Hangman (16 page)

“I went into the city three days a week at Juilliard. You know, with regards to the whole thing of where I should live. I could apply to Juilliard in the fall. My last teacher is a professor there and told me I could come whenever. I could probably squeeze in this fall. That would take care of my housing problem if this thing doesn’t get settled.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I’d like it better than living with my aunt, that’s for sure.” He drummed his fingers. “I was kinda hoping that I could go to a regular college—like Harvard or Princeton. It’s too late to apply for next year, but I know they take younger kids with special talents. I’d have to take the SAT, I suppose.”

“Have you taken the PSAT?”

He nodded.

“How’d you do?”

“Two hundred ten, which is okay, but irrelevant in my case. I could get into one of the Ivies on a music scholarship. I’ve won enough of the petty competitions to look impressive and know how to audition to look like I play better than I do. I’m real good at flash.”

Decker said, “How would you feel about living alone at sixteen?”

“I’ve lived alone most my life, so it’s no biggie there.” Gabe paused. “That’s not entirely true. My mother has been a factor in
my life.” His eyes watered. “I miss her. Anyway, in answer to your original question, I’m good enough to be a professional classical musician. I could play chamber music and small companies. But that’s very different from being a concert-quality pianist. My teacher in New York wanted me to enter the Chopin competition in Warsaw when I’m old enough five years from now. I love Chopin and happen to interpret him very well. But it would really help if I had a teacher.” He laughed. “It would help if I had a piano.”

“Rina and I were talking. She asked me if you think we should rent you a piano.”

“Man, I’d love that!” His face lit up. “You wouldn’t even have to pay for it. I have all that money from my mom. I’ll pay if you were willing to put one in the house.”

Decker looked at him. “Gabe, I didn’t ask you at the time because it seemed too intrusive. But I’m going to ask you now. I’d like to see what your mother left behind in the safe.”

“It was just some cash and papers.”

“I’d like the see the papers.”

The boy grew nervous. “Okay, but it isn’t much. Just my birth certificate and my passport and maybe some bank accounts.”

Resistance. “What about
her
birth certificate and
her
passport?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I just separated the cash from the rest of the stuff and put it away for safekeeping.”

“I’d like to see what papers you have. Bank accounts would tell me a lot.”

“Uh, sure.” Gabe stood up. “Give me a few minutes to find them and I’ll bring them out for you.”

In other words, get out of the room while I do this
.

Decker stood up. “I’m not trying to pry into your finances, but how much cash did she have in the safe?”

“Around five thousand dollars.”

“That’s a lot of cash considering she paid most of her bills with credit cards.”

Gabe shrugged.

“Do you have a credit card?”

He nodded.

Dragging
information out of him. “Are you the primary card-holder?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who pays the credit card bill? Your mother or your father?”

“Chris pays for everything.”

“Okay. Your mother worked, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So she had some money of her own.”

“Probably.”

“Did she give her money to Chris?” A shrug. The kid was stalling. “Would you mind if I looked at your credit card receipts?”

“I haven’t charged anything except a couple of cups of coffee and some books.”

“I just want to see the pathway. I’m still trying to locate your father, and if he pays for everything, maybe the bank might have some information on him.”

Gabe looked down. “Lieutenant, it might be better to leave my dad out of it. If he didn’t have anything to do with it, why bug him and get him all pissed? And if he did do it, I wouldn’t want to know about it.”

“So that would be a no about into looking at your credit card receipts?”

Gabe cringed. “Can I think about it? I don’t like Chris, but I wouldn’t want to send him to jail or anything like that.”

“Even if he murdered your mother?” The boy was quiet. Decker said, “Look, you seem to be a little hesitant about the papers. For all I know, your father’s contacted you and has given you instructions on what and what not to do.” He paused and regarded the kid as his cheeks pinkened. He was putting the boy in a bad position. “Gabe, I’m a cop. I’m going to ask. But you don’t have to do anything that’ll make you sorry. Just think about it. I want to do what’s best for your mom. You do, too.”

“I’ll think about it. Thanks for being understanding.”

“Who says that I’m understanding?” Decker tousled his hair. “Your dad is on my to-do list and nothing’s going to dissuade me from finding him. But you’re not me and you don’t have to give him up. I understand split loyalties.”

His smile was angry. “Story of my life.”

W
EDNESDAY MORNING, EIGHT
A.M.
, Decker was in his office, sipping cappuccino courtesy of an espresso maker and Marge’s recent barista skills. She had brought in the machine about a month ago and squad-room coffee has never been the same. Currently, she held the number one spot as the most popular detective. She was the only one who knew how to froth milk.

“You looked at all the cassettes?”

“I did.” She sipped and gave herself a milk mustache, which she licked off with her tongue. “I was getting eyestrain toward the end. Povich said we can keep them for another day, so I’ll look through them again.”

“You saw her go in, but you didn’t see her go out.”

“Like I told you yesterday, there were lots of unidentifiable people. That’s why I’d like to see them again.”

Decker said. “What about Garth Hammerling?”

“Didn’t notice him if he was there, but ditto on lots of unidentifiable people.”

Oliver walked into the open door. “Smells good. I’d love one of those.”

“I’ll make you one, but only if I can teach you how to do it,” Marge said.

“I’m inept when it comes to coffee.”

She made no attempt to move. “I was just telling the Loo that we didn’t see Adrianna after she left her car and came into the hospital Sunday night.”

Oliver pulled up a chair. “Yeah, all that eyestrain and I wasn’t even watching porno.”

Marge said, “I had a dream last night.”

“Was I in it?”

“No, you weren’t, but Adrianna Blanc was.”

Oliver took the coffee cup out of Marge’s hand. “Pretty please?”

“Finish it. I’m on cup number two anyway.”

“Your dream?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, my dream. All night long, I kept seeing the tapes—grainy black-and-white people walking through the frames…then I jerk myself awake with something sticking in my brain. I’m not even sure if it’s real or a ghost from a bad night’s sleep.”

Oliver sat up. “What’d you see?”

“Was there a series of frames where we saw a woman in scrubs go outside from the main entrance about six in the morning? She was looking down at her cell phone, and then she took out something from her pocket that looked like a second cell phone, then went back inside.”

Oliver scrunched his brow. “Yeah…you think that was Adrianna Blanc?”

“It stuck with me. Why didn’t we think it was her?”

“We didn’t rule her out, Marge, we just couldn’t see her face. Also Adrianna was in the hospital until around eight-fifteen. So even if it was her, it doesn’t help us much.”

“I’d like to see the cassette again,” Marge said. “I’m wondering why someone would leave the hospital and then immediately turn around and come back in. And why would she be carrying two cell phones?”

Decker said, “She might have gone outside to make a call on her cell because she works in a dead spot in the hospital.”

“Okay. That would explain one cell phone. Why two cell phones?”

“Maybe the second cell phone was a pager and she looked at the number and returned because she was needed.”

Marge nodded. “I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to find out if Adrianna was paged at the time.”

Oliver said, “She didn’t have any outgoing call on her cell before eight-fifteen.”

“Something distracted her. Who would she call so early in the morning?”

Decker shrugged. “Maybe she was about to make the breakup call to Garth, but she got paged and had to go back in.”

“But why make the breakup call at that time?”

Oliver said. “She had a few minutes and she wanted to get it over with.”

Decker said, “What’s on your mind, Marge?”

“I’m wondering if she didn’t meet someone at Garage who finally gave her the courage to break up. And then maybe she and Mr. Right hooked up the following morning and that’s who murdered her.”

“But how would she hook up with someone when we didn’t see her leave the hospital?” Oliver asked.

“She had to come out. We just missed it. If we can enhance that woman who keeps running through my brain, we could at least see what she looked like the day she was murdered.”

“Give it a try,” Decker said.

“The murder is weird,” Marge said. “The killer made no attempt to hide the body. Instead it was presented in a dramatic way…like shown off. And it sounds planned. She didn’t seem to struggle. It just doesn’t sound to me like an argument between girlfriend and boyfriend gone south.”

Oliver said, “You’re really into this deadly hookup thing.”

“Just want to find out who Adrianna was talking to the night before she died.”

“Go back to Garage and work the crowd for an ID,” Decker said.
“You know I’ve said this before. It’s possible that you didn’t see Adrianna on the tapes because she never left the hospital alive. My guess is that she was sedated or poisoned before she was strung up. Go back to St. Tim’s. Get a more precise time frame. That will tell you a lot.”

Marge said, “She had to leave at one point, Rabbi, because we found her dead at the construction site.”

“Corpses are removed all the time from hospitals by funeral-home cars, hearses, and coroner’s wagons,” Decker said. “Could be someone took her out in a body bag.”

OVER THE PHONE,
Eliza said, “I got a hit for Donatti. One of the tickets had a 2009 Lexus with a paper plate that came from Luxury Cars and Vans in Westwood. It’s about a fifteen-, twenty-minute ride from the hotel. The rental contract was filled out by Donatti. According to his parking ticket, he came in at twelve-eighteen and left at two forty-seven. Donatti returned the car to the rental office at three twenty-seven in the afternoon.”

“Great job.”

“The bad part is the trail gets cold after that. He needed some form of transportation from the rental company to wherever he went. I called up the local cab companies. The closest pickup the company had on the books was about a half mile away at four-oh-five. I’m trying to get hold of the cabdriver. See if he remembers Donatti. But the pickup may not have been him. And I don’t see him taking the bus.”

“Probably not. What about hotels? Chris came in Saturday morning. Where did he stay?”

“I’ve tried all of Westwood and am now doing Beverly Hills—Montage, Beverly Wilshire, the Beverly Hills Hotel. So far, no luck. Maybe I should try smaller places.”

“Maybe he slept in the park…Jeez, that man is hard to locate.” Decker raked his hair with his hands. “Gabe spoke to his mother at four in the afternoon. He said that Terry sounded fine. He returned
to the hotel suite at around six-thirty, seven, and she was gone. If Donatti did something to Terry, he only had a two-or three-hour max window; meaning he would have had to return immediately after he left. Was there any record of any livery service dropping him back off at the hotel?”

“No cab, but I haven’t tried the car services yet.”

“Maybe he had a second vehicle and was planning all along to sneak another visit in with his wife after I had left.”

“Would she be stupid enough to let him in?”

“They parted on relatively good terms. He seemed okay. Maybe she was caught off guard.”

“Or maybe he never returned,” Eliza said, “We’re focused on him, but we ought to consider that Terry was a friendly woman. Maybe the wrong type of guy misinterpreted her friendliness for something more.”

“Then there would have been some sort of struggle in the hotel room. Besides, her car is gone and so are her purse and keys.” Decker thought a moment. “Cars don’t disappear as easily as people. You think we might have found the car by now, and the fact that we haven’t makes me wonder.”

“I’ll check out some local garages and storage areas,” Eliza said.

“Good idea. I’m just wondering if she’s long gone. I think her son found his passport and birth certificate in the hotel safe, but not her passport or her birth certificate. Maybe she took them and took off.”

“Sounds plausible.” A pause. “What do you mean by you
think
that he has his ID?”

“I asked to look through the papers left behind in the safe and Gabe was reluctant to show them to me. When I asked about his mother’s passport and birth certificate, he was quiet. He’s hiding something. Sooner or later, I’ll get it out of him.”

Eliza paused. “So you haven’t taken a look at his birth certificate?”

“No. Why?”

“Just wondering if she listed Chris as the father. Maybe Terry
was hiding a deep secret and Chris found out about it. I mean, we always know who the mother is. But we don’t always know who the father is.”

“I don’t know about that. She was sixteen and a virgin when she met him.”

“So he took her virginity. It doesn’t mean he knocked her up. Didn’t you say he spent some time in jail? Maybe she got bored of waiting.”

“Maybe.” Decker paused. “He would have killed her if he found out the kid wasn’t his.”

“You said it. Maybe the true father is on the birth certificate. Or maybe she’s hiding a DNA test. You know how it is, Lieutenant. Hell hath no fury like a hit man scorned.”

THE WOMAN ON
the line sounded elderly. She identified herself as Ramona White. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Detter.”

“This is Lieutenant Decker.”

“Oh, is it Decker? I can’t read my grandson’s handwriting so well.”

“How can I help you, Ms. White?”

“It’s Mrs. White. I’m returning your call.”

“Regarding…”

“I don’t know what it’s regarding. I just got a message to call you.”

Decker had to think for a moment. Grandson…grandmother. “Oh yes. I’m calling about your son-in-law, Eddie Booker. Do you know where he is?”

“He and my daughter are on a cruise.”

“Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“In a couple of days. They went on a cruise to Acapulco. They invited me to come with them, but I get seasick. Besides, someone has to watch the monsters at home.”

“Do you know what cruise line?”

“Seacoast or Seacrest. Something like that.”

“Any way of reaching them?”

“Probably through the company. They left me an itinerary somewhere. Is it an emergency?”

“No, it isn’t. If Eddie checks in with you, could you leave him a message that I’m trying to reach him?”

“What’s going on? Is Eddie in trouble?”

“Not that I know of. Has he been in trouble before?”

“Not that I know of, but you never know. I’ve been married three times. In the beginning, they were all angels. By the end, they were pond scum. So forgive me if I’m cynical. Men just do that to me.”

NO MATTER HOW
much the tape was slowed, the detectives couldn’t make out a face. The woman who left the hospital at six in the morning only to go back inside a few moments later would remain a mystery.

Oliver flipped on the lights. “That was a bust.”

“It was indeed. We could go through the tapes one more time.”

Oliver looked at the wall clock. “Aaron Otis and Greg Reyburn are coming in about a half hour. Why don’t we review the tapes after we’ve interviewed the lads.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Marge checked her cell phone. “Hmm…” She called her voice mail and listened to the messages. “That was St. Tim’s. Someone named Hilda or something. Adrianna was paged at six-oh-seven. So maybe that second phone was a pager.”

“And that would mean the lady in the video was probably her,” Oliver said.

Marge said, “Who was she trying to call?”

“Probably Garth, but it didn’t register on her phone records. It probably never connected. How about a coffee break?”

“Decker gave me Adrianna’s diary. I’m going to look through it before we talk to the boys. See if I can find out a hint of a love connection between Aaron and her. But you’re welcome to use the machine.”

“You know I don’t know how to do it.”

“And that’s my problem because—”

“All right, all right.” He stood up. “I’ll bite the bullet. Teach me how to foam.”

“Now it’ll have to wait, Scott. I’ve got things to do.”

“How long would it take?”

“The truth is, it probably wouldn’t take too long, but that’s not the point. I was willing to put myself out this morning, but you didn’t want to.”

“How about if I beg?”

She got up. “If you’re going to demean yourself, ask for more than a latte.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve demeaned myself for a lot less. At least a latte won’t slap my face when I’m done drinking.”