQueen said, “but I was wondering if you would be willing to take a look at a photo of the man.”
“A photo of a dead man?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To see if you know him,” he said.
“And if I do?”
“Then it connects his death with your brother’s,” McQueen explained.
“And this new case?” she asked McQueen, flicking a finger at the file he was holding. “You’re investigating it?”
“No,” he said, “this is another detective’s case. I’m just helping out.”
She thought a moment, her arms folded in front of her. “After seeing my brother dead, I don’t see how this could be any worse.”
McQueen opened the file just enough to be able to slide the black-and-white photo out. He handed it to her and watched while she examined it. He caught nothing in her face, no flicker of recognition as she handed it back.
“He looks like he’s sleeping,” she said.
“Yes,” McQueen replied, “his face was not marked.”
“How was he killed?”
“Lydia—”
“I’d like to know,” she said. “I assume not in a fire.”
“No,” McQueen said. “He was stabbed, uh, in the ear with an, uh, ice pick.”
“I see.”
She looked at the photo again.
“I don’t know him.” She handed it back.
“Are you sure?” McQueen asked.
“I never saw him before in my life.”
“All right,” McQueen said, returning the photo to the folder, “that’s clear enough. Thank you, Lydia.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s it . . . for me. Fire Marshal Willis may have some questions of her own.”
“Mrs. Dean,” Willis said, “do you know any reason why your brother may have wanted to burn down your business?”
“My . . . my brother?”
“Yes.”
“Why, no, not at all. Is that what you think? Thomas was there to set the fire?”
“Somebody set it,” Willis said. “He’s just one suspect.”
The implication was plain. McQueen was impressed that Lydia Dean did not rise to the bait.
“Do you think the same person who killed this man killed my brother?” she asked McQueen.
“It’s too early to tell,” he said, “but we’re working on it.”
“If that’s the case,” she went on, “then my husband didn’t kill Thomas, did he?”
“Well,” McQueen said, “if you didn’t know this man, and your husband didn’t either, then I don’t see where there would have been a motive for your husband to kill him. As for your brother, there’s still the very real possibility that your brother was killed by the fire. The question is, who set it? And then we have to ask did that person kill this second victim?”
“Then again,” Willis added, “both cases could be very separate.”
“But—that confuses things, doesn’t it?”
“Quite a lot,” McQueen said. “Have you heard from your husband?”
“No,” she said, “no, I haven’t.”
“If you do hear from him,” McQueen said, “maybe you can tell him about this new development. Maybe you can tell him to give himself up? It might help us with the investigation.”
“What about . . . the fire? Won’t he still be arrested for that if he gives himself up?”
“That would be up to the Arson Task Force,” he said, “and the fire marshal’s office. We’re only working the homicide angle.”
“I see.”
“We should be going,” Willis said to McQueen.
“Right.”
As they turned, Lydia Dean reached out and put her hand on McQueen’s arm.
“Can I speak to you before you go?” She looked pointedly at Willis. “Alone?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be right out, Marshal.”
“Sure.”
As Willis went through the front door and pulled it closed behind her, McQueen turned to Lydia Dean. “What is it, Lydia?”
“You’re not going to show that photo to my mother, are you?” she asked.
“Why? Do you think she’ll know the man?”
“No!” she said, sharply, then lowered her tone and said again, “No. It’s just . . . she’s been traumatized enough, don’t you think?”
“If you assure us that no one in your family knew this dead man,” he said, “I don’t see any reason why I should have to bother your mother with this.”
“Good,” Lydia said, “good . . . Dennis?”
“Yes?”
“How about coming back for that drink, sometime . . . alone?” She hugged herself and rocked a bit when she asked.
“I’ll . . . have to see about that, Lydia,” he said.
“Well . . . just let me know.”
He nodded and went out the front door.
“What’d she want?” Willis asked outside.
He told her.
“Sounds like she’s after you.”
Now she sounded like Bailey Sommers.
“She’s after something, that’s for sure.”
“And it couldn’t be you?”
“No,” he said, “it couldn’t.”
His tone put an e
nd to that part of the conversation.
“You think she knows where her husband is?” she asked.
“She’s lying about something,” he said. “Either she knows where he is or he’s been in touch with her.”
“And what about that crap about worrying about her mother being traumatized?”
“You think that was crap?”
“She doesn’t strike me as the caring type.”
“She is kind of . . . cold.”
“Does the mother have enough money to bail out the business?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“Would her mother help her?”
“That I don’t know.”
“You think the husband did the brother?”
“It looked that way, for a while.”
“And now?”
“If the family really doesn’t know the second dead man . . .” He let it trail off.
“And how are you going to be sure of that?”
“I guess,” he said, “I’ll have to go ahead and ask the last member of the family.”
Chapter 31
McQueen and Willis split up in front of Lydia Dean’s house. He got in his car and put in a call to Sommers. He told her he was going to the mother’s house, and asked her to meet him there. It was her opinion that when they saw Mrs. Wingate she should do the talking.
“Fine,” McQueen said. “It’s your case, anyway.” But he also told her that she was now partnering with him again, and not Ray Velez.
“Why?” she’d asked. When he didn’t answer immediately she added, “Let me guess. Cookie?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What a bitch,” she said, “and before you tell me I’ve never met her, I’ve heard you and Ray talk about her. How could anybody stay married to her?”
“Well,” McQueen said, “obviously you’ve never seen her.”
That, she’d thought, was the first typical man thing she’d heard McQueen say since she’d met him . . .
When Mrs. Wingate answered the door, she looked to McQueen like a woman who had aged a year in a couple of weeks. She smiled weakly at Sommers.
“Hello, dear,” she said.
“Do you remember me from the hospital, Mrs. Wingate?” Sommers asked.
“Of course I do,” the woman said, “but not by name, I’m afraid.”
“I’m Detective Sommers,” she said, “and this is Sergeant McQueen. May we come in?”
“Of course.”
The inside was not as expensively furnished as her daughter’s home, but it felt warmer, more welcoming. “Can I offer you something? Some tea, perhaps?”
Before McQueen could speak Sommers said, “We’d love some tea, ma’am.”
“We can have it in the kitchen,” the older woman said. “You can come with me while I prepare it.”
In the kitchen there was more tea talk—sugar? lemon? milk?—before they all sat down at the table with a cup each. Sommers and McQueen took it plain, but Mrs. Wingate added sugar and milk to hers, then stirred it for a long time—long enough for the sound to start to get on Dennis McQueen’s nerves. He gave Sommers a look that said, “Well, go ahead, already!”
“Mrs. Wingate—”
“Is this about my Thomas?” the woman asked.
“In a way, ma’am,” Sommers said. “You see, the body of another young man has been found, in much the same condition as your son’s.”
“Oh, no,” she said, sincerely. “That’s too bad. I feel so sorry for that mother.”
“We were wondering if you could tell us if he was a friend of your son’s?” Sommers asked. “Or perhaps someone your family knew?”
“I’ll certainly try,” the woman said. “What’s your boy’s name?”
“We don’t have a name yet, Mrs. Wingate,” Sommers said. “We haven’t identified the body, yet. But we do . . . have a photo.”
“A photo?”
“Of the . . . dead man.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Wingate said, “I see.”
“We can’t compel you to look at it,” Sommers told her, “but it would certainly help us if you would.”
She stared at them across the table for a few moments. She was wearing no makeup and her hair was grayer than he remembered. And where she’d been well-dressed the first time he saw her, she was now wearing a housedress. He saw now that she was older than he’d first thought because—like her daughter—the first time they’d met she’d had some defense against aging. The woman sitting across from him now, at her kitchen table, was totally defenseless against it.
“I suppose I could look at it,” she said. “Is it—is he . . .”
“He died the same way your son did,” Sommers said. “There’s no . . . trauma.”
“Very well.”
Sommers looked at McQueen, who once again eased the photo out of the folder. He set it down on the table, face up, and passed it across the table.
Mrs. Wingate moved the photo close to herself. At first she examined it without picking it up, but finally she took it in her hands and brought it up closer to her face.
“He looks very peaceful,” she commented. “It’s as if he’s just . . . sleeping.”
Sommers leaned forward.
“Do you know him, Mrs. Wingate?” she asked. “Do you recognize him?”
The older woman stared at the photo for a few moments, then released it. It fell to the table in front of her.
“I don’t know him,” she said. “He’s somebody else’s son, but I don’t know whose.”
“What about your daughter?” McQueen asked. “Do you think she’d know him?”
She looked at him.
“My daughter? I’m sure I don’t know who my daughter’s friends are. You see, we don’t speak.”
“When was the last time you did speak?” he asked.
“That day,” she said, “that day . . . I called and left her a message that her brother was dead. I thought she should know. We spoke at the hospital, but not since, and not for a long time before.”
“Wait a minute,” McQueen said. “You and your daughter have not spoken since that day at the morgue?”
“That’s right.”
He looked at Sommers, who frowned at him questioningly. He shook his head.
“All right, Mrs. Wingate,” Sommers said. “We won’t hold you up any longer.”
She looked at their cups of tea, which had hardly been touched.
“But . . . your tea . . .”
“Yes,” Sommers said. “It was delicious.”
Outside the house, even before they reached the car, she asked McQueen, “What’s wrong?”
“I told you the daughter came to see me,” he said, “told me that her mother was concerned the case wasn’t being handled properly.”
“But the mother just said they hadn’t spoken since the hospital,” Sommers finished. “So, one of them was lying.”
“Yes.”
“But why? And which one?”
“That I don’t know,” McQueen said.
“Well, for the daughter . . . just an excuse to come and see you, maybe?” she asked.
“Bailey . . .”
“Couldn’t be, Dennis?”
“No.”
“You’re selling yourself short—”
“Stop!” he told her. “I’m not a fool, Bailey. I think Lydia’s the one lying, and I think she’s up to . . . something.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what we’re gonna to find out.”
Chapter 32
It was late for lunch and early for dinner, but they were both hungry so they drove to Sheepshead Bay and stopped in a diner. McQueen grabbed a booth in the front, next to a window.
“Why here?” Sommers asked.
“I like to look out the window at the water while I eat,” McQueen said. He turned his head and pointed outside. “See?”
A waitress came over. McQueen ordered a pizza burger and fries, Sommers a salad and, at the last minute, garlic dressing. Both of
them took iced tea to go with it.
“Tell me the real reason we’re eating here,” Sommers said.
“It’s close to the crime scene,” McQueen said. “I just wanted to be close while we ate, and talked.”
“Expecting to . . . absorb something from the cosmos?”
“My methods are not New Age, Bailey.”
“I’m impressed.”
“With what?”
“The fact that you know the term ‘New Age,’ ” she said.
“Sorry I’m not the Neanderthal you’re used to working with,” he responded.
“I’m not. Are we going to talk about the case, or personal stuff?” she asked.
“The case,” he said, then asked, “What personal stuff?”
“Do you go out much, Dennis?”
“Out?”
“You know, to have fun.”
“Oh, sure,” he said, “I go to ball games, the track, sometimes Atlantic City.”
“No,” she said, “I mean out with women?”
“Oh,” he said, “you just want to get nosy.”
“I’m just wondering—”
“Bailey,” he said, “I’ve been out with women. I know when a woman is interested in me.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m not a total idiot.”
“When’s the last time you were on a date?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Weeks . . . maybe months . . . what’s the difference?”
“If you don’t use it,” she said, “it—”
“I don’t think I want to hear the rest of that,” he said, holding up his hand.
“Okay, let’s talk about something else.”
They both leaned back so the waitress could set down their drinks.
“The case?” he asked, hopefully.
“First,” she said, “let’s talk about why there’s so much tension in the squad.”
“Tension?”
“Yes,” she said. “Don’t tell me you don’t notice it.”
“Well . . .”
“You and Ray get along, you joke around with each other. So do the Double Ds,” she said. “Everybody else seems to have sticks up their asses. Even Sherman and Silverman, and they work pretty good together. What gives?”
“There’s only one Manhattan North, Bailey.”
Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02) Page 12
