Lethal Legacy (38 page)

I went into the bedroom and stripped off my
clothes. I tried to sneak into the bathroom to turn on the water for a steaming
hot shower without glancing at myself in the mirror, but there was no escaping
how tired I looked, and how overwrought I felt.

I dried off and wrapped the towel around me as I
slipped under the comforter to take a short nap, setting the alarm to make sure
I didn’t oversleep.

At six-thirty, I awakened and put myself together
for the evening. My wardrobe palette was heavy on pale blues and greens, even
for fall and winter, but I didn’t feel like color tonight. I dressed in black—a
clingy sweater and a short pleated skirt.

The makeup helped, and a crystal barrette to hold
back my hair added some sparkle around my face.

I was ready to go downstairs to find a taxi when
my phone rang. Caller ID displayed the telephone exchange of the morgue.

“Hey, Coop. Just thought you’d like a heads-up,
give Battaglia a shout about the autopsy results,” Mike said. “Dr. Assif called
it. Fatal incised wound associated with an air embolism in the jugular vein.
The cut is longer than it is deep. Killer just hit the right place. Tina would
have collapsed immediately. No struggle. No defensive wounds.”

“And the weapon?”

“It’s not any of the ones we submitted for
comparison, but Assif likes the angles on those conservators’ paring knives.
She’ll be testing a slew of them.”

“So sad,” I said. “And still no news of Tina’s
mother?”

“Commissioner Scully has the State Department on
it now. I’ll let you know what we hear,” Mike said. He hesitated before
speaking again, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I stayed on the line.
“Coop? Everything okay?”

“Just thinking about the week, the two women. Tina
Barr and Karla Vastasi.”

“You sound down.”

“I just took a nap. I’ll shake it off.”

“Want company? Me and Mercer—”

“No—”

“Sorry. Forgot I was dealing with the grammar
police. Mercer and I can come over for a while.”

“Thanks, Mike. You need to chill as much as I do.”

“Call you tomorrow, then. Double or nothing on
Jeopardy!
”

I left a message on Battaglia’s home machine. In
another effort to put the day behind me, I dabbed perfume behind my ears and
down the length of my throat.

I wrapped a long cashmere stole around my
shoulders, applied a new layer of lipstick, and headed for the lobby.

Oscar held the door open for me and I waved
good-bye, grateful for the crisp autumn weather.

I walked to the end of the driveway on
Seventy-first Street, knowing the odds were better that I’d find a yellow cab
from there. The Marymount College auditorium was just down the block, and
weekend nights there was a steady flow of drop-offs for theatrical events at
the school.

I stepped off the sidewalk and raised my arm in
the air. Three or four cabs were lined up on the far side of the one-way
street, queuing to discharge their fares. Another that was already empty
flashed his headlights and lurched in my direction.

When I got into the cab, I leaned toward the
opening in the Plexiglas partition and spoke to the driver. “Good evening. I’d
like to go to Forty-sixth Street, between Lex and Third.”

“You got it.” He started the meter running and I
sat back, my head against the window.

After the second light, he made the turn onto
Lexington Avenue on our way downtown. The reggae music coming from the speaker
behind my head was too loud, but there was no point getting into a squabble
during the short ride.

“You got a team, miss?”

“Excuse me?”

“I aksed you if you got a team. Baseball.”

The driver was looking at me in the mirror. I
could see only the outlines of his black face highlighted by white teeth.

I returned the smile. “Yankees. I’m a Yankee fan.”

“Dodgers. I like the Dodgers.”

“You’re lucky—you got Joe Torre.”

“That’s not why they my team. It’s Los Angeles. I
got family in Los Angeles.”

“Nice,” I said, looking at the designer windows at
Bloomingdale’s as we drove by.

“You got family, miss?”

There was no winning. Tell the guy I wasn’t
interested in his chatter and I’d be lucky if all he did was call me rude.

“You hear me?”

“I do.”

“Where? Where they be?”

I smiled wanly this time. “All spread out.”

“Sisters and brothers?”

“Two brothers.”

“Here in New York?”

“No.”

We were speeding past the nondescript buildings on
Lexington till we were stopped by a red light at the rear entrance to the
Waldorf, mercifully close to my stop.

“I aksed you where they be?”

His voice had an edge to it now. I put my hand on
the door handle, grabbing a ten-dollar bill from my purse. Then I did what I
told every nervous tourist to do in a yellow cab, and looked below the
partition for the driver’s permit and photo. The plastic sleeve that was
supposed to hold his identification was empty.

“Texas,” I lied. “Texas and Minnesota. You want to
release the lock, please?” I was pulling at it, but the driver clearly had the
controls.

The light changed and he floored the gas pedal,
throwing me back against the seat.

“Good to know, miss. Case I want to do my own
family search,” he said, laughing at my growing panic. “And you ought to leave
Wesley right where he’s at in Los Angeles. Be real good for your health to do
that.”

How many days and nights had this cabbie been
waiting for me to come out of my building alone?

“It’s Griggs, Miss Prosecutor. Anton Griggs.”

“Open the door,” I screamed at him, trying to grab
my phone.

He braked to a halt on the corner of Forty-seventh
Street and I heard the click of the lock. I practically fell onto the pavement
as I pushed at the door and jumped out of the cab, scraping my arm against the
rough edge of the door. The shawl caught on the exposed metal as I slammed it
shut.

“You let Wesley be, girl,” he called out to me.
“’Cause I got more brothers than you got brains.”

My chest was heaving as Anton Griggs sped away,
the cashmere stole hanging from the side of the cab like a limp body being
dragged through the city streets.

THIRTY-TWO

“You sound like you can’t breathe,” Mercer
said. “Slow down, Alex.”

I had practically run the block and a half to the
restaurant before calling Mercer.

“I’ll be all right. Are you with Mike?”

“He’s on the phone in Dr. Assif’s office. Why?”

“I want you to know what happened,” I said,
describing the nightmare cab ride and how I had played right into the patient
hands of Anton Griggs. “Obviously, you have to tell the lieutenant, and I’ll
call Battaglia, but hold off on Mike for tonight. He’s likely to go ballistic
and head off after Anton and Tyrone Griggs. We don’t need any more trouble.”

“And the judge?”

“I’ll tell him in chambers on Monday. It’s smarter
to have one of the guys from the DA’s squad handle this. I need Mike as a
witness in the underlying murder case.”

“I’ll run Anton Griggs. You get a plate number?”

“Not even a partial. I wasn’t thinking. I just
wanted out.”

“Understood. You want me to stay at your place
tonight?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got—well, um, Luc is in town.
We’re having dinner with Joan and Jim. I’ll be fine.”

“Sounds like Anton had his moment if he was going
to do anything more than scare the pants off you.”

“A total success at that.”

“You’re on the street? I heard a car honking.”

“Just going into the restaurant, I promise.”

“I’ll check in with you in the morning. You got
your Saturday ballet class?”

“I’ve just done my best leap. I’ll play hooky
tomorrow.”

“You know Battaglia will put someone on you the
minute you call him,” Mercer said. “I’d just as soon have it be me.”

“So would I. But I want to wait till Luc goes to
the airport in the morning. I’d like a semblance of a normal social life for
the evening.”

“You’re entitled to that. We’ll talk.”

Ken Aretsky welcomed me to Patroon with his usual
warmth and charm. We embraced and exchanged kisses. “Good to see you, Alex. I
hope you’re not coming down with something.”

“No, Ken. Why?”

“Well, you’re all flushed and perspiring a bit.”

That was a polite way of telling me I was sweating
and shaking. “The traffic was wild. I had to sprint the last couple of blocks.”

“Better for me. That’s bound to make you even
hungrier,” he said, leading me into the dining room, where New York’s power
brokers gathered to make deals over the superb food for which Aretsky was
known. “Joan’s at the table. Jim took Luc upstairs to show him the private
dining rooms and the rooftop bar. Happy to know I’m getting you into my
business.”

“That’s entirely Luc’s doing, I’m afraid.”

Ken led me to the banquette in the front corner of
the room and left me to bask in Joan Stafford’s effusive greeting.

I slipped onto the seat beside Joan, and after we
hugged she asked to be brought up to the minute on everything I’d been doing.

“Sweetheart, did you even have time to see the
news tonight? Your case is all over it. What did that poor girl do to deserve
to die like that?”

“Isn’t it tragic?”

“I know you can’t tell me anything, but it’s so
dreadful. We like to think of libraries as uplifting sanctuaries, but there
have been murders and thefts associated with the best of them. Someone walked
out of Cambridge University with a million dollars’ worth of rare books a
couple of years ago when my play was in rehearsal in London.”

“I didn’t know about that one. It’s mind-boggling,
isn’t it?”

“Mark Antony plundered the entire library of
Pergamon so he could give it to Cleopatra as a wedding present. Nothing new
under the sun.”

A novelist and playwright, Joan knew more about
literature than anyone I had ever encountered. Brilliant, funny, and incredibly
chic, she was happily married to an expert in foreign affairs who wrote a
nationally syndicated column. Joan and my college roommate, Nina Baum, were the
most loyal of friends, and I leaned on their shoulders during my more serious
investigations.

“So I’m learning. And the characters who people
this world—”

“Tell me about it. I go to those library benefits,
and let me remind you that it isn’t all classy trustees like Louise Grunwald
and Gordon Davis. The NBC reporter said the Hunts might be involved in this
brouhaha,” Joan said as Stefan, the maître d’, came over to fill my flute with
champagne. “You don’t want to find yourself between Minerva Hunt and a
rattlesnake. She’ll take your eyes out in a flash.”

“How about Jonah Krauss?” I asked. Joan had one of
the grandest homes in East Hampton, where she’d been summering all of her life.
There were few people of substance there that she didn’t know.

“You’re talking very north of the highway now,
Alex,” she said, referring to the less fancy neighborhoods on the far side of
Route 25, which split the Hamptons in half, where many of the newly rich had
built their McMansions.

“We met with him this afternoon. He’s actually got
a book bound in human skin.”

“Check his wife’s plastic surgeon. She’s had so
much work done, they probably had enough left over to bind an encyclopedia,”
Joan said, clinking her glass against mine. “Listen, sweetheart, when the
reporters come after you on this one, promise me you’ll trowel on some
foundation. You came in here all flushed and now you’re so white, you look as
though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I thought I had, Joanie.”