Pretend You Don't See Her (36 page)

 
          
Lacey
had grabbed an oversized nightshirt with red-and-white stripes that must have
belonged to Heather.

 
          
If
I go out, I can’t wear my sweat suit and jacket, she thought. I was wearing
them yesterday. I might be too easy to spot.

 
          
She
fixed herself coffee and a toasted roll, and then showered. The underwear she
had rinsed out earlier was dry, but her heavy socks were still wet. Once again
she had to go through the personal belongings of two dead women in order to get
dressed.

 
          
At
eight o’clock, Tim Powers called on the apartment intercom. “I didn’t want to
use the telephone in the apartment,” he said. “Better that the kids and even
Carrie don’t know that you’re here. Can I come up?”

 
          
They
had coffee together in the library. “How can I help you, Lacey?” Tim asked.

 
          
“Obviously,
you already have,” she replied with an appreciative smile. “
Is
Parker and Parker still handling the sale of the apartment?”

 
          
“As far as I know.
You’ve heard that Junior is missing?”

 
          
“I
read that. Has anyone else from their office brought somebody in to look at the
place?”

 
          
“No,
and Jimmy Landi phoned the other day and asked about that. He’s getting pretty
disgusted with Parker. Wants the apartment sold, and soon. I told him straight
that I thought it would have a better chance if we cleared everything out.”

 
          
“Do
you have his personal number, Tim?”

 
          
“His
personal office number, I guess. I was out when he called and had to call him
back. He picked up the phone himself.”

 
          
“Tim,
give me that number, please.”

 
          
“Sure.
You know this phone is still on. They never bothered to disconnect it. I spoke
to Parker a couple of times when I saw the bill come in, but I think he liked
having it in case he wanted to make a call. He came in and out of here on his
own sometimes.”

 
          
“Which
means he might still do it,” she said. She knew it would cost Tim his job if
she were discovered using this place, so she couldn’t risk staying much longer.
Still, there was one other thing she had to ask him to do. “Tim, I’ve got to
get word to my mother that I’m all right. I’m sure her phone is tapped so they
can trace any call I might make to her. Would you go to a public phone and call
her? Don’t identify yourself, and don’t stay on for more than a few seconds, or
they’ll be able to trace the call, although even if they do, at least it won’t
be coming from here. Just tell her I’m fine and safe and will call her as soon
as I can.”

 
          
“Sure,”
Tim Powers said as he stood. He glanced at the pages on the desk,
then
looked startled. “Is that a copy of Heather Landi’s
journal?”

 
          
Lacey
stared at him. “Yes it is. How do you know that, Tim?”

 
          
“The
day before Mrs. Waring
died,
I was up here changing
the filters in the radiators. You know how we change them around October 1st,
when we go from air-conditioning to heat. She was reading the journal. I guess
she’d just found it that day, because she was very emotional and clearly upset,
especially when she read the last couple of pages.”

 
          
Lacey
had the feeling that she might be on the brink of learning something important.
“Did she talk to you about it, Tim?” she asked.

 
          
“Not
really. She got right on the phone, but whoever she tried to call has an
unlisted number.”

 
          
“You
don’t know who it was?”

 
          
“No,
but I think I saw her circle the name with her pen when she came across it. I
remember it was right near the end. Lacey, I’ve
gotta
get going. Give me your mother’s phone number. I’ll call on the intercom and
give you Landi’s.”

 
          
When
Tim left, Lacey went back to the desk, picked up the first of the unlined
pages, and brought it to the window. Blotched as the page was, she could detect
a faint line around the name Hufner.

 
          
Who
was he? How could she find out?

 
          
Talk
to Jimmy Landi, she decided. That was the only way.

 
          
On
the intercom from the lobby, Tim Powers gave Landi’s phone number to Lacey,
then
went out for a walk, looking for a public phone. He had
a supply of quarters with him.

 
          
Five
blocks away, on Madison Avenue, he found a phone that worked.

 
          
Twenty-seven
miles away in Wyckoff, New Jersey, Mona Farrell jumped at the sound of the
telephone. Let it be Lacey, she prayed.

 
          
A
hearty, reassuring man’s voice said, “Mrs. Farrell, I’m calling for Lacey. She
can’t talk to you but she wants you to know that she’s okay and will get in
touch with you herself as soon as she can.”

 
          
“Where
is she?” Mona demanded. “Why can’t she talk to me herself?”

 
          
Tim
knew that he should break the connection, but Lacey’s mother sounded so
distraught he couldn’t just hang up on her. Helplessly, he let her pour out her
anxiety as he kept interjecting, “She’s okay, Mrs. Farrell, trust me, she’s
okay.”

 
          
Lacey
had warned him not to stay on the phone too long. Regretfully, he replaced the
receiver, Mona Farrell’s voice still pleading for him to tell her more. He
started home, deciding to walk back on Fifth Avenue. That decision made him
unaware of the unmarked police car that raced to the phone booth he had just
used. Nor did he know that the phone was immediately dusted for his
fingerprints.

 
          
Every
hour that I’m here doing nothing means that I’m an hour closer to being tracked
down by Caldwell or taken into custody by Baldwin, Lacey thought. It was like
being caught in a spider’s web.

 
          
If
only she could talk to Kit. Kit had a good head on her shoulders. Lacey walked
over to the window and pulled the curtains back just enough to peer into the
street.

 
          
Central
Park was crowded with joggers, in-line skaters,
people
strolling, or pushing carriages.

 
          
Of
course, she thought. It was Sunday. Almost ten o’clock on Sunday morning. Kit
and Jay would be in church now. They always went to the ten-o’clock Mass.

 
          
They
always went to the ten-o’clock Mass.

 
          
“I
can talk to her!” Lacey said aloud. Kit and Jay had been parishioners at St.
Elizabeth’s for years. Everyone knew them. Her spirits suddenly buoyed, she
dialed New Jersey Information and received the number of the rectory.

 
          
Somebody
be
there, she prayed, but then she heard an answering
machine click on. The only thing she could do was to leave a message and hope
that Kit would get it before they left the church. Leaving her phone number,
even at a rectory, would be too great a risk.

 
          
She
spoke clearly and slowly. “It is urgent that I speak with Kit Taylor. I believe
she is at the ten-o’clock Mass. I’ll call this number again at eleven-fifteen.
Please try to locate her.”

 
          
Lacey
hung up, feeling helpless and trapped. There was another hour to kill.

 
          
She
dialed the number for Jimmy Landi she’d gotten from Tim. There was no answer,
and when the machine picked up, she decided not to leave a message.

 
          
What
Lacey did not know was that she already had left a message. Jimmy Landi’s
Caller ID showed the phone number from which a call to him had been placed, as
well as the name and address of the person to whom the phone was registered.

 
          
The
message on the ID indicated that his caller had dialed from 555-8093, a number
registered to Heather Landi, at 3 East Seventieth Street.

 
          
DETECTIVE
SLOANE HAD NOT PLANNED TO GO TO WORK ON Sunday. He was off duty, and his wife,
Betty, wanted the garage cleaned. But when the desk sergeant at the precinct
phoned to say that a friend of Lacey Farrell’s had called her mother from a pay
phone on Seventy-fourth and Madison, nothing could have kept him home.

 
          
When
he reached the precinct, the sergeant nodded toward the captain’s office. “The
boss wants to talk to you,” he said.

 
          
Captain
Frank
Deleo’s
cheeks were flushed, usually
a warning sign
that something or someone had incurred his
wrath. Today, however, Sloane saw immediately that
Deleo’s
eyes were troubled and sad.

 
          
He
knew what that combination meant. The sting had worked. They had pinned down
the identity of the rogue cop.

 
          
“The
guys in the lab sent over the tape late last night,”
Deleo
told him. “You’re not going to like it.”

 
          
Who?
Ed wondered, as faces of longtime fellow officers became a picture gallery in
his mind. Tony … Leo … Adam … Jack … Jim W
… .
Jim M
… .

 
          
He
looked at the TV screen.
Deleo
pressed the POWER
button, then PLAY.

 
          
Ed
Sloane leaned forward. He was looking at his own desk with its scarred and
cluttered surface. His jacket was on the back of the chair where he had left
it, the keys deliberately left dangling from the pocket, in an effort to tempt
the thief who was removing evidence from his cubby.

 
          
On
the upper left section of the screen he could see the back of his own head as
he sat in the interrogation room. “This was filmed last night!” he exclaimed.

 
          
“I
know it was. Watch what happens now.”

 
          
Sloane
stared intently at the screen as Nick Mars scurried out of the interrogation
room and looked around. There were only two other detectives in the squad room.
One was on the phone with his back to Nick, the other was dozing.

 
          
As
they watched, Mars reached into Sloane’s coat pocket and slid out his key ring,
cupping it in his palm to conceal it. He turned toward the cabinet containing
the locked private cubbies,
then
spun swiftly around,
quickly replacing the keys. He then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the
breast pocket of Sloane’s jacket.

 
          
“This
is where I made my untimely entrance,”
Deleo
said
dryly. “He went back to interrogation.”

 
          
Ed
Sloane was numb. “His father’s a cop; his grandfather was a cop; he’s been
given every break. Why?”

 
          
“Why
any bad cop?”
Deleo
asked. “Ed, this has to remain
between you and me for now. That piece of film alone isn’t enough to convict
him. He’s your partner. He could argue convincingly that he was just checking
your pocket because you were getting careless and he was worried that you’d be
blamed if anything else disappeared. With those baby-blue eyes of his, he’d
probably be believed.”

 
          
“We
have to do something. I don’t want to have to sit across the table from him and
work a case together,” Sloane said flatly.

 
          
“Oh
yes you do. Baldwin’s on his way here again. He thinks Lacey Farrell is in the
neighborhood. There’s nothing I’d like better than for us to be able to crack
this case and rub Baldwin’s face in it. Your job, as you well know, is to be
damn sure Nick doesn’t get the chance to lift or destroy any more evidence.”