Cold Day in Hell

by Richard Hawke

  Fox muttered, “I could use a drink,” and fell back on the couch, bringing his boot back to his knee and recommencing his excavation work.

  Alan Ross cleared his throat. Megan had the sense that the executive had agreed to Riddick launching the conversation but was now pulling rank. The sense came as much from Ross as it did from the way in which Riddick let his arms drop to his sides with a poorly veiled petulance. If she needed confirmation, Fox provided it, mimicking Riddick with a pat to his knee.

  Ross began. “Lieutenant Gallo, you know this from the last time we met. But for Detective Lamb’s edification, I am here as Marshall’s friend, not as a representative of the network. The network’s investment in Marshall as one of our most valuable talents is immaterial to my being here. I want there to be no sense of corporate coercion at play, you understand? I’m here on behalf of my friend. I probably don’t even have to be saying this, but just in case, I’d like us to at least be on that same page.”

  He took the opportunity to give Zachary Riddick one of his repertoire’s less generous smiles, then continued, “My wife and I are responsible for Marshall having come to New York in the first place. I don’t think I’m betraying any confidences in telling you that Marshall has had more than his share of occasions over the past several years to wonder if gracing our city with his presence has been worth it to him in the big picture. Fame might look pretty fabulous from the outside, but Marshall will be the first to tell you that some of the costs can make a person wonder if it’s all worth it.”

  From the couch, Fox cracked, “Alan, you’re going to make me cry.”

  “Hold the tears, bubba.” Ross turned back to the detectives. “Lieutenant Gallo, Detective Lamb. I don’t mean to be making a speech here. I’ll shut up in a second. It’s just that you both know full well how huge Marshall is in the public eye. One of the downsides of being so huge is that you make an awfully easy target if someone decides it’s worth their while to take a shot at you.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “That’s what’s happened to Marshall.”

  Gallo cut in. “Are you referring to the rumors, Mr. Ross?”

  “The rumors?”

  “About Mr. Fox and the Blair and Rossman killings.” Gallo turned to Fox. “No offense, but my wife and her cronies are thinking of checking you out for the Lindbergh baby at this point.”

  Fox held up his hands. “Hey, I never touched the kid. I don’t even like kids.”

  “We’re aware of those rumors, yes,” Ross said. “They’re part of the price of being a celebrity these days. But no. The reason we’ve asked you here concerns something more substantial. This isn’t about the Rossman woman at all, who, by the way, Marshall has no connection with whatsoever. Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. This concerns Cynthia Blair.” He paused, looking at Fox.

  “Go on,” Fox said. “Air the old dirty laundry. The world insists on knowing.”

  Ross cleared his throat again. He looked pained. “We have good reason to believe that Marshall is the person responsible for Cynthia’s pregnancy.”

  The room fell silent. Megan’s eyes were on her boss, who gave no outward indication of having even heard what Alan Ross had just said. Ross sent a sympathetic look Fox’s way. Almost a paternal look, like that of a disappointed but still supportive father.

  Gallo spoke. “Is this true, Mr. Fox?”

  The entertainer threw a look at Megan that was almost mischievous. He leaned back on the couch and tilted his head, looking up at the ceiling. He remained silent for several seconds, then exhaled loudly.

  “Busted.”

  THE AFFAIR HAD BEGUN some two and a half months before Cynthia Blair’s abrupt resignation as producer of Midnight with Marshall Fox. Not a soul on the staff had the vaguest clue. The outward behavior of the show’s star and its producer had not deviated one iota from its standard combative mode. If anything, on reflection, it might have seemed that the daily antagonistics between the two hardheaded personalities was spiking more than usual.

  It had started, appropriately enough, with a fight. Fox, at his acerbic best, had tied his producer into ever more infuriating knots until, finally, she had exploded with clenched fists raining down on his head. This had been followed by a burst of angry tears. The simple ugly truth was that Cynthia Blair adored Marshall Fox-her dirty little secret. Herculean efforts notwithstanding, Cynthia had failed to convince herself that she was ever likely to meet another man with the same infuriatingly wonderful qualities as her colleague and erstwhile combatant. At the same time, he offended her in more ways than she could count. Talented, charming, smart, sexy and about as self-centered, arrogant and old-fashioned sexist as anyone she had ever laid eyes on. What Cynthia had hated the most was that from the moment she met him, he had been, for all his evident faults, consistently the single most vibrant person she had ever encountered. Marshall Fox made all the other men she dated bland and pale by comparison, even some of the otherwise considerably dynamic ones. It wasn’t fair. For Cynthia, the son of a bitch had become the gold standard. Damn it all to hell, no one else need apply.

  And, of course, he was still married.

  Not to mention a royal shit.

  Their argument had taken place at Fox’s borrowed apartment early on Friday evening. Fox had invited Cynthia to continue the spirited postmortem of the week’s shows that had kicked up in his office after the taping of the Friday program. Somewhere along the line, the argument had gone terribly awry, and the two had ended up in a sweaty clutch on the tan leather couch. She had remained the entire weekend. If anyone at work on Monday morning noticed that Cynthia was wearing the same outfit she had been wearing on Friday, they didn’t say anything. For her part, Cynthia had felt as if she were going through her workday stark naked, with a big SCREWED BY MARSHALL FOX stenciled diagonally across her front and her back. By the end of the workday, she had determined that the orgiastic weekend with her boss had been an exquisite fluke and that both she and Fox were already back on their standard argumentative footings. But later that evening, Cynthia’s cries echoed in her own ears as her fingers clutched at her boss’s back. This time she managed to get herself home, where she crawled into her bed, curled into a fetal position around her feather pillow and laughed herself to sleep. An open, free, lung-cleansing laughter she could not recall experiencing since she was a child.

  For two and a half months, Marshall Fox had driven her into a delirious oblivion. Ten times a day, Cynthia declared silently that she was disgusted with herself and that she could see right through Fox and his king-of-the-mountain game. I’m smarter than this, she told herself. I know better.

  And then it ended. She had known it would. In the months since leaving his wife, Marshall Fox had already run through nearly a dozen minor relationships that Cynthia knew of, the most recent being that striking Quaker girl he’d picked up at the Rosses’ annual Long Island orgy. Naturally, it would end. That was the Fox way. Even so, Cynthia had pretended that with her, it would somehow be different. But really, the only difference between her and the others was that she worked with the goddamn man. That was how stupid she had been.

  And then the other difference. Or maybe she was being extraordinarily naïve and it wasn’t a difference at all. Maybe Fox had been forced to finesse this development before. She was pregnant. Careful here, careful there, it had still happened. On learning the news, Cynthia had realized instantly that she had no intention of aborting the child. Absolutely not. Being a mother had always been somewhere in her plans (or, if not plans, then intentions), and Cynthia was under no illusions. She was seeing more and more women throwing in the towel early, as far as hoping to land one of the world’s rapidly vanishing species-the worthwhile single man-and when she discovered that she was pregnant, she knew this was her moment. She sobered up concerning Fox himself. There could be no illusions that he would respond to the news with any intent to be a real part of the child’s life. And she was ready for all that. She could see her future. Finally. And she a
ccepted it.

  What she had not expected was Marshall Fox’s adamant insistence that she “lose the kid.”

  “My fucking seed? My kid? Oh, I don’t think so, Miss Cindy. That’s not the plan, girl. Word will get out, I know it will. You’ll tell. One of your friends will tell. Or the little bastard will look like me. Uh-uh. No, ma’am. I’ve got some plans of my own, you know. I’m waking up and smelling the coffee, honey, and it still smells like the lovely Rosemary. We’re in negotiations as we speak, so don’t even think you can go pulling a stunt like this. It goes. If I have to rip the damn thing out myself. This isn’t going to happen. Have you got that? Not in the script, Cindy. Not in the script.”

  Back in her office, Cindy broke the glass on her display case in her fury to get at the Emmy Award she had received for her work on the show. She pounded the base of the award against the wall separating her office from Fox’s. My God, she thought as she pummeled at the drywall, I’ve gone insane. Well, fuck him! She had succeeded only in creating a large hole in the wall. She wondered what in the hell she was thinking. Was she going to climb right through the wall back into Fox’s office and sink her heavy statuette into his skull? The hole in the wall, about the size of a bowling ball, broke through to an open space. Cynthia shoved the award into the open space, and it disappeared. Five minutes later she was in the elevator, wishing Marshall Fox were in it with her, wishing that the cable would snap and send the two of them (rubbing her stomach, the three of them) plunging to their stupid, stupid, stupid, deserved deaths.

  MEGAN ASKED if she could be directed to the bathroom.

  Fox flicked his head. “Down the hall, on the right.”

  As Megan left the room, Gallo addressed Marshall Fox. “I’m sure you know my first question.”

  “Why didn’t I tell you before? Why do you think? It was something private between Cindy and me. It has no significance to what happened to her.”

  Gallo was already shaking his head. “Not good enough.”

  “It’s going to have to be.”

  Ross began, “Someone like Marshall-”

  Gallo cut him off. “Please. I really do need to hear this from Mr. Fox.”

  “It’s okay, Alan.” Fox turned to Gallo. “Look. It’s pretty simple. Doing what I do, the first thing that goes is a private life, okay? The entire population of the state I come from could probably fill up the buildings between here and the Hudson River. I could go entire days without seeing a single soul. So, yeah, I tossed that out the window. My choice, I’m not whining. Or fine, maybe I am. But ever since the separation from my wife, I’ve really lost anything like a personal life. You’ve just got no idea. I’m trying to patch things back up with my wife, Mr. Gallo. I miss her. Hell. I need her, is what it is. And it’s touch and go, believe me. I screwed up pretty big over this last year. Now, you’re a smart man. Maybe you can figure out which way she’s going to lean if she finds out that I slept with my producer and got the damn girl pregnant. Do you want to do the math for me on that one?”

  Gallo understood. Fox was human. The homicide lieutenant wasn’t certain what he himself might have done under similar circumstances.

  “Okay,” Gallo said. “I hear you. So why are you coming forward now?”

  Megan was returning to the room. It seemed to Gallo that his junior detective was giving Fox a peculiar look. But when she glanced Gallo’s way, she seemed to be giving it to him as well.

  Alan Ross spoke up. “I’d like to answer your question, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Marshall?”

  “Run with it, Bunky.”

  Ross’s cell phone went off. He checked to see who it was but didn’t answer it. “Both Marshall and Zachary received a call recently,” he said. “They’ve decided that it is in the best interest of this whole event not to reveal who it was who called them.”

  “You can just refer to her as ‘little bitch,’” Fox muttered. “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “So you knew the identity of this caller,” Gallo said.

  “Oh yeah, I knew her. She knew me. The whole thing. Zack hasn’t had the pleasure, but I’m sure he’ll live.”

  “And the call? What was it about?”

  “She knew about me and Cynthia. That we’d been naughty little boys and girls.”

  Megan asked, “And she knew about Ms. Blair being pregnant?”

  Fox tapped his finger to the tip of his nose. “That’s it, lady. And that one’s my own fault. Trusting people I now know I shouldn’t have trusted. One of the occupational hazards of being on top of the world.”

  “And this person contacted both of you?” Gallo asked.

  Riddick answered, “That’s right. Short and sweet. ‘I’ve got Marshall by the balls, now what are you going to do about it?’”

  Megan addressed Fox. “So you decided to tell us the news before this friend of yours did?”

  “I never called her a friend.”

  “But that’s what you decided?”

  “That’s right. If you’re going to hear this anyway, I want it to be from me. Mouthpiece here wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. My word against hers and all that. But I’m not a fool. How would I look if I held back on this and you found out from some other source?”

  “You did hold back,” Megan reminded him.

  “Well, I’m laying it out now, aren’t I?”

  Gallo said, “It would help if you’d be willing to tell us the identity of this person.”

  Fox shared a glance with Riddick, then with Alan Ross. “We’ve all sort of decided there’s no point in that, Lieutenant. If she’s looking for publicity, we’re damn well not going to give it to her.”

  “I’m correct, though, that this is someone close to you?”

  Alan Ross answered, “A person in Marshall’s position attracts a lot of people. They’re like barnacles. This was one of his barnacles.”

  “I understand.”

  “The point is,” Fox said, “all those calls you’re probably getting, this one would have credibility. So I decided to preempt it. I thought I’d go ahead and take me a chance with the truth.” He smiled at Megan. “Hell of a concept, isn’t it?”

  AN ELDERLY COUPLE WAS on the elevator when it arrived. Megan and Gallo rode in silence. Once they reached the street, Gallo asked, “What did you make of all that?”

  “He killed her, Joe. He killed them both.” Megan craned her neck, looking up at the apartment building. “Bastard.”

  Gallo unlocked the driver’s-side door. “He got the woman pregnant. It’s a far leap from that to murder.”

  “When I went to look for the bathroom, I made a wrong turn and found myself in Fox’s bedroom.”

  Gallo’s eyes narrowed. “Very clumsy of you.”

  “Yes, it was. Since I was there, I went ahead and conducted a quick unlawful search. The unflappable Mr. Fox likes to play with handcuffs, Joe. I found a pair in his bedside table. Top drawer.”

  “Lots of people have handcuffs, Megan. You have handcuffs.”

  “But do lots of people have this?” She pulled something flat and pale blue from her pocket.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a sympathy card for Cynthia Blair’s family. It never got delivered. It was in the top drawer, too.”

  “A sympathy card.”

  “A blue one.”

  “And you’re making a point with this card?”

  Holding the envelope by the edges, Megan worked the card out and handed it to her boss. Gallo handled it gingerly. The fuzzy photograph on the front was of a disembodied hand holding a large bouquet of flowers.

  IN SYMPATHY FOR YOUR LOSS

  “When Nikki left her apartment the night she was killed, she had a square blue envelope with her. Open it.”

  “Anything we learn from this is completely inadmissible. This is stolen property.”

  “I’ll return it when we’re arresting Fox.”

  “You mean plant it?”
r />   “I mean return it.”

  “I don’t like this, Megan.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t want him destroying it. He’s been a fool to keep it as it is.”

  “Taking something from a suspect’s residence is just as foolish.”

  “Fine. He’s a fool and I’m a fool. But he’s a fool who killed two women in cold blood. The way I score it, this makes me the one with some latitude. Why don’t you just look at the card and we can talk about it later.”

  Gallo opened the card and read the printed inscription. It was a six-line verse, a message of sympathy as disembodied as the fuzzy hand on the front. But it wasn’t the inscription that was holding the detective’s focus. It was the personalized scrawl beneath it. Gallo gazed at the inscription for nearly ten seconds while Megan dropped onto the hood of the car. “Well?”

  Joe Gallo turned his gaze to the apartment building. Specifically, up to the twenty-sixth floor. His whistle was low and strong.

  “Well, holy shit.”

  26

  “WE HAVE JUST LEARNED that Marshall Fox has surrendered to authorities in the matter of the brutal slayings of Cynthia Blair and Nicole Rossman. The popular late-night entertainer, accompanied by his wife and his lawyer, was taken into custody at approximately ten-thirty this morning at the couple’s Upper East Side apartment and brought here to police headquarters at the Twentieth Precinct. Sources tell me that at this moment, Mr. Fox has not yet been formally charged, but we do expect within the hour to hear that the host of Midnight with Marshall Fox will in fact be charged in the slayings of Ms. Blair and Ms. Rossman. It’s all quite something. Just several days after Ms. Blair’s murder, not yet a month ago, Mr. Fox vowed tearfully on his television show that he would do anything in his power to bring his former colleague’s killer to justice. It’s too early to say with anything approaching certainty, but it may well be that with his arrest this morning, Mr. Fox has begun to make good on his promise. This is Kelly Cole, reporting live from the Upper West Side. Back to you in the studio.”