NYPD Red 4 (13 page)

There are three
reasons why I love Paola's restaurant. First, there's the incomparable Italian cuisine that Paola Bottero brought to America from Rome.

Second is the unabashed hospitality that greets me every time I walk through the door. Tonight was no different. Paola's son, Stefano, welcomed us with an enthusiastic “
Buona sera,
Dr. Robinson, Signor Jordan” and warm hugs that made me feel like we weren't customers but friends invited over for dinner.

And third, it's my go-to place to bring a date after I've made a fool of myself.

“You're nothing if not predictable,” Cheryl said after we'd been seated and our wine had been poured. “Every time you and I have come here, it's been for dinner and an apology.”

“There's a method to my madness,” I said. “If you dump me, at least I still get a great dinner out of it.”

“I'm not going to dump you. I love being with you. I'm just not sure I can handle living with you.”

“I'm sorry. I really screwed up last night.”

“I'm not sure you screwed up. I think you were just Zach being Zach.”

“But it's not the Zach you deserve. You planned this fantastic evening, and when the phone rang, I walked out on you.”

“Ran out.”

“In my head, I kept thinking, ‘You're a cop. This is what cops do.' But it wasn't a cop call. It was…”

I stopped. This was tougher than I thought, and I was afraid I was going to make matters even worse.

“It was what?” Cheryl said.

I drank some wine. “This morning I went to the diner, and I told Gerri what I did. Her immediate reaction was, ‘Why did you walk—' Sorry. ‘Why did you
run
out?' And I said, ‘That's what I do whenever there's a damsel in distress.'”

Cheryl laughed.

“Well, at least
you're
laughing,” I said. “Gerri went batshit. She told me Kylie was definitely not a damsel in distress. And she's right. Kylie can handle herself. She kicked a guy in the balls today. The poor bastard probably won't walk straight for a week.”

“I agree with Dr. Gerri. Kylie can fend for herself.”

“Anyway, I thought about it, so this afternoon, when I had five minutes, I googled ‘Men who try to rescue women.' I've got what you psychologists call the White Knight Syndrome.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Zach. No, you don't.”

“I don't?”

“Absolutely not. Would you like my professional opinion?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Instead of googling everything that troubles you and then accepting as gospel whatever some idiot blogged about on the Internet, why don't you talk your problems out with a shrink?”

“I'm in luck. I've got one right here.”

“Fat chance. You're going to have to find one you haven't slept with.”

“Hmm…that's going to be a challenge.”

She dipped two fingers in her water glass and flicked it at me. “This conversation is officially over. Let's talk about some fun stuff—like what did Howard Sykes think about my idea?”

“Nervous, but willing. Can I just say one more thing on the topic you don't want to talk about?”

“One, and that's it.”

“I just want you to know I'm trying. I told Kylie we were going out to dinner and not to call me. I figured if I were trying to lose weight, I wouldn't stock the house with Oreos and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Same principle. Out of sight, out of mind.”

She didn't say a word. This time, the conversation
was
officially over.

For the next hour, we ate, we drank, we laughed, we talked—dinner was everything I could have hoped for. We were both too full to order dessert, but that didn't stop Paola from sending a mind-blowing lemon tart to our table and then joining us for five minutes to catch up on how we were doing.

As of that moment, we were doing just fine.

And then my cell rang. I looked at the caller ID, hit Decline, and shoved the phone back into my pocket.

“Who was it?” Cheryl asked.

“It was Kylie, but I'm not accepting calls from damsels in distress this evening.”

Cheryl laughed. “Are you serious? Was it really Kylie? After you told her not to call?”

“Looks like I'm not the only one who needs a shrink,” I said.

Our waiter was just bringing me the check when Cheryl's phone rang. She took one look at the caller ID, and her expression changed. This was a serious call. She answered.

I could only hear her side of the conversation. She didn't say much, but the few words she did manage to get out sounded ominous.

“Oh no. Are they sure? Oh God, I am so sorry.” And finally, “Zach and I are at 92nd Street and Madison. Pick us up. We're going with you.”

She hung up, and tears were streaming down her face. “That was Kylie,” she said. “She just got a phone call from the captain of the Four Four in the Bronx.”

“Jesus. What happened?”

“They found Spence's body in a vacant lot. He was shot through the head.”

“Any details?”
I asked.

“Bare bones,” Cheryl said. “Anonymous tip to 911. First cop on the scene was able to ID Spence—his wallet was on the ground. No cash, but his emergency contact said ‘Wife: NYPD Detective Kylie MacDonald.' That kicked the system into high gear. It's like ‘officer down' once removed. That's all I know except that Kylie is on the way to identify the body.”

“God, I hope she's not driving.”

“She's not that crazy, and even if she tried, no one is crazy enough to let her.”

We were on the corner of Nine Two and Madison, and I stepped off the curb to get a better look down the avenue. Flashing lights about a mile away. No sirens, but moving fast.

“Here they come,” I said to Cheryl. “I don't know when I'll be home, but I'll text you and keep you posted.”

“Text me?”
she said, her voice suddenly sharp. “Zach, where's your head? I'm going with you.”

That threw me. “Cheryl, it's a crime scene. Since when does—”

“
Since when?
A police officer's husband was murdered. It's
my job
to evaluate Kylie to determine whether or not she's fit for duty, and having done this far too many times in the past, I can tell you my best guess: she's not.”

“Sorry,” I said. “We're all in shock. I wasn't thinking straight.”

She didn't say a word, and I wondered if I'd just undone the last two hours of brilliant fence-mending with one dumb remark.

The convoy pulled up: two squad cars followed by a Ford van, then another two squad cars. The van stopped directly in front of us, and a uniform jumped out and slid the door open. I climbed into the back, and Cheryl sat in the center row next to Kylie. She'd been crying, and Cheryl put a comforting arm around her, although I wondered how much comfort was possible.

“It's my fault,” Kylie said as soon as we started rolling. “I should never have kicked him out of the apartment.”

“You didn't kick him out,” Cheryl said. “You checked him into rehab.”

Kylie shook her head. “It was a day program. I could have let him live at home.”

“Do you really think that would have made a difference?” Cheryl said, her voice consoling and without a trace of judgment. “Addicts put their lives at risk every day—it's what they do. No one can stop them, and when it ends in tragedy, it's never anybody's fault but their own. I know you know that.”

Kylie nodded her head and whispered “Thank you.” Cheryl took a quick look over her shoulder and made eye contact with me just in case I still didn't understand why she was along for the ride.

The traffic was thin, and the ribbon of strobe lights quickly scattered everyone in our path as we sped through Spanish Harlem and over the Madison Avenue Bridge into the southern tip of our city's most ravaged borough.

Back in the seventies, the South Bronx was the epicenter of murder, rape, robbery, and arson in the U.S., and the cry
“The Bronx is burning”
was heard across America. Today, many of the burned-out buildings have been replaced, but with half the population living below the poverty line, the area is still a magnet for gangs, drug peddlers, and violent crime.

As we turned onto East 163rd Street, I thought about all the “safer places” in the city to cop drugs, and I wondered what drew a white-collar junkie to the dark, unwelcoming streets here in the shadow of Yankee Stadium.

And then Cheryl's words echoed in my brain.
“Addicts put their lives at risk every day—it's what they do.”
Spence Harrington had done it once too often.

The van pulled to a stop, the door opened, and a tall man in an NYPD windbreaker introduced himself to Kylie. “Detective Peter Varhol,” he said. “I'm sorry for your loss, Detective MacDonald.”

He led the way to the crime scene. Kylie and I had seen it many times before: a fetid patch of ground in the bowels of the city, a drug buy gone bad, a body lying under a sheet. Some cops say they're immune to it, but for me it's always gut-wrenching. Only this time it was personal.

Cheryl and I stood back a respectful distance and let Kylie approach the body. A technician pulled back the sheet, and she fell to her knees. Within seconds she slumped over, and her body heaved with sobs.

Cheryl moved closer, knelt beside her, crossed herself, and then stood up abruptly. “Zach,” she said, her head motioning toward the corpse.

I stepped forward and dropped to my knees next to Kylie. The man on the ground had a blood-caked hole in the middle of his forehead. His eyes were wide-open, a look of utter disbelief frozen on his face.

He was dead. Murdered in cold blood. But he wasn't Spence.

“First body I
ever called wrong,” Detective Varhol said to Kylie. “You must think I'm an idiot.”

“It's not your fault,” Kylie said. “The first responder saw my name in Spence's wallet. I got the call before you were even on the scene.”

“I know, but the cop who ID'd the body is a rookie,” Varhol said. “And the vic looks enough like the picture on your husband's driver's license that it's an easy mistake to make, but damn, once I got here, I should have taken a closer look.”

It was a much bigger mea culpa than the situation called for. I was thinking what a stand-up guy Varhol was when he smoothly shifted gears. “You recognize him, don't you?” he said.

Kylie hadn't volunteered the victim's name, but Varhol had good cop instincts, and he'd disarmed her just enough to catch her off guard.

Withholding information is one thing. Lying is another. Kylie owned up. “His first name is Marco. I don't know his last name. My husband is a TV producer, and Marco worked for the catering company that services Spence's productions.”

Varhol waited for more, but that was all she was going to give up.

“Detective MacDonald,” he said, “this was a drug deal gone south. If your husband is using, that's your problem. My problem is that I have a homicide to solve, and I need all the help I can get.”

Kylie filled him in on what we found at Shelley's apartment.

“And this kid Seth,” Varhol said. “Do you know his last name?”

“No.”

“Any idea how I can track him down?”

“He works at Silvercup Studios. Why don't you swing by there first thing in the morning? They usually gear up by seven.”

“The morning,” Varhol repeated.

“Please,” Kylie said.

Varhol looked at his watch. “It's ten thirty. I guess I could wait until morning.”

Anyone listening to their conversation would have taken them for two cops talking logistics, but I knew enough to read the subtext.

Seth might have information that could lead to the killer, and Varhol wanted to interview him immediately. Kylie also wanted to talk to Seth, because he might lead her to Spence. But she wasn't connected to the case or the official investigation, so Varhol gave her until seven a.m. to do what she always does: bend the rules.

“Thanks,” she said.

“And when you find your husband,” he said, “give me a call. I have his wallet, and I'd like to know how it wound up in a dead man's pocket.”

He walked off to talk with his crime scene tech, leaving me, Kylie, and Cheryl to talk in private.

“We have to find Seth and talk to him tonight,” Kylie said.

“We can start by calling Shelley Trager,” I said.

“No. He's gone through enough hell with Spence. Let's call Bob Reitzfeld. He can access the employee database, and he can keep a secret.”

“Who's Bob Reitzfeld?” Cheryl asked.

“He was on the job thirty years,” I said. “Great cop, but he couldn't handle retirement, so he got a job in security at Silvercup at fifteen bucks an hour. Now he's running the department. Kylie is right. Reitzfeld can help us.”

Cheryl looked at Kylie. “Are you sure you're up to it?”

“I know why you're here, Dr. Robinson,” Kylie said. “If that were Spence lying on the ground, you would take me out of the line of fire and chain me to a desk, and I wouldn't argue with you. But it's not Spence, so believe me when I tell you I'm okay—totally okay.”

Cheryl nodded. “In that case, I don't want to slow you down.” She looked at me. “Either of you.”

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Me?” she said, managing to look innocent and devilish at the same time. “This place is crawling with cops. I'm going to find the best-looking one and catch a ride into Manhattan.”

“So, then I'll see you at home,” I said.

She gave me half a shrug. “If you're lucky.”