I'll Kill Her for You

by Steve Richer

  “Hey, Morgan. This is your most handsome brother speaking.”

  “Hi, Lawson.”

  Her words came in a sigh as if she was exhausted or exasperated. That wasn’t her style. She was usually upbeat which he attributed to her being the mother of a notoriously unruly brood. It had to be last night’s events taking a toll.

  “Pretty screwed up what happened, uh?”

  “Yeah, yeah, so awful.”

  “Is everything okay, sis? Am I disturbing you? I can call back later.”

  “It’s just…”

  “What?” Lawson asked.

  “It’s Joe, something happened at work. He’s been here all afternoon, it’s… tough.”

  “Morgan, listen, I don’t want to pry or anything but… Okay, I’m totally prying. What happened? Somebody die?”

  She hesitated before answering. “Kinda. Joe has been taken off his project.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s been working on this new park for a year, it’s his baby. He came up with the original design. He convinced City Hall to make it happen. He conceived every aspect of it. And just like that he’s been removed from the project.”

  “Morgan, I’m sorry. Any particular reason this happened? Anything the family can do?”

  “No, that’s the worst part. They gave no reason, just took the project away from him. This will essentially kill his career, Lawson. No one will hire him anywhere else after this. This is New York, he’s done for.”

  “Jesus, sis. I’m sorry. And now I feel shitty to ask a favor from you.”

  “It’s okay, life goes on. What do you need?”

  As he gathered his thoughts, he heard her muffled voice telling her children to start doing something or other involving Play-Doh. That was Morgan all right, ever the good mother.

  “Any chance you could get last night’s guest list from mom?”

  “I guess. And I understand why you’re not asking her yourself.”

  Lawson snorted. “Big surprise, right?”

  “Well, it’s a little more than that.”

  “What do you mean, Morgan?”

  “Uh, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, what is it?” Lawson felt his stomach tighten as he waited for his sister to speak. This wasn’t like her to keep something from him. “Sis, what’s going on?”

  “Mom thinks you’re guilty, Lawson. She thinks you actually did this, that you killed this girl.”

  On the other side of the East River, in a Brooklyn warehouse, the Rolling Stones were assembling.

  That was the name the leader – Mick, of course – had given to his group. They were four and none of them had any resemblance to the real heroes of the British Invasion of the ‘60s. They weren’t even in the same age bracket.

  In truth, Mick had had the idea of using these themed fake names after watching both Point Break (former presidents) and Reservoir Dogs (colors) over a rainy weekend.

  Mick locked the door behind him, wanting protection and anonymity, but mostly trying to keep the cold out because the building was appallingly insulated.

  “Keith, what’s the status?”

  “Lawson panicked after smashing the police car’s windows, but nothing we hadn’t anticipated. He took off and went to his father’s office. He was a bitch to follow. I swear, these Christmas shoppers are not getting on my nice list. Definitely naughty list material.”

  “Just like people brushing up against you and your precious leather jacket?”

  “Hey, I can’t help it if people have no respect for a stylish man!”

  The others chuckled. It had become a running joke to make fun of Keith and his immaculate appearance. He was always coming and going with clothes from the dry cleaner’s.

  Mick made his way into the center of the work area. The warehouse was practically abandoned, earmarked for gentrified condos. That’s how he’d been able to rent it short-term, paid in cash under the table using cutouts and lawyers.

  There were a few desks arranged in a square, workstations for the Stones with high-end computers and multiple large displays. Mick went to a snack table and poured himself a steaming mug of coffee.

  “And then?”

  “Nothingsville for about an hour and then he left WWG, went to a restaurant near Washington Square Park.”

  “What did he do there?”

  “In late afternoon he met a woman,” Charlie said.

  She was a woman herself. All her life she’d hated her plain appearance but it was a godsend for surveillance work, she had to admit.

  “Any idea who she is? Do we have a name?”

  Ronnie rolled his eyes from behind his computer. “Of course we do. You think I’m an amateur?”

  “I don’t know, are you?”

  At that, Ronnie squinted, offended. He typed something on the computer and his personal dossier about the meeting came up.

  “Her name is Bailey Holloway.”

  “And who is she exactly?” Mick asked.

  “She lives in New Jersey and has an LLC registered in New York State. She also holds a New York Private Investigator License as well as concealed carry permits for both New York and Jersey.”

  “All right, our boy is getting professional help.”

  “We’re looking into her right now, running background checks,” Charlie said. “Soon we should have a complete picture. This complicates things though.”

  Mick put down his coffee, suddenly no longer thirsty. “It sure does.”

  “In the meantime, what do we do?” It was Keith.

  “Go back out there. You and Charlie, I want constant surveillance while Ronnie continues to monitor phone activity.”

  “It will be more difficult with the woman now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Now we take things up a notch. It’s time to get serious.”

  Chapter 15

  Lawson felt like he was making headway. After all, he’d been able to convince Bailey to finally come to his hotel room. She must have seen that his problems were so important at the moment that he had no plans to make a move on her.

  Plus she had no office where she could work out of. She usually worked from home when she wasn’t in the field and going back to Newark now, with her client, wasn’t an option. So it was the Sherry-Netherland since Morgan had come through and had emailed the guest list. Lawson wondered how she had managed to do so this quickly.

  They were in the living room section. The television was on, tuned to CNN, but neither of them was paying attention. There were remnants of pizza on the coffee table. It was past eight o’clock and eating dinner had eventually been a necessity.

  Lawson could tell that Bailey had eaten the pizza reluctantly. On the one hand, she clearly hated him at first sight and wanted nothing to do with him. But on the other hand, she had to be dedicated to her job, wanting to be thorough and do her best, and that meant staying late and eating her boss’s large pepperoni.

  With a sigh, Lawson sank further into the armchair, practically in a fully reclined position now. His eyes were becoming hazy, all the words on the list blending together. They’d been at this for over an hour.

  Bailey read a name and Lawson told her everything he knew about that person, racking his memory to recall the tiniest of details. And then another name, and another. And another.

  “Jesus…”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I hate this.”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of the situation, Lawson. It’s just a question of time. That’s how investigations are performed, little by little.”

  “Yeah, well, this whole thing feels like homework. Hell, it feels like work.”

  Bailey looked up from her own list and legal pad. “It is work.”

  “Really? I…”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t really know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t do this usually.”

  “You don’t work?” she said.

 
“Not really.”

  It had been years since Lawson had had to make an effort at something. He remembered late nights at Harvard when he was getting his MBA, studying statutes and accounting procedures, pouring over spreadsheets. That seemed like an eternity ago.

  “I thought you had a movie production company.”

  “I do but I don’t actually do anything, you know? I go to parties, shake hands, strike up conversations and make verbal agreements. I have people doing the heavy lifting, you know? My assistant, Midori, she runs things. Once in a while I read a script but mostly I skim through them. Basically, I only have to sign contracts.”

  Bailey snorted and mumbled, “Unbelievable.”

  “You don’t approve, obviously.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t say anything.”

  Lawson sat up straighter. “Yes, you did. You judged me. You don’t even know me and yet you passed judgment. So what am I, just a slimy one percenter, is that it?”

  “I’m really sorry,” Bailey said, her jaw tight as if it was hard to admit. “It’s not my place to say anything.”

  “Whatever.”

  Lawson got up and poured himself a generous glass of Johnnie Walker from a fifth he’d ordered from room service. He drank half of it and then topped off is glass. He returned to his chair.

  “Lawson?”

  “What?”

  Bailey opened her mouth and hesitated. It took a couple of attempts but she finally spoke. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “What?” he said again.

  “That, the drinking.”

  “What about it?”

  She set down her own papers and straightened up. “I’ve only met you a few hours ago so don’t take this the wrong way, okay? There’s been many beers, those shots you had, and now this is your second scotch. Is there an issue I should know about?”

  “Are you asking if I’m an alcoholic, Bailey?”

  She shifted uncomfortably but at last nodded. “Are you?”

  “I’m young and I’m used to partying, all right? I can stop whenever I want.”

  “Okay.”

  “I just need it right now, you can’t begin to understand how stressful this situation is.”

  “Forget I said anything, Lawson. I simply want to make sure you’re in top shape for what lies ahead.”

  He lifted his glass to his lips before lowering it again. “And you know what lies ahead?”

  “Not great things for you if we don’t find who’s behind this.”

  Her words rattled Lawson. “Shit…”

  He tried to wrap his head around that. How could someone like him, somebody who had done nothing wrong, be forced into this position? All his life he’d been hearing about responsibility and having to live with the consequences of what you did.

  Lawson accepted that. He wanted no responsibility so he did very little that could affect his life one way or another. He partied, he slept around, he’d never gone out of his way to be mean to anyone. So why was somebody doing this to him now?

  There was a bright flash to his left and he jumped.

  “Jesus Christ!” He turned and saw that the lamp next to his chair was now off. “What happened?”

  Bailey looked at him from over her papers. “Seriously?”

  “What do you mean, seriously? What the hell happened?”

  “The lightbulb went out. See if you can screw it back in. Maybe it’s just loose.”

  Lawson furrowed his brow. “How do you do that?”

  “Are you messing with me?” Bailey asked.

  “I’ve never done this, okay?”

  “You’ve never changed a lightbulb before?”

  “There you go judging me again,” Lawson said, downing his scotch. “I never changed a lightbulb in my life, okay? You’re happy now? Excuse me for always having had people to do that. I guess that makes me a monster.”

  Bailey stood up, went to the lamp and unscrewed the bulb before plugging it in again. The light stayed off.

  “It’s out,” she said. “You can tell the front desk in the morning. Let’s get back to this now.”

  She returned to the couch where she grabbed her list and pad. For his part, Lawson moved his chair closer to the TV so he’d have enough light to read.

  “Everyone here seems suspect and improbable at the same time,” she began. “Rich people, powerful people. They have to have some sort of motive and I’m sure your family and the company have thousands of enemies. But there’s one person that keeps jumping at me.”

  “Who?” Lawson asked, desperate to refill his glass and yet terrified of what she would think about him if he did. No way he was a drunk, for chrissakes.

  “Addie Burgess. It can’t be a coincidence that she was upstairs right when you were. It can’t be a coincidence that she’s the only witness the police have about your direct involvement. On top of that, you said you had a thing with her a while back. Jaded lovers can’t be overlooked.”

  “You think she’s responsible? She’s always been an Olympic-level bitch but I don’t see her as a murderer.”

  “We have to go where the evidence takes us. And right now? The evidence points at her. I’ll have to dig into her.”

  Suddenly, Lawson wanted to dig into Addie Burgess as well. With a shovel.

  Chapter 16

  The NYPD’s 19th Precinct was sandwiched between a fire station and a theater. The only thing the three buildings had in common was the beautiful turn-of-the-century architecture. Detective Carolyn Munson had never even noticed.

  As usual, she walked up the few steps and went inside, glad to be out of the freezing morning air. She nodded to officers she knew or those she pretended to like, and then made her way upstairs to the detective squad, doing her best not to drop her coffee and strawberry Danish.

  She liked this time of year, not because she found particular enjoyment in the Yuletide season, but rather because there were fewer people around. With Christmas fast approaching, a lot of officers were on vacation.

  It felt like working after hours and she liked the quiet atmosphere. She also usually took her annual vacation time during the summer so she had to be here at Christmas. During the divorce proceedings, her ex-husband had brought this up as a reason why he wanted out. She’d told him he could get bent for all she cared.

  Kwon was already at his desk which was across from hers. He was leaning back in his chair, visibly trying to sleep the last few minutes before his shift started. He stirred awake when she dropped her bag next to her chair and slipped out of her coat.

  “Is that Danish for me?” he asked.

  “In your dreams. Go back to sleep, maybe you can dream yourself some breakfast.”

  He flipped her the bird and leaned back into his chair again, closing his eyes. That was their morning routine.

  Munson sat behind her desk and powered on her computer. She always started with scanning her emails. More often than not, there was nothing but a bunch of departmental memos about racial sensitivity, a couple of BOLOs – be on the lookout bulletins – and if she was lucky an invitation to join the precinct softball team, which she was still hoping for.

  She took a sip of coffee and started to go over emails. Just as she thought, a bunch of junk. Still, she couldn’t skip this task. That was what being a good detective was all about. You had to do the little things that most people dismissed.

  Once a year, she was asked to give a lecture at the Police Academy in Queens and that was always what she told cadets: the devil is in the details. Even the smartest perps will miss something and it was their job to find it. That’s how you nailed these people. Go the extra mile, do the extra work.

  She continued going through her messages, her eyes riveted to the screen, and she bit into her pastry. Knowing it instantly and yet unable to do anything about it, she felt a glob of strawberry jam pop out from the corner of her mouth.

  “Hmmm!”

  The sticky substance raced down her chin until it landed on her upper chest
, smack into her immaculate white blouse. A second later, there was applause and she found Kwon sitting up, clapping.

  “I say it every day and I’ll say it again, Carolyn. You have to get yourself a bib.”

  “I swear, I don’t know why this keeps happening to me,” she said as she put down the Danish and reached for napkins to clean herself up.

  Her partner laughed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing?”

  “Wrong. I do pay attention to what I’m doing, just not the food I’m eating.”

  She wasn’t fazed by the accident. It happened almost every day. Besides, she didn’t care what she looked like. If anything, it helped her at her job. When people saw her dirty shirts, her clothes that needed ironing, they assumed she was dumb and careless. They underestimated her.

  And that’s how she got the best of them.

  She finished eating the pastry before doing a final wiping pass on her blouse. Then she settled with her coffee and went through her final emails.

  “Holy cow,” she said, freezing, agape.

  “What’s going on, partner?”

  She ignored him as she continued staring at the screen. This particular email had no text, just an image which didn’t have the best resolution. It had been taken in motion. From the lighting, she could tell right away it was a screengrab from a movie.

  “Carolyn, talk to me,” Kwon said, leaning forward on his desk and looking at her.

  The image was focused on a gorgeous young woman in a red dress. She was part of the crowd, people in a club. There was a bar in the background with a neon sign hanging above it.

  “Come over here,” she ordered the junior detective.

  Without being asked twice, he rose from his swivel chair and rounded the two desks until he was crouching next to her, staring at the computer screen.

  “This girl looks familiar, doesn’t she?”

  “Is it…”

  “Yep.”

  Still dubious, Kwon grabbed the murder book – the case file – and flipped through it until he found the photographs of Sue Parnell, the victim from the Winslow penthouse.

  “Sweet Jesus, it’s her. She was in a movie?”

  “It looks that way.”