Megan watched the rerun for about twenty minutes, then turned it off. She shut off the light, wondering if this would finally be the night. Praying it might. Immediately, Nikki Rossman and Cynthia Blair climbed into bed with her. Next came Brian McKinney. He was followed by Marshall Fox. Megan flipped the light back on. Not tonight, then, dammit.
She got out of bed and went into the bathroom, where she stared at her reflection for over a minute. After this many months, Megan hoped she’d have started to get accustomed to those eyes. But they were every bit as foreign to her as they were the first time she’d seen them, right after she killed the Swede. But maybe that was actually a good thing, she thought, the fact that she wasn’t acclimating to them. She didn’t like looking at them, but she felt she had no choice. She had to face them. They were the only real truth she knew these days, even if it was not a particularly pleasant truth. Helen was dead. Truth. Cold, hard truth. So was the Swede. But the one wasn’t making up for the other. Not like it was supposed to. The math was off. She had dispatched the Swede, but the pain was still there. If anything, it was still growing, not shrinking away into the past like it was supposed to do. And some nights it hurt so horrifically that Megan didn’t know what to do with it. Stay home, she told herself. This was all she knew, her single piece of advice to herself. It was no solution for the pain, but she did know it was the right thing to do. Those several months of crawling into the darkness after taking her leave of absence from the department had not been the solution, not by a long shot. They had hurt. They’d been dangerously harmful. She might have curled up and remained there in the dark places if not for Josh. Thank God for Josh.
Megan shut her eyes and instantly saw Helen’s still and battered form, curled at the feet of Albert Stenborg. Megan felt like a knife was slashing at her lungs. At that precise moment, she knew that she should step down from the investigations. Something unhealthy was at play here. Some murky math. Helen’s killer was dead and in the ground, but apparently that wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Not one cheap life for one beautiful one. The evil of that bastard was still out there, even if the man himself wasn’t. That was the problem. That was what Megan hadn’t succeeded in obliterating-the evil. It slipped from person to person. It had slipped up on Cynthia Blair and on Nikki Rossman. Megan had killed the Swede but not the evil. Albert Stenborg was simply evil’s discarded skin. Irrelevant. It was still out there, on the hunt, reaching from the shadows and plucking victims whenever it pleased.
Megan went into the living room and fetched the photograph of Helen from the bookshelf. She took it to the coffee table and set it there, facing the couch. She lay down on the couch, pulling the thin blanket off the back of the couch and spreading it over her. Not for the first time-not by a long shot-she told herself that if this kept up, she might as well just sell the stupid goddamn bed, for all the good it was doing her.
23
NIKKI ROSSMAN HAD LAST BEEN reported seen by a neighbor in her building. A widow named Rose Campanella told the police that she had seen Nikki carrying a shoulder bag, climbing into a “big fancy car” on the night before her body was discovered. Mrs. Campanella’s various descriptions of the driver essentially neutralized one another. The driver remained behind the wheel; he got out and opened the door for Nikki. He wore a chauffeur’s cap and outfit; he was “dressed regular.” The driver’s height, weight, hair color-Megan Lamb calculated that the witness had created a minimum of four completely different people who purportedly spirited Nikki Rossman away from her Tribeca apartment some four to eight hours before her murder.
Megan walked Mrs. Campanella through her story close to a dozen times. Fact and fiction were so intertwined in the rendering that the detective despaired of culling anything at all useful. Megan conducted the interview in the elderly woman’s apartment, two flights down from where Nikki had lived. She could not identify the pungent odor that permeated the apartment; an uneasy blend of peppermint, vinegar and mildew was the best she could come up with. The Lord Our Savior Jesus Christ was heavily represented on the walls, the bookcases, the tchotchke shelves. The furniture was covered in flower-print fabrics. The lamp shades were the color of nicotine and gave off a sepia glow. Midway through the interview, a pillow on the couch where Mrs. Campanella was seated suddenly stood up and stretched. Not vinegar, Megan said to herself. Cat piss. By God, am I a detective or am I a detective?
Megan was ready to toss in the towel when Mrs. Campanella mentioned that Nikki had offered to throw away her trash for her. Megan pounced.
“Trash? You didn’t mention anything about trash before.”
“I don’t think you asked.”
“Your building’s trash cans are caged out front, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“So what do you mean, throw your trash away? Do you mean she offered to lift the lid so you could toss the trash in?”
“No, no, my legs give me trouble. You see how I walk? It will take me an hour to go where you can go in a minute. I am so slow. The sweet pretty girl. She says she will take my trash downstairs for me and throw it out.”
“Take the trash downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“From where? Where was she when she said this?”
“Outside my apartment. In the hallway.”
Megan dug her nails into her palms. To Mrs. Campanella, she continued to show a patient, friendly face. “So then this conversation didn’t take place in front of your building. This wasn’t right before you saw Ms. Rossman get into the fancy car.” To herself, she added: with the tall, short, blond, brunet driver who was and wasn’t wearing a chauffeur’s outfit.
“Yes. It didn’t. This is right here. The girl is coming down the stairs.”
“But Mrs. Campanella. If you encountered Ms. Rossman right outside your door, on the third floor, how could you then see her getting into the car in front of your building? I’m assuming Ms. Rossman walked faster than you do.”
“A newborn baby walks faster than I do, honey. When I was younger, I could dance, I could stay on my feet all day and night if I wanted. You have no-”
“Mrs. Campanella. If you saw Nikki outside your door and she headed downstairs, how did you also see her downstairs getting into a car? Are there windows in the stairwell?”
“No window.”
“Did Nikki accompany you down the stairs?”
“No. That is not what happened. She is dressed to go out and have fun. Not to waste her time with an old woman like me.”
Megan silently implored the blue-eyed Jesus on the wall behind the woman. Help me. “So okay. Nikki would have reached the ground floor well before you got there. And there was no window in the stairs. Was the car not yet there and waiting for her? Is that it? Was Ms. Rossman still waiting for it when you got downstairs?”
“No. Not that. She says she is forgetting something. When she sees me on the stairs, she says she is forgetting something, and she goes back up to her apartment.”
“She goes back upstairs,” Megan said evenly. “You forgot to mention that the other times.”
“Did I? Well, I am nervous. This pretty girl in my building, you saw what happened to her. It is horrible. How can I feel safe?”
“Of course. I’m not criticizing you. You’re doing fine. Let’s just get this straight. Ms. Rossman went back upstairs to her apartment to get something she forgot. Did she mention what it was?”
“No.”
“You proceeded downstairs with your trash?”
“Yes.”
“And when Ms. Rossman appeared downstairs-”
“She had it.”
Megan leaned forward, twining her fingers into a single fist. “It.”
“The envelope.”
Megan hoped her smile didn’t look as weary as she felt. “I don’t think I’ve heard anything about an envelope, Mrs. Campanella.”
“A blue envelope. A square blue envelope.”
“You mean like a birthday card?”
&
nbsp; “Maybe.”
“I’m not asking if it necessarily was a birthday card, Mrs. Campanella. But that kind of card? The kind of card you buy for someone’s birthday?”
“I don’t know what kind of card it is. It is an envelope. Blue. Like the sky.”
“She didn’t happen to mention that she was going to a birthday party or some other sort of celebration?”
“Not to me she doesn’t.”
“But you think this is what Ms. Rossman went back up to her apartment to fetch? This sky-blue envelope?”
The woman made a clucking noise. “You are the detective, not me.”
Megan jotted down in her notebook: Card. Blue. Occasion?
“Thank you, Mrs. Campanella. You’ve been very helpful.”
Megan climbed the stairs to Nikki’s apartment. Ryan Pope was sitting at the kitchen table, eating an apple. In his other hand was a small circular plastic case.
“Are you on the pill?” Megan asked.
“Somebody was.” He offered the case. Megan took it from him and opened it. “Night before last. We can assume she was meaning to come home.”
There were footsteps on the stairs, then a knock on the doorjamb. “Dead lady live here?”
It was Rodrigo, one of the department IT guys. Rodrigo came into the apartment carrying a slender metal attaché case, and Megan directed him to a table in the front room. A computer was sitting on the table. The chair in front of it was a miniature armchair. It had one of those beanbag pillows on it, the kind you sometimes see people bringing with them on airplanes. This one was hot pink. The chair looked to Megan like the kind a person would settle into, spend some time in. Megan was curious about the computer.
“I want everything in it,” she said to Rodrigo.
“I’ll vacuum that puppy.”
“No crumbs. Get it all.”
“Do you want to dust the keyboard first?”
Megan thought for a moment. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
Rodrigo perched on the edge of the chair, flipped open his attaché case and got to work. Megan stepped into the bedroom. It was fairly neat. A bra on the floor, along with about eight shoes that looked like they’d decided to get up and walk around on their own. The bed was made. Nikki’s bedside reading was a stack of Marie Claire magazines, People, an old Time. On the dresser Megan found a merchandise tag from a boutique called Liana: WOOL â„ PLD SIZE 4. When she was found in the park, Nikki had been wearing a black sweater under a red crepe jacket and a thin black cotton skirt. Nothing plaid. Megan pulled open the dresser drawers and rifled quickly through the clothes. She did the same thing in Nikki’s closet. Curious, she went into the bathroom, where she found a light blue duffel filled partway with dirty clothes. Ryan Pope stepped to the door as Megan was dumping the dirty clothes out onto the floor.
“I’ve seen Kathy do this before,” Pope said. “You’ll want to sort out the colors from the whites.”
“It’s not here.”
“What’s not here?”
Megan was thinking out loud. “It’s possible she returned it to the store.”
“What store? What’re you looking for?”
Megan had a thought and very nearly regretted having it. She pushed past Pope and went back downstairs and rang Mrs. Campanella’s buzzer.
“I’m sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Campanella. But I was wondering if you by any chance recall what Ms. Rossman was wearing that night you saw her.”
The woman answered immediately. “She had on a puffy jacket. It was red. And a green and black skirt.”
“Green and black?”
“Yes. Plaid.”
“Plaid? You’re sure?”
“I remember thinking that she looked like Christmas. With red and green.”
“Green plaid.”
“Plaid. Squares on top of other squares. Isn’t this plaid?”
Megan thanked her again. As she ascended the stairs, she turned the information over in her head. She leaves her apartment in a new plaid wool skirt, but she’s found dead in a black cotton skirt. Means? Obviously, it means she changed somewhere along the line. Changed skirts but not her entire outfit. Why? Megan had no idea. The conundrum popped completely out of her head when she reentered Nikki’s apartment. Pope was standing behind Rodrigo, peering over his shoulder at the computer screen.
“Finding anything?” Megan asked.
Rodrigo’s eyes remained on the screen. It was Pope who looked up.
“Gold mine.”
24
MEGAN LOST IT. She felt the eruption starting and was helpless to lock down the lid.
“Son of a bitch!” She grabbed the blow-up doll by the arm, pulled it out of her chair and stormed across the hall. Ryan Pope was seated at a table with two uniformed cops. “Where is he?” she demanded.
She followed the eyes. Brian McKinney was leaning against the soda machine on the far side of the room, nibbling on a partially unwrapped candy bar. “Who’s your friend, Detective? She’s kinda cute.”
Megan crossed the room in a blood fury. Everything blurred except the smug bastard peeling back the candy wrapper as if it were a banana peel. She stopped several feet in front of him. Instantly, she regretted having stormed into the corral like this. She knew how ridiculous she must look, standing there with a beet-red face, clutching the female-figure balloon. McKinney certainly knew how ridiculous she looked. His measured aplomb was a precise contrast.
No going forward, no going back. Lose, lose. Dammit, the man did have his talents. Megan gulped her rage. As much as she could. “Maybe you’d like to explain this.” She clenched her teeth in order to keep the waver out of her voice.
“Explain it?”
“Yes.”
McKinney glanced past her at his audience. “Really?”
“Yes.”
McKinney shrugged and pushed himself off the soda machine. He removed the remainder of the wrapper from the candy bar, and before Megan could react, he prodded the black candy into the ugly puckered mouth opening of the balloon.
“Maybe you can help me out with this. If I understand this correctly, you-”
Megan’s slap was dead-on. Her entire hand covered the left side of McKinney ’s face. “You fucking bastard!”
“That’s assault,” McKinney said calmly.
She wanted to hit him again. There were actual white finger marks on his cheek where she’d slapped him, though they quickly disappeared under the rising pink. The candy bar had fallen to the floor when McKinney took the slap. He reached down and picked it up and held it out to Megan. “I guess a girl like you is a little out of practice for this. Why don’t I-”
She went at him. Though she was nearly half his body weight, her shove sent him backward into the soda machine. Her hand came up and slashed at his cheek, cutting a small pink swath. As McKinney attempted to turn his head away from the attack, Megan dug a thumb at the corner of his left eye. McKinney let out a grunt. “Fuck!”
His head whipped back against the soda machine, cracking the plastic bubble atop the Pepsi logo. Megan’s thumb kept digging, while with her other hand she shoved the blow-up doll at McKinney’s face, jamming its puckered ear into his slightly opened mouth and pressing it there with all her strength. The noise coming up from her throat sounded only vaguely human. McKinney took a mouthful of the doll, his head backed up against the soda machine, before he managed to twist his head free. He brought his arm up hard and broke Megan’s grip on him. “Bitch!”
Megan heard the skidding of chairs behind her. She reached for her belt. With blurring speed, she unholstered her Glock and brought the muzzle up under the offensive detective’s nose, prodding it partway up one nostril.
“Megan!”
Joe Gallo moved from the doorway, sweeping past Pope and the two cops. McKinney ’s fear showed through his nervous laugh.
“Hey there, Lieutenant. I think we-”
“Shut up.” Gallo addressed Megan: “Holster it. Now!”
; Megan hesitated. She could feel her heartbeat as far out as her elbows.
Gallo repeated, “Now!”
She pulled the gun away from McKinney ’s face. Her breath dropped away. She realized she was about to cry. Dear God, no. Do not cry in front of this ape. Not in front of any of them.
McKinney started again. “Lieutenant, look. Miss-”
“Can it.” Gallo looked from Megan to the grotesque doll she was still clutching in her other hand. He held out his hand, snapping his fingers. “Give.” Megan handed the thing to him. She felt as meek as a child. It was horrible. “Put your gun away, Detective.”
As Megan reholstered her weapon, Gallo plucked a pen from McKinney ’s shirt pocket and plunged it into the rubber doll. Megan let out an involuntary gasp. Gallo shoved the deflating doll into McKinney ’s arms. “My office. Five minutes.” He turned to Megan: “You. Now.”
He spun on his heel and left the room. Megan watched him as if he were disappearing down a tube. She wanted to dematerialize. Behind her, McKinney was scrunching the doll up in his arms.
“You’re a sick little twit, you know that?”
Before she could respond, Megan caught Ryan Pope’s eye. She could feel the blood surging into her face. Her cheeks felt blister-hot. She eyed the door across the room. It seemed years away.
“IS THERE ANYTHING you’d like to tell me?” Joe Gallo shot his cuffs and landed his wrists gently on his desk.
“He’s an ape.”
“I don’t care if he’s an ape, Megan. You pulled your weapon on him. Do you mind telling me what it was you had in mind?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
Gallo made a show of rolling his eyes. “You weren’t thinking? Let me tell you something. That gun comes out of its holster, I want you to be Albert Einstein, you’re thinking so fucking hard. For Christ’s sake, do I have to tell you how stupid-”
“No, you don’t. I know it was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Is that what you would’ve said if McKinney was lying in there right now with a hole out the back of his head? ‘Oh. Sorry, Joe. I was angry’?”
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