Due Diligence: A Thriller (49 page)

But there was one problem they couldn’t get past. There was only one call recorded for Holding’s cell phone that Saturday night, and it was the one to Ryan’s number at eleven-fourteen. Since the girlfriend stated that she witnessed Holding making a call from his cell phone, that must have been the one she witnessed. The records showed that that call resulted in a conversation lasting three minutes and eight seconds. Holding’s call to Ryan on Sunday afternoon—which was also on the record and timed at five forty-three
P.M
.—diverted to Ryan’s voice mail, exactly as you would expect if Ryan were dead. The call on Saturday night hadn’t. It had been answered, which meant Ryan was still alive to take it—alive
after
the only time during the period in which the coroner said Ryan had died when Holding had the opportunity to kill him.

They couldn’t get around it. They returned to the precinct in the afternoon when they had finished their interviews. A DA was dead, and they were under pressure to come up with a lead. They went through the facts over coffee at their desks. Everything pointed to Holding, and yet the phone records seemed to say that Ryan was alive when Holding should have already killed him. Engels had the phone records in front of him. The records seemed to be mocking him, just as Holding had seemed to be mocking him when he told him to go check the records in the first place. They were missing something, they had to be. Engels wanted to go pick Holding up and bring him back to the station and put a little pressure on him to see if they could find out what it was.

Nabandian shook his head. “We’ve got nothing.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“We need something, then we can crack him open.”

“Come on, George, we can crack him anyway.”

“Not yet,” said Nabandian. “It’s too early for us to try going in there with nothing. He was a lawyer, remember? We start pressuring him now and he starts yelling harassment, then we can’t go near him. We need something first.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Engels threw himself back in his chair in frustration.

A couple of desks away, a cell phone rang. The detective who sat there, Jimmy Bartok, reached into a pocket and pulled out a phone. He cursed and shook his head and pulled out a second phone from another pocket and answered it.

“Yeah?” he said brusquely. He listened. “Yeah … yeah…”

Engels watched Bartok sitting with a phone in each hand, talking into one, holding the other.

“Yeah … Fuck that … No … Yeah … all right.” He switched the phone off. He caught Engels looking at him and grinned ruefully. “I got so many fucking phones, I never know which one’s ringing. Look, I got another one as well.” He began to reach into a pocket.

“Why don’t you give them different ring tones, you idiot?” said Gobineau, another detective.

Bartok frowned. “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.”

Gobineau shook his head in exasperation and turned back to what he was doing. So did Bartok. But Engels kept gazing at him, thinking about it. Two hands … two phones …

He turned to Nabandian. “I’ve got it! He had the phone, George. He had the fucking phone!”

Nabandian looked at him skeptically. “What are you talking about?”

“At eleven-fourteen, it’s Holding who’s got Ryan’s phone. He calls it—but he’s got it himself! Ryan’s dead. Holding’s killed him, but he’s taken the phone with him. He gets to the girl’s place, makes the call. Ryan doesn’t answer, of course, but Holding talks anyway. The girl hears him talking to Ryan, or so she thinks. Bingo! He’s got his alibi.”

Nabandian reached over for the phone record. “Someone answered that call.” He held the record up for Engels. “Remember? The Sunday call goes to voice mail. The Saturday one doesn’t. Which means someone answered that call.”

“Exactly.
Someone.
Holding. He’s got the phone, he presses to receive the call. Bingo! The call’s answered. Not by Ryan, by him.”

“The girl saw him make the call.”

“So?”

“Don’t you think she would have noticed if he was holding a second phone?”

“It’s in his pocket.”

“She didn’t hear it ring.”

“It’s on silent.”

Nabandian thought about it for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

“It’s on silent, George.” Engels savored the moment, sensing that this really was the final piece in the puzzle. “It’s in his pocket, it’s on vibrate. That’s how he does it!” Engels’s voice was rising in excitement. “He’s at the apartment. He kills Ryan. Takes the phone, puts it on vibrate, leaves it in his pocket, gets to the girl’s place, calls the phone, presses it in his pocket, and talks to himself for three minutes and however many seconds. What does she know? She hears him talking, thinks Ryan’s talking back. He thinks we’ll think Ryan’s talking back as well once we see the records, and
that’s
why he wants to make sure we check them. That’s why he tells us to!”

Other people in the office were glancing impatiently at Engels.

“Solving a crime here, people!” said Engels.

Gobineau applauded sarcastically.

Engels took a bow, then turned back to Nabandian. “Huh, George? Come on, that’s how he does it.”

“The girl didn’t see him press to receive the call.”

Engels didn’t say a word. Instead, he stood up, took out his cell phone, switched it to Silent, held it up to Nabandian, and turned it front to back, back to front, like it was some kind of exhibit in a magician’s trick. “Close your eyes.”

Nabandian hesitated.

“Close your eyes, George.”

Others were watching now, Bartok, Gobineau, the whole room. Nabandian closed his eyes. Engels put his phone in one of his pants pockets. He put his other hand in the other pocket.

“All right, open them. Now call me. Come on, George. Call me.”

Nabandian got out his cell phone. Engels stood in front of him with both hands in his pockets. Reluctantly, Nabandian called Engel’s number. The call went through.

“I just pressed to talk, right? Listen to your phone. Right? Now, tell me which pocket I’ve got the phone in.”

Nabandian’s eyes moved from one pocket to the other.

“Left,” called out Gobineau.

“Right,” said someone else.

Engels grinned. He pulled the phone out.

“All right,” conceded Nabandian. “It’s possible. But how does he get the phone back there?”

“Where?”

“Ryan’s phone’s in the bedroom when he’s found, remember? How does Holding get it back there?”

“Easy,” said Engels. “He puts it there.”

“When?”

“Don’t you remember, George? It was Holding who found him!”

The older cop frowned. He thought about that. Engels was watching him, grinning like a chipmunk.

“We need to check the phone for his prints,” said Nabandian.

“Sure, but even if they’re not there, what does it prove? He was careful.”

“We still need to check.”

“We need to get them first.”

Nabandian nodded. He looked up at Engels. “I think it’s time to have another chat with Mr. Holding.”

*   *   *

He wasn’t at work, didn’t answer his phone, and wasn’t at his apartment, where the police tape across the door had been removed. He had said he’d be staying at his girlfriend’s. They headed for the Upper West Side.

They rang the doorbell, but no one answered. They got into the brownstone by ringing another doorbell at random and telling the person who answered that they were police and had some questions for them. Then they went straight to apartment 7. Engels listened at the door. He knocked.

Silence.

Engels knocked again. He put his ear to the door.

“You hear anything?” whispered Nabandian.

Engels shook his head. His eyes narrowed. A creak. Maybe from inside.

“What is it?” whispered Nabandian.

Engels put a finger to his lips. He couldn’t be sure. Beyond the door, there was silence. But there were small noises as well. But you get small noises in empty apartments. The breeze through an open window, for example.

“She got a pet?” he whispered to Nabandian.

Nabandian shrugged.

“Is there a fire escape out of this building?”

“Probably.”

Engels listened again. Now he did hear something. Definite. Footsteps. Some kind of muffled noise as well. He glanced at Nabandian and drew his gun. Nabandian drew a gun as well.

Engels pounded on the door. “Open up!” he yelled. “Police!”

There were more footsteps inside. Engels pounded and yelled again. He jumped back and slammed into the door. Again. The door splintered off its hinges and Engels went stumbling in.

Nabandian ran past him. The living room was empty. He kept going, gun held out in front of him, swung around a corner, and then he pulled open a door.

One man was disappearing onto the fire escape. A second stood at the window. He turned, coughing.

“Drop it!” yelled Nabandian, glimpsing a gun in his hand.

For an instant the man looked around, at the fire escape, now empty, then back at Nabandian.

“Drop the fucking gun! Police! Drop the—”

Gunshots rang out. Five, six. The man smashed back against the glass and fell over the sill, his head and chest outside, his legs in the room, twitching.

Nabandian looked around.

“How many times were you going to tell him to drop it, George?” said Engels. “Were you going to wait till he killed you?”

Nabandian didn’t say a word. He was frozen, trembling.

The man’s legs had stopped twitching. Engels approached him cautiously, gun held at the ready. He leaned out the window and felt at his neck for a pulse.

“He’s dead.”

“There was another one,” said Nabandian. “He went down the escape.”

Engels looked at the street. A small knot of people had gathered below. He couldn’t see anyone running. He looked back at his partner. “You okay?”

Nabandian nodded. He came to the window and looked down at the dead man. He was sandy-haired, with a small, pinched nose and a couple of days of stubble on his chin.

“You recognize him?” said Engels.

Nabandian shook his head.

“Neither do I. What the fuck was he doing here? You think they killed her?”

Nabandian opened the wardrobes in the bedroom, looking for a body. Engels checked under the bed. He looked in the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain to see if there was anything in the bathtub.

They went into the living room. Against one of the walls stood a long wooden chest.

The detectives glanced at each other. It was big enough for a corpse if the limbs were bent.

Nabandian stepped forward. He lifted the lid.

There was a noise behind them. Both cops spun, guns aimed.

“Drop the bag! Drop the fucking bag!” yelled Engels.

A small woman stood in the opening where the door to the apartment had once been, carrying a big multicolored bag. She stared in shock.

“Drop the fucking bag!”

She dropped it.

“Put your hands on your head!”

She raised her hands.

Engels approached her, gun still aimed. He pushed her against a wall and searched her quickly. Then he stepped back. “Who are you?”

“Rose Bridges,” she whispered, still facing the wall.

“Who?”

“Rose Bridges.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m Emmy Bridges’s mother.”

Nabandian had opened her bag and found her driver’s license. “You can turn around, Mrs. Bridges.”

Rose turned. Her face was pale.

“We’re police,” said Nabandian. “I’m Detective Nabandian and this is Detective Engels. I’m sorry if we gave you a fright.”

“What’s happened?” said Rose. “Where’s Emmy?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is she all right?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

53

“You should go out,” said Emmy. “Go on. It’ll be fine.”

“He might call.”

“Rob, it’s ten-thirty. He’s not going to call. Anyway, I’ll stay. If he calls, I’ll answer it.”

Rob looked at her doubtfully.

She laughed. “Go!”

He had been cooped up in the hotel room all day, waiting for Bassett’s call. Nothing to do but watch cruddy British TV while he waited. Emmy had been out to get food. He said he didn’t want much. She had brought him back snacks, muesli bars and corn chips, but now he was hungry and a little stir-crazy. And Bassett wasn’t going to call now, Emmy was right. Besides, she could take the call.

“I won’t be long,” he said.

“Take your time.”

“Lock the door behind me.”

“Yes, Mr. Paranoid.”

Rob looked at her seriously. “Lock it.”

“Of course I will.”

He went down the stairs. The reception desk was deserted. The night clerk must be doing something, he thought. He wondered if it was the same guy as the night before. He let himself out. The night was cool. He took a deep breath. It felt good to be outside.

He walked away to find somewhere to eat.

*   *   *

The night clerk, Waldemar, slouched in a chair in the room behind the reception desk. The room had a small table and a portable TV. There were dirty mugs and an ashtray full of ashes and cigarette stubs on the table. The TV was on, grainily showing an episode of
CSI Miami
. A suspect was being interrogated. Waldemar watched with a frown of concentration, trying to follow the dialogue.

The night bell rang.

Waldemar watched the interrogation on the TV for a moment longer, then got up to answer the door. Outside was a young man with a thick shock of blond hair.

“This is … Boston Hotel?” said the man in heavily accented, halting English.

“No,” said Waldemar. “Is Bartlett.”

“Boston?”

“Bartlett.” Waldemar pointed to the name gilded on the glass of the door. “Bartlett.”

“Where is Boston?” asked the man.

“I don’t know,” said Waldemar. “What you speak? You speak Polish?
Czy mówisz po polsku?
German?
Sprechen sie Deutsch?
”

“Boston. I want Boston.”

Waldemar shook his head. “Not Boston. Bartlett. What you speak?”

“Where is station?” asked the man.