Pretend You Don't See Her (38 page)

 
          
“Lacey,
do you think that—” Jay began.

 
          
The
apartment intercom was buzzing, a series of soft quick jabs. Tim Powers
was
signaling her to get out. “Jay, I’ve got to leave. Stay
there. I’ll call you back. Just one thing, was Max Hoffman married?”

 
          
“For
forty-five years.”

 
          
“Jay,
get her address for me. I have to have it.”

 
          
Lacey
grabbed her tote bag and the black hooded coat she had taken from Isabelle’s
closet. Hobbling, she left the apartment and went down the corridor to the
elevator. The indicator showed that the elevator was at the ninth floor and
ascending. She managed to reach the safety of the fire stairs just in time to
avoid being seen.

 
          
Tim
Powers met her inside the staircase at the lobby level. He pressed folded bills
into her hand and dropped a cellular phone in her pocket. “It will take them a
while to trace any calls you make on this.”

 
          
“Tim,
I can’t thank you enough.” Lacey’s heart was pounding. The net was closing. She
knew it.

 
          
“There’s
a cab waiting out in front with the door open,” Tim said. “Keep that hood up.”
He squeezed her hand. “Six G is having one of their family brunches. There are
a lot of people coming in at once. You may not be noticed. Get going.”

 
          
The
cabdriver was obviously annoyed at having to wait. The cab leaped forward into
the traffic, slamming Lacey backward. “Where to, miss?” he demanded.

 
          
“Great
Neck, Long Island,” Lacey said.

 
          
“I
HOPE MOM GETS HERE BEFORE LACEY CALLS BACK,” KIT said nervously.

 
          
They
were having coffee with the pastor in the rectory study. The phone was at Kit’s
elbow.

 
          
“She
should only be ten minutes or so,” Jay said reassuringly. “She was going to
meet Alex in New York for brunch and was just ready to walk out the door.”

 
          
“Mom
is a basket case over all this,” Kit explained to the priest. “She knows the
U.S. Attorney’s office blames her for the leak, which is ridiculous. She didn’t
even tell me where Lacey was living. She’d have a fit if we didn’t give her a
chance to talk to Lacey now.”

 
          
“If
she calls back,” Jay cautioned. “She may not get the chance, Kit.”

 
          
*

 
          
Had
she been followed? Lacey wondered. She couldn’t be sure. There was a black
Toyota sedan that seemed to be maintaining a constant distance behind the cab.

 
          
Maybe
not, she thought, breathing a slight sigh of relief. The car had turned off the
expressway at the first exit after they came out of the Midtown Tunnel.

 
          
Tim
had taped the unlock code to the back of the cellular phone he had lent her.
Lacey knew Kit and Jay were waiting in the rectory for her call, but if she
could get the information she needed another way, she would rather do it. She
had to get the street address where Max Hoffman had lived, and where, please
God, his wife still lived. She had to go there and talk to her and get from her
anything she might know about her husband’s conversation with Heather Landi.

 
          
Lacey
decided first to try to get Mrs. Hoffman’s address from the telephone
information operator. She dialed and was asked what listing she required.

 
          
“Max
Hoffman, Great Neck. I don’t have his address.”

 
          
There
was a pause. “At the request of the customer, that number cannot be given out.”

 
          
The
traffic was fairly light, and Lacey realized that they were getting close to
Little Neck. Great Neck was the next town. What would she do if they arrived
there and she didn’t have an address to give this driver? She knew he hadn’t
wanted to make the drive so far out of Manhattan in the first place. If she did
get to where Mrs. Hoffman lived and the woman wasn’t home or wouldn’t open the
door, what would she do then?

 
          
And
what if she was being followed?

 
          
She
called the rectory again. Kit answered immediately. “Mom just got here, Lacey.
She’s dying to talk to you.”

 
          
“Kit,
please …”

 
          
Her
mother was on the phone. “Lacey, I didn’t tell a soul where you live!”

 
          
She’s
so upset, Lacey thought. It’s so hard for her, but I just can’t talk to her
about all this now.

 
          
Then
mercifully her mother said, “Jay has to speak to you.”

 
          
They
were entering Great Neck. “What’s the address?” the driver asked.

 
          
“Pull
over for a minute,” Lacey told him.

 
          
“Lady,
I don’t want to spend my Sunday out here.”

 
          
Lacey
felt her nerves tingle. A black Toyota sedan had slowed down and driven into a
parking lot. She was being followed. She felt her body go clammy. Then she
allowed herself a sigh of relief as she saw a young man with a child get out of
that car.

 
          
“Lacey?”
Jay was saying, his tone questioning.

 
          
“Jay,
did you get the
Hoffmans
’ street address in Great
Neck for me?”

 
          
“Lacey,
I haven’t a clue where to get it. I’d have to go into the office and make phone
calls to see if anyone knows. I did call Alex. He knew Max very well. He says
he has the address in a Christmas-card file somewhere. He’s looking for it.”

 
          
For
the first time in her horrible months-long ordeal, Lacey felt total despair.
She had gotten this close to what she was sure was the information she needed,
and now she was stuck. Then she heard Jay ask, “What can you do, Father? No, I
don’t know which funeral home.”

 
          
Father
Edwards took over. While Lacey talked again with her mother, the pastor called
two funeral homes in Great Neck. Using only a slight ruse, he introduced
himself and said that one of his parishioners wanted to send a Mass card for
Mr. Max Hoffman who had died a year ago December.

 
          
The
second funeral home acknowledged having made the arrangements for Mr. Hoffman.
They willingly furnished Mrs. Hoffman’s address to Father Edwards.

 
          
Jay
passed it to Lacey. “I’ll talk to all of you later,” she said. “For God’s sake,
don’t tell anyone where I’m going.”

 
          
At
least I hope I’ll talk to you later, she thought as the cab pulled out from the
curb on its way to a gas station for directions to 10 Adams Place.

 
          
IT
MADE DETECTIVE ED SLOANE’S FLESH CRAWL TO BE sitting next to Nick Mars, having
to act as if everything were fine—“brothers all are we,” as the hymn went, he
thought bitterly.

 
          
Sloane
knew he had to be on guard against sending out some hostile signals that Nick
might pick up, but he promised himself that he would have his full say when
everything was finally out in the open.

 
          
They
began their vigil of watching the apartment building at 3 East Seventieth
Street at about eleven-fifteen, immediately after the meeting with Baldwin
broke up.

 
          
Nick,
of course, didn’t understand. As he parked halfway down the block, he
complained, “Ed, we’re wasting our time. You don’t really think Lacey Farrell
got her old job back selling co-ops here, do you?”

 
          
Very
funny,
Junior
, Sloane thought. “Just call it an old
dog’s hunch, okay, Nick?” He hoped he sounded genial.

 
          
They
were there only a few minutes when a woman in a long hooded coat walked out of
the building and got into a waiting
cab
. Sloane
couldn’t see the woman’s face. The coat was one of those bulky wraparounds,
with a lot of loose material, so he also couldn’t see her shape, but as he
watched her move he sensed something familiar about her that raised the hairs
on the back of his neck.

 
          
And
she was favoring her right leg, he realized. The report from Minnesota
mentioned that Farrell had apparently injured her ankle at a gym yesterday.

 
          
“Let’s
go,” Sloane told Mars. “She’s in that cab.”

 
          
“You’re
kidding! Are you psychic, Ed, or just holding back on me?”

 
          
“Just a hunch.
The phone call to her mother was made five
blocks from here. Maybe she picked up a boyfriend in that building. She was
there often enough.”

 
          
“I’ll
call it in,” Nick said.

 
          
“Not
yet, you won’t.”

 
          
They
followed the cab through the Midtown Tunnel onto the L.I.E. It was one of Nick
Mars’s little witticisms that the initials for the Long Island Expressway told
it all: LIE. He laughed as he repeated his observation.

 
          
Sloane
wanted to tell Nick that those initials described him perfectly. Instead he
said, “Nick, you’re the best tail in the business.”

 
          
It
was true. Nick could manipulate a car in any kind of traffic; he was never
obvious, never too close, sometimes passing and then getting in a slower lane
and letting the other guy pass him. It was a
talent,
and a terrific asset for a good cop. And for a crook, Sloane thought grimly.

 
          
“Where
do you think she’s going?” Nick asked him.

 
          
“I
don’t know any more than you do,” Sloane replied. Then he decided to lay it on:
“You know, I’ve always thought that Lacey Farrell might have made a copy of
Heather Landi’s journal for herself. If so, she may be the only one with the
complete journal, the whole thing. Maybe there’s something important in those
three pages that Jimmy Landi says we’re missing. What do you think, Nick?”

 
          
He
saw Nick’s eyes shift toward him suspiciously. Knock it off, Sloane warned
himself. Don’t make him nervous.

 
          
It
was Nick’s turn to respond. “I don’t know any more than you do.”

 
          
In
Great Neck the cab pulled over to the curb. Was Farrell getting out? Sloane
wondered. He got ready to follow her on foot, if necessary.

 
          
Instead
she stayed in the cab. After a few minutes, it pulled out and two blocks later
stopped at a gas station, where the cabby asked for directions.

 
          
They
followed her through town, past some obviously expensive houses. “Which one do
you want?” Nick asked.

 
          
Is
that what you’re about? Sloane wondered.
A cop’s salary not
good enough for you?
All you had to do was to get out, kid, he thought.
You could have changed jobs. You didn’t need to change sides.

 
          
Gradually
the neighborhood they were driving through changed. The houses were much
smaller, closer together, but well kept, the kind of neighborhood Ed Sloane
felt comfortable in. “Take it easy,” he cautioned Nick. “He’s looking for a
house number.”

 
          
They
were on Adams Place. The cab stopped in front of number 10. There was a parking
spot across the street, about five car lengths down, behind an RV. Perfect,
Sloane thought.