Travis Forbes was either embarrassed by Mike’s discovery or simply didn’t like to make eye contact. I guessed him to be in his late twenties, about my height, with a sad expression lingering within the intense gaze of his dark, bespectacled eyes.
“I understand,” he said.
“What’s with yesterday’s news?” Mike asked.
“I started saving things for Eddy. Things I didn’t think he could get in prison. It’s-it’s just a habit.”
“Somewhere along the way, I guess Eddy told you the federal can is like summer camp, no? The Times, the Journal-that’s all those swindlers and crooks read.”
“I told you, it’s a habit. It’s what I do.”
“You into rare books, too?” Mike asked, taking the catalog from my hand.
“No. No, I’m not. I-I was keeping that for Eddy.”
“This auction took place years before your brother’s arrest, years before he went to prison,” I said.
“Then he must have given it to me to hold for him,” Travis said, shrugging. “I’ve got lots of Eddy’s stuff.”
“The feds ever been here?” Mike asked.
“These things were released to me after Eddy got in trouble. He had to give up his apartment and had nowhere to store them. The FBI went through everything he owns. They know all about it.”
It was as obvious to Travis Forbes as it was to me that Mike wanted to get inside and ferret through every piece of paper, looking for stolen books and maps, or anything else of value. It was also obvious he didn’t have a leg to stand on, other than the one that was planted inside the door.
“Who lives here with you?” Mike asked.
There was a wooden board on a slice of the wall beside the door, with several jackets hanging on pegs.
“Nobody.”
“You collect clothes, too?” There were windbreakers in different colors and weights on top of one another, and a workman’s denim jacket with the label of a Maine utility company on the sleeve, covering the upper part of a white lab coat.
Forbes didn’t answer.
“When was the last time Eddy was in town?”
“He hasn’t been here since before he was sent away. I haven’t seen him.”
“Pets. You got pets?”
“Tropical fish. I have an aquarium.”
I imagined Forbes sitting alone in his fortress of useless papers and old books, staring at brightly colored fish in a tank. He seemed far too aloof and cold to be a companion to any warm-blooded animal.
“What do you do, Travis?”
“I wait tables.”
“Where?”
“Near the Columbia campus, on Broadway. Place called the Lion’s Pub.”
“How long have you been doing that?” I asked.
“Since I ran out of money to finish graduate school, a year and a half ago. I’m a neurobiologist. At least, I will be when I complete the program.”
“What are your hours there?”
“Eight p.m. till we close. Four in the morning.”
“And last night?” I asked.
“Same,” Travis said, while I tried to penetrate his blank stare. “What does this have to do with my brother?”
My exhaustion had me seeing suspects at every turn. If Travis Forbes had the same access to the library that his brother once enjoyed, he could have found his way to Tina on Wednesday evening, in the conservators’ office, and back again to move the body last night. But if his alibi held tight, he wouldn’t have been standing on a nearby street corner-with us in his sights-at the time the body was found and the ghoulish, laughing caller rang on Tina’s cell.
“Do you know a girl named Tina Barr?” Mike asked, refocusing the conversation.
“Who?”
“A friend of your brother’s.”
“Eddy’s a lot older than I am. We never really socialized together.”
“This is someone he worked with,” Mike said. “A conservator. Restores rare books and old maps.”
“I know what a conservator does, Detective,” Travis said, growing more churlish by the question. “Ask Eddy. You must have his number.”
“Why don’t you give it to me, just in case?” The ex-con was likely to have two phones-one that his probation officer used and one for his friends and family.
“I’ll have to ask him if he wants me to do that.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Not in here, you won’t,” Travis said, taking his hands out of his pockets to try to close his front door, dislodging Mike’s foot.
Mike tried to keep his balance by grabbing at the jamb with his left hand while his right one settled on Travis Forbes’s wrist. “Sorry. I get it. We’re out.”
Travis shook loose of Mike’s accidental grasp. At the same moment, we both saw the cuts on the back of Travis Forbes’s left hand. Long narrow strips of red-lined flesh protruded from both ends of a bandage strip.
“What’s with the scratches, pal?” Mike asked. “Your fish got fangs?”
The soft-spoken young man covered his bad hand with the good one. “Leave me alone.”
“You ought to have that looked at,” Mike said. “Could get yourself a nasty infection. I got a doc who’ll check it out for you.”
Mike wanted to see the injury, just as I did. He wanted to compare the size and shape of the wound to the marks on Tina Barr’s neck. Maybe she had tried to defend herself with one of the sharp tools from her own desk.
“I’ve already been treated,” he said, putting both hands back in his pants pocket.
“By whom?”
Footsteps charging down the staircase overhead signaled the reappearance of Shalik, on his way from Ms. Jenkins’s apartment to run her errands.
“How’d you get those cuts?” Mike asked. “You drop a steak knife on the job? I’m trying to help you out here.”
Now only Mike’s fingers on the door jamb prevented it from closing. “Who cut you?”
Shalik stopped to listen to the conversation, squatting on one of the steps, his nose between railings of the banister. But Travis Forbes didn’t speak.
Shalik let out a low hissing sound, and Forbes’s head snapped up to look at him.
“Quiet, kid,” Mike said. “I’m asking you once more, Travis, before I tell Ms. Cooper here to get me a subpoena to photograph your hand. Who cut you?”
“Hisself.”
Shalik repeated the word he had said the first time, when I had misheard him.
“Look in his pocket, man. He do it at night sometimes in the summer, sitting on the stoop. He crazy, Detective.”
“A subpoena for what?” Travis Forbes said, withdrawing his right hand from his pocket again. He spread it open and in it was a razor blade. “Talk to my shrink. I didn’t think my problem was illegal.”
Travis Forbes unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and started to roll up his sleeve. Scars lined his inner arm, and marks that looked like they’d been left by lighted cigarette butts dotted the skin on the outer side.
Mike’s hand dropped to his side.
“Take care of yourself, Travis,” he said, backing away. “Here’s my card if I can do anything to help.”
THIRTY-ONE
“I gotta tell you, Mercer, I took one look at the guy’s messed-up paw and I was ready to throw the cuffs on and collar him,” Mike said, turning off Central Park West for the ride through the park to my apartment. “We gotta slow this down before I make a mistake.”
“I never saw Mike turn on a dime so fast,” I said from the back seat, patting him on the shoulder. “He went from executioner to social worker in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah, well, what makes you such an expert on self-mutilation, kid? I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these.”
“Alex and I have seen more than our share of it because the highest incidence is among teenage girls.”
“Does it mean that Travis Forbes is suicidal?” Mike asked.
“Not necessarily,” Mercer said. “It’s a form of intentional self-harm wit
hout actually having the wish to die.”
“So why do they do it? I mean, not the psychobabble, but what do you know about it?”
“The docs tell me that self-mutilation is some sort of outlet for strong negative emotions,” I said. “Usually anger or shame. Anger at someone else that’s then directed against the self.”
“So maybe he’s embarrassed about Eddy,” Mike said. “Mad at him for ruining the family name, being such a jerk to get caught. Is it always done by cutting?”
“Knives and razors,” Mercer said. “They’re the most popular. Biting or bruising yourself, pulling out hair, putting out cigarettes on your skin.”
“That fourteen-year-old we had last year,” I said to Mercer. “Remember? The one whose mother blamed her when the baby brother died?”
“Yeah. The shrink said she was dissociating. That her mind just split off that memory, which was too painful to keep in her conscious awareness. Whenever she hurt herself, she felt alive again.”
“Well, I should have given Shalik a bigger reward. He saved me from making a fool of myself with Forbes.”
“And it doesn’t seem that Travis has his brother’s book interests. I mean, you wouldn’t keep rare books in a junk heap like that,” Mercer said.
“We’ve still got to get to Eddy. His name just comes up in this too many times to ignore,” Mike said. “I’m dropping you at home, Coop?”
“Please.”
“I’ll hang with you for the autopsy,” Mercer said to Mike.
It was almost four when I got out of the car and walked into my lobby. I stopped for the mail and went upstairs, as anxious to know whether Luc was waiting for me there as I was to step into the shower and clear my head of the day’s confusion.
I unlocked the door and went inside. “Luc?”
He didn’t answer, and I was almost relieved to have a brief respite to myself.
There was a bouquet of white lilies on the table in the foyer, and a piece of notepaper next to the vase.
Darling-Must be you had a very busy day. I missed hearing your voice, even to tell me you had no time to talk. Joan reserved for the four of us at 7:30 at Patroon. Très Americain, which suits me fine. Dreaming of a great steak, a serious Burgundy, and a night with you. Am off to some appointments and will see you there. À toute a l’heure, ma princesse.
I didn’t want to leave the comfortable cocoon of my home. I wanted to give Luc all my attention before he left for the West Coast in the morning.
His professional world-completely luxe and extravagant-was so diametrically opposed to the trauma that surrounded my colleagues and me that sometimes it was hard for me to imagine how we communicated at times like this. An overdone salmon, not enough mustard in the vinaigrette, or a table that couldn’t turn over on time seemed to me, an outsider, to be the kind of urgencies restaurateurs confronted. I knew there was more to Luc’s business than that, but on days like this one, it all seemed so frivolous.
I went into the bedroom and stripped off my clothes. I tried to sneak into the bathroom to turn on the water for a steaming hot shower without glancing at myself in the mirror, but there was no escaping how tired I looked, and how overwrought I felt.
I dried off and wrapped the towel around me as I slipped under the comforter to take a short nap, setting the alarm to make sure I didn’t oversleep.
At six-thirty, I awakened and put myself together for the evening. My wardrobe palette was heavy on pale blues and greens, even for fall and winter, but I didn’t feel like color tonight. I dressed in black-a clingy sweater and a short pleated skirt.
The makeup helped, and a crystal barrette to hold back my hair added some sparkle around my face.
I was ready to go downstairs to find a taxi when my phone rang. Caller ID displayed the telephone exchange of the morgue.
“Hey, Coop. Just thought you’d like a heads-up, give Battaglia a shout about the autopsy results,” Mike said. “Dr. Assif called it. Fatal incised wound associated with an air embolism in the jugular vein. The cut is longer than it is deep. Killer just hit the right place. Tina would have collapsed immediately. No struggle. No defensive wounds.”
“And the weapon?”
“It’s not any of the ones we submitted for comparison, but Assif likes the angles on those conservators’ paring knives. She’ll be testing a slew of them.”
“So sad,” I said. “And still no news of Tina’s mother?”
“Commissioner Scully has the State Department on it now. I’ll let you know what we hear,” Mike said. He hesitated before speaking again, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I stayed on the line. “Coop? Everything okay?”
“Just thinking about the week, the two women. Tina Barr and Karla Vastasi.”
“You sound down.”
“I just took a nap. I’ll shake it off.”
“Want company? Me and Mercer-”
“No-”
“Sorry. Forgot I was dealing with the grammar police. Mercer and I can come over for a while.”
“Thanks, Mike. You need to chill as much as I do.”
“Call you tomorrow, then. Double or nothing on Jeopardy!”
I left a message on Battaglia’s home machine. In another effort to put the day behind me, I dabbed perfume behind my ears and down the length of my throat.
I wrapped a long cashmere stole around my shoulders, applied a new layer of lipstick, and headed for the lobby.
Oscar held the door open for me and I waved good-bye, grateful for the crisp autumn weather.
I walked to the end of the driveway on Seventy-first Street, knowing the odds were better that I’d find a yellow cab from there. The Marymount College auditorium was just down the block, and weekend nights there was a steady flow of drop-offs for theatrical events at the school.
I stepped off the sidewalk and raised my arm in the air. Three or four cabs were lined up on the far side of the one-way street, queuing to discharge their fares. Another that was already empty flashed his headlights and lurched in my direction.
When I got into the cab, I leaned toward the opening in the Plexiglas partition and spoke to the driver. “Good evening. I’d like to go to Forty-sixth Street, between Lex and Third.”
“You got it.” He started the meter running and I sat back, my head against the window.
After the second light, he made the turn onto Lexington Avenue on our way downtown. The reggae music coming from the speaker behind my head was too loud, but there was no point getting into a squabble during the short ride.
“You got a team, miss?”
“Excuse me?”
“I aksed you if you got a team. Baseball.”
The driver was looking at me in the mirror. I could see only the outlines of his black face highlighted by white teeth.
I returned the smile. “Yankees. I’m a Yankee fan.”
“Dodgers. I like the Dodgers.”
“You’re lucky-you got Joe Torre.”
“That’s not why they my team. It’s Los Angeles. I got family in Los Angeles.”
“Nice,” I said, looking at the designer windows at Bloomingdale’s as we drove by.
“You got family, miss?”
There was no winning. Tell the guy I wasn’t interested in his chatter and I’d be lucky if all he did was call me rude.
“You hear me?”
“I do.”
“Where? Where they be?”
I smiled wanly this time. “All spread out.”
“Sisters and brothers?”
“Two brothers.”
“Here in New York?”
“No.”
We were speeding past the nondescript buildings on Lexington till we were stopped by a red light at the rear entrance to the Waldorf, mercifully close to my stop.
“I aksed you where they be?”
His voice had an edge to it now. I put my hand on the door handle, grabbing a ten-dollar bill from my purse. Then I did what I told every nervous tourist to do in a yellow cab, and looked
below the partition for the driver’s permit and photo. The plastic sleeve that was supposed to hold his identification was empty.
“ Texas,” I lied. “ Texas and Minnesota. You want to release the lock, please?” I was pulling at it, but the driver clearly had the controls.
The light changed and he floored the gas pedal, throwing me back against the seat.
“Good to know, miss. Case I want to do my own family search,” he said, laughing at my growing panic. “And you ought to leave Wesley right where he’s at in Los Angeles. Be real good for your health to do that.”
How many days and nights had this cabbie been waiting for me to come out of my building alone?
“It’s Griggs, Miss Prosecutor. Anton Griggs.”
“Open the door,” I screamed at him, trying to grab my phone.
He braked to a halt on the corner of Forty-seventh Street and I heard the click of the lock. I practically fell onto the pavement as I pushed at the door and jumped out of the cab, scraping my arm against the rough edge of the door. The shawl caught on the exposed metal as I slammed it shut.
“You let Wesley be, girl,” he called out to me. “’Cause I got more brothers than you got brains.”
My chest was heaving as Anton Griggs sped away, the cashmere stole hanging from the side of the cab like a limp body being dragged through the city streets.
THIRTY-TWO
“You sound like you can’t breathe,” Mercer said. “Slow down, Alex.”
I had practically run the block and a half to the restaurant before calling Mercer.
“I’ll be all right. Are you with Mike?”
“He’s on the phone in Dr. Assif’s office. Why?”
“I want you to know what happened,” I said, describing the nightmare cab ride and how I had played right into the patient hands of Anton Griggs. “Obviously, you have to tell the lieutenant, and I’ll call Battaglia, but hold off on Mike for tonight. He’s likely to go ballistic and head off after Anton and Tyrone Griggs. We don’t need any more trouble.”
“And the judge?”
“I’ll tell him in chambers on Monday. It’s smarter to have one of the guys from the DA’s squad handle this. I need Mike as a witness in the underlying murder case.”
Lethal Legacy Page 25