Body Blows (7 page)

“I wouldn't know,” I say. “They didn't get into the safe. I don't think they were up there to rip off the TV-set.”

“Tough place to burglarize,” Weed agrees. “You need a special elevator key, don't you?”

“It was a fortress,” I say. “See if you can find out how they got in, will you?”

“Not my case, Joe.”

“I know that. But when it won't break the rules or kick you back down to crossing guard, you might pass me the word, right?”

“Sure, Joe,” he says. Norman's a friend. He's also the ranking detective in this room.

“You identified the other guy?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“But he was up there, right?”

“I'll wait till I get a report from my detectives,” he says. “After that … I might not tell you anyway.”

“Thanks,” I say. “The lead guy, Mooney, he's competent?”

“Oh, yeah,” Weed says. “So's his partner. They'll do a good job.”

“Leo
really
wants to know who did this.”

“Sure he does. And if he asks you to meddle, pretend you didn't hear him.”

“I'm just trying to watch his back,” I say.

“Mmm hmmm.” My response hasn't satisfied him much. “How much do you know about your boss?”

“Not that much. He's a private person.”

“Yeah, well, he's got a lot to be private about.”

“Meaning?”

He sips his coffee, adds more sugar. “You're working for a pirate, pal,” he says. “That's all I'm saying.” He tries his new coffee combination and deems it passable. “A real buccaneer.”

I remember him saying something similar when I first met him.

Eight years ago.

Second day in the hospital, a sleepy-eyed guy rolls into the room wearing an orange and green tie and a cerulean blue suit. He sits down beside the bed without being asked and helps himself to my juice box.

I say, “Help yourself.”

“Were you drinking this?”

“Hadn't started.”

“They'll get you another one. The doc tells me you missed getting your ticket punched by about an inch and a half.”

“I don't think it was that close.”

“Close enough,” he says.

“You're a cop.”

“Detective,” he says. “Norman Weed, middle name Quincy for some reason. My mother was coy on the subject.”

“I never got a look at the shooter,” I say. “He was over the wall by the time I turned around.”

“Yeah. People are either staring at the gun or diving for cover. Your boss says he saw the guy's face but didn't recognize him. A stranger, he says.”

“Anyone else get hurt?”

“One guy got dinged in the leg by a ricochet. Not serious. He'll be dancing again in a week.”

“Any leads?”

“Yeah, well, that's the thing, isn't it? Whoever it was, he was there to shoot your boss, but your boss isn't very forthcoming.”

“About?”

“About why someone would be gunning for him.”

“I don't think he was expecting anything that serious.”

“Because?”

“He just wanted someone to watch his back.”

“Because?”

“Didn't say. I asked him what he was worried about, just so I'd have some idea what to look for, and he said he'd had a phone call.”

“That's it?”

“That's it. I assumed it was a threat of some kind but he wasn't specific.”

“Mysterious guy.”

“Wish I could help you. First time anybody took a shot at me.”

“Five shots. Three of them drew blood.”

“Suit was too good for me anyway.”

He stands up and puts my empty juice box back on the tray. “Here's my card if anything comes to mind.”

“All right.”

“Nice talking to you.”

“You know Manny Bigalow?” I ask him.

“Who's he?”

“Sells suits,” I say. “He told me never to wear bright blue. It doesn't go with anything.”

“Yeah, well, I have my own sense of style,” says Norman Quincy Weed.

Leo is coming out of the interview room. He's not the same man I saw doing the tango with the classy divorcée last night. He's running low on vital juices, folding inside himself, not as tall.

Leo and Weed don't shake hands.

“Sorry for your loss,” Weed says to Leo.

“She was just the best person,” Leo says.

Pazzano is standing in the background, watching us. Mooney is already at his desk, transcribing notes, making phone calls.

I take Leo's arm and start to move him toward the exit. I can feel his shoulders shaking.

Margo Traynor is waiting to escort us to the Ambassador Suite. She has Leo's messages collated according to import and substance, all neatly clipped together. “Nothing that can't wait,” she says. “And I'd be happy to attend to any responses you don't want to make personally.”

“Either of my sons call?”

“No, sir. They may not have heard. Would you like me to get in touch with them?”

“It can wait.” Leo has a look around the suite, his home away from home. “They did a passable job with the decor, don't you think?” He checks out the bedrooms, the new fixtures in the master bath, doesn't appear impressed. “Fifty million doesn't buy a lot these days,” he says wearily.

Margo says, “The police have assured me they will be finished with the … finished with your floor by this afternoon, sir.”

“I can't go back up there,” he says. “Not for a while.”

“Of course. But we'll be able to collect anything you might need and have it brought down here.”

“Joseph can do that,” he says. “I'll give him a list. I want him to check things out.”

“In the meantime,” Margo says, “Anything else you might need …”

“Thank you, Ms. Traynor,” Leo says. “May I say that I'm grateful you handled this yourself. I don't think I could have borne Lloyd Gruber's ministrations just now.”

“He did ask me to convey —”

“Of course,” says Leo. “Tell him, tell him whatever you want to tell him.”

He crosses the room, stares out at the building across the street. Margo looks in my direction. I try to gesture that she's done well, that things will settle down, that Leo's okay. I'm not sure I manage to get that across. I'm even less certain it's the truth.

“Thank you for stocking the bar,” he says.

“I wasn't sure what —” Margo begins.

“You covered all the bases.”

She finally manages to complete a sentence. “May I offer my own sympathy for this terrible loss.”

Leo looks at her with what might have been an attempt at a brave smile but comes off as a grimace of pain.

“I appreciate it,” he says.

Margo gives me a glance that suggests general helplessness. I show her to the door.

“He'll be okay,” I whisper.

“Everybody's shaken up,” she says. “Downstairs. They'll do anything. Even Lloyd.”

“Best thing is, keep the place running like nothing's happened.”

Margo leaves.

Leo pours himself a drink. I wait for orders. It's a long wait. Two minutes is a long time if you're waiting for someone to speak, if you're watching a man in pain pull himself together by an exercise of dogged will.

“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

I can see the tendons in his fingers and I worry that he's going to crush his whisky glass, but his voice when he finally speaks is as cold as death. “Yes, there is, Joseph. You can find whoever did this … thing.”

“The police —”

“The police will do what policemen do,” he says. “
If
they catch the bastard they'll charge him with second-degree murder which will probably get knocked down to manslaughter or aggravated assault and he'll be a free man in seven years if the courts are feeling really tough that day.”

“I suppose that's possible.”

“I'm seventy-four years old, Joseph. I may not
have
seven years to wait. Otherwise I could plan how I'd kill the sonofabitch as he walked out of prison.” He has a sip of Scotch and smiles at me. It isn't a friendly smile. “You think I'm joking?”

I choose my words with care. “I think you're understandably angry and that you want whoever did this to be punished.”

“I don't want them punished. I want them dead.”

“One of them is.”

“Good,” he says. “It's a start.”

chapter seven

R
achel gives me a sad smile when I come into the office. She looks likes she wants to give me a hug. I'm not in a huggy mood but I open my arms enough for her to get close, accept a quick squeeze.

“You okay, slugger?” she asks.

“Oh, sure,” I say.

She steps back and checks me out. “We had the same name you know,” she says. “Raquel, Rachel. It's an ancient name.”

“You should hear it in Hebrew,” Gritch says. He's sitting in his corner. “How's the old bugger doing?” he asks.

“He's okay I guess. His doctor came by, checked him over, gave him something to help him sleep tonight.”

“Hit him hard,” Rachel says.

“He kept saying how we should have gone straight up, that she was waiting for him to come home, that he shouldn't have been downstairs listening to music.”

“Wouldn't have made any difference,” Gritch says.

“Maybe not.”

“Seriously,” he says. “I was talking to one of the uniforms. The pretty one?”

“Chinese?”

“That's the one. Melody Chan. Nice kid. Wants to be a detective.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Says it probably happened between midnight and one.”

“She tell you anything else?”

“Well, I had to chin for a while, bits and pieces, she's pretty sharp, had her eyes open. She says there were at least two intruders, maybe three.”

“She knows this how?”

“She doesn't
know
it, she thinks it.
Maybe
. Says she saw footprints from the terrace, dirt tracked in, and a different set with no dirt. Maybe. She was just spitballing. Cop talk.”

“Regular Chatty Cathy,” says Rachel. “You must've turned on the old Gritchfield charm.”

“Hey, she was stuck guarding an empty hallway. We were comparing notes. Technically, I was first on the scene.”

“What the hell were they after?”

“Beats me,” Gritch says. “If they were looking for something, they either found it in a hurry or quit looking. They didn't go down the hall.”

“Maybe they were after her,” says Rachel. “Lot of talk this morning. The general opinion is she was more than his housekeeper.”

“She was,” I say.

“Ahh,” says Rachel.

“Do me a favour,” I ask them both, “check out where the brothers were. They both had invitations to the dinner, neither one showed up.”

“Not a lot of togetherness,” Rachel says. “We had twenty-seven at our last family gathering, and not everyone could make it.”

“They all get along?” Gritch asks.

“Heck no,” she says, “but they came. It's family.”

Housekeeping is located on the third floor, east side, close to the service elevators — supplies, equipment, lockers and dressing rooms for the maids and cleaning staff, and Mrs. Dineen's office, from which she rules every aspect of the Lord Douglas's domestic management. It isn't a part of the hotel I have need to visit often.

Two women in uniform are emerging from their cloister at the end of a corridor. The murmured conversation can only be about one subject.

“Hi,” I say. “Is Mrs. Dineen in?”

“She's there,” says a woman whose name is, I think, Christine.

“It's Christine, right?”

“Mr. Grundy,” she says in reply. “Yes. We've met. Twice.”

“Better than my average,” I say. “Usually takes me four meetings to put a name to a face. I'm not all that quick on the uptake. I'm sorry, I don't know your friend's name.”

The other woman has more important things to attend to than loitering in the hall with an interloper. She's already headed for the service elevators.

“That's Tricia,” says Christine, who is moving past me. She looks over her shoulder toward Mrs. Dineen's closed door and I know that the last thing on earth she wants is for that door to open.

I follow her to the elevators where Tricia (I'm repeating the name in my head in a conscious effort to memorize it) is checking supplies and consulting a list of room numbers with notations of checkouts and special requests — extra towels, more coffee filters.

“Hi, Tricia,” I say. “I'm Joe Grundy, you've probably seen me prowling the halls. You know what happened last night, I guess.”

Tricia's hair is cut short and square across the front; she keeps her voice down but speaks clearly. “We don't
know
anything, for sure. Raquel was killed up in the penthouse. That's all.”

“Must be a hundred rumours going around,” I say.

“Just gossip,” says Christine.

“Mrs. Dineen doesn't encourage gossip,” says Tricia.

“I'm investigating a murder,” I say, although I'm certain Mooney and Pazzano would characterize my intrusion otherwise. “What sounds like gossip right now could be helpful later on. May I talk to you for a minute?”

“Get on,” Tricia says, as the elevator doors open.

The two women wheel their service carts aboard and I join them.

“Nine,” Tricia says. “In back.” She presses 9. Christine stares at the numbers climbing. Tricia looks directly at me. “Can you be trusted?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“I don't mean as a human being,” she says. “That would be asking too much. I mean can you be trusted that as far as Vera Dineen is concerned, this meeting never took place?”