They were driving up Centre Street and had just about reached Canal when the news came over the radio regarding the attack by women wearing long down coats. Smalley made the connection immediately. He placed a flashing light on the dashboard and turned to her, his face the same mask of imperturbable calm that he seemed always to maintain.
“Sorry,” he said. “I have to go to this. You want to get out?”
“Not on your life,” she replied.
The detective stepped on the gas and the engine roared as he weaved through the uptown traffic and turned left on Canal. He drove the way he did everything, she thought, smoothly and effortlessly, with complete concentration, never out of control. A Google search had disclosed that he had been a three-sport star athlete in high school, as well as other tidbits regarding his background: church, marriage, child. She had surprised him the night at the gallery when she had mentioned in passing his wife’s name, Emily, while they circumnavigated the room.
“You investigate me. I investigate you,” she had said, eliciting one of the rare smiles on the Detective’s face. Such a melancholy man.
“I always wanted to ride in one of these with the siren going,” she said now. The force of the acceleration pushed her back against the seat. Her bright red hair was tossed by the wind streaming in the window. Her fingers, nails painted to match her hair, splayed on the dashboard despite her desire to be as calm as he.
The adventure was over quickly since the incident occurred just a few blocks north of Canal. A police car was already on the scene when they arrived, and Smalley got out and talked to the officers. Dr. Suzy and her camera crew arrived a few minutes later. There was no lack of volunteers for an on-camera interview; although none of those who lined up to talk had actually witnessed the attack, just the women walking north.
Ari approached her when it was clear that Susan had gotten all the footage she wanted.
“You got here very quickly,” Ari said.
“You’re not the only one with contacts,” Susan replied with a smile that indicated she always knew more than she was disclosing. “My assistant got a call. She was sure it was Judith.”
“Judith is doing you favors? What did I miss?”
Susan smiled again, enjoying the fact that Ari seemed so interested.
“This is not for general publication,” she said. “But I asked her to be on my show again, and she agreed.”
“Ellen’s not going to be happy about that.”
“Ellen doesn’t run my show,” Susan replied. “I’ll have on whomever I think my audience wants to hear.”
“Still, I’d be careful with Judith.”
“She’ll be on a short leash, believe me. I am well aware what a little manipulator she can be. You saw the way she kissed Jane.”
“I did, although I can’t say I drew any significance from that.”
“Well, I was watching Maggie at the time and if looks could kill, Judith would be in the morgue right now.”
“You’re very perceptive,” Ari said.
Susan was flattered. She looked around and bent close, whispering to Ari. “I thought I detected something between them the night of the exhibit. It was much stronger today. I mean I wouldn’t say anything. It’s their business, not mine. I’m just a shrink. I see things.”
Their conversation was interrupted as Detective Smalley walked toward them. He nodded politely to Susan. He and Glaser had spoken to all of the WPW board members at least once.
“I’ve finished up here,” he said. “Would you still like that ride?”
“Sure. Thanks.” She turned to Susan as Smalley walked away to his car, its light still flashing on the dashboard. “Detective Smalley was giving me a lift to my apartment when the news came over the radio. Exciting stuff.”
“He doesn’t strike me as that exciting,” Susan said.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Ari said. “After three marriages, sex is not all that interesting to me.”
“Sorry. I guess I have a dirty mind,” Susan replied. “My mother always says so. But I need it for my show. By the way, do you think Detective Smalley might want to come on sometime?”
“I’ll find out if you like.”
“See if he would bring his partner too. The tall blond guy. Now he’s what I call exciting stuff.”
When Smalley and Ari were driving north again, she raised the subject.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so,” Smalley said, after barely a minute of consideration. “Glaser would probably be happy to do it though. Do you have his number?”
“He gave it to me,” Ari said. “But why not you? A little publicity never hurt a career.”
Smalley shrugged.
“Depends what kind, I guess,” he said. A trace of a smile appeared and vanished again.
“Seriously,” she said. “Don’t you want to advance? Lieutenant Smalley. Captain Smalley? Do I have the order right?”
“You do, but I like being a detective.”
“Come on. You don’t want to make more money? Buy a bigger house for Emily? At least get her a maid?”
He had told her how hard Emily worked. How capable she was. What a great mother. Glaser had told her how all the guys in the precinct envied him. Twenty-two years of marriage and Ari was sure that he had never cheated on her, which had to be a world record for cops. And he probably never would. Probably.
Smalley didn’t smile at her joke.
“I don’t think my wife would want to move,” he replied.
He never referred to her as “Emily” when he spoke to Ari. Always, “my wife”. It was another way he had of holding other women at arm’s length. She admired that about him and envied Emily a little, although there was no way that Ari wanted to be a housewife in Sunnyside for a police detective, no matter how smoothly athletic he was, or sensitive.
“I’ll have to talk to Emily myself,” Ari said with a slightly teasing tone of voice. “We women have to stick together. I’ll bet if you were my client, I could make you a Captain in five years or less. You’d be the Superintendent in ten. Fifteen tops.”
He looked over at her quickly but said nothing in response as they drove. His gray eyes stayed on the road ahead. His thin face with the regular features betrayed nothing of what he thought or felt.
He pulled the car to the curb in front of her building. She opened her door.
“Would you like some lunch, Detective?” Ari asked. “I’m a very good short-order cook. Sandwiches, omelettes. Mushroom and cheese is my specialty.”
He gazed out the side window then turned toward her. For a moment she thought he might actually accept her offer. Her pulse raced. A thin layer of sweat formed on her neck and chest. When was the last time she had that reaction to a man? Silly woman.
“Thanks. It’s a tempting offer. But I can’t.”
He smiled his melancholy smile and shook her hand in parting.
“I’m calling Emily about that promotion,” Ari called as he started to drive away. “I mean it!”
At 34th Street, Smalley drove east to Third Avenue then headed north again. Glaser hadn’t shown up that morning although the precinct had received a call from an unidentified female that he was not feeling well. After that, the dear boy hadn’t answered his phone, and Smalley had a pretty good idea what it meant. Glaser had been out drinking last night. When he drank, he got jolly and when he got jolly he saw no reason to stop drinking. With a woman on his arm, sometimes a woman on both arms, he would stagger back to his apartment, a tiny studio in the sixties, east of First Avenue. It was rent controlled; cheap and perfect for a guy like him since, as Glaser said with appropriate comic timing, it was strategically located near the singles bars of midtown and there was room for a big bed and not much else.
The problem came the next morning when, snoring like a bull moose in distress, he was able to sleep through the noise of his alarm and the persistent phone calls of his colleagues, trying to get him going. For that reason, Smalley had been given a key and per
mission to pour a spaghetti pot full of ice water onto Glaser’s sleeping head if he didn’t respond to shouts next to his ear. Smalley had only done that once so far. Glaser hadn’t been hitting the sauce quite so hard lately.
Smalley double-parked his car in front of the building and started up. He was feeling hungry and that made him think again of Ari’s offer of lunch and her “threat” to call his wife. That would be an interesting conversation, he thought, since they were such different people. He really had no way of knowing how his wife would react to Ari. Emily was as intelligent as Ari, although certainly not as well educated; and both obviously had huge amounts of energy. But whereas Ari had devoted herself to her career, Emily had focused on husband, home and child. One child. That was his doing. Emily had wanted more kids. She would have had ten if he had said the word, and she would not have demanded anything more of him than she did now, no bigger home or salary or ambition. The thought nagged at him that one of the reasons his wife worked so hard was that this part of her had been unfulfilled. His fault.
He reached the third floor and turned the key in Glaser’s front door and called out, “Glaser! Hey, are you in there?” Glaser slept naked, and Smalley hoped not to find him sleeping with an erection the size of a freakin’ baseball bat.
The door creaked on its hinges. Smalley leaned against the door and pushed it open a crack. He called Glaser’s name again louder. He wasn’t surprised that his partner did not respond. What did surprise him was the silence. No snoring. No clock radio blaring in the background.
He slowly pushed the door open all the way, using the tip of one finger. He stiffened at the sight that met his eyes and had to turn away; take a moment; breathe and think.
His partner was lying in bed with his hands and feet tied to the four corners. His crotch was a bloody mess.
He took out his cell phone to call for the precinct when the phone rang beside Glaser’s bed.
“Is Charlie there?” a female voice asked.
“Who’s calling?”
“This is Ari Fields,” the woman said. “Is he there?”
“Ari, it’s Andrew. I mean Detective Smalley. Charlie’s dead.”
“Oh my God!” Ari said. “What happened?”
“Either Diana or some copycat—” He paused, took another breath, shoulders heaving.
“Andrew, are you all right?”
“I’m okay.” She had called him by his Christian name.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Wait for forensics to arrive, I guess. They can sort through it. I don’t think I’ll be staying.”
“Of course not.”
“No.”
There was a long silence between them. He thought he could hear Ari crying on the other end of the phone. He closed his eyes. His hand gripped the receiver so tightly his wrist began to ache.
“Andrew,” she said softly. “If you like, you can come here.”
He felt as though every part of him was tied in knots. “Yes,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maggie sat at the front desk in Jane’s office late on Tuesday afternoon. Back when Martha had practiced law, this had been the secretary’s station complete with an IBM Selectric to type briefs, pleadings and affidavits. A relic of a lost era, the typewriter still resided on a corner of this desk encased in its gray vinyl cover, its ribbon as dry as a dead leaf. Allison was the woman’s name. Martha called her “Al”, and she was a very talented office worker with ears like a hawk. For that reason, Maggie believed her meetings with Martha had always occurred upstairs, in the apartment that Jane moved into after her mother’s death. Maggie had appreciated the extra level of confidentiality that the intimate setting conveyed.
Because of the time spent at the courthouse on Maureen’s behalf, Jane had postponed other work, which she was trying to catch up with now. Maggie sat at the “secretary’s desk” with her laptop open and was poring over stories as they appeared on various news sites, reading aloud the ones that referred to Jane. While Maggie did her research, she took two calls from Anthony at The Portal. The last of the Diana chapters had run that morning. Harry didn’t want them to stop. He had lots of ideas for a whole new series. Flashbacks to earlier times? What happened to her afterward? Did she ever fall in love again?
Maggie politely refused, although it was clear that Harry would not be easily dissuaded. Didn’t she need money? Anthony asked. Of course she did, but at this point she felt the cumulative effect of Diana weighing upon her, dampening the mood of optimism that she had chosen to nurture like a rare and very fragile flower.
It was past six. The sun had dropped below the horizon but the afterglow of twilight still illuminated the street. Passersby walked quickly, eager to get back to their apartments and to the people waiting there: children, roommates, spouses and lovers. They carried bags of groceries, bundles of laundry, dry-cleaning. Three weeks earlier, she would have looked at those people with utter puzzlement and, yes, contempt as well, wondering what made them want to put one foot in front of the other—out of bed in the morning, to work, home again, eating, drinking, sleeping, washing and, dressing. She had forgotten what motivated them to keep going, or at least what motivated the ones who had the brainpower to question the routines of their lives. But now she remembered. It was love, and the hopefulness that love brings.
The office phone rang and Maggie answered.
“Law offices of Jane Larson,” she said, in the singsong voice that one expects to hear from a skilled receptionist. “How may I help you?”
She half-turned her body and saw Jane look up. Maggie flexed her hand, shaping it like the beak of a bird and moving the thumb and fingers together rapidly. An amused smile appeared on Jane’s lips, and she shook her head to indicate that she did not want to talk at the moment.
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Larson is in conference and can’t come to the phone right now,” Maggie continued musically. “May I take a message?” She paused and winked at Jane who had returned her attention to the computer screen in front of her. “You saw her on TV and you want her to represent you? Well, I can make an appointment for you. How is tomorrow morning at 11:00? Very good. We’ll see you then.” Maggie started to hang up and then brought the phone back to her ear. “What’s that? Could she see you later in the week instead? I’m afraid not. You see, her lover plans to persuade her to take a long weekend at her country house, where they will work all day and have sex all night. With any luck at all, she’ll be opening an office at their farm in upstate New York. Thank you. Yes, I am that lover. Thank you. I’ll give her your best wishes.”
Maggie held up the phone, from which a dial tone could be heard, indicating that the call had ended long before Maggie’s closing monologue.
“Very funny,” Jane said.
“Who’s being funny?”
Maggie stretched her arms above her head and walked toward the front window, looking out. After a moment, she came back toward Jane’s desk, sliding one foot in front of the other, twisting shoulders and hips vampishly as though she were performing a silent burlesque routine.
“Come on, Maggie,” Jane said. “I just have a little more I want to get done on these papers. I promised Ellen I’d have them for her tomorrow.”
“And we know how Ellen is when she doesn’t get her way,” Maggie responded, imitating Ellen’s deep voice as she continued her walk.
She circled behind Jane and placed her hands on her shoulders.
“Maggie—”
“Tut, tut. You’re very tight,” Maggie said, as her fingers probed the muscles at the top of Jane’s back. “How can you work when you’re so tight?”
“It’s the only way I can work,” Jane replied, although she rolled her head forward and closed her eyes.
“Give me five minutes, my dear,” Maggie said, imitating the voice of a Swedish masseuse. “You vill not regret it.”
Maggie ran her hands across the broad muscles of Jane’s sides and shoulders, kneading t
hem vigorously on the way down her back, then coming smoothly up again. Jane had just begun to relax when Maggie slipped her hands around to her breasts.
“I knew you would do that,” Jane said, laughing. She held her arms tight to her side, trapping Maggie’s hands in their embrace.
“And yet you didn’t stop me?” Maggie replied, leaning forward. She could feel Jane’s nipples through the cloth, firm and aroused. “Oh shit!” she said and quickly stepped back.
“What’s the matter?” Jane asked as she arranged her clothes.
“Someone’s coming to the door,” Maggie said. “It’s Detective Smalley.”
“Do you think he saw us?”
There was no time to answer. Smalley rapped his knuckles on the square of glass in the door and turned the knob, entering the office.
Jane got out of her chair to greet him. Maggie stayed back making a pretense of arranging some papers on the desk.
Jane had been working with the desk lamp on but hadn’t turned on the overhead light as dusk fell. As a result, Smalley’s face was in shadow when Jane approached to shake his hand. One of the news articles that Maggie had read aloud to Jane earlier had mentioned Charlie Glaser’s murder. Jane searched Smalley’s face. It seemed thinner and more drawn than on past occasions. The rings under his eyes were a little darker. But as usual, Smalley did not reveal any part of what he thought or felt about Glaser, about Diana or about two women fooling around in a law office.
“I’m sorry to hear about your partner,” Jane said.
Smalley nodded. “Thank you. He was a good detective.”
“Is it clear that Diana did it?”
He hesitated and a hint of something close to exasperation flashed in his eyes as if surprised that anyone might think Diana had stopped.
“We don’t know yet. The investigation is still going on.” He shrugged. “I’m confident we’ll figure it out. Even if the world has temporarily gone insane.”
A trace of bitterness crept into his voice. He seemed to regret it immediately.
Praise Her, Praise Diana Page 27