Authors: Michele Martinez
“Here’s what I got on it so far,” Dan said, flipping open his notebook, ignoring the part of her question that was personal. “The call you received yesterday came from a prepaid cell phone, one that can be purchased for cash at newsstands, drugstores, and the like, so it can’t be traced through subscriber records. The particular ESN number comes back to a batch sold by a chain of newsstands in midtown Manhattan. It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll ever be able to tie the number to an individual purchase.”
“So the stalker is careful,” Melanie said. “He’s taking precautions not to be identified.”
“Yup. I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I. Were you able to get cell-site information?”
“Yeah. The call bounced off a cell tower in Jackson Heights, which means the guy was within about a quarter mile of there when he placed the call.”
“Jackson Heights?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s in Queens, right near Flushing.”
“I know. I thought about that. I thought about the fact that the package of dog shit was mailed from Flushing, and that the call to Suzanne Shepard on the night of her murder was made from a pay phone in Flushing. It’s not hard proof, and it doesn’t convince me that the Butcher and your stalker are one and the same. But it bothers the crap outta me.”
“What do you think I should do?” Melanie asked.
“What
can
we do? Take extra precautions. I’ll drive you wherever you need to go. We’ll keep investigating. That’s about it.”
Melanie rubbed her eyes. “I’m so confused. How are these things related, if at all? We have this bizarre evidence about Benedict Welch”—Melanie filled Dan in briefly on her conversation with Pauline Estrada—“but does Welch have any connection to the threatening package, or to the call Suzanne received on the night of her death?”
“Not that we’ve seen so far,” Dan said.
“And what about my Web stalker, my obscene phone caller? There’s no evidence that he’s the Butcher. There’s no evidence that he’s Welch, either. He could be anybody. Or he could be related.”
“With him, all I can say is wait and see if he calls again. The more he makes contact, the better our shot at tracking him down.”
“That reminds me,” Melanie said, glancing at the flashing red light on her phone. “I have voice mail.” With Dan here, she felt less nervous about listening to it, and she dialed in and began listening to the message. It was from Bob Adelman.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.
“What?”
“David Harris was shot! Hold on, I’ll put it on speaker.”
Adelman’s voice on the tape was distraught. “David was gunned down in a car outside the Feinerman firm last night. He’s at St. Vincent’s. Critical condition. I’m heading over there right now. Call me on my cell. I can’t believe what an idiot I was. I should’ve listened to you, Melanie. I should have listened.”
Melanie turned to Dan in shock. “The Butcher got to him! Oh, Jesus, don’t let him be dead.”
“Take it easy,” Dan said. “Call Adelman. I bet he knows more by now.”
Melanie dialed Adelman’s number. She hadn’t particularly liked David Harris, but she was so afraid for him now that she could hardly breathe.
“You were right, sweetheart. Harris needed protection,” Dan said.
“I didn’t do enough! I should have insisted on the surveillance team whether Harris wanted it or not.”
“It’s his own damn fault. He refused protection.”
They sat there staring at the phone, listening to the rings together. Finally, they got a recording saying Adelman’s cell phone was temporarily out of range.
“He must be in the hospital,” Dan said. “Hospitals block cell service because it interferes with the medical equipment. That’s why you haven’t been able to reach me the last couple nights. Remember? My friend is sick.”
Despite her terrible anxiety about David Harris’s condition, Melanie registered that information and felt a measure of relief on her own account.
“St. Vincent’s, Bob said?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
T
hey found Bob Adelman
pacing outside the open door of David Harris’s hospital room. Inside, a team of doctors stood in a semi-circle around the bed, conferring with a short, plump woman with a tear-streaked face. Presumably David Harris was lying in that bed, but Melanie couldn’t see him through the hovering crowd.
“Robin’s in there with the doctors now, and it sounds like encouraging news,” Adelman said, a smile lighting up his hound-dog face. “The bullet missed all major organs. The surgery went well. They just upgraded his condition from critical to serious.”
Melanie exhaled and met Dan’s eyes. “Thank God.”
“You don’t know how bad I felt for not accepting your offer of protection,” Adelman said.
“Don’t blame yourself, Bob,” Melanie said, although of course she’d been blaming
herself
.
“I felt that way at first, but then I found out what time Dave was shot. When you and I were chatting over drinks last night, this had already happened. So even if I’d taken you up on the bodyguard offer, it wouldn’t’ve changed the outcome. I know that doesn’t make
Dave getting shot okay, but at least I don’t have to feel like a total schmuck.”
“What time was he attacked?” Melanie asked Adelman.
“Around nine.”
If David Harris had been shot during the fund-raiser, then neither Rockwell Davis nor Clyde Williams could have been responsible, Melanie realized. Dan was supposed to have been looking into their alibis.
“Can I ask you something?” Melanie said to Dan, pulling him aside so they were out of earshot. “Were you able to confirm alibis for Clyde Williams or Rockwell Davis?”
“Yeah. They’re both in the clear. Things have been so crazy, I didn’t get a chance to tell you.”
“That’s a relief. At the fund-raiser last night, Davis acted so intimidating that I was starting to think we’d missed the boat on him, and that he was our man. That maybe Clyde was too smart to commit murder, but Davis wasn’t. But neither one of them could have shot David Harris, because they were at the fund-raiser.”
“They didn’t kill Suzanne, either,” Dan said. “They were both otherwise engaged. We can cross ’em off the list.”
“Where were they?” Melanie asked.
“Rocky Davis was at Rao’s schmoozing some potential contributors on Wednesday night. A lot of people saw him. And Clyde, you’re not gonna believe.”
“What? Tell me.”
“He was in a hotel room with Emily King,” Dan said.
“No way!”
“I kid you not. I pulled Emily’s phone and credit-card records myself. She had a charge on her AmEx for a Marriott in midtown that night, and a bunch of calls back and forth with Clyde’s cell. I went to the Marriott, and an employee remembered seeing Clyde come through the lobby at the relevant time. So I confronted the girl and
she gave it up. She claims they only met to talk about how to manage the scandal. Swears they never slept together. But the timing makes Clyde a no-go for the murder.”
“Did you believe her? About them not having sex, I mean?”
“If all you’re gonna do is talk, why get a room with a king bed and a minibar?” Dan said.
“Going to a hotel with her after their affair got outed on national TV? How could he be so reckless? It’s almost like he’s begging to get caught.”
Dan shrugged. “Some people are danger junkies. But at least we know Clyde’s not the killer.”
“Now I understand why he stonewalled when we asked about his alibi,” Melanie said. So Joe’s father wasn’t a murderer; he was just a womanizing louse. She could live with that, though barely.
The crowd of doctors that had been in David Harris’s room came spilling out into the hallway. Melanie saw Robin Harris emerge to a hug from Bob Adelman.
“Let’s see if they have an update on Harris’s condition,” Melanie said.
Adelman introduced them to Robin, who was wearing sweatpants and a crumpled T-shirt and looking utterly exhausted.
“We were lucky,” Robin said. “A couple of millimeters in either direction and my David would be dead. He was shot in the back while jumping out the window of the moving car. Luckily he’s strong as an ox. He served in the Israeli army, you know.”
“Mrs. Harris, I am so sorry about what happened,” Melanie said. “And I want you to know, we’ll be putting a twenty-four-hour guard on his door.”
“A little late, isn’t it?” Robin demanded. “Where were you people last night when David was attacked?”
“We tried to assign protection sooner, but we were told that Mr. Harris didn’t want it,” Melanie said.
Robin threw Adelman a shocked look. “Is that true?”
“It’s complicated,” Adelman replied. “It has to do with the obstruction charges. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and explain, Robin.”
But Robin had already turned on Melanie. “Wait a minute, you’re the woman who charged my David with a crime? Where do you get off jeopardizing his career like that? He has a family to support.”
“Robin, please. You’re upset,” Adelman said.
“My husband gets arrested and then he gets shot? You’re damn right I’m upset!”
“Mrs. Harris, just so you understand, I charged your husband because he lied to us about being in the Ramble on the night of Suzanne Shepard’s murder,” Melanie said.
“He likes to jog after work. Big deal. Why would he lie about that?” Robin said. But her beet-red blush and veiled eyes made Melanie wonder how much she actually knew about her husband’s extracurricular activities.
“Let’s not get into the obstruction charges right now,” Melanie said. “There’s a good chance we’ll be dropping them anyway. We should be helping each other instead of arguing. I want to catch the man who shot your husband, and in order to do that, I need to be able to interview him. Do you know when he might be ready to speak to us?”
“Speak to you about what?”
“We need to show Mr. Harris some pictures, maybe bring a sketch artist in, that sort of thing.”
“You want to interview Dave? Make him relive his nightmare? I can’t allow that.”
“Don’t you want the shooter caught? After all, he might be the Butcher himself, and he might try again,” Melanie said.
“Of course I want him caught!” Robin cried, tears welling in her eyes. “We have three children. I’m living in fear.”
“Then we need to interview your husband. He’s the main witness.”
“He’s not well enough to talk,” Robin insisted stubbornly.
“We understand that,” Adelman said. “She’s asking when he will be.”
“I don’t
know
. He’s fucking unconscious, okay?” And Robin burst into sobs.
“Come on, honey, let me buy you that coffee. It’ll do you a world of good.” Adelman took Robin’s arm. “She’s a wreck,” he whispered to Melanie behind his hand.
“Call me as soon as Harris wakes up,” Melanie called out as the lawyer pulled the sobbing woman toward the elevator.
D
an and Melanie cornered one of the detectives who’d responded to the David Harris shooting last night and asked him for a report. His name was Wayne Gallagher; he was sweaty, paunchy, and plain-spoken, wearing thick-soled shoes. Gallagher had come to the hospital in the hope of interviewing Harris himself, and when he learned that wasn’t possible at present, he was glad enough to brief them so his trip wouldn’t be a total bust. Unfortunately, the news he had to share was worse than Melanie had anticipated.
“Driver still hasn’t been found,” Gallagher said curtly.
“What driver?” Melanie asked.
“The one the shooter grabbed in order to get your witness. Name of Stanislaus Wyszinski. Polish immigrant. Green card. Fifty-three YOA. Married, no children.”
“I don’t understand. I thought Harris was attacked in front of his law firm.” But now that she thought about it, Robin had said something about a moving car.
“Harris was kidnapped from in front of his law firm by a man posing as his regular car-service driver,” Gallagher said. “Harris walked out and got into a town car thinking he was gonna get a smooth ride home, but the perp was sitting in the front seat instead of the driver,
and he headed for Jersey instead of the Upper West Side. At some point, Harris figured it out and tried to escape. The perp shot him before he made it out of the car, on the ramp leading up to the Holland Tunnel.”
“How could this happen?” Melanie asked. The question was rhetorical, more like a cry to heaven, but Gallagher answered matter-of-factly.
“Well, for starters, this perp is very cunning. He staked your boy Harris out. He learned which car service Harris used and who his regular driver was, and he was ruthless enough to make the driver disappear. We found Wyszinski’s bloodstained jacket with his wallet still in it lying near a Dumpster in close proximity to the law firm. We think the shooter might’ve chucked the body in the garbage. Not an unusual disposal method after you whack somebody. We’re sending teams out to Fresh Kills and some of the other landfills to search.”
“You’re saying the driver’s dead?” Melanie asked.
Gallagher shrugged. “I can’t be sure, but when they’re raking the landfills for you, things don’t look too good.”
Dan had his notebook out and had been taking notes. “Any eyewitnesses?”
“Nobody noticed anything when the kidnapping went down, but I got a coupla Dutch kids who were in the vicinity looking for a youth hostel at the time of the shooting. They heard the shots fired, saw Harris hit the pavement, and saw the town car speed off. The kids called 911 right away. Probably saved Harris’s life. They didn’t get a look at the perp, though.”
“Have you found the town car?” Melanie asked.
“Hasn’t turned up yet, but it will,” Gallagher said.
“You’ll call us if you learn anything new?” she asked.
“Sure thing.”
They exchanged cards. Dan and Melanie went to the elevator. It took a while for it to come.
“You look worried,” Dan said as they waited.
“I am. Think about what happened today, Dan. We’ve ruled out almost all of our suspects. We know David Harris didn’t kill Suzanne. Neither did Clyde Williams or Rocky Davis. Miles Ortiz was so eager to get his cheek swabbed that I’ve got to assume the DNA test will clear him. And Benedict Welch, as guilty as he looks, appears to have a valid alibi. Maybe he ordered Suzanne killed, but unless those doctors are lying, he didn’t personally rape her and carve her up.”