It Happens in the Dark (35 page)

SUSAN:
Listen.

ROLLO:
I hear it. . . . They’re coming.

—
The Brass Bed
, Act III

Assigning blame for tragedy was blood sport in New York City.

Reporters were gathered outside the SoHo station house, lying in wait to ambush the detectives of Special Crimes. Tomorrow the bloodletting would escalate when Dr. Slope officially released his finding of murder in the deaths of Dickie Wyatt and Peter Beck. The news media would scream incompetence for allowing the play to go on, and they would demand a head on a spike or, at the very least, a public flogging.

The watchers’ room was now a midnight war room of visiting VIPs, the politicians who had botched this night. They were laying schemes to get clean away with it, and Mallory knew that her boss would be their chosen sacrifice—the sin eater.

She ended her cell-phone conversation with the lieutenant as she walked down the hospital corridor alongside her partner. “The stagehands won’t stop talking, and the DA’s sweetening their deal every six minutes. Coffey says they
know
who killed Peter Beck.”

“Good. So . . . where to now?”

“The station house,” said Mallory. “And then we go shopping. We need a sin eater.”

Riker only nodded, as if this might make sense to him—eventually.

Janos was waiting for them at the end of the hallway. He volunteered to stay behind for updates on Alma’s condition. “And I might have another go at the twins, maybe
tweak
their statements a little.”

As Mallory followed Riker into the elevator, Janos leaned in to startle her with a parting gift—a tissue. Was this a joke or an insult? The tissue was withdrawn as the sliding doors were closing. Mallory raised one hand to her cheek. It was wet. She had splashed cold water on her face in the ladies’ room.

And Janos had taken tap water for tears.

Apparently, so had Riker. The elevator began its slow descent, and his voice was gentle when he said, “No, you can’t go back up there and shoot the witness.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s late, kid. Sanger’s gone home, and Clara Loman’s workin’ solo tonight. Wanna call her off?”

“No, she’d keep going anyway—just to make the point that she doesn’t work for us.”

•   •   •

Detective Sanger had ruled out this area of TriBeCa as a likely place for Dickie Wyatt’s last meal, arguing that an addict only days out of rehab would not go near an old drug buddy. Even a stroll through Axel Clayborne’s neighborhood might have triggered a relapse. Sanger’s logic had been unassailable, born of his years in Narcotics.

However, Clara Loman was not hampered by that detective tonight.

She sat in the studio apartment of a young man who lived within walking distance of his job in a local restaurant. The hour was late, but the waiter was still wearing his work clothes, dark pants and a white shirt stained with chili.

He was
so
young. So stupid. Though she had shown him her badge, he had invited her in, confident that his air-freshener of canned pine trees masked the aroma of cannabis. An underlying scent was the insect spray that seemed to have no effect on cockroaches. Bugs scattered as she spread her expanded photo array on his rickety coffee table. The waiter looked at each picture carefully, taking his time. He did everything slowly.

He was stoned.

Yet he had no trouble identifying Dickie Wyatt’s dinner companion.

•   •   •

The two detectives stood by the lobby doors. Beyond the dark expanse of theater seats, a bright bulb, caged in wire, hung down to light up the center of the stage—and the man sprawled out on the brass bed.

“So that’s a ghost light.” Riker kept his voice low, minding the acoustics that allowed sound to travel everywhere. “How long has
this
been goin’ on?”

“He’s been sleeping here since his friend died,” said Mallory. “Bugsy never saw him, but he heard the footsteps every night, every morning.”

This might be her most subtle punch line. So that was how she knew Dickie Wyatt had died in Axel Clayborne’s apartment. The actor could not bear to sleep there anymore. Her other clue had been the dead man’s suit, the one worn at the wake, and Riker thought he
might
figure that one out, too.

They walked down the aisle and parted ways at the front row. While Mallory climbed the steps to the stage, Riker chose a seat in the audience. Before sitting down, he donned his bifocals, and now he could clearly see the bedside table laid out with the makings of a private party: a wine bottle, half full,
no
glass, and small, plastic pharmacy containers.

Was every man, woman and child in this town on drugs?

Riker held up a palm-size device and a small microphone for the actor to see. “We gotta record the interview. Okay by you?”

“Fine, whatever you need.” Axel Clayborne propped himself up on one elbow and smiled to see Mallory walk out of the shadows to stand beneath the ghost light. “Hel
lo
.”

She held up a Miranda card and read the first line of the actor’s constitutional rights. “You have the right to remain silent.”

“Allow me,” he said. “I’ve played a lot of cops. I can also have an attorney during questioning.
And
, if I don’t keep my mouth shut, anything I say can be used to savage me in court. Did I miss something?”

“No, that’s the gist of it.” Mallory placed the card on the table and handed him a pen. “Just sign at the bottom to waive the attorney . . . unless—”

“Anything for you.” Clayborne swung his legs over the side of the bed and signed away all his rights with a flourish and a smile.

That was way too easy. How wasted could this man be? Riker hit the recorder’s rewind button to play back the last few words, but Clayborne’s voice betrayed no slurs of booze or drugs to taint the interview. The detective relaxed into a slouch.
On with the show
. Soon the actor would forget that he was being taped. Even hard-core felons tended to forget—when there was no lawyer around to remind them.

Clayborne pulled up his legs to sit yoga style. “So this is about the Rinaldi twins. You’re pissed off, right? Sorry about the carnage. Well, I kept my word. I took that old script and their notes to the station house after—”

“I know.” Mallory sat down in the only chair, the wheelchair. “Thanks.”

He smoothed back his hair, primping for her. “Will I be a witness in court?”

“For the massacre? No, that won’t go to trial.” Her hands worked the wheels, and she rolled the chair back and forth. “A Nebraska sheriff is on his way home with three confessions.”

“Three?”
His head turned to follow the slow progress of the chair wheeling to the other side of the bed.

“The twins did all the slaughtering,” she said on the roll, “but the massacre was planned by an older kid . . . an invalid. That would be
your
character, the one you made up for the play. He was a cousin, not a brother, but you were close.” She wheeled the chair behind the bed and into the shadows beyond the glow of the ghost light.

Clayborne twisted around to grip the brass bars at the head of the bed frame. “A
third
survivor.”

“Just like your play.” She piloted the wheelchair back into the light.

“Art inadvertently imitating life.” He turned around again to face her. “So I was—”

“Another killer . . . playing a killer.” She rolled up close to the bed.

He lost his smile.

She rolled back and away.

Axel Clayborne rose from the mattress and followed her across the stage.

Riker wished the recorder could catch this. It was almost like slow dancing.

“You think
I
murdered Peter?”

“The twins didn’t do it.” Mallory turned the chair in his direction. “Those freaks only know one way to kill. It has to be brutal. It has to be
fun
.” Spinning the wheels, she circled around him. “Beck’s murder was quick. No fear, no pain.
Not
their style.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.” The actor slowly revolved to watch her as she wheeled around and around him in a widening orbit. Now he stood still, eyes focused on nothing. He snapped his fingers. “It had to be Alma.” He turned to the wheelchair—the
empty
chair.

Mallory stood in deep shadow. “
Alma
? A
junkie
with split-second timing?”

“She managed that kind of timing in every performance. Speed was never her problem. Her cocaine was probably
laced
with speed.”

“It
was. . . .
You should know.” The young cop walked into the pool of light. “You’re the reason Alma took all those drugs. Hiding in the walls, scratching on the blackboard. Threatening her—
torturing
her.” Grabbing the back of the wheelchair, Mallory aimed it at him and gave it a shove. “Was that
fun
for you?”

Clayborne never tried to get out of the way. Riker glanced at the bedside table and its stash of drink and drugs enough to dull the reflexes. Was this why his partner had wanted audio only, no video tonight? Had she paid a visit to the actor’s neighborhood pharmacy—and maybe a few liquor stores as well? Riker could never ask.
Plausible deniability
was his mantra now.

The empty wheelchair rolled to a stop a bare inch short of touching the actor, who was
acting
sober when he said, “Alma’s the logical choice.”

Mallory sank down on the edge of the mattress. “And you know that because . . . you played
cops
in the movies.” She thumped the table with her hand. Once, twice, three times.

Riker smiled. Cats did that with their tails. First, this warning. Then the claws. The teeth.

The actor, obviously unacquainted with any cats, stepped up to the other side of the brass bed, so confident when he spoke to her back. “Peter ordered Alma to walk out on the play. He told her to do it
on opening night
.”

“Yeah,
right
,” said Mallory, all but yawning.

“I was hiding in the wall. I heard everything—well, Alma’s end of it. She was on the phone with Peter—hysterical—and with good reason. She’d never get another shot at a Broadway play.
No
talent. And the little dummy’s just barely bright enough to understand that. But her boyfriend was hell-bent on shutting us down.”

“Was he?” Rising from the bed, Mallory pretended interest in the wine bottle’s label. “All Beck had to do was bow out. Without his name on the contract, the Chicago investors would’ve shut you down—and sued you. They financed
his
play, not yours. Who throws money at hack amateurs?”

Struck dumb, Axel Clayborne mimed the word,
WHAT?

Charles Butler had made the right call: This actor
was
a flaming narcissist with an ego that had no boundaries. So the loss of financing had never occurred to Clayborne. How could the backers fail to fall in love with the ghostwriter’s play? And Riker could see the man had it in mind to challenge Mallory on that account.

But now Clayborne shrugged off her insult. “Peter threatened to blow up his contract twice a day. Ask anyone. He had this little bit of power, but he could only use it once.”

“It kept him in the game,” said Mallory. “He was fighting for his play.”

“No, no,
no
.” The actor shook his head, as if saddened by this foolish child—who carried a gun. “You miss the point.
Peter
was torturing Alma,
extorting
her. And when she
didn’t
walk out on opening night, she knew he’d— Oh, wait! Here’s another motive—she’s in Peter’s will.”

“I don’t think that’ll work, either.” Mallory’s smile said it better:
You lose.
“Peter Beck’s lawyer got the revised will today. He would’ve had it sooner, but the snowstorm backed up mail delivery. The man left everything to his favorite bartender.”

“But
Alma
didn’t know that.”

“She was
damn
sure he wrote her out of the will. We’ve got her sworn statement. Alma even got the date right for the
new
will.”

“Well, that was smart. She probably goaded him into it. She was laying plans to—”

“Alma’s smart or she’s dumb,” said Mallory. “Pick one. Stick with it.”

“
I
didn’t murder Peter.”

“You murdered
Alma
,” said Mallory, as if she might be correcting him on a matter as small as the time of day. “She’s brain-dead. We’re waiting for her parents to fly in from Ohio and pull the plug on her respirator. Five minutes later, we charge you with—”

“She fried her own brain with drugs! You were
there
!”

Riker’s eyes darted from one to the other, keeping up with the volley of salvos flying across the brass bed.

“It would’ve been kinder to slit her throat,” said Mallory. “You just
had
to drag it out.”

“What p-possible reason—”

“Your best friend wanted her out of the play.
There’s
a reason. I know he was on her back every day in rehearsals. Dickie Wyatt put her through hell.”

“No, Alma was just too stupid to appreciate a gifted director. She hated him for—”