Judgement Day

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Not well. Yet,” Blake added.

  “Oh, how sad. How tragic. Life is a challenge, isn’t it? We all have our tragedies.”

  “Yes. Speaking of that, I’d like to ask you for something that might upset you.”

  “Please. What could my discomfort be in relation to that poor woman’s horrible ordeal?” She fluttered her eyelashes, put her cigarette holder in and out of her mouth, and waited.

  “I would like the most recent picture of your late husband,” he said.

  She stared at him. “I don’t have a recent picture,” she said finally. “I haven’t thought about him for years. You know he’s dead, I’m sure.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I can’t remember,” she said quickly. Her entire mood was changing rapidly. “I haven’t spoken his name or heard anyone speak it for centuries.”

  “Have you seen him recently?” Blake asked.

  She looked at Fish and then back at Blake. “How could I see him? He’s dead.”

  Blake reached into his inside pocket and produced a photograph. He rose and handed it to her. “Did he look any different from this?”

  She looked at the photo and then up at him. Something in Blake’s face told her he wouldn’t stop. “It’s the way I remember him, yes. But I don’t want to remember him.”

  “You see him in dreams, though, don’t you?”

  “Nightmares,” she corrected.

  He nodded. “How was he dressed the last time?”

  She looked away.

  “He was in a sort of disguise, wasn’t he?”

  “Ridiculous man,” she said.

  Fish sat back in awe. What was this? Why talk about a dead man? Was he humoring her for some other information?

  “How was he dressed?” Blake repeated.

  She spun on him. “Stupidly. Like a deliveryman,” she said.

  12

  “What was all that? The woman’s a nutcase,” Fish said after they’d walked out of Semantha Hunter’s apartment.

  “She’s quite unbalanced, yes,” Blake said. The elevator doors opened. Blake looked back at her door. “She’s really not going anywhere today, no lunch. She’s living in her own fantasies and has been ever since her husband was convicted of pedophilia.”

  They stepped into the elevator, but instead of pushing the button for the lobby, Blake pressed the one for the twentieth floor. Before Fish could ask why, Blake continued explaining what he meant, and because getting him to talk was so difficult, Fish wasn’t going to interrupt.

  “Her brother, Judge Hunter, was the one who was instrumental in getting her divorce finalized. She was always a bit of a snob, so when she had this tremendous embarrassment with her husband, she was actually so disturbed that she had to be in a clinic for a while. I suspect she was always rather high-strung, nervous. I have suspicions about her relationship with her brother, in fact.”

  “What?”

  “After her time in the clinic,” Blake went on, ignoring what he had introduced into the conversation, “her brother set her up in this apartment and has cared for her ever since. Bivens was right about everything being delivered to her. From what I understand, she’s become an agoraphobic.”

  “An agora-what?”

  The doors opened.

  “A kind of panic disorder. It’s the fear of leaving your home, the safe zone. In her case, it developed from being afraid to face people after her husband’s arrest and subsequent conviction. I doubt she’s gone much farther than down to the lobby and back.”

  “Just down to the lobby?”

  “She thinks anyone could look at her and know she was married to a pedophile. Luckily, she never had children with him.”

  “So her dressing up like that today is what?”

  “She was dressed up like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s another fantasy. I wouldn’t be surprised if she dresses like Scarlett O’Hara tomorrow,” Blake said.

  “How do you know all this about her so quickly?”

  “I have a terrific search engine,” Blake said, and pointed to his temple.

  Fish smiled and shook his head. Then he looked up and realized they were standing in front of Sheila Murphy’s apartment. “What are we doing back here?”

  Blake pressed the buzzer and turned to him. “She can see it’s us before she opens the door, but we didn’t have to go through the scrutiny of security checks by coming into the lobby to visit someone,” Blake replied instead of answering Fish’s question.

  “Well, we did a check of everyone who lives here, Lieutenant. I haven’t been able to connect anyone to Warner Murphy or his wife except for Semantha Hunter. As Mrs. Murphy told us, they didn’t have friends or business acquaintances living in this building. Everyone knew who they were, but no one socialized with them.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t live here. Maybe he was just here.”

  “Huh? Who?”

  “Whoever threw him off the patio.”

  “You mean he might have been visiting in another apartment?”

  “Maybe. It’s logical,” Blake said, but he made it sound as if logic was the weakness in the explanation.

  “How much longer before could he have entered the building?”

  “No telling.”

  “Well, I’ll go back and check the earlier video,” Fish said.

  “Exactly.”

  “But . . . there wasn’t any of a man coming up or down in the elevator from any floor to the twentieth floor, Lieutenant.”

  “As Bivens said, there’s the stairs.”

  “But . . . twenty flights?”

  “Only if he’s coming directly from the lobby. He could have come up from the second floor, for example.”

  “That’s not much less.”

  “If you’re determined and you want to avoid detection, it’s what you do.”

  The door finally opened.

  Sheila Murphy looked a little more put together. Her hair was brushed, and she wore lipstick. Instead of a robe and slippers, she wore a pair of designer jeans, a white blouse with frilly cuffs and collar, and a pair of black boots. Her eyes, however, were still quite bloodshot. She had yet to come to the point where she would open them in the morning and not begin to cry.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just finishing dressing. I’m going out to my parents’ home.”

  “We won’t detain you. Just a quick question for you, Mrs. Murphy,” Blake said. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced the picture he had shown Semantha Hunter. “I know you had only a glimpse, but do you think this was the man you saw suddenly appear on the sidewalk outside this building?”

  She leaned forward, took the photograph, and studied it for a moment. “It’s hard to say,” she said. “It was so quick, but yes, he resembles him. Who is he?”

  Fish waited with great interest to hear what Blake would tell her.

  “We’re looking into it,” he said, taking back the photo. “As I promised, we’re on this.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll stay in touch,” he assured her, and turned to Fish, who stood there looking dumbfounded.

  She closed the door after them.

  “What is this?” Fish asked, with more authority. “You just showed her the picture of a dead man.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? You told me he was killed in prison, didn’t you?”

  Blake walked to the elevator but paused before calling for it. “Things in this world are not often what they seem, Fish. You ever dip a stick into a pond and look at it?”

  “Huh?”

  Blake called for the elevator. “When it’s in the water, it doesn’t look straight. It looks crooked, even though it isn’t.”

  “I don’t get it. What’s that have to do with the picture you just showed that woman?”

  “What you see and what you hear are often not true, not in the sense we understand.”

  He stepped into the elevator. Fish hesitated and then followed
him in. Now, more than ever, he wanted to know why Peter Thomas chose early retirement. “Not in the sense we understand? So what are you telling me? The guy might not be dead?”

  “Not in the sense we understand,” Blake repeated.

  “What other sense is there? You’re alive or you’re not,” he said, this time unable to hide his irritation.

  “Maybe there’s a third choice,” Blake said calmly.

  “A third choice?” Fish thought a moment. “What? A zombie?”

  Blake stared ahead, already in that state of deep thought that Fish was unfortunately getting used to. They walked into the lobby, and suddenly, Blake turned to him. “Would you call yourself a religious man, John?”

  “Religious? Well, I go to church when I can, but it’s never enough to satisfy my mother.”

  “The point is, you go, John. You pray. You believe in things you can’t see or feel or hear, right? Miracles, angels . . .”

  “I guess. Yeah, I do, but that’s—”

  “There are many mysteries out there, John. Just keep an open mind.”

  An open mind? Open to what? It sounded like more than simply evidence you could use in court. If he didn’t know for a fact that Blake was a very successful police detective, he’d think he was with a real nutcase.

  They paused at the receptionist’s desk. Bivens had been watching them closely. Blake smiled at him. Then he took out the photograph again and put it on the counter.

  Bivens looked at it with obvious hesitation, the hesitation of someone who didn’t want to be quoted or in any way involved. “What’s this?”

  “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

  Bivens grimaced. He picked up the photograph and studied it a moment, then shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t recall this man.”

  “All the people you have met? You’re absolutely sure you’ve never seen him?”

  Bivens looked at the picture again and nodded. “Yes, sir, I’m sure.”

  Blake took back the photograph. For a moment, he just stared at Bivens, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “He’s not familiar,” Bivens said.

  Blake nodded. “I’ll see you again, Charlie.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” Bivens said.

  They started out, Fish keeping a step or two behind. A dead man. He was showing people pictures of a dead man.

  Maybe I’d better talk to Cullen, he thought. This guy is beginning to scare me. He’s done outstanding police work, but maybe he’s cracking up. Maybe that was what Peter Thomas saw happening but didn’t know how to deal with it.

  Blake paused and looked across the street at John Milton’s limousine. He saw Charon come out of the café with two lattes. The rear window went down, and Milton took his. He kept the window down and smiled. Blake couldn’t see the smile. He saw only the hand and the outline of Milton’s head, but perhaps because of the way the sunlight reflected off the street and the car, it looked as if the passenger was sitting in a pool of fire.

  Fish stunned Blake when he let out a loud “I don’t fuckin’ believe it.”

  “What?”

  Fish nodded at their car. There was another parking ticket on the vehicle.

  “Oh, relax. Didn’t you ever meet anyone like this parking-enforcement officer, John? Sticklers for the rules who’d give their own mothers a ticket.”

  “Yeah, and they all look like they have a stick up the ass,” Fish said. He ripped off the ticket and tore it in two.

  “You’re not setting a good example,” Blake said, nodding toward the pedestrians who watched him do it.

  Fish didn’t respond. He got into the car and stared ahead like a sullen young boy, the knuckles on his fingers looking as if they might just pop out of his skin. Blake didn’t notice. He was watching the limousine across the street start up and pull away. Then he looked up at the Murphys’ patio and envisioned Warner Murphy falling like an angel who had lost his wings.

  He got into the car quickly. “Make a U-turn,” he ordered.

  “U-turn? Here? Talk about breaking traffic laws.”

  “Quickly.”

  Fish shrugged and worked his way out, spinning around and inviting a chorus of horns that sounded like angry crows.

  Blake leaned forward. “Catch up with that limousine,” he said.

  “What’s it about?”

  “I’ve seen it here every time we’ve visited the building.”

  “It’s not so uncommon a limousine, Lieutenant. Maybe it’s not the same one.”

  “With the same driver? Not easy to forget.”

  They drew closer to it, and Blake copied down the license plate number. The limousine made a right turn and slowed.

  “What now?”

  “Stop,” Blake said. “Pull over.”

  Fish had to pull in front of a fire hydrant. “I hope that idiot isn’t writing tickets on this block,” he muttered.

  He watched the limousine. Nothing was happening, and then a tall, stocky man in a drab gray suit got out of a car parked two cars in front of the limousine. He sauntered up to it as if he had all day to get there. Anyone watching would think he was going to pass it by, but the limousine driver stepped out, walked around the vehicle, and opened the rear door for him. He glanced at the driver and got in. The driver closed the door, gazed around, and then, instead of returning to the driver’s side, took a step back and stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking like a palace guard.

  “You recognize the man who got into the limousine?” Blake asked Fish.

  “Yeah. Something familiar about him.”

  “It’s the same Tom Beardsly I saw on Skip Tyler’s block before we found him dead,” Blake said.

  “The ex-FBI guy? Really?”

  Blake smiled.

  “What?” Fish asked, sensing that Blake had more to say.

  “I have some of that precious logic you crave,” Blake said, after reading the feedback on his smartphone.

  “Enlighten me, oh great guru,” Fish said. If I ever needed it, it’s now, he thought.

  “The limousine belongs to the attorney who has taken Warner Murphy’s case defending Lester Heckett: John Milton.”

  “No shit.”

  Blake stared a moment more at Charon and the limousine and then turned back to Fish. “So much for coincidence. As I’ve been trying to tell you, in a universe designed with natural and supernatural laws, there is no such thing as a coincidence.”

  “Never?”

  “Take heart, my friend. If that was all it was, coincidence, we’d have little to do and would most likely be unemployed.”

  “So you’re telling me that nothing just happens in this world?”

  “Nothing unintended by some natural force.”

  “Natural force?”

  “Let’s go. I have some calls to make and some more research to do with my search engine. Besides, we don’t want to get another parking ticket,” he added.

  Fish tried to laugh. He really did, but something inside him kept him from seeing any humor in anything Blake said. Everything he said had some underlying second meaning. He felt as if he was studying poetry in high school again. He tried really hard, but he always seemed to miss some other meaning, some vague reference or allusion. It had frustrated him back then.

  And that was just the way he felt now.

  Only worse.

  Now he thought it might put him in some unnecessary danger, even though he had no idea what the hell that could be.

  13

  “Go on, please, Tom. You’re doing so well,” John Milton said.

  Tom Beardsly flipped the page of his pocket notepad. He loosened the top button of his shirt and then his tie. Why wasn’t Milton as hot as he was? The vehicle was stifling. This was proving to be one of the hottest springs on record in New York City. Skyscrapers looked as if they were melting. Streets looked like stovetops. The combined sweat evaporating from uncomfortable pedestrians could cause a change in the weather. At least open a window, he thought, b
ut didn’t demand. From the start, he had an unmitigated fear of the man, and for someone with his experience and training in not fearing any man, it was puzzling. He sensed the fury behind those strangely dark eyes, which at times resembled heated charcoal briquettes. They glowed and would suddenly look like two rubies. Of course, he thought he was imagining it.

  He glanced out at Charon, who looked as if he had turned into a mannequin planted on the sidewalk but seemed somehow to be watching him through the tinted window. The man looked capable of reaching through it and seizing him by the throat if he so much as hinted that he might harm Milton. He was ashamed of how shaky his voice sounded when he began to speak again.

  “Her toughest case by far was getting a husband convicted for murdering his wife. The man seemed unapproachable. He was a county court judge, Shepherd Levine.”

  “A county court judge? That’s like bringing down a bishop. Put a nice feather in her cap. Tell me about it,” Milton asked, looking like a little boy about to hear a bedtime story. His face was full of glee.

  Beardsly nodded obediently.

  “He was having an affair with a woman in the county office building, Etta Hogan, and Shepherd’s story was that Hogan initiated and carried out the murder of his wife after he decided he couldn’t go on with the affair.”

  “Admit to a lesser evil to get the jury to accept that you were innocent of the greater sin . . . How so very like a judge. How was the wife killed?”

  “Hogan shot her with a snub-nosed thirty-eight when she was returning home from visiting her mother in the hospital. Hogan claimed Levine provided her with the weapon, even took her to a shooting range to give her instructions and practice and then planned where and when she should confront his wife. It was to look like a robbery, taking all her money and jewelry. She always wore expensive jewelry and watches, even when she just went to the grocery store.”

  “Ostentatious. The Liberace syndrome. I always thought humility was unnatural for either man or woman. If you have it, flaunt it, or why have it?”

  Beardsly nodded again. He was eager to get this secret session over. Despite the downward journey his career and his life had taken, he still clung to an iota of self-respect. What he was doing now for Milton and others like him kept him from looking at himself too long in a mirror, not because he believed the work was immoral but because he still saw himself as something more than a petty spy or facilitator. He didn’t mind snuffing out a creep now and then. He had done it before but for what he saw as a higher goal, a more justifiable motive. As nuts as it might seem to others, he believed he was doing good, doing it to effectuate justice. Now he was doing what he did solely for money.