Due Diligence: A Thriller (39 page)

“I told you, I didn’t talk to him. I got put through to his voice mail. And today as well, before I came over.”

“He call you back after your message yesterday?”

“No.”

“Is that unusual?”

Rob frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“But you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Look, I don’t know,” said Rob. “I guess it didn’t worry me at the time.”

“You didn’t think you should come over and see if he was okay?” said Engels.

“No.”

“Not even after he had this supposed knock on the door late on Saturday night?”

“It just didn’t…” Rob glanced toward Mrs. Angelou. “She’s around all the time.”

Engels watched Rob for a moment. Then he glanced at Nabandian.

“Okay,” said Nabandian. “You know we need to check everything, Rob. Just routine, make sure we’ve got the times right. Is there anyone who could corroborate what you’re telling us?”

“My girlfriend, Emmy,” said Rob. “Emmy Bridges. She was there when I called Greg. And at work, there’s two associates I work with. You want their names?”

Nabandian nodded.

“Sammy Weiss and Cynthia Holloway.”

“You want to spell those?” said Engels.

Rob did.

“What bank is that?” asked Engels, writing the names.

“Dyson Whitney.”

“Tell me, Rob,” said Nabandian. “You know any reason anyone would want to kill Greg?”

Rob frowned. “This is a burglary, right? There was a burglary in another apartment in the building a few months ago.”

“Anyone get killed?”

“No.”

“Anyone get hurt?”

“No one was at home.”

“So you think this was a burglary that went wrong?” said Engels.

“Wasn’t it?”

Engels didn’t reply. Whoever was responsible for the murder of Greg Ryan hadn’t gone to that apartment to commit a burglary. Even a cursory examination of the crime scene was sufficient to show it. The bedroom was untouched, a radio had still been playing. The bed was unused, the victim was in his clothes, so he hadn’t been asleep at the time of the intrusion. Yet in the living room, just about everything that could be moved had been uprooted or smashed, whether or not it could conceal valuables. Even the chairs at the table had been knocked over. If it was an interrupted burglary, with the victim, who had been awake at the time and now lay dead in front of the bedroom, coming out to investigate the noise, surely he would have been alerted before so much damage had been done. Which meant the murderer must have killed him, then continued to trash the room. If a burglar was that cool, cool enough to keep going after he’d been surprised and had killed someone, he’d step over the body and check out the bedroom to see what he could get from there as well. He wouldn’t just leave it.

“We just need to cover all the bases,” said Nabandian. “Think about it again. Is there any reason anyone would want to kill your friend?”

“I can’t think of any reason.” Rob thought. “I don’t know. He was a DA. Maybe there’s someone with a grudge. I’m just guessing. Must happen all the time, people get grudges against DAs.”

“But you don’t know of anyone in particular?”

“No.”

“He didn’t mention anyone with a grudge? No death threats?”

Rob shook his head.

“What about you, Rob?”

Rob looked at Nabandian in incomprehension. “Why would I have a grudge against him?”

“No. I mean, any reason anyone would want to kill you?”

“Me?”

“It’s your apartment,” said Nabandian. “Maybe they thought it was you.”

Rob shook his head. “Me?… That’s crazy.”

“No one?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“No old girlfriends?” said Nabandian.

“No debts?” said Engels.

“No threats?”

“No fights with anyone?”

Rob frowned. “No. Nothing. I can’t think of anything.”

“Okay,” said Nabandian. He looked over his shoulder. Behind him, a stretcher was being wheeled into the apartment.

Rob looked as well. “Are they taking him out now?”

“It’ll be a little while yet. You got somewhere to stay tonight, Rob? For the moment, this is a crime scene. We’re still looking for evidence.”

“I’ll stay at Emmy’s.”

“We’ll let you know when you can come back. It’ll probably be tomorrow. You’d better give us Emmy’s address and phone number.”

Rob gave it to them.

“You mind if we talk to her? It’s routine, like I said.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Where would we find her?”

Rob looked at his watch. “She’ll still be at work.”

“Maybe we’ll leave it until she gets home.”

“Can I ask one thing?” said Rob. “I’d like to tell her before you speak with her. So she hears it from me first.”

The two detectives exchanged a glance.

“Sure, Rob,” said Nabandian. “You haven’t spoken to her already on the phone since you found Greg?”

Rob shook his head.

“Okay. You know what, maybe we’ll go find her right now at work. Why don’t we drive you over there?”

*   *   *

There was a kind of kitchen that doubled as a meeting room at the offices of Lascelle Press. It wasn’t exactly the way Rob would have chosen to tell Emmy the news, with a cop standing on either side of him. Then he was asked to wait outside while they spoke with her. He didn’t know where to go, so he stood in the corridor outside the room.

Rob couldn’t hear what was being said behind the door. When the cops asked him to step outside, Emmy had looked at him in dismay. She was in shock. She had had barely a moment to take it in.

He looked at his watch. Almost five-thirty. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and switched it on. There were a couple of messages from Sammy. There was one from Phil Menendez as well, laced with obscenities. Sammy’s second message sounded urgent: “Rob, we’re in the war room. The review meeting went well, but there’s a whole bunch of work to do. We’re really going to be crunching here. We need you back right now.”

Rob returned the call.

“Sammy,” he said. “It’s Rob.”

“What’s happening, Rob?” Sammy’s voice was even, not flustered, not punishing. Yet.

Rob heard Phil Menendez yell something in the background.

“I’ve got a problem,” said Rob.

“We’re crunching here, Rob.” Sammy’s voice was becoming a little more imperative, a little more threatening.

“Sammy,” said Rob, “I’ve been with the police all afternoon. My best friend’s been murdered.”

There was silence. Rob heard Sammy’s voice, muffled, saying: “He says his best friend’s been murdered.” Then he heard Menendez reply: “Tell the little fuck we’re sorry and to get his ass back here.”

“Rob?” said Sammy, coming back on the line. “Are you still with the police?”

Rob didn’t reply.

“Rob?”

“Tell the big fuck he can shove his head up his ass!” said Rob. And he almost held on to hear how Sammy was going to translate that.

He looked around. A couple of people were staring at him. He frowned. “Sorry,” he murmured. A couple more people arrived. Rob recognized Caitlin and Andrea, the two editors who shared Emmy’s office. Word was going around that Emmy’s boyfriend had arrived with two cops and they had taken her into the kitchen.

“Rob,” said Caitlin, “what’s going on?”

“Something’s happened.”

Caitlin looked at him anxiously. “Is Emmy okay? I heard the police are here.”

“She’s okay.”

“Then what is it?” said Andrea.

Rob gazed at them. There were half a dozen people around him now. The only ones he knew were Caitlin and Andrea. He couldn’t talk about it like that, as if it were some kind of a story to entertain a crowd. It was his best friend. He heard the words he had said to Sammy: “My best friend’s been murdered.” Suddenly it was real. Greg was dead. It was a fact, and it would be a fact for the rest of his life.

“I can’t say,” he said.

It hit him again. His best friend was dead. Murdered. In his apartment. And then all the things the cops had been saying. Was it really a burglary? Was it an accident or was it on purpose? Was it meant to be Greg, or was it meant to be him? He couldn’t get it straight. What if it
was
meant to be him?

The crowd outside the kitchen watched him disbelievingly. He saw the way they were looking at him. Blaming him. As if it were his fault, in some way, that Emmy was inside that room with the cops.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Excuse me. Can you just … can you get out of my way!”

Inside, the cops were almost done. When you give people news like that, you’ve got a certain amount of time, a few minutes, when they’re in shock, off balance, and as long as they hold it together, they’ll answer anything you ask. Then their thought processes kick in and you lose them until they’ve had a chance to cry or scream or question or shout, to vent their initial feelings of horror and disbelief. The two cops had gone straight for the key time markers, the ones that would cover the time points Rob had given them. Those were the essential things they wanted to get out of Emmy before she had the chance to talk to anyone else or even think about what she was saying.

Now she was getting increasingly agitated, not addressing the questions, starting to ask questions of her own. But they had what they needed.

“I think we’re done for now,” said Nabandian. “Thank you very much, Ms. Bridges. I know this has been a shock. We may need to talk with you again, if that’s okay.”

“But how could it happen?” demanded Emmy. “What’s happened to the body? My God, who’s going to tell Greg’s parents?”

“We’ll take care of that,” said Nabandian.

Emmy stared at him in anguish.

“Let’s go out and get your boyfriend,” said Engels.

The two detectives stood up. They waited. Emmy got up. Nabandian opened the door for her.

The corridor was full of people. But Rob was gone.

42

Kelly Tan had worked the afternoon shift at the Bean of Content coffee shop on Second Avenue for two years. She’d seen a bunch of weird characters come in over that time. Normally they didn’t worry her, but there was something about the customer down in back that was spooking her out.

She stole a glance at him as she unloaded the cups out of the dishwasher, stacking them still hot and moist over the coffee machine. There were only another couple of tables occupied in the whole place and her boss had stepped out for an hour and told her to hold the fort. There was something plain wrong about the guy in back. Ever since she had taken his latte over, he had sat at the table and stared. His cell phone was on the table, and even when it rang he just continued to stare.

The cell phone rang again. Kelly watched him. He didn’t touch it. The phone rang until it stopped.

Kelly came out from behind the counter. She hesitated for a moment and then went closer to him. He didn’t look around, seemingly unaware that she was there.

“Everything all right, sir?” she said, and she stole a glance at his coffee to see if he’d drunk any.

Slowly, he turned and nodded.

Kelly smiled nervously and retreated back to her counter.

She watched him. He was just staring again. She wished he’d go. She was starting to get a little scared. Maybe, she thought, she should call the cops.

At his table, Rob was utterly oblivious of the effect he was having on her.

He needed to think. He needed to get it straight.

He knew when it had happened. Saturday night. It had to have been. He was no pathologist, and he only saw the body for a few moments, and he didn’t touch it, but the blood on that carpet was dry. And there was a lot of blood, so that would have taken time. And the radio was still on, just as it was when he spoke to Greg. And Greg hadn’t answered his call the next day. So it had to have been then. It made Rob ill to think about it. That knock on the door that Greg had heard—that knock on the door that had cut short their conversation—it had been them. The burglars who had killed him.

And Rob had told him to answer it, told him it was only Mrs. Angelou.

He kept thinking about it, seeing an image of Greg opening the door. Opening the door, pulling it back. His mind focused on that, wouldn’t let it go. What if Greg hadn’t opened the door?

And what if Greg hadn’t moved in until Sunday? Or what if he hadn’t moved in at all? What if he hadn’t broken up with Louise? What if? What if? Too many what-ifs, one after the other, all leading to Greg’s death.

And what if Rob had told him not to answer the door? What if he had never stood there, as Rob could see him in his mind’s eye, opening it?

Rob couldn’t bear to think about it. But that’s all he had been thinking about since he sat down. His cell phone must have rung half a dozen times and he hadn’t once answered. Didn’t even look at it.

What were burglars doing knocking on a door? That was the thing he couldn’t figure out. Burglars don’t knock on the door. All right, maybe they knock on the door to see if anyone’s home, but they don’t go on in if someone answers. Murderers do that, not burglars. A burglar would run away. And Greg had answered, hadn’t he? That’s why he cut the conversation. That’s why he put down the phone. He answered the door.

Maybe it wasn’t a burglary. The cops obviously doubted it. Maybe someone had deliberately intended to kill the person who opened the door. But if that were the case, as the cops said, how did he know they expected it to be Greg who was standing there?

Rob stared into the coffee, deep, deep into the pale brown liquid.

It was his apartment. But they might still have wanted Greg. Or they might have wanted him.

That was another what-if. One that was more unbearable and guilt-inducing than all the others. What if Greg had died in his place? What if he told Greg to open the door to his killers, and what if he died because they thought Greg was
him
?

It was too agonizing to think about. He couldn’t. He shook his head. He buried his face in his hands. He just couldn’t think about it.

Kelly was getting really spooked. She came out from behind the counter and backed away. She stood by the door. The other people in the place looked at her quizzically, but Kelly didn’t care. She wasn’t going to get trapped behind the counter when that guy in the back pulled out a carving knife or something.