First Kill (7 page)

“A steamy eighty-five, Max, but I’m not paying you for small talk. What’s going on?”

“I followed him this morning. He took a walk through Central Park with a pretty brunette.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know yet.” A long moment passed which Blick interpreted as passive-aggressive disappointment. He quickly added, “This is the first time I’ve seen them together. I was out in front of his building early this morning. I followed him into Central Park where he met up with said pretty young thing.”

“I need to know who she is immediately.”

“Hey, I can only watch one person at a time.”

“You don’t seem to have an issue cashing all the checks I send you.”

“I’m doing the best I can. If—”

“Hold!”

Sure, I’ll hold.
Blick heard the sound of footsteps over the phone line and the slapping of slippers on marble.
That’s got to be
Chang, the physical therapist.
He had only met Chang once—the conversation amounted to little more than an exchange of the word
hello
. The man had made no effort to be social or for that matter to act human. Blick remembered the small man marching his rigid, soldier-like walk alongside the pool and then slipping off his white robe to reveal his taut, overdeveloped physique. He had slipped into the pool so smoothly as to barely cause a ripple. He had then worked his patient’s body, massaging and stretching the diseased legs without making eye contact, kneading the muscles as if they were lifeless lumps of clay.

“I have to go. Chang is here. When will the coroner release Hartley’s body?

“Later in the week, I suppose—as soon as they’re satisfied they didn’t miss anything.”

“Be sure to let me know when they lower that bastard into the ground.”

Blick couldn’t help himself—he laughed and disconnected the call.
What a piece of work.

Chapter Fourteen

I always attend a homicide victim’s funeral—people-watching.
Who was there to show their respect? Who was there out of a sense of obligation? Who was there to see their victim take a long dirt nap? There are no sure bets in a criminal investigation, but sometimes … Well, just sometimes.

The issue with a high profile figure like Hartley was that the number of attendees at his funeral was staggering. Hartley had been a fixture in the Manhattan legal system for decades. He had a list of friends, acquaintances, and connections so large that it dwarfed those of the most powerful political figures. I waited in the cemetery parking lot, making note of who arrived. After a while, there were so many cars that they had to be diverted to a nearby parking field.

A Bentley convertible rolled up beside me. The driver’s window lowered and a man with an aristocratic countenance beckoned me to approach. “Yes?”

“I need room for my car,” he said flatly.

I pointed to the long line of cars crawling toward the overflow lot. “There seems to be room over there.”

“I
don’t
wait in lines,” he said informing me of his entitlement. I shrugged, a
tough shit
kind of shrug. “Do you know who I am?” he huffed.

A woman was walking by. I got her attention. “This
gentleman
doesn’t seem to know who he is. You think he might have amnesia?”

Mr. Importance gnashed his teeth. “Screw you.”

I pulled my badge and grinned. “
Yeah
, there’s a line for that too.” He glared at me and then was gone as the tinted-glass window went up. The Bentley sped away and stopped in a no-parking zone. Big surprise.

A Range Rover was one of the last cars to arrive—not one of the moderately expensive minis, but a full-size SUV, the kind used by big-game hunters to track prey across the Serengeti and by yuppies to impress their neighbors—a good seventy-five grand, even on fire sale. The driver was Steve Farrell. “Any place to park?” he asked.

I pointed to Mr. Grouchy Pants’ Bentley. “You can block him in. He’s not going anywhere.” Farrell parked where instructed. I walked over to his Range Rover just as he slipped an overcoat over his suit. “I like your car. It says that you’re rough and ready to spend your cash without shame. When did the DA’s office start paying so well?”

He had a smug smile on his face as he said, “You know better than that, Chalice—my position pays peanuts. I’ve always driven a Range Rovers. It’s a tradition.”

“Nice! That’s a much better tradition than poverty. I’m a Zipcar girl myself.”

“I like rugged cars.”

“Still, it’s not a Kia.”

“We have money,” he said. “I already told you that.”

“Of course. I remember—someone bought the farm, but in a good way. Besides, I have no issue with trust-fund men.”

Farrell grinned. “Did you get here early?”

“Early? I’ll say. Vampires were just returning to their coffins.”

He rolled his eyes. “So who showed up? Anyone qualify for your rogues gallery?”

“Quinlan’s here—nothing speaks quite as well as an acquitted murderer who pays respect to his recently deceased attorney. Every judge in Manhattan is here, as well as several people whose feet do not appear to touch the ground.”

Farrell chuckled. “It
is
Connecticut after all: the home of old money.”

I looked toward the gravesite. “I think they’re about to start.” Farrell and I joined the ceremony. Cronan Hartley’s casket was set atop his final resting place. I thought back to Saturday morning in Central Park and the moment when our phones went off at the same time—my call was from Sonellio and Farrell’s was from his boss, both telling us that Hartley had been murdered. He had been found in his car just beyond the gates of his estate. The postman spotted the car while making his delivery the next morning—he saw Hartley’s head slacked against the lambskin headrest and the driver’s window smeared with blood. The security camera recorded Hartley’s entrance onto the grounds. It had been angled to view the car as it entered and got a great shot of the front of the car and Hartley. Hartley’s killer was hidden from view, most likely pressed against the rear floorboard of the expansive sedan. The digital time recording stamped Hartley’s entry at 9:58 p.m. and recorded it on the system hard drive, which was stored in the house. The system stopped transmitting at 10:06. The surveillance camera had been smashed, presumably so as not to record the fleeing assassin.

“Rough way to die,” Farrell said.

I placed my hand over my throat. “Slit ear to ear—not the way I’d want to go.”

“Nor I.”

Credit card records indicated that Hartley had dined at a nearby restaurant just prior to his demise. His killer could have slipped into the car while Hartley ate. The valets had been questioned but had not seen anyone suspicious. I wasn’t surprised—most valets drive like they’re committing grand larceny. Their MO is
yank open the door, crank the engine, slam on the gas pedal, grab the tip … next.

The mood was more somber than the gray skies that hung above the cemetery. Claire Hartley was almost her husband’s equivalent in stature and appearance, tall and rangy with an asymmetrical face that was hidden behind dark glasses. Her sentiment was genuine. You don’t have to see tears to know how a person is feeling—you can sense it in their posture and the way they carry themselves. Mrs. Hartley looked like someone whose life had abruptly ended, as if the sun had departed and would never return. It was a terrible scenario: being informed of your husband’s death via phone, then the lonely flight back from Florida. I knew how she felt. It wasn’t that long ago that I lost my dad. The ache I felt at his loss rose in my gut—it was always there, waiting and lurking. Most times life helped to distract me from its presence, but not now. For a moment, I was as one with the mourners. Loss is loss, grief is grief, and there is a unity born from suffering. I could read it on the faces, almost smell it in the air.

And then one face stood out that did not seem to belong. There was something distinctive about the man with the thick sideburns and plaid cap, something about him that struck a chord. I was just about to put my finger on it when the ceremony began. The priest had a strong voice, and it pulled my attention as he began to speak, “We gather here today to celebrate the life of Seamus Cronan Hartley.”

Chapter Fifteen

“You’ve got to be kidding me. His first name was Seamus?”
I grabbed Farrell by the arm and marched him toward the cemetery parking lot. “Oh man, that stinks like week-old kimchi.”

Farrell snickered.

“What?”

“You don’t know much about Korean cooking, do you?”

“Why?”

“All kimchi is a week old; it takes that long to ferment.”

“I’m not in the mood for levity.” Okay, a smile broke through, but it was a very small one. “You obviously had no clue either.”

“About his name? No. This is the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to him as Seamus. I’ve seen him in court on numerous occasions, and I’ve never heard anyone call him by that name. I doubt that his name is registered that way with the New York State Bar Association.”

“How could this be? It’s just too convenient that Hartley’s first name and Quinlan’s alter ego have the same name.”

“Honestly, if my first name was Seamus, I wouldn’t go shouting it from the rafters either.”

“
Oh
and
Cronan
just rolls off the tongue?”

“I don’t know, I think the name Cronan has a certain
je ne sais quoi
. It sounds commanding and authoritative. It’s a hell of a lot better than Seamus. Seamus sounds like the name of an elf munching on a bowl of Lucky Charms.”

“In my mind this invalidates the entire argument he used to defend Quinlan. Shit! I feel like we’ve been played.”

“All of the materials he presented for his defense argument were thoroughly verified.”

“By whom, Steve, some tavern owner from the town of Blarney? I mean really, how much bullshit is enough? I’m sure the DA’s office does a first-rate job when and where it can, but verifying medical notes from private therapists in a foreign country?”

“You’ve got an uphill battle, Chalice.”

“Even if I can prove Hartley committed fraud?”

“Good luck with that. Even if the police department is willing to allocate the time, money, and personnel for the investigation, you’ll have a hell of a time convincing a judge to reopen the case. Hartley’s reputation is sacred. How many magistrates did you recognize attending the service? You’ll never find anyone sitting on the bench willing to desecrate Hartley’s memory.”

“There’s got to be something I can do.”

“Well, you
could
have him disbarred …” He glared at me. “If he wasn’t already
dead
.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and filled my lungs with winter air. A chauffeur-driven limo rolled slowly toward of the parking lot exit. I couldn’t see the passenger through the blacked-out window, but I knew someone was watching from behind the dark glass because the limo slowed suddenly as if the driver were receiving instructions: “One moment, Jeeves. Is that young woman carrying the latest Prada clutch bag?” Or something like that. You know how it feels when someone is checking you out. It could have just been a looky-loo, one of the eternally curious. The limo resumed speed and exited the parking lot—gone and forgotten in the next moment.

A cop never wants to accept defeat, but I knew that Farrell was right. Justice would come when I nailed the murderer and not through a reworking of the legal system. It was a task I accepted wholeheartedly. Still, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, and I would leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of the guilty. I had a friend I knew would help me. It was time to drop a dime on Herbert Ambler, my friend the G-Man.

Chapter Sixteen

“Look right there.”
I pointed at the playback monitor while Herbert Ambler looked over the bridge of his aviator glasses.

“What am I looking at?” Ambler asked.

I tapped the screen with my fingernail to indicate the presence of a man standing in the shadow. There, across the street and down the block from the precinct was the man I had seen at Hartley’s funeral. We were looking at the surveillance feed from the camera mounted above the police station entrance. I was sure that the man watching Quinlan, Hartley, and me was the same man in the plaid cap at the funeral. In the video, his cap was pulled down snugly, covering most of his hair, but those thick sideburns could not be hidden. “Him. He was at the funeral. I knew something about him looked familiar. It was the night Hartley gave me the affidavit supporting Quinlan’s alibi in the Nadine Fey stabbing.”

“You’re going a million miles an hour, Chalice. Tell me again … who was Nadine Fey?”

“You’re losing it G-Man—the hooker found stabbed to death at the construction site.”

“Oh.
All right, I’m up to speed. So, Quinlan was arrested for killing the sweet, young, fundraising gal, Emma … Emma—?”

I filled in the blank, “Sands, Emma Sands.”

“And he would have gone away for capital murder if Hartley hadn’t pulled the multiple-personality defense out of his ass.”

I corrected him. “His
dead
ass.”

“Well, he wasn’t dead at the time.”

“You’re right, his ass was alive and breathing at the time—I stand corrected.”

“And it’s your theory that this multiple-personality defense and all the documentation from the Irish psychiatrists was untrue.”

“Let’s just say that I’m highly suspicious. Hartley intentionally suppressed the fact that his given name was Seamus. Quinlan’s second personality is also named Seamus—that doesn’t make your antennae stand up?”

Ambler grabbed his cup of stationhouse java and pushed back in his chair. He puffed out his cheeks. “Why would a wealthy, prominent attorney like Cronan Hartley implicate himself with an alleged felon? What possible motive could he have to produce false documentation?”

“Herb, the man is
dead
. Doesn’t that just scream conspiracy? Yes, it would take a hell of a whopping reason for a man like Hartley to commit fraud—big enough to get him killed.”