The Follower

by Jason Starr

  When she got to her desk, she logged onto her Yahoo! mail account and was disappointed to not see a message from Andy. He’d e-mailed her yesterday morning, so she expected one today. Trying to not make a big deal about who e-mailed whom, she sent him a short message:

  Had a great time Last night! What’s up?

  The rest of the afternoon, she went about her work, checking her e-mail every now and then. Each time she saw the 0 MESSAGES display she got a little more pissed off. Although she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, she couldn’t help wondering if he was playing head games with her.

  By five o’clock she felt officially blown off. Deciding that she deserved to pamper herself, she walked to Sephora on Third and bought the Du Wop Lip Venom and the NARS blush in Orgasm she’d tried the other day. She still felt like shit. She went to a Ray’s Pizza and bought a salad to take home. A few minutes later, crossing Seventy-ninth Street, she felt the oily dressing leaking through the bag, then, as she looked inside, the bag broke and the container fell onto the street. Salad spilled everywhere. She cursed, on the verge of tears. Then, as she bent down to clean up the mess, a cab turned sharply toward her and had to brake. The cabby honked and she stood up, gave him the finger, and walked away, leaving the spilled salad, the bag, and the container on the street.

  Figuring that she’d order in Chinese for dinner and they’d better leave the fucking MSG out this time, she continued home. As she was entering the vestibule a man came up quickly behind her. Wishing she’d listened to her father and was carrying pepper spray, she jerked around and may have even started to scream. Then she relaxed, seeing that the guy seemed non threatening. He was older, Japanese, in a gray suit.

  “Excuse me, miss. Is your name, by any chance, Katie?”

  It was weird, hearing that heavy New York accent coming from a guy who looked like him.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  The guy swallowed a couple of times, had to look away for a few seconds, then collected himself. He flashed a badge and said, “John Himoto, Nineteenth Precinct. I’m afraid I have some terrible news.”

  SIXTEEN

  Telling people that their loved ones had been murdered was the worst part of John Himoto’s job. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have to do it very often. The Nineteenth Precinct encompassed the entire Upper East Side and had one of the lowest violent crime rates in the city. Although they got a fair share of burglaries and assaults, and a handful of rapes, if they got two murders a year, it was a lot.

  But even though John didn’t have to deliver devastating news very often, it didn’t make doing it any easier. It always gave him flashbacks to when he was nine years old, living in Flushing, and he and his old man were out shoveling snow after a nor’easter. At first, John thought his father was kidding around, making a snow angel or something; then he saw his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The weird thing was that, as the years went by, the memory of watching his father die didn’t seem nearly as traumatic as having to go inside and tell his mother.

  Now, as he tried to maintain eye contact with the young, attractive girl, he remembered how he had stood in front of his mother, frozen, unable to speak, for what seemed like minutes, as she said, “What’s wrong? What happened? Where’s your father?” That last one—Where’s your father?—always resonated loudest.

  “Your boyfriend, Andrew Barnett, was murdered.”

  John managed to get the words out matter-of-factly, professionally—nineteen years on the force, seven as a detective, had taught him that much. But Katie, who seemed to have a deer-in-the-headlights way about her to begin with, seemed confused.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend named Andrew. My boyfriend’s name is Andy.”

  Denial—typical first reaction. When John had finally been able to get those two words out—“Dad died”—his mother had even started laughing. She was convinced that John was playing a joke on her until she went outside and saw for herself.

  “It’s the same person, miss. He was killed late last night in Carl Schurz Park.”

  “What do you mean? Why’re you telling me this?”

  Now the rage. It was all so painfully predictable.

  “I really have to ask you some questions right now,” John said. “Do you want to sit on the stoop? Or we can go upstairs—you can sit down, have something—”

  “What the fuck’re you talking about?”

  “Your boyfriend was murdered.” Himoto was trying to speak as calmly as possible. “It happened last night. He was strangled. Right now that’s just about all we know. I spoke to a few of his roommates already—that’s how I found out about you. William Bahner said that you live at this address. Believe me, I understand how difficult this is for you to—”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Maybe we can go upstairs?”

  “Who would mur—I mean, why would … How?”

  “Let’s talk about it upstairs. I promise, this will only take a few minutes.”

  Katie managed a nod and John followed her up the two flights to her apartment.

  “Can we sit down?” John asked.

  Katie seemed lost, dazed, and the question took a couple of seconds to register.

  “Yeah, sit, sit,” she said weakly.

  John sat at the small dining table. Katie slowly joined him.

  “I understand you were with Andy yesterday evening,” John said.

  “He was here.”

  John opened a pad and said, “When did you see him last?”

  “He came over, then he left. I guess it was around eleven, eleven thirty.”

  Writing, John said, “Did he say where he was going?”

  “He said he was going home. He said he had to get up early.”

  “Well, he didn’t go home,” John said. “He went to the park. You have any idea why he would’ve gone to the park?”

  Katie shook her head.

  “Think about it for a second. Did he like to take walks at night? Did he like to look at the river? Was he into drugs?”

  Shaking her head more emphatically, Katie said, “No, nothing like that. He was…God, I can’t believe this is happening.” She started crying. After a while, she managed, “He was just a really nice, normal guy. He was great…” Her voice faded into tears.

  John went to the bathroom, came back with some tissues, and gave them to Katie.

  “It’s good to get it out,” he said.

  He wanted to say more supportive stuff, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he said nothing. He always felt awkward in situations like this, even with his own son, Blake. John’s wife, Geraldine, had handled all of the gushy-type talks. Then, when Geraldine died, things got even more uncomfortable. When Blake was a teenager, he was out all the time, doing God knows what with God knows who. He and John were like two strangers. They still were. Blake lived in Chelsea now with his boyfriend, Mark. John saw him once in a while, on holidays mostly. He supported his son’s sexuality—didn’t give him as hard a time about it as some fathers would, anyway—but being a New York City cop with a gay son wasn’t exactly easy.

  After letting Katie cry it out for a while, John said, “Feeling better?”

  Not exactly brilliant words of wisdom, but they were the best he could come up with.

  “How much longer is this gonna take?” Katie asked.

  “Just a few minutes. I was just wondering—how long had you two been dating?”

  “Two…no, three weeks.”

  “Is that all? I had the impression it was longer than that.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Andrew ever mention anything about having any enemies?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “Someone who wanted to hurt him,” Himoto pressed. “Maybe at work. An argument with a friend…”

  “No, nothing like that. Everything was normal. Very normal.”

  “What about his family? Any issues there?”

  “He didn’t talk about his f
amily very much. But no.”

  Himoto wanted to be careful with his next question. He knew Katie was in a fragile state and he didn’t want it to upset her too much.

  “And if I can ask,” Himoto said, “what did you do after he left here last night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, did you leave the apartment?”

  “I went to sleep. Why?”

  John knew it was a hell of a long shot that this girl had anything to do with the murder. The full ME report wasn’t in yet, but it seemed like Andrew Barnett had died quickly and that whoever did it was strong, probably male, and knew what he was doing. But it was a fact that most murderers know their victims, so the subject had to be broached.

  “Well, right now it seems like you were the last one seen with him,” John said. He added quickly, “Not that I think you had anything to do with it. I’m not saying that at all. But something you may have done or said, that you don’t think is important, might turn out to be very important. You know what I’m saying?”

  “We had Chinese food, we had sex, then he said he had to go home and get up early, and he left. That’s all I know.”

  John was a little surprised that she’d mentioned the sex part like that. He felt sorry for her, a girl losing a guy she might’ve been falling in love with. This was rough.

  “Look,” John said, “the bottom line is that we think he knew his killer. Maybe he wasn’t friends with him, but he knew him. His wallet was empty and not next to his body, which is neither here nor there. Maybe he had more money and spent it, or maybe he was robbed, but we don’t think so. The way he was killed, strangulation, doesn’t fit with some random mugging. But, hey, I have a question for you. You said you had Chinese food last night, right?”

  “Yeah,” Katie said. “So?”

  “Who paid?”

  “He did.”

  “Did you see his wallet? How much money he had inside it?”

  Katie thought about it and said, “He had money—twenties. I remember because he asked me if I had any singles for a tip.”

  “Do you know how many twenties?”

  “I’m not sure. At least a few.”

  “Did he have any other bills?”

  “Yeah, I think he did.”

  John wrote in his pad and said, “That might help us. If he had money, that tells us that the killer might’ve wanted to make it look like a robbery. Yeah, that could be very helpful.”

  “Is that all?” Katie asked. “Sorry, but I really just want to be alone right now.”

  “I understand,” John said, getting up. “Yeah, that should do it. Here’s my card. If you think of anything else about last night you might’ve forgotten, anything at all, just give me a call. I’ll probably want to talk to you again anyway, just to run some more info by you as the investigation proceeds. Can I have your phone numbers?”

  Katie gave him her cell and home numbers, then he apologized to her for her loss again and left. It was a relief to get out of there. Days like this made John want to go for the early retirement plan that had been offered to him a few months ago. Instead of spending his days having to tell girls that their boyfriends had been strangled, he could be sitting at home, watching the Knicks on his big-screen TV. Or, shit, he could be out on a fishing boat, or at the racetrack, or just hanging out around the house, doing nothing.

  Although the idea of an early retirement appealed to John, he’d decided he wasn’t going anywhere until he turned his career around. Over the last several years he’d been lead detective on four murder cases and hadn’t solved any of them. In fact, he had some of the worst stats of any detective in the city. John knew that finding Andrew Barnett’s killer could give his career the boost it needed; the problem was the investigation seemed to be stalling. The body had been discovered early this morning and in a little over twelve hours he’d gotten next to nowhere. All they had was the preliminary report from the medical examiner. No usable fingerprints had been recovered from the victim’s wallet or from anything else on his person. Although the story was already all over the news—a murder about two blocks from Gracie Mansion was going to get attention—no witnesses had come forward. The talk with Andrew’s roommates had yielded zippo. Andrew’s parents were planning to come to the city tomorrow, but John had already had a brief phone conversation with them earlier today—that hadn’t been exactly pleasant—and they couldn’t supply any possible motives for the murder within their family. In Andrew’s room, investigators had found a recent photo of the young man. They had started circulating photocopies of it around the neighborhood, focusing on the area between Katie Porter’s apartment and Carl Schurz Park, but so far this had led to nothing.

  John entered the Nineteenth Precinct on Sixty-seventh Street ready to be humiliated. Other detectives and cops had been getting on him about his bad stats for months—hell, years. Most of it was playful, good-natured ribbing, like the time somebody left a magnifying glass on his desk, as if using a Sherlock Holmes prop might help him solve a case. Yeah, John had a good laugh over that one. But sometimes they went too far, like a few months ago when Tom Delaney, an officer with two years on the job, said to him, “No collars again this month, huh, sushi man?”

  Some guys might’ve let that slide, but John, whose grandparents and father had been forced to live in an internment camp in California during the Second World War, didn’t put up with any racist shit. He went after Delaney, decking him, and got suspended for a month.

  A few cops and detectives smirked at John as he passed by, but no one said anything until Rich Parkins, who had one year as a detective, came up to him in the corridor and said, “Hey, John, how’s it going?”

  “Pretty good,” John said, knowing Rich meant the case.

  “It’s getting a shitload of media, huh?”

  “To be expected.”

  John kept walking, hoping Rich wouldn’t keep up with him, but he did.

  Rich said, “Hey, if you wanna talk it out, you know, do a little brainstorming, whatever, I’m available.”

  John got the hidden implication loud and clear: He was so helpless at his job that he needed advice from some kid. John was forty-seven, Rich was thirty-two, but still.

  John glared at Rich and said, “Thanks for the offer. I’ll seriously consider that,” then continued through the precinct.

  John was glad that the door to the office of the precinct’s commanding officer, Detective Inspector Louis Morales, was shut and the lights were off. John knew if nothing popped in a day or two, Manhattan North would take over. Given the fairly high profile of the case, he was actually surprised they hadn’t tried already.

  Sitting at his desk, John made some callbacks to Andrew Barnett’s work friends and talked to a couple of Barnett’s acquaintances from college, including an ex-roommate. Then, around eight thirty, an updated report from the medical examiner’s office arrived. Unfortunately it didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

  SEVENTEEN

  Peter was having a very normal day at work. He’d arrived at six o’clock and had spent the morning answering phones and handing out towels, and standing outside, giving flyers to passersby. The latest promotion was a membership of sixty-nine dollars a month, guaranteed for life for the first fifty people to sign up. Peter was in such an upbeat mood that he managed to convince seven people to come inside to talk to the membership consultant, and four of the meetings led to sales.

  “Man, you’re really on a hot streak,” Jimmy said.

  “It’s just luck,” Peter said.

  “Luck, my ass. You know how many people we had handing out flyers? Too many to count. And you know how many times we ran that sixty-nine-dollars-a-month-for-life bullshit? But nobody ever got us four sales in one day off the street—that’s unbelievable. You got the knack, man, I’m serious. So what do you say? You ready to move up or what?”

  “Move up?”

  “To a full-time sales job, baby. It’s nine to five but you don’t gotta
wear a suit. And we pay base plus commission. Big commission, you keep doing what you’ve been doing on the street. You know Sal? You know how much he made last year?”

  “Fifty grand?”

  “Seventy-five. And wanna know the truth, he doesn’t have half the skills you have. I watch you out there, the way you go up to people. You know how to relate, know what I’m saying? Even some stranger on the street—man, woman, it doesn’t matter. They like you right away, and when they like you, they trust you. That’s the whole key with sales.”

  “I am pretty good at it, huh?”

  “Good? You’re freakin’ awesome, man. You can start tomorrow, you want, or next week if you need more time. I mean, not start start. I’m gonna have to train you and shit, but it’s nothing too complicated. Just how to use the software and get you familiar with some of the packages we offer and shit like that. But I’m not gonna tell you how to sell people. I think you got that part all figured out.”

  Peter didn’t hesitate. He told Jimmy that he’d love to be a membership consultant and the sooner he started, the better. The truth was, of course, that he didn’t care one way or another. He’d just been working at the health club as a natural way to be around Katie and he was planning to quit as soon as they were officially together. But, in the meantime, he figured getting the promotion might help him win Katie over. Maybe it would give her the impression that he was a successful guy, a go-getter, a catch. Not that she didn’t have that impression already, but he figured it couldn’t hurt.

  At noon, Peter left for the day. Clean-shaven, with his natural blond hair, Peter felt completely comfortable walking around the Upper East Side. Earlier, on his way to work, and now as he walked downtown, he noticed cops in the area. He had no idea whether this had anything to do with the murder, but he was pleased that the officers took no special notice of him.