Dead Lies (12 page)

CHAPTER 13

K
REEGER WAS PUMPED. AN HOUR AGO THE SECURITY VIDEO FROM APPLE
Bank had finally been released to Hackensack, and now he had a clear picture of their number-one suspect. The video plainly showed a middle-aged man getting out of an older-model Mercury Cougar and dumping the evidence exactly where they’d found it early yesterday morning. It had taken Wilmer Cuddy, the pimply-faced audio-visual technician who was actually pushing forty, less than sixty seconds to isolate the rear view of the Cougar. Zooming in on the license plate, it was only another few minutes until Kreeger had run the number through the system.

Now they knew the owner of the car was an ex-con named Lester Malik, a New Jersey native whose last incarceration was a four-year stint in Northern Sate Prison on a conviction of aggravated assault. According to his parole officer, with whom Kreeger had just spoken by phone, Malik had grown up in a violent household and had some serious anger issues, not to mention a rap sheet with offenses ranging from petty theft to armed robbery beginning back in his teens.

And now, it seemed, the ex-con had graduated from a string of lesser felony assaults to the big one: murder.

Kreeger was proud of what he and his team had accomplished in such a short time. The evidence was already piling up. Last night, Ray Esposito, one of his sharpest detectives, had found the bullet casings the killer had dropped in a storm drain behind the school. After learning about the second dump site in Perona, he’d then gotten the bright idea of searching likely places between Avondale and Perona where Malik might have ditched the murder weapon. They’d found the gun in a garbage can behind the McDonald’s on Route 17, along with a pair of blood-specked gloves stashed in the rest room of an Exxon station.

Excellent work.

He wanted to share the good news with his new young partner, but it was past 7:00, and Anna Valentine had already gone home.

He closed the file on his desk and grabbed the keys to his car, making an impulse decision. Twenty-five minutes later, he pulled his battered white Volvo in front of a modest white Cape with black shutters. The porch light was on. Anna was home.

Standing with his right index finger poised over the doorbell, Kreeger knew he shouldn’t have come. At least he should have called first. Maybe there was still time to do that. He could sneak back to the curb and call her and ask if it was okay to drop by. No, he should just leave. He should get back in his car and go home like he did every other night. To his empty apartment. His empty refrigerator. His empty life.

He held his breath and pushed the button.
Ding dong
.

A moment later he heard footsteps behind the door. “Who is it?” a voice said, making his heart flutter.

“Jerry Kreeger,” he said, wishing he could erase the last ten seconds and slip back into the night. He felt like a fool. An
old
fool.

But it was too late now.

Anna opened the door wearing a look of surprise. “Jerry, what are you doing here?”

Kreeger held his breath. The young officer looked so beautiful standing there in her jeans and form-fitting V-neck sweater, her hair pulled back in a low pony-tail and her extraordinary eyes glittering in the lamp light overhead. He thought that if an executive from the Benjamin Moore paint company ever got a look at those irises, they’d have a best-selling paint on their hands. It was a different Anna standing there in civilian clothes. She looked young and fresh. He felt like an ogling old man.

“I was in the neighborhood, and I, uh, I thought I’d just stop by and give you the good news,” he stammered.

She looked uncertain. “Well, I don’t have to ask you how you got my address. I know you’ve got friends in law enforcement.”

He laughed a little too loudly.

She hesitated then opened the door wider and gestured him in. “Please come in.”

He stepped inside and was immediately assaulted by the most amazing smells. Beef. Broth. Some kind of beefy broth? Brilliant detecting, Jerry. Whatever it was, it smelled rich and hearty. He felt his stomach growl, and he suddenly realized how hungry he was. He’d hardly eaten a thing in the last two days, as was his habit when The Job called.

Anna locked the door behind him with a snap. “Have you eaten dinner?” she asked politely, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ears. She cocked her head away as if listening for something in another room then turned back to him. “I’m just heating up a pot of stew.”

Hungry as he was, he hesitated to accept her invitation. She didn’t seem terribly happy to see him. He should just tell her his news and go. Pretend he only had a few minutes, had somewhere else to be. Then his stomach grumbled loudly.

Anna laughed, and that settled it. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble,” he said gratefully.

She smiled. “Not at all.”

He followed her through the sparsely-decorated living room, which contained only a couch, a pair of easy chairs and a few tables. The walls were bare and white, and there were only a few personal mementos scattered around. It was not a room that compelled you to kick off your shoes and book a seat on the couch. He was surprised. He’d have thought Anna’s home would look as vibrant as her personality.

Then he remembered she’d recently moved in.

He knew what that was like. There was a time when home was a cozy Tudor on a quiet cul-de-sac in Hasbrouck Heights, but that was before his wife left him and moved a thousand miles away, taking along half his paycheck with her. Now the place where he parked his stuff was a one-bedroom rental apartment in Hackensack in a shabby complex a two-minute drive from his office. He often felt like his life was confined to that single square mile between home and work.

“What was the good news you wanted to tell me?” Anna asked when they entered the kitchen. She stopped short and gave him a look of dismay. “Don’t tell me you caught him, and I missed it.”

Kreeger didn’t answer. He was struck dumb by the small child sitting at the kitchen table by the window, a child so beautiful it made him want to pick up a brush and learn how to paint. That’s Anna’s son, he marveled, noting the child’s similar olive skin, brown hair and intense silvery-blue eyes. He looked like a miniature version of her.

Anna had a son.

Somehow that shocked him. He shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Of course she was married. She was the kind of woman who could have her pick of any man. And yet he hadn’t seen a ring, or—he took a vague look around—a husband for that matter…

“I’m sorry, I’ve disturbed you and your family,” he said. “We can talk tomorrow at the office.” He turned around to leave.

“You didn’t disturb anything, Jerry. It’s just me and my son, Max, and he’s just about finished with his dinner. Please stay. Really, I’m happy for the company.”

So did that mean Anna was divorced? He guessed so. He should have brought a bottle of wine.

“Can you do me a favor and open that wine over there?” she said, apparently reading his thoughts as she pointed to a bottle on the counter. “There’s a corkscrew in the drawer below it.”

While he coaxed the cork out of its narrow berth, she went to the table and lifted her son from his chair. She carried him over to Kreeger and introduced him, adding that he’d just turned four.

“Hi Max, how ya doin’ buddy?” he said.

The boy seemed to shrink from Kreeger. He turned to his mother with huge eyes and cried, “Where’s Daddy?”

He buried his face in her neck, and Anna gently stroked his hair. “He’s at home, sweetheart.”

The boy peeked back at Kreeger. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Jerry. I work with him. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Max looked at Kreeger again, still wary. Then he buried his head back into his mother’s neck.

“I’m going to put him in the living room, where he can play with his blocks, and I can keep an eye on him,” Anna said. “The babysitter gave him a long nap today, so he’s going to be up for awhile.” Anna pointed to a cabinet over the sink. “The glasses are up there.” She disappeared for a few moments, and he poured glasses for both of them. He took a quick gulp, then another.

“So what did you want to tell me?” Anna said when she returned. She went to the stove and began fixing two plates, heaping big spoonfuls of stew onto piles of buttered egg noodles.

Kreeger stared at the steaming food.
Homemade
food. He was suddenly so hungry it hurt.

“We got the guy on video and were able to identify him.” He followed Anna to the table with the two glasses of wine. “His name is Lester Malik, and he’s got an extensive record. He got out of prison a year ago for aggravated assault. Beat the crap out of a guy who cut him off on the highway.” He told her what else he knew about the man, including that he was on parole and had a history of armed assault and robbery. “You were right about him being local, Anna. He lives in Perona.”

She didn’t acknowledge the quasi-compliment as she set their plates down. “We gonna pick him up?” she asked. He liked how she said “we.”

He pulled out a chair for her, aware that it had been a long time since he’d done that for a woman besides his daughters, a long time even since he’d dined with an unrelated woman alone. It felt good.

“Not yet. I want to wait until we get the results back from the lab. The videotape alone doesn’t prove anything.” He paused. “In the meantime, I assigned two guys to watch his apartment.”

He wanted to dive into the food the second his butt hit the chair, but he waited until she picked up her fork before he began.
When the hostess takes her first bite, that’s your cue to eat
, he could still hear his mother say. When Anna did, he stuck his fork into the biggest, juiciest looking piece of beef and put the whole chunk in his mouth, rolling it around on his tongue a few times because it was hot. When it had cooled slightly, he chomped down on it, closing his eyes as he chewed. The meat was so tender it practically felt apart on its own. He swallowed, sighing happily. He opened his eyes.

Anna hadn’t taken a bite. She was watching him. “When do you expect the lab results to come in?” she asked.

He stabbed another piece of meat but didn’t eat it. “A day or two at least,” he answered.

Anna sighed impatiently. “So the investigation’s on hold until then?”

Kreeger couldn’t resist. He put the piece of beef in his mouth, savoring it as he chewed. “Nope,” he said with his mouth full. “Tomorrow we’re going to pay him a visit. We can’t bring him in, of course, or he might lawyer up, so we’ll have to create another pretense for being there.” He swallowed and winked at her. “Maybe we’ll tell him the bank was robbed and that we caught his car on the security video. Maybe we’ll trap him into offering something up. ”

Anna’s eyes lit up but her look was skeptical. “Does that sort of thing fly out here?”

Kreeger didn’t have to ask what she meant. Suburban cops played by the rules. They didn’t lie to suspects the way N.Y.P.D. cops did. And yet there was no law that said they couldn’t.

Kreeger grinned. “Not really. But let’s keep this between us all the same.”

Anna grinned back conspiratorially. “Yeah. You, me, and the videotape.”

Kreeger thought about telling her what Malik’s parole officer said, but he didn’t want to talk about business any longer. He wanted to learn more about Anna, the gorgeous young cop who’d walked into his life last night and, in the space of twenty-four hours, had become a welcome fixture. Lester Malik could wait until tomorrow.

“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” he asked. “This stew is delicious.” It was the truth. The last time he’d eaten something this good was in a fancy French restaurant to celebrate the day his eldest daughter had graduated from college. It was the best meal he’d ever had.

“Thank you. Actually, I was a professional chef before I became a cop.”

“Woah, how old are you?” he blurted out and immediately wished he could take it back.

She wagged her finger at him playfully. “Old enough not to be asked that question. But for the record I’m thirty-two.”

So, she was older than she looked. But she was still twenty-five years younger than he was. He could be her father.

“So what made you decide to become a cop?” Safe subject. “It’s a huge departure from what you were doing.”

“Maybe that was the point,” she mused. “My father, brothers, and all but two of my uncles are cops. After college they tired to get me to join up, too, but I resisted for a long time. On some level, I knew it was the right path for me, but I, you know, wanted to be independent and all that… But eventually I realized”—here she paused and grinned at him—“my blood runs blue.”

He nodded in understanding. Law enforcement was often a family business. Not for him though. His mother and father had both been liberal academics who abhorred guns, even ones carried by the good guys.

“So, what, you cooked in restaurants?” He didn’t know anything about being a chef except that nowadays many of them had their own cable television shows.

“At first.” She twirled her wine glass between her slender fingers, sending shadows from the candle she’d lit earlier bouncing across her face. “But the hours are crazy. Worse than a cop’s. I used to cook all night, get off work around 1 a.m., catch a few hours of sleep, then get up at five to hit the markets. You never got a break. Plus, working in a kitchen, is—pardon the pun—a pressure cooker. Most head chefs are total assholes.”