by Jason Starr
Sometimes Peter didn’t bother with the rest of the DVD and played the piano scene again and again. But tonight, in the mood for a slow build, he started watching the film from the beginning. His cell phone was on a stool near the tub, but Katie wasn’t calling. This didn’t really concern him. These things needed to take their course. She might stew for a while longer, but eventually she’d realize how unusual it was to find true love, and she’d come back to him.
He remained in the tub until the scene at the Netherfield Ball, then put on his Ralph Lauren robe and continued watching the film on the larger screen in the living room. He couldn’t take the suspense and he fast-forwarded to the piano scene. Wow, he’d never watched it on such a big screen, and it made “the look” even more romantic.
Entranced by the TV, Peter was making his own pained puppy-dog Darcy expression when he realized that he had an erection sticking up under his robe.
“Shit,” he said. “Goddammit.”
Without touching it, he went right into the bathroom and stood under a cold shower until it went down. His testicles hurt quite a bit because he hadn’t had a nocturnal emission in at least a month or two.
The romantic mood had been officially killed. He busied himself, doing some straightening up and moving the living room furniture around. He was trying to make the apartment seem as homey as possible, but he knew his limitations as a decorator. He really didn’t know what the hell he was doing and couldn’t wait till the place had the benefit of a woman’s touch.
Peter had his cell phone in the pocket of his robe. Every few minutes or so he checked it to see if Katie had called, but for some reason it hadn’t rung. When it got to be past midnight, he knew he wouldn’t hear from her until tomorrow. That was okay. She probably wanted to get in touch but figured it would be too late and she might wake him. For a while, he contemplated whether to just call her and get it over with. She’d probably thank him and tell him how great it was to hear his voice. But he talked himself out of it, deciding it would be much more romantic if she called him to apologize and confess her undying love.
He went to sleep, confident he’d hear from her first thing in the morning.
He didn’t start getting concerned until noon when his cell phone still hadn’t rung. It didn’t make any sense to him. He called Verizon to see if there was something wrong with his service. Maybe he wasn’t getting his messages—that occasionally happened—or there was some widespread outage. But the rep assured him that, as far as she could tell, there was no systemwide problem.
Peter needed to relax. He got into the bathtub, watched part of some movie on the Encore Love channel. He tried assuring himself that she just needed some more time and his phone would ring at any moment, but something seemed very wrong. It was taking too long; she should’ve come running back to him by now. Although he didn’t see how it was possible, he feared that he’d misjudged the situation last night. Maybe it was more than another plot twist in their romance. Maybe she really was angry at him. Maybe she hadn’t called him yet because she didn’t want to call him. Maybe he would never hear from her again.
“Stop it, Peter,” he said, and slapped the top of his head very hard. He was glad it hurt. He deserved to feel some pain for acting like such a fool. Why did he always have to imagine the worst? He was a smart guy—smart enough to know that nothing was ever as bad as it seemed. He reminded himself of the facts: They had fallen madly in love and were going to spend the rest of their lives together. That had to be the focus, not a doomsday scenario that had no basis in reality.
There was no reason to sit around. After all, he was her boyfriend now. He had a right to call her whenever he wanted to.
He tried her cell first and got her voice mail. He didn’t bother leaving a message. Although he’d never called her at her office before, he’d found her work number when he was searching for information about her online and discovered a PR release she’d written. God, had that only been three months ago? It seemed like they’d been together for years.
“Mitchell Kushner’s office. Can I help you?”
He went for a cool, relaxed tone. “Hey, what’s up?”
Silence. Tears were probably swelling up. Her next words would be I’m so sorry. I was such a fool. Please. You have to forgive me.
But instead he got, “What do you want?”
Trying not to seem overly concerned, he said, “I just called to say hi, see what’s up.”
Another pause, a deep breath, then she said, “Stop calling me.”
Why was she acting this way?
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I just don’t want you to call me anymore, okay?”
“But I love you. I want to be with you.”
“Stop it. Just stop it.” Then, almost whispering, she said, “I’m sorry. I think you’re a really nice guy, but it would be better if you stopped calling me, okay?”
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“I have to go.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, Peter.”
“Katie, wait. Katie?…Katie?”
She wasn’t there.
He called back five times, but kept getting her voice mail. She probably had caller ID, was screening his calls. He didn’t get it. Could this really be happening?
He had to talk to her again—right away. He could call from a pay phone and she might pick up, or he could go down to her office, wait outside for her after work. But it all seemed pointless. She sounded like she never wanted to see him again, ever, and if she saw him waiting for her in the office lobby, she’d probably freak and start screaming for security.
He had no idea why she suddenly seemed to hate him so much. He didn’t know where he’d gone wrong.
Unless it had nothing to do with him.
Yeah, that had to be it, there had to be another guy. She had started seeing someone else, or maybe she had been seeing someone else all along, even while she was with Frat Boy. He struggled, trying to remember if she’d mentioned another guy. The only explanation he could think of was that she was screwing her boss.
She always went on about what a jerk he was, and how much she hated him, and it seemed like there was no way she’d ever be interested in him. But she talked about him a lot, and sometimes it seemed like she was even obsessed with him. Besides, in romances, couples often sparred, acting like they had total disdain for each other, when they were actually fated to fall in love. What better example of that than Elizabeth and Darcy?
The more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. “Bitchell” was screwing her, violating Peter’s future wife’s beautiful body. If he was even kissing his bride-to-be, God help him, because at this point Peter wasn’t letting anything stand in his way.
He called the detective, Hillary Morgan.
“Hello,” she said. Her Jack Russell terrier was yapping in the background.
“It’s Peter Wells.” His tone was full-blown frantic and it wasn’t a put-on. “I need you to go back to work immediately.”
TWENTY-SIX
John Himoto finally got the big break he’d been waiting for. He was at Chinatown East on Third Avenue, barely touching his shrimp with snow peas and fried rice lunch special, going over his notes on the case, trying to decide whether it was worth pursuing William Bahner, or it was just another big dead end, when he got a call from Jeffrey Sykes, an officer in his precinct.
“Hey, John, I think I got something for you.”
“Yeah?” John said flatly, unimpressed. At this point it would take a lot more than “I think I got something” to get a rise out of him.
“A bartender at the Big Easy said she saw the vic the night he was killed,” Sykes said.
“She saw him,” John said, “or she thinks she saw him?”
“She says she saw him.”
John, already standing up, his wallet out of his pocket, said, “Where are you now?”
“I’m with her here at the bar. Where are you?”
“I’ll be there in two minutes. Don’t leave and don’t let her leave.”
“Thank you, sir!” the waiter shouted at John’s back as he left.
The bar was so close by that John didn’t bother driving there. He walked down Ninety-second Street, then around the corner to the Big Easy.
It was a large, grungy, no-frills bar that catered to the same demographics as many Upper East Side bars. At night, it filled up with twenty-something beer drinkers, but the daytime crowd was mostly middle-aged, working-class men. Now, on a Monday afternoon, there were several construction-worker types at the bar, another guy playing Skee-Ball, and that was it.
Officer Sykes was waiting near the door.
“When you say two minutes you mean it,” Sykes said.
“That her?” John said. The blond bartender was watching them from behind the bar.
“Yeah, her name’s Mikala,” Sykes said. “She said she’ll talk to you.”
“She’s giving me that privilege, huh?” John said.
Sykes smiled and said, “You want me to stick around, boss?”
Boss. John liked that. Sykes was a smart kid, showing respect for his superiors. You wanted to move up in the force, you had to kiss some ass, get your nose nice and brown.
“That’s okay,” John said. “But, hey, good work. Thanks a lot.”
“No problem, boss. Lemme know how it turns out.”
“Will do.”
John went over to the bar. Mikala was very attractive, definitely a wannabe actress, model type. She was blond, thin, and was wearing jeans and a cutoff T-shirt with the slogan STOP STARING right at the level of her breasts. Like a lot of waitresses and bartenders her age, she seemed to be on the dark side of thirty and had the hardened look of a woman who was sick of getting hit on by drunks and was frustrated that her career wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would. She was probably already thinking about giving up and going back to wherever she came from. He noticed that her mouth was slightly downturned. He would have bet she’d smiled a lot more before she moved to New York and had all her dreams crushed.
John showed his badge and said, “How you doin’, Mikala? I’m Detective Himoto, Nineteenth Precinct.”
She was looking away, avoiding eye contact. “I told the cop everything I know already.”
“Thank you,” John said. “We appreciate that very much. But since I’m running the case, I’d appreciate it if you told me as well.”
She rolled her eyes and then, in a very bored tone, said, “The guy came in here that night at, like, eleven thirty.”
“Why do you remember him in particular?”
“He was fucking hitting on me, that’s why.”
“You get hit on a lot, I imagine.”
“Yeah, that’s true, I do, but he was more persistent than most guys. I brought him his beer and he was like, ‘What’s your name? Where’re you from? Do I know you from somewhere?’ Like he was trying every lame line he could think of. I was like, ‘Look, I’m married, all right?’” She held up her left hand, showing a thick wedding band. “I call it my scumbag repellent. I’m not really married, but it keeps the pricks away, you know?”
John, taking notes, asked, “And you’re almost certain the guy was Andrew Barnett?”
“I’m pretty sure he told me his name was Andy. But, look, like I told the other cop, I don’t want my name in the paper about any of this.”
“I’m a cop, not a reporter. Did he talk to anybody else?”
“Yeah, these two girls.”
“Do you remember what they looked like?”
“One was pretty, had nice hair. Though I think he would’ve hit on anything with tits and a pulse. And maybe the pulse wasn’t so important.”
“What about the other girl?”
“I don’t remember her.”
“But you know there were two girls?”
“Look, I don’t, like, memorize how my customers look. Sorry.”
Thinking, Man, what a bitch, John asked, “How long was he talking to them?”
“I don’t know. Not long—maybe ten, fifteen minutes. But then he tried to pick one of them up.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he asked me for a fucking pen. Can you believe that? After I blew him off, he asks me for a pen? Like he thought I gave a shit and he was rubbing it in my face. I mean, I’m sorry the guy got killed, but he was a total jackass.”
“Is there anything else you remember? Anything he said or did?”
“Why would I remember what some prick does?”
“So your answer’s no.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she said, “Wait, he did talk to some other guy.”
“What other guy?”
“I don’t know, and don’t ask me what he looked like.”
“What did he look like?”
Mikala almost smiled. “I really wasn’t paying attention.”
“Think. This could be extremely important. Was he tall, short…?”
She shook her head in frustration for a few seconds. “I don’t know, medium tall? Definitely not very tall. But I’m really just guessing.”
“What was he wearing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Casual, well dressed, a guy on his way home from work?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about hair?”
“Dark, I think. And I think he had a goatee. Yeah, he definitely had a goatee.”
“You ever seen him in here before?”
“No.”
“How many other bartenders work here?”
“Five. Six, if you count Jake, one of the bouncers. But one, Dan, only works one day a week.”
“You think they’ve seen this guy before? I mean, based on your description.”
“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask them?”
“I take it you never saw Barnett in here before, right?”
“I don’t know, but it was the first time he ever hit on me, that’s for sure. I never forget the real slimeballs.”
“I’m gonna have an artist come down here, see if we can get a sketch of the guy you saw Barnett with.”
“But I have no idea what he—”
“You remembered his hair and goatee—maybe you’ll have more revelations. We’re also going to have to talk to any other employees who were working that night. Was there a manager here?”
“Nicole.”
“I’ll need to speak to Nicole. And what about regulars? Were there any customers, steadies, who were here at the time?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
John looked around. “You don’t have security cameras in here, do you?”
“No, but I know they’re thinking about installing them.”
“What about outside?”
She shook her head.
“Too bad,” John said.
Mikala went back to work and John looked around the bar some more. If he’d gotten this lead the day after the murder, he might’ve been able to find a print, but now that a few days had gone by, finding any physical evidence in here would be highly unlikely.
He went outside and walked up and down the block, checking out the exteriors of each building for surveillance cameras. Unfortunately, the stores directly to the left and right didn’t have any, but the apartment building on the next block had one. With any luck, it had recorded the dark-haired guy and Andrew Barnett passing by on the night of the murder.
John went into the building and got the number and contact name of the security firm responsible for the surveillance. He called right away and explained the situation to a customer service rep. The rep said he’d have one of the people in charge get in touch with him as soon as possible.
“I need to see that video immediately,” John said. “I’ll get a fucking court order if I have to.”
“I’ll
do everything possible to expedite the situation,” the guy said nervously.
“Do more than that,” John said. “I’ll give you an hour or we’re coming down there.”
The hard-ass routine worked. Five minutes later the head of security at the company called John and said the video would be at the precinct by five P.M.
Before the security guy got in touch, John had called in an order for a sketch artist to sit down with Mikala and come up with a composite of the possible suspect. For someone she’d had a casual interaction with, she could already recall more details about his appearance than the average person would’ve been able to. Hopefully, when she sat down with the artist, more details would emerge and they’d get a good sketch of what the guy looked like. Then they could get it in the papers and on the news, and the case would quickly snowball toward a positive conclusion.
Next, John called Nicole, the bar’s manager. It was a 718 number, meaning she could live in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, or the Bronx. He didn’t want to waste time traveling, so he questioned her over the phone. He explained the situation, but unfortunately she had no memory whatsoever of seeing Andrew Barnett, or the other guy, that evening. While he was on with her, his call waiting showed that Louis was calling. John ended the call with Nicole and said to Louis, “I was about to call you. We just got a big break.”
“Yeah?” Louis said. “What’s that?”
“I have a bartender who saw Barnett leave with a guy, probably within an hour of when he was killed. I think she can describe him, too.”