Dead Lies (16 page)

Malik’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? So what?”

“So, you know one of the conditions of your parole is that you stay out of trouble.”

Malik’s eyes darted to Anna, then back to Kreeger.

Kreeger pulled out his notebook and slowly flipped pages, trying to put the parolee on edge, make him wonder what was coming next.

“Where were you between 6:00 and 6:30 on Christmas night?” he said finally.

Malik’s gaze slithered around the room. “Here.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?”

“No. Does it look like I get a lot of visitors?”

Cheeky bastard. And yet Anna noticed a crop of wet beads had broken out on his greasy hairline.

“What were you doing?” said Kreeger.

Malik eyed the bottle of vodka on the table next to a ratty blue recliner. “Watching TV, having a drink.”

“Let me explain why we’re here,” offered Kreeger casually, as if they were just two guys chatting on the street. “The Apple Bank on Route 17 was robbed on Christmas night, and we’ve got a clear image of your car on the security video. Can you explain that?”

The suspect’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and Anna saw a light go on inside them. “Somebody musta stolen it,” he said, grabbing the hook Kreeger had deliberately offered him.

“Yeah?” said Kreeger. “You report it missing?”

Malik swallowed. “No, I was just speculating. I haven’t left my apartment since that night. I wouldn’t know if it was gone.”

Kreeger shifted tack to keep the suspect off balance. “Working these days?” he asked, already aware that Malik worked the ten-to-six shift at a local chemical factory that employed ex-convicts. A steady job was one of the terms of his parole.

“I’m working,” said Malik quickly. “But I was off the past couple of days.” Anna could see the wheels of the criminal’s mind spinning. He added, “You can check with my manager.”

Kreeger’s eyes bored into Malik’s. “I will.” He paused. “You going to work today?”

“Yeah, and I gotta leave in a few minutes. I was just getting dressed when you showed up.” Anna saw Malik’s face visibly relax. Apparently he decided the police weren’t going to arrest him, were just fishing. “We done here?” the man said, giving an impatient wave of his hand.

“Not quite. So, Lester, you’re saying you were nowhere near that Apple Bank on Christmas night?”

A look of uncertainty flitted across Malik’s face, but he quickly corrected it. “That’s what I’m saying.”

Kreeger nodded. “Your parole officer tells me you got a history of robbery. There’s no chance you slipped and fell back into your old life for a night?”

Malik’s face clouded over. “I didn’t do it,” he said adamantly.

It was probably the only honest answer Malik had given so far.

Kreeger eyeballed the man, closing his notebook. “Okay, Lester, we’re done now,” the detective said, pleasantly as can be. “Thanks for your time.”

Anna followed Kreeger out of the stuffy apartment and into the hallway. She took a deep breath when the door had closed behind them. Why did it seem criminals never wanted to open a window? The answer: They were intimately familiar with the kind of people who might crawl in.

As they made their way downstairs Kreeger said, “Eliot, radio Mike and tell him to meet us out front.” On the street he told the officers what went down, concluding, “Malik thinks he’s in the clear for the murders. I want you guys to stay here and watch him, see what he does next. Check in with me every couple of hours.”

“Right,” said Steele.

“You got a camera?” asked Kreeger, shooting a surreptitious look at Anna. It almost made her laugh out loud.

“Yeah, in the trunk.”

“Go get it. We need to switch cars. I don’t want Lester getting spooked by a patrol car sitting outside his house.”

After they exchanged keys, Anna followed the detective to the cruiser. Across the street she saw a young Hispanic girl in pigtails peering through the window of her ground-floor apartment and two black women dressed in bulky down coats pushing baby strollers down the sidewalk in front. The women were talking as they walked, but they were also keeping a cool eye on the police activity, as if the sight of several white police officers perusing their neighborhood was an everyday occurrence.

Kreeger tossed her the car keys. She got into the driver’s seat, and Kreeger got in next to her. While she made a three-point turn that pointed the car in the direction of home, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“Hey Jane,” he said into the device. “I need you to get me a subpoena for a phone tap.” Then he explained what had just happened before hanging up with a brief “thanks.”

Anna reached the street that would take them out to the highway, and she looked into the rearview mirror as she turned the corner. She watched Malik’s building disappear from sight. She was disappointed they hadn’t made an arrest, but this new twist was an exciting development all the same.

Finally she spoke. “So what’s going on, Jerry? You think Lester has an accomplice?”

“Accomplice, no. Lester doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who plays well in the sandbox with the other kids. And he’s no brain, either. I’m thinking Lester was just the trigger man, and the other guy—the one who attacked Web—could be the one who ordered the hit.”

It was as good a theory as any at this point. “So what was he looking for last night?” she asked.

“We’re going to take another look at the stuff we removed on Christmas and also search the house again. I don’t know what he was looking for, but the answer’s gotta be there somewhere.”

CHAPTER 17

W
EB CALLED TIM AND ASKED HIS FRIEND IF HE COULD DRIVE HIM INTO THE
city. He was in no condition to drive himself.

In the hours since the predawn attack an angry purple stain had bloomed on his forehead. It was a nice compliment to the gangly gashes on his chin and cheek that were currently being held together by a couple of industrial strength Band Aids. His head was pounding like someone was giving him regular hammer blows, so he’d popped a double dose of the pain pills the doctor had given him, swallowing it down with a generous couple of swigs of his father’s thirty-year old Scotch.

Pain was no longer the word he’d use to describe what he was feeling.

Tim was staying at his father’s condo in Wyckoff, and when Web told him about the attack and what he needed to get from his apartment, his friend said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Web hadn’t told anyone else in his family what he was up to. He didn’t want them to talk him out of it.

He waited at the curb for Tim. Moments later Tim’s blue Audi came flying around the corner. The car came to a stop, and Tim rolled down the window, asking casually, “What does the other guy look like?”

“Broken nose.”

“Not bad for a guy who was blindsided.”

Web shrugged, masking his inner fury. He felt angry and helpless. He’d let the guy who killed his sister get away.

He made his way around the car and opened the passenger door, easing his sore body into the forgiving leather seat. “So give me the update,” Tim said as they pulled away from the curb.

“The cops have identified the murder suspect,” said Web, delivering the one bit of good news Detective Kreeger had given him this morning. His voice sounded monotone. “They got a guy on a security video dumping the gun and jewelry. He has an extensive record, and he’s done some time.”

“That’s great!”

“There’s a ‘but.’ When they went to arrest him, they realized he wasn’t the same guy who attacked me.”

“How?”

Web tapped his nose. “Pretty like the day he was born.”

Tim gave a low whistle. “So, there’s more than one person behind this.” He sped up to make the upcoming traffic light and careened around the corner just as it changed to red.

“Apparently,” Web said, reaching for his seat belt. He winced as the strap tightened across his wrenched shoulder. “The cops are watching the first guy now to see what he’ll do next. They think he’ll lead them to the guy who attacked me.”

“And the guy who attacked you, do they know why he came back?”

“The cops think he was looking for something.”

“
What?
”

“We don’t know. After I went home to lick my wounds, Kreeger asked me to come back to Serena’s house. He wanted to walk through it and see if anything out of the ordinary jumped out at me.”

“Like..?”

“New electronics, art, anything that might suggest Serena and Bill had recently come into a large sum of money. I also went through their medicine cabinet to see if they were taking any unusual medication. Kreeger was vague, but words like ‘counterfeit drugs’ and ‘prescription abuse’ came up.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No. They hadn’t bought anything new as far as I could tell. And the only drugs they had were Serena’s fertility stuff and some out-of-date pain pills from Bill’s knee surgery last year. Kreeger said they’d send the pills to a lab to confirm they were what the labels said they were. They’re also going to check with the doctors to make sure the prescriptions were legit. But I’m pretty sure they were.” Web sighed. “I was there for an hour and a half going through everything. Kreeger even had me open the presents under the tree.” He looked at Tim. “Serena got me season tickets to the Knicks. They were twelve rows behind Spike Lee’s.”

“Oh, man.”

A former high school basketball star whose promising future had been ended by the accident, Web was a lifelong Knicks fan. Even though Serena had always been generous and thoughtful in her gift-giving, he was bowled over by this present. But that wasn’t the thing that had almost made him break down earlier when he’d walked through the house with Kreeger. The worst thing was seeing the book on Serena’s bedside table, dog-eared at page 194. It was the latest book in the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s popular Special Agent Pendergast series, which she and Web loved. They read all the greats—James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, the list went on—but Preston and Child’s books were their favorites. They were such unabashed fans that one night they’d logged onto the authors’ website and chatted anonymously with other Pendergast junkies. They’d agreed the message boards were too hardcore for them, but they’d had a lot of fun.

Seeing the unfinished book on Serena’s bedside table, Web doubted he’d ever be able to pick up any of the Pendergast books again.

“So what’s next?” asked Tim.

“Kreeger wants me to come down to Hackensack tomorrow to go through the stuff they removed from the house, like the mail and papers from their desks. I’m also going to sit with a computer expert and go through Serena and Bill’s computers and electronic organizers.”

“Aw, you just want to see that pretty cop again,” Tim teased.

Web laughed for the first time that day. “Yeah, I do.”

“She’s got a little more meat than the women you date.” Tim was referring to Web’s penchant for dating skin-and-bone models. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Change is good.”

“Maybe she’ll give you a badge. You know,
deputize
you.” Tim’s eyebrows waggled.

Web laughed again. Then he remembered why they were going to Manhattan. “Not if she finds out what I’m doing today,” he reminded his friend.

Tim drove for a while, keeping his speed at a steady 60 mph. Finally he turned to Web and said, “What the hell were Serena and Bill into?”

This morning’s attack had blasted Web out of his earlier denial. It was like somebody had taken a piss in his morning coffee and forced him to drink it. “Obviously something bad.”

Tim was quiet for a minute. “Any luck figuring out what Serena was trying to tell you?”

Bet violent.
What the hell did it mean?

“I thought something might come to me, but nothing has.”

They were on the ramp to Route 4 now, and Web estimated they’d be at his apartment in less than thirty minutes. When they passed the sign for the Riverside Square Mall Tim spoke again. “What did you think about the money motive the cops speculated about at The Grape?”

Feeling a droplet of moisture slide down his face, Web wiped his cheek with his index finger. He was bleeding again. He got a tissue from his pocket and held it to his face. He looked at the tissue and saw there was only a small spot of redness. He was going to survive. Goddamnit.

“I mean, insurance policies, inheritances…” Tim was saying. “I just can’t imagine anyone we know killing for money.”

Web sighed. Tim was right. They’d both been born into privilege and surrounded by wealth their whole lives. Money had never been an issue. It still wasn’t. Web owned his own company, Tim ran a wildly profitable hedge fund at Goldman Sachs and even Danny, arguably the least successful of the three of them, was doing well. He’d taken over his father’s gourmet food market in Franklin Lakes, and it was thriving. “But the police aren’t thinking that way,” he said. “They’ve gotta consider everything. I think they’re pursuing that angle pretty aggressively. This morning Dad got a call from his financial manager, who got wind the police were looking into our family finances. I expect they’re doing the same with the Vance’s.”

Tim was quiet for a moment. “Have you gotten a lawyer?”

“Dad won’t hear of it. He said we should just let the police do what they need to do.”

“I can understand that. To some, lawyering up could look like an act of guilt,” Tim observed.

The exit signs for Englewood whizzed by. They were almost at the bridge.

“And the affair angle?” Tim asked. “What did you think of that?”

Web shook his head. “I’m totally biased, but I just can’t see it. Serena and Bill had the best marriage of anyone I know.”

Tim slowed for the toll. They cruised under the E-Z Pass sign and entered the upper level of the bridge. Tim got in the middle lane, which fed directly onto the West Side Highway.

As they crossed the river, Web looked out the passenger window and lost himself in the beauty of the New York City skyline. His gaze drifted downward, at the water. Today it looked black, and the wind was forming disorganized rows of icy whitecaps on its mottled surface.

“Danny sure bristled at that suggestion when it came up yesterday,” Tim said, forcing Web to shift his gaze to his friend’s profile.

“What suggestion?” Web asked.

“The idea of an affair,” Tim said.

“Right,” Web said absently, remembering how Danny’s face had
visibly reddened when the detective had brought it up. “You think something’s going on with him and Tanyer?” he asked. Even after seventeen years, they still called their friend’s wife Tany
er
, mimicking her Long Island accent. By now it was a reflex. Juvenile, they knew.

“Well,” Tim said conspiratorially, “Danny called me last week and sounded like he wanted to confide in me about something, but Tanyer was yelling at him in the background so he had to get off.”

Web smiled not just at his henpecked friend but at how Tim, the hard-ass Wall Street moneymaker, gossiped like an Italian grandmother. “You think it’s more than the usual ball-and-chain stuff?” he speculated.

“Maybe so.”

Web nodded. “That’d explain Danny’s weight gain.”

“Yup.”

Web felt the trickle of blood again. He used the same tissue to dab it again. “You think they could be having money problems instead?” He didn’t like the idea that his friend might be cheating—or having financial difficulties. But he had to admit it was a relief to focus on somebody else’s stuff for a moment.

“Nah,” said Tim. “Danny says the store’s doing well, and I believe him. I was in there a few months ago, and it was jammed.”

“So, one of them could be getting some outside action,” Web concluded, realizing Tim had been leading him to this point. A week ago, Web would surely have gotten there quicker.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Tim said quickly. “But after that phone call Danny never brought up what he’d wanted to talk about. I was going to ask him about it when I saw him this week, but then…”

Web finished the thought for him. “…this happened.”

Tim looked over at him. “Sorry, buddy,” he said.

Web didn’t respond. He was still thinking about Danny’s alleged marital problems. He could see why Danny had reached out to them for help. Danny had always turned to them when times were tough. The dynamic had been established the first day in kindergarten when a couple of the other boys in class were picking on Danny, punching him and calling him Big Red because of his chunky body and carrot-colored hair. Web and Tim, already much bigger than the other boys their age, had raced over to rescue the smaller boy. They’d pulled the other kids off him, shouted a few threats, and helped pick grass and twigs from the playground out of his hair. They stayed with him until recess was over. Soon after, Web and Tim’s feelings of protectiveness toward Danny had turned into genuine fondness for the shy, overweight kid who cried easily and never raised his voice or said a bad word about anybody. Danny had given them loyalty and devotion in return.

Many years later, when Danny and Serena had fallen head over heels for each other, Web had been genuinely delighted, even though it meant he got to spend a little less time with his pal. No longer the wimpy kid who couldn’t stick up for himself, Danny had long since turned into an accomplished young man who excelled at soccer and math, and Web felt that he was now completely worthy of his beautiful sister. One of the things that he most appreciated was how Danny wasn’t a skirt-chaser like he and Tim were. Rather, Danny was always shy around girls, and as a result slightly in awe that he’d somehow caught Serena’s eye. To Web, that meant Danny would always be loyal to Serena. In fact, he’d always assumed that if they ever broke up, Serena would be the one to initiate it.

Of course that’s not what happened. Nothing had turned out the way Web had expected. For instance, he’d come to realize that Danny’s lack of confidence around women had actually worked against Serena. The lure of an attractive college girl like Tanya must have been irresistible. She had thrown herself at Danny, using all the powers of her feminine charm to snare him, and he had melted under her attention.

Web sighed, thinking of how his friend had allowed himself to be seduced—and how he’d hurt Serena in the process. But fifteen years had passed since Danny had dumped her, and Web had long since let his feelings of betrayal go. Hearts had healed, and everyone had moved on. Serena had found Bill, and Danny seemed to love his wife, even if nobody else did.

“The only motive that seems to make any sense to me is that one of Bill’s clients wanted revenge,” Tim said, his thoughts still on the investigation. “You agree?”