Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery (4 page)

Chapter Eight

“You want to do what?”

The question came from Calvin M. Daniels, who happened to be the president of Liberty News, which made him my boss. The man who granted contracts and decided whether or not I was worth keeping employed when my contract expired in two months

“I want to take a few days and poke around to see if there’s anything odd with Jack’s death,” I said.

I was seated in one of his visitor chairs, in his office on the floor above the Liberty newsroom. Behind him, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, you could look across Sixth Avenue to the east, and uptown as well, where the windows wrapped around the corner of the building, providing a glimpse of the marquee at Radio City Music Hall and the green of Central Park beyond that.

“Say that again,” he said.

“I want to look into Jack’s death.”

“To see …”

“To see if there’s anything odd.”

“Odd?” he asked.

I had worked here long enough, almost nine years, to know when a hurricane was about to hit land. And sometimes it was best just to stay down and seek shelter.

“You want to know what’s odd?” he asked, his voice rising. “What’s odd is my number one fucking anchor just killed himself. That’s odd.”

His voice climbed another octave.

“And you know what else is odd? He happened to be the goddamn biggest generator of advertising for this goddamn network, and that puts us in a pretty big hole. That’s odd. You want some more odd?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m good.”

“What’s really fucking odd is I got one of my reporters in my office asking for time off to try to figure out why my anchor killed himself. Now, that’s odd.”

“I’m not trying to figure out—”

“What are you, going into psychology or something?”

“Cal,” I said, but it was no use.

He exhaled and shook his head. “What am I, stupid? Is there something I’m missing here?”

I glanced at the framed pictures and articles that lined the wall to my right. There was one about how he had to drop out of Harvard after sophomore year to help support his family. The man wasn’t stupid.

“No, you’re not stupid,” I said.

“How about you just stick to being the—”

“Cal,” I said, cutting him off. “I got a call from Robbie Steele.”

He stopped. “What?”

“Robbie Steele called me,” I said.

“She looking to remarry?”

“She says Jack didn’t kill himself.”

“I’m still trying to get past that she called you.”

On the wall to my left were a series of small flat-screen TVs hanging in a tick-tack-toe grid. They were all on with the sound down, Liberty was on in the center one. His eyes drifted over to them. The news that Robbie Steele had called me seemed to have at least slowed him down.

“I went up to their place the other night,” I said.

His eyes came back to me.

“You went to Jack’s apartment? To see Robbie?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s convinced Jack didn’t commit suicide.”

“She understands he left a note, right? Or does she think that was a grocery list?”

“Pretty sure she knows it’s a note,” I said. “But she said she would eventually be able to explain it,” I said.

“I’m sure.” He exhaled a long, slow sigh. The man had just lost a close friend and his network’s biggest cash machine.

“I told her I’d help her,” I said.

He looked at me and shook his head. He was tired, and his ruddy, creased face reflected it. “Help her do what? Regain her sanity?”

“No, ask some questions, see if maybe something doesn’t add up with Jack’s death.”

“We’re back to that.”

“We are.”

He pushed himself farther into his high-backed leather executive chair and yanked at the knot of his tie. It was red and contrasted nicely with his starched white shirt.

“Look, there’s something you got to understand. Robbie Steele is flat-out crazy,” he said. “Drop-dead gorgeous, but nuts.”

“Doesn’t make her wrong.”

“Please don’t tell me you believe her.”

“All I said was her being crazy doesn’t make her wrong.”

“You don’t know this broad and what she’s capable of,” he said. “Jack was happily married,
very
happily married, before she came bursting onto the scene.”

His phone rang; he glanced at the number and ignored it.

“Jack didn’t stand a chance around her,” he said.

“Maybe he didn’t want to.”

He shook his head and had the look of someone trying to teach a slow student. “Maybe she feels guilty, like she drove him to jump in the damn river.”

“Give me a few days, we’ll find out for sure.”

“And what, I get to play musical chairs and move reporters around to cover for you on mornings while you’re off chasing this?”

“Only for a few days.”

“Big chance you’re taking.”

I knew where he was going with this, and I shrugged. “I think it’s worthwhile.”

“I been looking for somewhere to put Katie, see what she can do,” he said.

Katie was Katie Wallace, a tall brunette and former swimsuit model who I assumed would take my or someone else’s spot here once she learned to speak in complete sentences.

“That’s valuable real estate on the morning show you want to give up,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. He was a network president, which meant he knew exactly how to play on a reporter’s natural paranoia. “I just need a few days. Like I said, I’ll take my chances.”

Daniels gave me a little snort and shook his head.

“It’s your career.”

“It is.”

Chapter Nine

I was sitting at the bar of a place called McNeal’s on Third Avenue between Nineteenth and Twentieth Streets, a few blocks from my place. I had walked by here hundreds of times and never stopped in.

Now I knew why.

The place was dark and smelled of stale beer. I nursed a bottle of Heineken and was relieved to see Rinaldi come in the door to my right.

He was dressed in a tan suit, a white shirt, and a tie that was supposed to be either a splashy pastel pattern or had Russian dressing stains on it. He carried a folded copy of the
Post
in one hand and took the barstool next to me.

“If it isn’t my friend the celebrity,” he said.

“Your kind of place, huh?” I asked.

“Dark and mysterious. Just the way I like my women.”

“Your wife is Irish, last time I looked.”

“What? Get out.”

Rinaldi was what’s called heavyset these days. Ten years ago he would have been overweight. Twenty years ago he would have been fat. A few years from now he’ll probably be called husky. He had a thick head of jet-black hair that hadn’t thinned at all since high school. As a matter of fact, he appeared to have kept the same hairstyle he had in high school as well.

The bartender tossed a coaster on the bar in front of him then reached below the bar and came back with a small bowl of peanuts.

“Detective Rinaldi,” he said, “a beer like your friend the TV star?”

Rinaldi looked at me and smiled.

“I knew you were a celebrity. Getting recognized everywhere.”

“I’m not convinced it’s a good thing to be recognized in a cop bar.”

Rinaldi looked at my Heineken then ordered a Jameson’s. It was poured, and he raised his glass.

“To my friend the TV star.” He took a sip and slid the glass onto the bar. “So you’re hot shit again?”

“Thanks to your confirming things for me.”

“I provide the info, you get the glory. Nice gig, this TV reporting,” he said.

“An honorable profession filled with noble, hardworking individuals.”

“All with perfect hair and teeth,” he said.

“Amazing how I slipped through the cracks.”

On a crummy sound system behind the bar, late-eighties rock was playing. It may have been Bon Jovi.

“So what else can I do to further your career?” he asked.

“I need to know about Steele.”

“He’s still dead,” he said. He took a handful of peanuts and jiggled them around like he was about to roll dice.

“Yes, so I heard,” I said.

“Glad I could help,” he said before tossing nuts one at a time into his mouth.

I drank the beer and tried to decide how much I could and should tell him.

“I got a call from his wife.”

“The Yoga Honey?”

“She’s convinced he didn’t kill himself.”

Pep raised his glass and drank slowly, thinking about it. “She’s new to the widow game. Give her a week or two, then she’ll realize fatso went for a swim.”

“She thinks he went out to meet somebody that night,” I said.

“Then what, maybe jumped in the river to cool off after the big meeting?” he asked.

“You think there’s a chance?”

“Yes. Slightly less than zero.”

I finished my Heineken, and the bartender noticed from the far end of the bar, where he was engaged in a conversation. He made his way to us, pulled another one from the cooler below the bar, and put it in front of me.

Rinaldi turned his head a little and scanned the faces down the bar before speaking.

“I’m not a big fan of the guy who caught this,” he said. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“He any good?”

“We’re all good. That’s my point.”

“So no way he missed anything?”

He finished the last peanut and turned to me and tapped the bar with a thick finger.

“We got a note. In his handwriting, at least as far as we can tell. It was found in his home office. Where he was last sitting before he went out. We got a cabbie who picked him up in front of his building, then dropped him at Thirty-fourth and First. We got easy access to the water a short walk from there. Then we got him in the water.”

“Pretty convincing.”

“Unless there’s something we’re all missing,” he said. “Which I doubt.”

I thought about Robbie telling me she was pregnant. I was close to sharing but decided not to. Why wouldn’t she tell the cops? I was going to have to try to sort that out, but not here.

“Anything at all make you think something else could have happened?” I said.

“Not from what I’ve heard,” he said, then took a slow pull on the Jameson’s. “I brought you a copy of the paperwork. The report and his note.”

He glanced at the copy of the
Post
on the bar. “Tucked into the horoscope page. By the way, my moon is in a good house this week. I’m not sure what that means.”

“Think it means it’s your lucky week.”

“Then why am I sitting here with you?” he asked.

“My winning personality, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“You think Robbie Steele is just being emotional and in denial?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And she’ll eventually realize there were some subtle signs she was missing all along about her husband’s mental state?”

“Probably,” he said.

“She’s determined to find out what really happened.”

“Fatso Steele snapped,” he said.

“What does his note say?”

“Pressure. The weight of the world. Something about drinking. All the usual, woe-is-me stuff.”

I drank a bit of my Heineken and again wondered if I was wasting my time. And ruining what was left of my career.

Chapter Ten

I was in the lobby of Carnegie Court, scanning the big glass-encased board on one of the dark marble walls. The narrow office building was nestled in among the bigger, flashier buildings on the south side of Fifty-seventh between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

The lobby was dark and cool, with kind of a hip, futuristic feel to it. Not a lot of tenants in the place, but I found the one I was looking for right away.

“Webber Sizemore Associates: Suite 6F”

“Healing Strategies & Health Alternatives”

According to the police report Rinaldi had given me, Dr. Alan Webber was one of the last people to speak to Jack Steele. The report referred to him as Steele’s therapist and business associate. I was going to bet he was either a high-end shrink, specializing in substance-abuse treatment, or a charlatan, specializing in bilking his well-to-do clients.

I got off the elevator on the sixth floor and walked to the double wood doors with the gold lettering that read “Webber Sizemore.”

I stepped inside and was greeted with a glare from a stern-looking young woman behind a desk to my left. She was skinny and seemed to stick straight up from the desk. It seemed as though whatever healing or health program she was on may have gone a bit too far.

“Mr. North?” she asked.

“That would be me.”

She rose and came around the desk and extended a hand. Not only was she tall and skinny, she had on heels. It was like greeting a large two-by-four with arms and legs.

“My name is Grace. Andrew is expecting you,” she said.

“That is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“Can I ask the nature of your visit?”

“Strictly informational.”

“Of course,” she said.

She took a manila folder off her desk that had my name on a label across the tab. She opened it and studied a sheet of paper inside. “And you were recommended by Jack Steele?”

She looked at me and I nodded and answered in a somber tone. “Yes.”

“A horrible tragedy,” Grace said.

“I know of no other kind.”

Grace chose to ignore my wit.

“As a matter of fact, I saw your reports that morning,” she said.

The image of Grace in the kitchen fixing her breakfast of four raisins danced through my mind.

“Tough morning,” I said.

“I can only imagine. You two were close?” she asked.

“In a way.”

Grace didn’t need to know I had never said more than a half-dozen words to the man.

“Well, I can tell you that we have many, many high-profile patients here, and their privacy is our number one priority,” she said.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” I said.

“Whatever treatment you require, I assure you will remain strictly confidential,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

When I called to set up an appointment, the officious young man who took the call had assumed I was looking for a counseling session. I mentioned it was in reference to Steele, and he took that as my having been recommended by Steele; I did nothing to change his thinking.

And here I was, in front of Grace the Stick on my way into see Dr. Andrew Webber, Therapist and Healer of the Stars.

Grace motioned for me to follow her down the hall.

“I’ll take you right in to see Andrew,” she said, and off we went.

We turned down a hallway next to Grace’s desk and walked past offices on the right that looked out onto Fifty-seventh Street. Webber’s office was the last one in the hallway. Grace tapped on the door and opened it, poked her head in, and introduced me. I thanked her and stepped inside.

Webber was behind his desk across the room and he got up and came around to greet me. He was wearing a striped shirt with muted greens and browns, a tie with a lot of gold and deep yellows, and olive slacks.

“Mr. North, it is so nice to meet you.”

He was probably not all that much older than I was; my guess would be early fifties. He was about my height, a touch over six feet, and slim. His hair was neatly cut and parted, and he had a tasteful salt-and-pepper beard. He was well groomed and healthy looking, which I guess was a good thing if you’re trying to help people straighten out their lives.

“I watched you on the morning of Jack’s death,” he said as he took his seat behind the desk and motioned me to one of the chairs in front of it. “That must have been very difficult, I mean, knowing Jack and all.”

“It was a tough morning,” I said.

“I’m sure.”

He moved my folder front and center and looked at my sheet, then slid a yellow legal pad in front of him. He had a pen ready to start transcribing our chat.

“Before we start, let me say that I treat many high-profile people, and we go to extraordinary lengths to protect their privacy.”

“That’s comforting to hear,” I said as he studied my sheet.

“So it says Jack recommended you.” He looked at me like he smelled something. “I treated Jack for close to three years, but I never heard him mention your name. Were you two close?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh, okay,” he said.

“I’m not here for treatment.”

Webber held my sheet in both hands and studied me. I spoke to save him the trouble of asking me.

“I’m here because Robbie Steele doesn’t think Jack killed himself.”

He took a big breath like he was already running out of patience. “It’s frequently hard for the spouse to accept this,” he said.

“Funny, that’s what the cops said, too.”

“There’ll be a point when she does,” he said.

“Well, right now, she doesn’t. She thinks he went out to meet someone that night and was killed.”

“And she has asked you to …”

“She asked me to ask around. My background is in investigative reporting. I got a bunch of local news Emmys from years ago to prove it.”

“Congratulations.” Webber put the sheet of paper back in the folder and closed it. “Well, I don’t see what help I can be.”

“According to the police report, you and his driver were among the last people to speak to him. Aside from his wife, that is.”

“And are you going to go misrepresent yourself to the driver as well?”

“Yes. I may say I need a ride somewhere when I really don’t.”

“Mr. North, I really don’t have the time, nor the patience, to indulge you in your little investigation. You obviously know I spoke to Jack that evening.”

“But what I don’t know is what you two spoke about.”

“I already told the detectives who showed up here unannounced,” he said. He squirmed like the thought of someone dropping in was the worst thing that could possibly happen. I realized the good doctor was one of those neat and orderly guys; everything had to be just so.

“Mrs. Steele told me Jack called you to cancel your session. Did he say why?”

“Mr. North …”

“Did you two normally meet at night? How unusual was that? Did he cancel a lot?”

“Mr. North,” he said again. This time his tone was harsher. “In an effort to keep your little intrusion here short, I’ll tell you exactly what I told the police, if that will help.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“Good. Jack and I met at least twice, sometimes three times a week. Most of the time it was after his show had ended. The vast majority of the time it was at my apartment. We lived only a few blocks apart. He called that night just before ten and said he was tired and not feeling well and canceled.”

I nodded, taking it all in.

“There. Now you can go,” he said.

“That was it? I’m tired and not coming over?”

“Yes. Even if there were something else, I wouldn’t tell you. Doctor-patient privilege, maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Hate how that gets in the way.”

He made a move for his phone. “I’ll have Grace show you out.”

“You surprised Jack killed himself?”

“Mr. North, really.”

“You were his shrink.”

He put the phone back down. “I am not a shrink. We provide a full range of services, specializing in substance-abuse treatments. This is not about someone coming in to get on the couch.”

“Well, whatever it is, it obviously didn’t work if you believe Jack went out and jumped in the river.”

Webber gritted his teeth, and for a second I thought he might smash his desk with a fist.

“Mr. North, I work to heal people. To restore their vitality and sense of self as they battle various forms of substance abuse. Not everyone responds to our treatments in the same way.”

“I worked with Jack,” I said, “always heard he was battling the bottle, but it didn’t seem too bad lately. Something happen that we all didn’t know about?”

“I am not going to get into the specifics of—”

“Come on, Doc,” I said. “This whole thing isn’t exactly an advertisement for your expensive services. I mean, your treating Jack isn’t going to make your testimonial brochure after this.”

Webber picked up his pen and began to turn it back and forth, end over end. “I really don’t know why you’re poking around in this.”

“I need to poke somewhere; it’s what I do for a living. Plus, Robbie Steele asked me to poke around.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Roberta Steele and reality don’t always see eye to eye.”

“Who does?”

He got up and moved from behind his desk. “I told you what I told the police. You can go now.”

He crossed the office and went to the door; I followed right behind him and stood too close for either one of us.

“Here’s something I found odd,” I said.

He stiffened and raised his chin.

“The police report described you as Jack’s therapist slash business associate. That’s probably how Robbie described you to the cops.”

“That is a private matter.”

“Business been good?”

He opened the door. “Good-bye, Mr. North.”

“Maybe things have been tough. Maybe you were tapping Jack for a few dollars? Maybe Jack was going to be a celebrity endorser or something? Am I close here on any of this?”

“No. Good-bye.”

“Maybe there was some business deal that didn’t work out.”

“Jack had a lot of business interests. Last I checked, his agent and his executive producer handled them.”

I had taken a step toward the open door, satisfied I had given him a hard enough time when I stopped. “What? Who handles them?”

“His agent.”

“And? Who was the other one?”

“His executive producer. Marty—”

“Glover?”

“Yes. Maybe you can go waste their time.”