When One Man Dies (12 page)

Miles of red in front of me, brake lights shining and reflecting in the early-morning sun caused me to grip the wheel tightly. I spun the radio dial trying to find a song or something relaxing and came up with nothing. I hated this feeling, the lack of control.

I thought of Bill Martin. When I was his partner, when he was training me to be his successor, he used to talk about this moment. The powerless feeling. He said it came often when you were a cop, but mostly, he said it came on the stakeout. Those moments when all you could do was sit in a car on the street and wait for your
suspect to do something. Some cops dealt with it by eating and drinking. Some listened to music or an audiobook. Martin never felt either of those was productive. “Either give you a fat ass or a headache,” he used to say. What Martin did was go over what he knew, make sure he had all the evidence correct, that he had the right guy. He said these moments when you had no control over what happened next normally came at the end of a case, and you’d figure it out if you took it slowly.

Except, as far as I knew, neither of the cases was anywhere near its conclusion. I had only snippets of information.

The traffic rolled a little and I was able to pick up speed, got the car to about thirty. At least we were moving. Nearly five minutes later I could see flashing lights, police cars, and flares in the right shoulder. A few cops were milling around on foot next to a twisted piece of metal. I didn’t see an ambulance, but I also didn’t see any civilians walking around. That told me the ambulance had come and gone already. Someone wasn’t having a good morning.

Beyond the accident, the brake lights winked off. I floored the pedal, swerving in and out of traffic, trying to make up the time I had lost. The Morristown exit was still twenty miles away. I had a dead woman, I had two guys paying me off, and a wife in trouble. As far as I knew, as far as the phone book had told me, as far as Jen had told me, Rex didn’t have relatives, didn’t have anyone in New Jersey or New York to run to. What did it all add up to? Did it even add up? There was a sign telling me the Morristown exit was two miles away. I still had nothing. I hadn’t reached any conclusions. All I had was a knot in the pit of my stomach to go along with my nerves and my sore neck.

Turning off the exit, I tried to find my way through the roads back to the Hanover home. The morning before I had gotten to the home on autopilot, half-asleep. The houses didn’t look familiar, the streets all looked the same, and I was lost. The clock on my dashboard said eight-fifteen. If Jen was in trouble, serious trouble, and she was counting on me, she’d be dead by now. The radio went to a news update, and that’s when how to find the house became clear.

“And now our top story, we’ll hear from our reporter live in Morristown, New Jersey,” the DJ said.

“Thanks, Susan. We’re here outside the home of a man wanted by police for questioning. He is wanted in connection to a murder that occurred outside Drew University, just down the street here, in the next town over, Madison.”

I turned off the radio and drove through the streets, circling, U-turning, looking up and down side streets, trying to find the circus. After about twenty minutes, I saw a blocked-off side street. Towering above a clutch of houses was a satellite dish attached to a news van.

I drove past the roadblock, a police cruiser sitting near it, lights flashing. Taking the next right, I parked on the street and got out. A strip of houses led to a dead end on the street. I climbed a fence, into a yard, and peered between the houses. The media was camped in front of a house. I had to cross three more yards, climbing another fence. If the police saw me, I’d be arrested immediately and I didn’t need that. At the same time, I didn’t want a throng of news reporters questioning me.

The lawn hadn’t been cut in weeks. The grass was long, coming up over my sneakers, leading to a concrete patio with a picnic table on it. There was a spotless grill perpendicular to the house. I walked toward the patio and the glass sliding door. Through the door Jen Hanover sat at a kitchen table, dressed in a neat business suit, sipping coffee and reading the paper. If I hadn’t heard the throng of reporters talking on cell phones, screaming about the position of their camera compared to other cameramen, it would look like a normal morning scene. I tapped gently on the glass.

Jen jumped before she looked up. She peered through the window at me, recognition crossing her face. She came to the door, slid it open.

“You scared the hell out of me,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

“I had to call in late to work. I’ll probably lose my job. But I’m afraid to go out there. If I went out by myself they probably wouldn’t let me out of my driveway.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. Have you dealt with reporters before?”

“It’s best to avoid them. Do you have your blinds shut in the front room?”

“I didn’t open them when I went to bed last night. I went out for the paper this morning and all the news vans were there.”

“Did you say anything to them?”

“I said, ‘No comment,’ and slammed the door.” I laughed. “You’re a natural.”

She smiled, too. It brought a light to a face that looked exhausted. The light showed me what Rex saw in her. She probably hadn’t done much sleeping these past few nights, sitting by the phone praying her husband would call. I wondered how much she really knew about him.

“Have you heard from Rex?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not a word. Not a phone call. Nothing. Jesus Christ. I hope he’s all right.”

“It’s probably better he doesn’t call. The police are going to tap your phone,” I said. “If they haven’t done so already.”

“You’re probably right.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure your husband is fine.”

What was I saying? I watched this man carrying a dead body rolled in a carpet across the street. You don’t do that if you haven’t killed someone. But I was helping his wife cover his trail. Telling her it was better if he didn’t call.

I’ve killed three men in my life. Two of whom the police don’t know about. Two bookies who were trying to kill a client of mine. I cornered them in an abandoned hotel in Atlantic City, shot them both in cold blood. I drifted them out in the bay behind the building. Whether they deserved it or not was a question that woke me up in a sweat in the middle of the night. I could still smell the blood, see the look of fear on their faces. I hid their deaths from the law. Hid them from the police. Now I was helping a killer hide until I discovered him.

And the most frightening part: No matter how weak my knees were just thinking about it, I wasn’t going to stop. I wanted to get to Hanover on my own. I had sat outside while he murdered a woman. I let it happen. It didn’t matter to me that I didn’t know it was going on. I was close enough to stop it and now I wanted to catch Hanover, let him talk to Jen one time, and turn him over to the police. If I was trying to make up for my past mistakes, so be it.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m all right.”

“Listen, I need a ride to work. Do you think—?”

“Say no more,” I said. “We’re going to have to go out the way I came in.”

“Thank you. I get out at seven, but I’ll call a friend. I didn’t know how to deal with this.”

“Stay out of view if you don’t want to answer any questions.” She looked toward the front door. Though we couldn’t see them, we could feel their presence. “I’ll try.”

She gathered her things, locked the front door, and we went back through the yard to my car. She had to climb the fences, too, but refused my help. My stomach was still tight, my knees still weak, but I did my best not to show it. We got in the car and pulled out into traffic.

We didn’t talk much during the ten-minute ride, she only speaking to give me directions, and I to acknowledge I understood. I pulled up to a two-story office building. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before she exited the car.

Chapter 21

When the cops don’t like you, it pays to have connections with the press. Outside of cops themselves, nobody has more inside information about police work, people in the public spotlight, and dark dirty secrets, than newspaper writers. I don’t know anyone with the big New York papers or networks, but I do know two local reporters who work the crime beat. One, Albert Spater, used to write for the Record and was currently between jobs. The other, Henry Steir, wrote for the Star-Ledger. I counted on Steir being outside the Hanover home.

I drove back and parked across the street from the blocked intersection. I could see the crowd milling about on the lawns, outside Jen Hanover’s home. It was after nine. Too early for the afternoon news, too late for the morning shows. Unless something major happened and they decided to go live, the TV field reporters weren’t very busy at the moment. Some were drinking coffee, others were writing in notepads, probably what they wanted to tape for the twelve o’clock report. Most of them just looked bored.

The print reporters were a different animal. They stayed away from the TV people, huddled across the street. Most of them knew they were a dying breed, the days of the newspaper fading in their minds, but they stuck with it because they loved it. Instant media and information was causing newspaper reporters to work harder to find angles that TV didn’t know about. The Internet and TV were instantaneous, and with so much put into the thirty-second sound bite, they could get by with just the facts. Newspapers had to work harder. Most of the reporters were on their cell phones, probably getting in touch with their contacts to see what little extra they could find out.

Like I assumed, Henry Steir was there. He was a little older than me, early thirties, just out of Columbia grad school. I don’t know how he rose through the newspaper ranks so quickly. He had some highprofile stories over the past year. My best guess, he was an ass kisser.

I stood at the roadblock, trying to look like a casual observer. The last thing I wanted was to be caught on camera by someone taping a report for later in the day. There were a few other people, dog walkers and senior citizens, watching the media circus as well. The cop watching the block was standing next to the hood of the car, arms crossed, trying to stay alert. I doubt he expected any of us to rush the barrier.

My plan was to make eye contact with Henry and get him to saunter over. But he was busy watching the front door and didn’t turn my way. I wasn’t sure I’d get past the roadblock on good looks. Having Henry’s number on my cell phone helped, but the guy’s voice was louder than most people I knew—too much yelling questions at press conferences, he always said—and that might draw too much attention this way. And my phone was dead, anyway. It didn’t look like I had any choice.

I walked up to the cop, knowing this was going to be a pain in the ass, for both of us.

“How you doing today?” I asked.

The cop looked me up and down. Who’s this asshole? He was uniformed, my height, and fat. He had a thin brown mustache, a squint, two chins, and a name tag that read LIEBOWITZ. I had to refrain from making any doughnut jokes.

“What can I do for you?” he mumbled. “Any chance I can get through?”

He finally got to earn his paycheck. “Not unless you’re a resident of this street or you have press credentials.”

I pointed toward Steir. “That’s my boss over there. I forgot my press ID in his car. It’s parked down the street. The red Nissan.”

“You must be shit out of luck today, huh?”

“Not going to let me in?”

Liebowitz gave me a look, then checked out all the other observers, most of whom had gotten bored watching nothing happen and had started to leave. He sighed loudly, then said: “Go.”

I stepped around the barrier and headed toward Steir at a near jog. I tried to keep my back to the TV people, making sure no one caught me on camera. The last thing I needed was my male model friend and his buddy catching me in front of the Hanover house while waiting for Jeopardy to start.

Steir hung up his cell phone, looked up, and saw me hustling his way.

“Jesus Christ!” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Shut the fuck up. Keep your voice down.”

If he tried to hug me I was going to deck him. Then the gears in his head started to work. “You have something to do with this shit, don’t you?”

I shook his hand. “Can we get a cup of coffee?”

“I can’t leave. What if she comes out? Decides to give everyone the scoop?” He smiled. “Dumb as it sounds, some people do that. People are dumb.”

“She won’t.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“She’s not at home right now.”

“Oh fuck, man.” He could hardly control his glee. Steir tried to do three things at once: find a pen and notebook and grab the tape recorder out of his jacket pocket. He didn’t really succeed at any of them, dropping his pen and accidentally hitting Rewind on the recorder instead of Play. His first question was, “What the hell do you have to do with this?”

“Put the tape recorder away. Take me for a cup of coffee before your snake-in-the-grass pals get suspicious and put me on camera.”

“It’ll be good publicity for the business.”

“I didn’t put my makeup on today.”

He laughed, but still didn’t budge.

“If they put me on camera, they’ll get the scoop before you.”