Judgement Day

by Andrew Neiderman

  Stoker couldn’t see it, but half a block up from the far right corner outside Ernie’s, John Milton’s limousine was parked. John stepped out and walked briskly to the corner just across from Ernie’s on the right. Two men in their early twenties, with shaved heads and tattoos on the backs of their necks, huddled and smoked while they stared at the entrance to Ernie’s. They didn’t see or hear John approach until he was practically on top of them. They both spun around.

  “Waiting for someone to come out, someone a little under the weather?”

  “What’s it to you?” the young man on the right asked.

  “Maybe we’re waiting for you,” the other said.

  John smiled and very calmly said, “You’re always waiting for me.”

  “Wise guy,” the first young man replied, and took a step toward him. “Maybe too wise,” he added, and flicked a knife almost out of the palm of his hand.

  John looked at it. Suddenly, it began to glow like a horseshoe being shaped on an anvil by a blacksmith. The young man dropped it and cried out. His partner stepped back, eyes wide.

  “What the hell?” the friend said. “Why’d you drop it, Buzzy?”

  “Didn’t you see it turn hot, Jason? You pick it up,” Buzzy said.

  Jason looked at John and then picked up the knife. It wasn’t hot at all. “What are you, a fuckin’ idiot?” Jason turned to John. “Now, where were we?”

  John stared at him.

  Suddenly, as if Jason’s arm had a mind of its own, it started to bend, moving the blade toward his own throat. The young man’s eyes bulged with terror as he struggled to keep his own arm from driving the blade into his throat.

  “Suicidal?” John asked. He smiled.

  Jason’s arm relaxed, and he took a deep breath of relief. Buzzy still held his palm and stared in disbelief. They both turned back to John, who continued to smile. “How’d you do that?” Jason asked him.

  “I’m always learning new things here,” John said, not really answering his question. “I’m going to call on you two again. I don’t think you’ll forget me.” He nodded toward Ernie’s. “Keep watching. The next man who comes out is carrying thousands of dollars in his left pants pocket. He won’t let you take it from him alive, however. Get my drift? You’ll have more money than you could steal in a year.”

  Both looked at the front of Ernie’s and then back at him.

  “Who the hell are you?” Buzzy asked, still rubbing his palm where it had been singed.

  “I’m your guardian angel. Good luck, lads.”

  They heard the door open across the street, the laughter, conversation, and muffled music spilling out onto the sidewalk as Stoker emerged. He paused, looked both ways, and then started to his right.

  “Go,” John said. “Now!”

  Like attack dogs, Buzzy and Jason jerked around and started across the street. Stoker turned as they approached him. Usually self-confident, Stoker was still a bit shaken by what he was holding and how it was delivered. He assumed the two young men had something to do with it and braced himself. They didn’t look that big. He didn’t see the knife in time. The young man holding it never slowed.

  “What the fuck!” he cried. The creep looked as if he would walk right though him, but instead, he caught Stoker right in the solar plexus. Stoker’s eyes nearly exploded with the surprise.

  “Sorry,” John called out from the shadows across the street. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater bad.” He laughed and started walking back to his limousine.

  Buzzy and Jason were already rifling through Stoker’s pockets, elated by their discovery and confused, too. But as they’d heard many times, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Cheered by their good fortune, they ran off into the darkness.

  Stoker groaned.

  He was still clasping the envelope. His last thought was, At least they didn’t get this.

  10

  Fish parked in a no-parking, no-standing zone in front of the apartment building from which Warner Murphy had fallen to his death. He put the police identification emblem on top of the dashboard in clear view.

  “Some asshole will probably ticket us anyway,” he told Blake. I might as well be talking to myself, he thought. Blake hadn’t said two words since they had started out this morning. He had that far-off look that Fish was getting used to but knew he would never be comfortable with. Cullen was right. There was something eerie about him.

  Blake looked at him and then at the building, as if he had just realized they were there. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “You sure she’s ready for this? You said you couldn’t speak to her in the hospital. She hasn’t been out that long.”

  “It’s as good a time as any. She’ll never be ready for this,” Blake said, and got out of the car.

  Fish moved quickly to keep up with him, another thing he found himself always having to do. Sometimes he thought Blake could glide over the sidewalk and fly up stairs. They stopped at the reception desk.

  Charlie Bivens looked up quickly from his newspaper. Immediately recognizing Blake and Fish, he snapped to attention. “Officers,” he said. “How can I help you today?”

  Fish expected Blake would just ask him to announce their arrival to Sheila Murphy and then let them go up to the apartment on the elevator, but he stepped closer to the desk, practically leaning over it.

  “How long have you worked here?” Blake asked Bivens.

  The question, although quite simple, seemed to throw him. “Here?”

  Blake just glared at him.

  “Almost a year,” Bivens muttered. “I worked security for the TSA for nearly twelve,” he added, now showing a little indignation. “I think I’ve been vetted pretty carefully. The board of directors for this building would make their own mothers go through the hoops. Besides, with all the backup systems installed, there’d be some evidence if I screwed up. As I told you and as you saw for yourselves, no one went up before Warner Murphy went down.”

  “That’s not funny,” Fish said before Blake could respond.

  “I don’t like the implication of the question.”

  “What implication?” Fish asked him. He didn’t think Blake had a particularly accusatory tone to his voice. It sounded very matter-of-fact to him.

  “Sensitive,” Blake said, without changing expression. “You ever hear the expression, ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’?”

  “What lady?”

  Blake didn’t reply.

  “Look,” Bivens said. “You know I can’t turn the cameras off, and I was at this desk the whole morning. There was only that five-second glitch, hardly enough time for anyone to get by me. Besides, even if I fell asleep, it wouldn’t matter. Why ask anything, is all I’m saying.”

  “That’s what we’re paid to do,” Fish said, even though he couldn’t help but agree with Bivens.

  “Let Mrs. Murphy know we’ve arrived,” Blake said with a commanding tone.

  Bivens nodded at the camera above him and speed-dialed Sheila Murphy. “Lieutenant Blake and . . . sorry, what’s your name again?”

  “Detective Fish.” He didn’t know why, but now he didn’t like this guy. It was as if Blake had unmasked him with a simple question.

  “And Detective Fish.” Bivens hung up. “You can go up,” he said. “Fish. Perfect name for a detective. You fish around, right?”

  “And catch anything, even sharks,” Fish said. He looked at Blake and thought he saw a slight relaxation in his lips, which was as close to a smile as he had gotten yet today.

  They headed for the elevators.

  “You suspect that guy of something?”

  “There’s something not kosher about him,” Blake said. “I’m working on it.”

  They got into the elevator. Fish looked up, reminding himself about the security. “As we already knew, they even have cameras in here, Matt, and if he can’t shut them down . . .”

  Blake didn’t respond. He stepped out as soon as the door
opened and headed for the Murphy apartment. Sheila had the door open before they got there. She had her hair down; her face was ashen. She wore no lipstick and was in a pink floral robe and a pair of pink slippers.

  Fish hadn’t met her before. He thought she was pretty and young-looking, vulnerable, more like a little girl. Tragedy and sorrow aged people, in his experience, but this woman looked as if she had been thrown back years and needed someone to hug her and comfort her the way a child would. He wished he could do just that.

  “I’m sorry to be bothering you again,” Blake said sincerely, perhaps moved by the same feelings Fish had. “Thanks for seeing us.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad someone’s investigating,” she said, sucking in her breath, and she stepped back to let them in. “Would you like some coffee? I’ve already made it.”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  “Thank you,” Fish echoed.

  They followed her into the kitchen, and Fish noted that she had the curtains closed on the patio door. From what he could see, every window in the apartment had its curtains closed. People in such sorrow were more comfortable in the darkness and shadows. Bright light screamed the ugly truth.

  “My daughter is still at my parents’ house. I’m afraid to bring her home. I just want to pack up and sell as soon as I can.” She poured the coffee into two cups she had already set up on the kitchenette table. There was sugar and milk beside them. Fish sat first. Blake didn’t sit until she did. They sipped some coffee. She looked down at her cup and ran the spoon in a circle.

  “Understandable,” Blake said. “Eventually, we become part of our surroundings, and they become part of us.”

  What the hell does that mean? Fish wondered.

  She appeared to understand, however. She looked up, her eyes still bloodshot. It looked as if tears were frozen under the lids and were just peering out. “Exactly. I haven’t slept in our bed yet. I sleep on the sofa. I’m afraid to look at any of Warner’s things. When I do, I just start crying. I’m sorry. I know you’re not here to hear any of this.”

  “Of course we are, Mrs. Murphy. We don’t act in a vacuum. Terrible things happen to people, and when we can’t appreciate their sorrow, it’s time for us to hand in our badges,” Blake said.

  She smiled. “Thank you. I told everyone, and I’m telling you again. My husband would never have killed himself. Not now, not ever.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to do your husband harm?” Blake asked.

  She sat back and shook her head slowly. “Neither of us has had anything close to a bad argument with anyone for years. I know he wasn’t cherished by members of the district attorney’s office.”

  “I doubt any of them take a loss that hard,” Fish offered.

  “Since Adam and Eve, no one is above suspicion,” Blake said, sounding like some prophet.

  She nodded.

  “When you left the apartment and the elevator opened in the lobby, what did you see? Try to visualize it, and tell me everything, no detail too small,” Blake said.

  She looked at them both and took a deep breath before she began. “Megan was talking a blue streak, like she always does in the morning. She wakes up and begins in mid-sentence sometimes, like she fell asleep before finishing a thought. She can be exhausting, despite her tiny size.” She smiled, shifting from an aura of gloom to one of love and mother’s pride. Both Blake and Fish smiled sympathetically; Fish was happy he could have a reason to. “I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I remember Mr. Bivens looked up. He was reading something. He said good morning.”

  “Did your daughter say good morning to him?” Blake asked.

  Fish nearly choked on his sip of coffee. What the hell would that matter?

  “No. She never said good morning to Mr. Bivens. He really never said good morning or hello to her. I don’t think he’s comfortable with children.”

  Blake nodded. He looked as if he had confirmed something. “So you step out of the building. Your car is waiting?”

  “Yes. We have a service to take Megan to school. Thank God we were off before . . . before . . .”

  “No one came in right after you went out, as far as you remember?”

  “I didn’t look back, but no one walked in while I was walking out.”

  “Do you remember anything at all unusual? Anything?”

  She started to shake her head and then paused. “I do remember something.”

  “What?” Blake asked quickly, practically pouncing on her.

  “It can’t be anything. I’m sure it will sound silly.”

  “Sometimes what looks unimportant is important or what seems impossible is possible,” Blake said. Again, Fish thought he sounded more like a philosophy teacher than a police detective.

  “There was a man in a delivery uniform.”

  “New York’s full of deliverymen,” Fish said.

  She looked at him and nodded. “I was looking at this young woman, though. She had on a very stylish jacket, and I was thinking about it when . . .”

  “When what?” Blake asked, when she looked as if she would not continue.

  “When this deliveryman came out of nowhere. He was right behind her. I know it sounds silly.”

  Fish looked at Blake and then at her.

  “I don’t understand,” Fish said. “He was right behind her, and you couldn’t see him at first, right?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, I know. But he wasn’t there, and then he was. It all happened so fast. I forgot about it until just now.”

  “He wasn’t there, and then he was?” Fish repeated.

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe you were just so fascinated with the jacket that you didn’t see him.”

  “Maybe, but . . . there was a space around her and between her and other people coming up the walk. He wasn’t there, and then he was,” she repeated. “I sound crazy, I know. And everyone would expect me to.”

  Suddenly, she became more animated, more determined.

  “Warner was getting ready to go to the office to officially receive the news that he was being made a full partner,” she continued. “He was bursting with pride. We had made dinner reservations for a big celebration at Le Grenouille. My husband always had big ambitions. He wanted to become a judge someday, perhaps first as the judge for the New York Supreme Court in one of the jurisdictions and then up the ladder. This wasn’t a man who just decides to take his own life. Someone killed my husband. Someone killed him, but because of all the technology in this building and no evidence of a stranger, nothing will happen.” Her voice was now full of rage in addition to sorrow. “No one will do anything!”

  “I’m here,” Blake said. She was growing hysterical, but his sharp, clear, and firm statement stopped that in its tracks. “I’m not buying suicide,” he assured her.

  She took a deep breath, relaxed again, and almost smiled as she sat back. “Thank you,” she said, but she had lost the look of a woman in mourning and had taken on the look of someone seeing vengeance and justice. Her face softened again. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to shout at you.”

  “That’s okay,” Fish said first. “I’m used to it.”

  “This might sound horrible for me to say,” she continued, looking down now as if she couldn’t meet their eyes when she spoke, “but I’m concerned about the stigma of having your husband and your father known as a suicide victim. He’s dead; he shouldn’t be, but he didn’t kill himself.”

  A pregnant moment of silence unnerved Fish. “Sure, sure,” he said, unable to think of anything else appropriate.

  “Think about one other thing,” Blake said. “During the preceding weeks, even months, did you or your husband meet a stranger who drew your curiosity? Did he talk about anyone?”

  She sat back and thought. “We’d been to a number of parties over the past few weeks, mostly with lawyers. He had met some new ones. I was introduced to wives, but nothing ever came of any of that. I mean, we made no ne
w friends, especially.” She shrugged. “The only one that stands out for me, and mostly because of Warner’s reaction, was this judge who’s in the criminal branch of Supreme Court and tries felony cases in New York City. Warner didn’t get along with him in court. They were like oil and water. Usually, it was over procedure and that sort of thing, according to Warner. He said the judge would pick away at him sometimes, hammering down on the smallest details. Warner wondered if maybe he reminded the judge of someone he disliked.

  “Anyway, he was at this recent party at the home of one of the senior partners, Bill Simon, and out of the blue, this judge was very friendly toward Warner. He knew Warner was going to make full partner, and Warner said the man acted as proud of him as his own father could be. He was gushing with compliments. Warner thought he might be bipolar or something.”

  “What’s the judge’s name?”

  “Hunter. Daniel Hunter.”

  They were all quiet a moment, and then she looked up.

  “His sister lives in this building,” she said. “Second floor. She divorced her husband years ago. Talk about stigma and embarrassment. Her husband, the judge’s brother-in-law, was convicted of pedophilia. He went to prison and, I believe, died there. Warner said he was murdered, but no one cared. Convicts, he said, like to abuse pedophiles especially.”

  She paused. Fish looked at Blake. He looked very interested. Was he just being polite? What could that information possibly have to do with Warner Murphy’s death?

  “Do you have much to do with the judge’s sister?” Blake asked.

  “Little or nothing. A hello is about it. I haven’t seen her anywhere but the lobby. She always looked terribly unhappy to me, depressed. Neither Warner nor I like being around people with negative energy,” she said. “I mean, he didn’t.”