Authors: Richard Hawke
Peter took a breath. “Lewis wants us to consider that Bruce Spicer is responsible for the murders of Robin Burrell and Zack Riddick.”
“Spicer?”
“It’s just a theory. But you remember that whole big fuss when Zack brought up Robin Burrell’s abortions. It sounds far-fetched, I know. But think of it for a minute. Nancy Spicer’s been in there bawling her eyes out to get off the jury. Bruce Spicer is no big fan of people who get abortions; he’s got a history of being very much an in-your-face person when it comes to that issue. Hard to call this a motive for murder, but hang in there. We’ve also got Zachary. Riddick’s playboy reputation isn’t exactly the kind of thing that endears the born-agains. What Lewis is saying is you’ve got a situation here where a person like Bruce Spicer could have been looking for some creative ways to get this trial tanked, free his wife, and rid the earth of at least two infidels.”
“Infidels?”
“I’m just saying Lewis wants us to take a strong look at this. Face it,
someone
is killing these people. Someone is royally pissed off. Where the hell do we start?”
I pulled out my notebook. Gottlieb demanded, “What have you got there?”
“A list of people I want to talk to in connection with Robin Burrell and Riddick.”
Gottlieb aimed a fat finger in my direction. “Put Bruce Spicer at the top of that list. Do you hear me? Chicken-liver-tossing son of a bitch. Go after him first. Born-again bastards like that should choke on their own intestines, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got no goddamn time for those people. Him. You go get him.”
PETER ACCOMPANIED ME downstairs. There were several other people in the elevator with us, so we didn’t say anything. The moment we were outside, Peter spoke urgently.
“This is tricky territory, Fritz. Very tricky. I’m sure you understand that. We’ve got a real balancing act to figure out here. Lewis has said categorically that we are not taking his theory to the police. It’s not the most ethical call, but that can’t be helped. It’s a matter of containment. We don’t want word getting out about Nancy Spicer’s mental health problem or about her husband having been arrested. Nancy shouldn’t be on the jury—that alone would provide the defense with some serious artillery to push for a mistrial—so we don’t want them to know. But here’s the other thing. If Bruce Spicer gets approached by the police or, for that matter, by you, he could blow the whistle himself. If he simply lets the papers know that he is under suspicion of any kind for these murders, it all explodes in our face. Husband of the foreperson? There’s nothing even Sam Deveraux would be able to do at that point. The trial would be officially out of hand. Everything would collapse.”
“But if Spicer actually is the killer, he’s not going to go blabbing to the press.”
“We have no idea what he would do. Maybe it’s a catch-22 and maybe it isn’t. The point is, there’s nothing but risk involved no matter which way you look at it. It’s certainly possible that Spicer isn’t the killer. I admit, it’s a wild hunch. Then again, Lewis Gottlieb didn’t become Lewis Gottlieb with bad hunches. That old man’s got an awesome track record.” Peter glanced around, as if afraid that someone might be listening in. “Look, I know Lewis tried to whip you into action just now. And I’m not necessarily countermanding his orders. But if you’ve developed any leads on these murders that you really like, it wouldn’t bother me if you run after them first. I’m not officially chasing you off Spicer. Like I said, Lewis has a phenomenal instinct.”
“He’s also got a phenomenal hatred of born-again Christians.”
“It’s not even that. Do you remember that abortion doctor in Albany who got gunned down a few years ago? He got all sorts of threats and there was all this vilification on different right-to-life websites? You remember that?”
I did. The doctor had been shot at point-blank range as he was leaving his clinic. The shooter didn’t even try to escape. Some passersby grabbed him, but he offered no resistance. He just stood there holding a damn placard and waited for the police to come.
Peter held up two fingers. “Two things. The guy who did the shooting? He was a member of the group that Bruce Spicer is mixed up with. He was one of the people who got hauled in along with Spicer during the chicken-liver incident. Lewis did a little investigating on his own and discovered that.”
“I did crap work for you, Peter. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. Number two. Big number two. The doctor who was killed was a close personal friend of Lewis. They went back over thirty years.”
I allowed the information to seep in. “Then we might not be talking ‘awesome instincts’ here, Peter. We might be talking someone who’s leading with his anger. What you’re telling me is that your boss wouldn’t mind revenge.”
Peter let his breath out slowly. “I don’t know what I’m telling you. That’s the whole damn problem. I know I don’t have to remind you how important this case is.”
“I know it’s important, counselor. I just hope you’re ready to let it go if things start to fall in other directions. Look, I know you and Gottlieb have spent the better part of the past ten months trying to nail Marshall Fox to the wall for Blair and Rossman.”
“But?”
“But Robin Burrell and Zachary Riddick were killed in the same fashion as those two women. If you’re cutting me loose to find out who did these recent murders, you just have to understand that I’m not going to be operating with a closed mind about Marshall Fox’s guilt or innocence. If I—”
Peter exploded. “Fox’s
innocence
? Jesus, Fritz, cut me a big fat fucking break right here, you have
got
to be kidding!” He implored the heavens. “That son of a bitch slaughtered his…uh-uh. Forget it. Don’t even go there. We’ve got him. I don’t care if that jury does fall apart and blow away, we got the bastard who killed those two women! Our case is solid. Someone is trying to blow smoke all over the whole damn thing.
That’s
what’s happening. If it isn’t Bruce Spicer, it’s someone else.”
“All I’m saying—”
He wasn’t finished. “These are copycat killings. Come on, don’t get yourself all turned around. That’s exactly what the killer wants. I need you thinking straight here.” He pointed a finger at me. “We got the right killer. We got Fox. There’s nothing to investigate there. Zero. You do what we’ve hired you to do. Is that understood?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but turned abruptly and pushed back through the revolving door. It was one of those ultra-smooth revolving doors. It took the power of Peter’s force, swallowed him up instantly, and continued revolving after he was well out of it and back inside the building. I stood a moment watching my own reflection flashing in the door panels.
I SWUNG BY THE Reuters Building. A folder was waiting for me. It contained two résumés. Back at my office, I gave the résumés a look. I was just reaching for the phone to call Megan Lamb when it rang.
“Mr. Malone? This…” The wavering signal gobbled up the rest of the sentence. It was a woman’s voice.
“I didn’t catch that,” I said.
“It’s Michelle Poole. From the Quaker meeting. He’s
here
!”
“Who? Who’s where?” I bolted upright in my chair. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my apartment. Remember I told you I’ve been feeling like someone’s following me all the time? I felt it again when I was coming down the block just now. He’s really there. I saw him. He was definitely following me. I…I peeked out my window a minute ago, and he’s still…oh my God.”
“Give me your address!” I grabbed a pen and scribbled down the address. “Give me your phone numbers. Home and cell.” I scribbled those down as well. “I’m on my way. Listen to me. Call my number every five minutes. You got that?”
“But what—”
“Call! If you get voice mail, just say hi and hang up. Whatever you do, stay away from the window. Just hang tight.”
“I’m scared. Hurry. Please. I don’t—”
I nearly took out the tax accountant who works two doors down from me. He was shuffling toward the men’s room, holding a key attached to a clipboard. I missed him by an inch.
I HIT THE STREET in five minutes. Four of them were spent on the elevator going down from my office to the street. It was lunchtime. The elevator eased to a stop over and over again.
Twelfth floor…
Eleventh floor…
Ninth floor…
Eighth floor…
Fourth floor…
Third floor…
Outside, I hailed a cab. I tossed a handful of bills on the front seat and told the driver to go reckless. Eight minutes later, I had him pull over a block from Michelle Poole’s building.
Michelle lived on Twenty-seventh Street, near Third Avenue. Close enough to where Zachary Riddick had lived, I realized, to account easily for Michelle’s several sightings of the lawyer. As I got out of the car, I registered this factoid and tucked it away in a deep file. Riddick hadn’t necessarily been stalking Robin’s friend. The woman was just jumpy. In that case, maybe—
I spotted him.
He was standing outside of a stone church in the middle of the block. The church had large red doors, and he was leaning up against one of them, smoking a cigarette. My heart slammed against my rib cage.
It was Ratface. The guy I had noticed at the Quaker meeting. He was wearing a baseball cap, but otherwise he was dressed the same as before. As I watched, he pulled a fresh cigarette from a pack in his coat pocket, lit it off the first one and flicked the old one to the sidewalk, just missing a man walking by. The man must have said something to him. Ratface gave the man the finger, took a drag on his new cigarette and refixed his gaze on the building across the street. As I rounded the corner, he looked up and saw me. The red door behind him opened, and as an elderly woman exited the church, Ratface flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and ran inside the church. I picked up my pace. Full speed.
The church was dark except for the altar area. In the rows of shadowy pews, I could make out a dozen or so people sitting quietly in the dark. There was a center aisle as well as aisles running down either side of the church. They appeared to be empty. There was no way Ratface could have already raced down the length of any aisle and disappeared into another part of the church. He was here. In the dark. I started to pull out my gun then hesitated. Not here. Not yet, anyway.
I started slowly down the center aisle, checking the faces of the people in the pews. I couldn’t imagine that he would have had the wherewithal to slip into a pew and try to blend in. My mind gave me an image. A man shrinking with tremendous quickness, his clothes dropping to the floor as if he has vanished altogether, and a black hairy rat scurrying out from under the clothes and darting into the shadows.
I was nearly right.
“Hey!” Partway down the pew I was approaching, a man leaped to his feet. “What in the world…?”
Ratface bobbed to his feet at the far end of the pew. As soon as he’d entered the church, he must have hit the floor and scurried beneath the pews, making his way forward on knees and elbows. He took off running. He was through the door at the end of the aisle before I was halfway down the narrow pew. I leaped onto the pew, where I could run faster.
“Move!”
The man sitting in the pew lurched forward. I cleared him, pounding my way to the end of the pew. I hit the aisle and raced to the door. Behind it, a set of winding stairs led to the basement level. I heard a sound from below—a clanging—and took off down the stairs. They wound down to a basement hallway that ran under the altar. A small kitchenette. Two restrooms. A large open room with a piano and folding chairs. And a door directly to my left. I paused. I tried the door. Locked. Or perhaps the doorknob was being held. I squeezed the knob and tried to twist it. It seemed like it was giving a little.
Wrong.
I heard a sound behind me and turned in time to see the women’s room door swinging open. The door caught me directly on the jaw. Sparks pierced my vision. At the same time, I felt something happening in my left side. Ratface shoved me to the floor, leaped over me and started running down the hallway. I looked down to see a long black piece of plastic sticking from my side. I tugged on it. It was a kitchen knife. The blade felt cold as I pulled it out. As soon as the blade cleared my jacket, blood began pumping onto my fingers.
Immediately, my mouth went dry. In the darkened hallway, the blood looked like oil. I staggered to my feet. I guessed that the other end of the hallway could only lead to a similar set of stairs and back up into the church. I made the calculation and, clutching my side, plunged through the sparks and back up the winding stairs. I swung myself around the railing at the top and emerged at the altar area, right next to the choir stalls. Off in the pews, shadowy figures were moving about swiftly. Someone cried out, “There he is!” But they might have meant me.
I moved across the front of the altar just as Ratface appeared, running up the far side aisle in the direction of the front door. I veered and aimed for the center aisle but lost my footing as I hit the marble steps leading down from the altar. I went down. Ratface was yanking the door open as I got back to my feet. I looked down and saw a swirl of blood on the marble. Somewhere in the darkness of the church, a woman screamed.
I lurched forward.
Outside.
He was a good block ahead of me, heading east. I took off after him. He dodged the cars on Third Avenue more deftly than I was able to, though at one point he surfed precariously on a patch of ice and allowed me to gain on him. I was grunting like a gimp racehorse, the vapor of my breath coming out in husky bursts. The wound in my side felt like it was packed with nails.
He was opening distance between us. As I dodged a woman pushing a baby stroller, I felt my cell phone vibrating. No time for that. I bore down. There were only two more blocks before we’d hit the FDR Drive, and beyond that, the East River. If he attempted to cross the FDR, my job was done. There was no way he could negotiate all those lanes of speeding traffic. As he neared Second Avenue, he barreled past an Asian woman, and she fell to the sidewalk. An instant later, I grunted, “Sorry,” and hurdled cleanly over her, my lungs warning me they were ready to explode.