“I’m a police officer,” Crawford said.
Tony turned back to the coffee maker but didn’t respond. “Milk and sugar?”
“Black.”
Tony turned back around and put the two coffees on the counter. He punched some numbers into the cash register and told Crawford the total. Crawford handed him a twenty and waited for his change.
Tony counted out the change and put it in Crawford’s hand, grabbing his wrist. “Listen, my friend. You be nice to her.”
Crawford pulled his hand away and put the money in his pocket. He wasn’t sure what kind of response was appropriate so he gave Tony a steely look, one that usually had perps shaking in their boots. Tony surprised Crawford by holding his gaze as Crawford backed away from the counter and out the door.
So, Alison could count an elderly Italian deli owner among her conquests. He’d have to ask her just how serious she was with Tony before investing any more time in their relationship. He started down Main Street and hung a right onto her street.
His cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket, looking at the caller ID: the precinct. He flipped the phone open and sat on the curb, his bag of food beside him.
“Crawford? Moran.”
“Hi, Champy. What’s up?”
“We’ve got a girl here, a St. Thomas student. Came in on her own; wants to help. Her name is…Julie Ann Podowsky.”
Crawford waited through Champy’s pregnant pause.
“Says she had a relationship with Dr. Stark,” Champy said, and by the way he said “relationship,” his tongue rolling around the syllables, Crawford knew what that meant. “She’s a senior; broke it off last winter with him. He was getting kind of clingy, she said.”
Crawford shifted on the curb. “Clingy how?”
“Wanted a long-term thing. She was just having fun, she said.” He paused again. “And let me tell you something: this is a girl who looks like she knows how to have fun. I’m just saying.”
Crawford didn’t even want to think about that; his girls weren’t much younger than Julie Anne and he told Champy so. “She’s someone’s daughter, Champ. Just keep that in mind.”
“Will do,” Champy said. “She’s a big girl, too. She’s gotta be six feet if she’s an inch.”
Crawford looked down toward the river and considered this. None of this was terribly meaningful to him; Ray had slept with countless women, based on what they had learned in the course of the investigation. “Where you going with this, Champ?”
“Guess what her hobby is, Bobby?”
Crawford didn’t have a clue.
“Fencing.”
Chapter 20
Medical technology has become so advanced that I only had my stitches for about a week. Okay, that’s only half true: the wound didn’t warrant them staying in any longer than that. After I got them out, I had a nice scar on my arm. Talk about street cred. I looked like I belonged in a girl gang. If girl gangs counted middle-aged college professors among their ranks, that is.
Crawford and Champy continued to work the shooting, even though, thankfully, it didn’t fall into the “homicide” category. I really didn’t think that I was a target for anyone and went with the “innocent bystander” explanation, but that even sounded thin to me. I didn’t think any of the Micelis wanted me dead but what did I know about the mentality of any of those people? Maybe Gianna still saw me as a link to Kathy’s death and wanted me gone. I didn’t dwell on any scenario too long because I was convinced that I would drive myself mad.
Although Jackson and Terri’s departure gave me great joy, I continued to ruminate on where they had gone. Nothing makes you look more suspicious than leaving town and not coming back. When I tried to think about where they might have gone I couldn’t come up with anything; I really didn’t know them. How do you go from accusing your husband of murder to recanting that accusation to disappearing with the lunatic? None of it made sense.
I had called Rick Felter at Jackson’s office, but he was as clueless as I was. And I was pretty clueless. He told me that nobody had had any idea that Jackson was leaving, nor where he had gone. He suspected that human resources might have more information but he said that they were especially tight-lipped when it came to giving out details. I thought about that and concluded that I would wait for Max to concoct some kind of lie about why I needed information about Jackson and his whereabouts. She works in a corporation and knows the ins and outs of human resources. But more importantly, she also knows how to lie better than anyone I know.
I lay in bed listening to the rain fall early the following morning. Crawford was working a day tour and then was with his girls for the day; I knew that I wouldn’t see him for at least another twenty-four hours. Crawford had given up on trying to keep information from me. At this point in our relationship, he actually had started using me as a sounding board and tossed a few ideas my way every now and again. He told me that he wasn’t entirely convinced that one of Peter Miceli’s henchmen had murdered Ray, and wanted to look into Jackson and Terri a bit more now that they had done the highly suspicious disappearing act. Right now, all he had was that Jackson was well liked and well respected at work and that didn’t really leave him with anything to go on. Terri, he said, was a blank slate.
I could have told him that.
Trixie was lying in the new bed that I had bought her and looked up at me, surprised to see me at this hour. I noticed that she had taken one of my suede pumps to bed with her and that the heel was chewed beyond repair. I gave her a stern look.
“Trixie, what did I tell you about eating my shoes?” I said, giving her a gentle tap on the nose. She hung her head for a split second and then looked up at me again, her tongue hanging out. She looked at me expectantly. “Okay, I’ll take you out,” I said, and went into the kitchen. Crawford had nailed a fancy hook inside the back door which held Trixie’s leash and a flashlight for nighttime walks. I fastened the leash to her collar and went outside, realizing, too late, that I needed an umbrella.
Between the rain and the fact that it was a little after four-thirty in the morning, darkness enveloped the backyard. I switched on the flashlight and shone it on the spot where Trixie had chosen to do her business. I yawned loudly, looking around to see if anyone else in the neighborhood was awake. I turned toward Terri and Jackson’s vacated abode and watched as a dark-clothed individual made his way around the side of the house to the back patio. Trixie peed quickly and stood at attention at my side, waiting to see if the person in the yard adjacent to mine was friend or foe.
I walked toward the hedgerow that separated the two yards and peered over the prickly shrubs. The person in the yard swung around suddenly and trained a very powerful flashlight on me, temporarily blinding me. I put my arm to my eyes. Trixie let out a loud bark, something that I had never heard; she sounded very, and uncharacteristically, menacing.
“Police, ma’am,” the flashlight owner called out to me. He swung the flashlight to the ground and approached me holding out a badge.
I patted Trixie’s head. “It’s okay, Trix,” I said, keeping the hedgerow between me and the cop. After all, I was still in my pajamas; no need to get arrested for indecent exposure. “What’s going on?” I asked him.
He didn’t respond directly to my question. “Is there anybody in this house?” he asked, swinging his flashlight in the direction of Terri and Jackson’s house.
I shrugged. “I think they left. There hasn’t been anybody there for several days.” Trixie tensed again, and I rubbed the top of her head. “Why?”
“A 911 call came from inside,” he said, a bit perplexed. “But if there’s nobody living there, then that’s impossible.” As if to punctuate his puzzlement, he took off his hat and scratched his head. “Happens sometimes. The system gets quirky when it rains.”
Well, that’s comforting, I thought. I hoped I never needed a cop during a thunderstorm. “Did you look around?” I asked, the rain beginning to soak through my pajamas.
So I’ve heard. Well, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, I thought, not as content with the quirky-system explanation. I looked over at the house. It certainly seemed empty. I watched the cop amble down the driveway, spend a few minutes in his car, and drive away. I looked down at Trixie. “Are you done?” I asked, and she stuck her nose into my butt. I took that as a yes and went back inside.
“So, what do you think, Bobby? Bobby?”
Crawford looked up from the stack of papers on his desk and turned toward Champy. “What?”
“Diamond stud earrings. For Patty.”
Crawford grunted. The precinct was quiet at five in the morning on that Saturday and he was hoping to get some of his paperwork done. It was another one of those Saturdays when he wouldn’t be with the girls. Christine had taken them to an all-day swim meet somewhere in Connecticut, so he had decided to come in and do some paperwork in peace; once he saw Champy saunter in, all hope of a quiet morning was gone. “Good.”
“Have you heard anything I was saying?” Champy asked.
“Not really,” he admitted. “Did it have anything to do with fellatio?”
“No. She hates Cuban food,” Champy said.
Crawford sighed. “Blow jobs, Arthur. Did it have anything to do with blow jobs?”
Champy smiled. “Guilty as charged.”
“Then I didn’t really miss anything, did I?” Crawford said. He stood and refilled his coffee cup from the pot next to Champy’s desk. “Did you review the notes on the neighborhood canvass on the Stark case?” he asked, leaning back against the desk that the coffeemaker sat on.
“Nobody seen or heard nothing,” Champy said. “It’s Van Cortlandt Park, Bobby. Unless you had some middle-of-the-night lovebirds, or someone cruising on the down low, you ain’t gonna get nothing.” He smoothed his tie down. “I’m just saying.”
“You’re just saying,” Crawford muttered, and made his way back to his desk. He sat down and looked around for the file for Ray Stark’s case.
“Champ, who has the Stark file?” Crawford asked when he couldn’t find it.
Champy picked a file out of a giant stack on his desk and tossed it over to Crawford. Crawford caught it before the papers inside came spilling out. He reread the interview with the fencer, Julie Anne Podowsky, and came away even more convinced that she had had nothing to do with Ray’s death. He wasn’t sure why she came in exactly, but he didn’t dwell on that too much. Champy, on the other hand, saw her as a viable suspect and kept bringing her name up.
“So, what do you think about the diamond studs?” Champy asked again.
“They couldn’t hurt, Champ,” he said. “Does she like jewelry?”
“Are you kidding?” Champy asked. “She loves jewelry.”
“Then that’s a step in the right direction,” he said.
Champy walked over to Crawford’s desk and leaned down on it, hovering over Crawford. He dropped his voice to an almost-whisper, despite the fact that they were the only two people present in the squad. “Tell me. How do you get some?”
Crawford wiped his hands over his face and let out a loud sigh. “Some what?”
Champy shrugged. “You know.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down, signaling that the carnal conversation was still in full swing.
“I don’t get a lot, Champy, so I’m probably not the right person to ask.”
“You? I can’t believe that.” Champy snorted. “You’re a big, good-looking guy…what’s the problem?” He paused for a moment and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not…you’re…” he started, dropping his hand at the wrist.
“Gay, Arthur? Am I gay? No, I’m not gay,” he said.
“I’m just saying…”
“Yeah, well, go say it somewhere else,” Crawford said, riffling through the old file, hoping Champy would get the hint and return to work. Crawford kept his eyes on the file, hoping to see something that would pique his interest about Julie Anne. There really wasn’t anything there; all they had was a scared twenty-year-old girl who thought her parents would find out that she had slept with a professor if she didn’t come to the police first to give a statement.
Poor kid. She was scared to death. And she was under the mistaken impression that whatever she said to the police was kept in the strictest confidence, much like a confession to a priest. Champy had disabused her of that notion, making her the most frightened girl on the St. Thomas campus now. Crawford was sure of that.
Crawford’s phone rang. “Crawford. Fiftieth Precinct.”
Champy’s voice came over the line, still in a whisper. “Because you know, you could tell me if—”
Crawford slammed the phone down with so much force that a piece of plastic flew from the receiver and onto the radiator cover next to his desk. The phone began ringing again immediately, and although he was happy to hear Alison’s voice, he wasn’t so happy to hear what she had to say.
Chapter 21
I went back into the house and called the Fiftieth Precinct. My plan was to leave a message with one of Crawford’s colleagues; I was surprised to hear his voice, sounding cranky, tired, and exasperated. I hoped that my propensity for being involved in murder investigations wasn’t taking a toll on our budding relationship, but it had to be getting old.
“Crawford! Fiftieth Precinct!” he screamed into the phone.
“Crawford?”
“Oh, hi. I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s early. Is everything okay?”
I described my early-morning walk with Trixie, the cop next door, and the 911 calls. “Is it strange to you that the cop just left?”
“That’s a career-ending move if I ever heard one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in a couple of days, say you smell a suspicious odor coming from the house and the cops go in, only to find a decomposing body with a finger on the phone keypad?” he asked. “Trust me. The captain would fire that cop’s ass for not following up on a mysterious 911.”
“Gross.”
“That’s the sort of thing you don’t blame on a screwy 911 system. That’s the sort of thing you break doors down for.” He looked at his watch and then at the stack of files on his desk. “Listen. Don’t do anything. I can’t come over until late tomorrow. I’ve got to pick up my girls tonight and I don’t want to be late.” He let out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Please don’t do anything. Please.”
“Okay,” I said, hesitantly.
“Promise me,” he said.
I waited a few beats. “Fine. I’ll wait for you.”
I am a lousy liar.
I stood in the kitchen, still pajama-clad, considering my options. I could wait for Crawford, but his estimated arrival time was two days from now. I could focus my attention elsewhere—like the junk drawer in my bathroom vanity—but that would only occupy an hour or two after I threw out all of the old hair twisties and unused mascara samples. The choice seemed simple. I would go and look around the house now, before the sun came up and Bagpipe Kid, faithful practitioner of all things requiring hot air and bellows, began his morning vespers.
I looked at Trixie. “Not one word of this when Crawford comes over.”
She looked at me in adoration.
“Yes, I’m pretty amazing, Trixie, my girl, but you have to promise me. We must make a solemn vow.”
She barked enthusiastically in response.
“I’m not kidding. Any Crawford butt sniffing or whining to indicate that I wasn’t true to my word and we’re done.” She stared back at me, her head cocked to the left; it was the same look Crawford got when I made a joke he didn’t get. I shook my head. “Shit. I’m trying to extract promises from a dog.” I opened the back door. “I need to get laid.”
It was still fairly dark and the mist had changed into a heavier, steady rain. Once again, I was outside with the wrong footgear (slippers) and no coat or umbr
ella; I attributed this lack of planning on failure to drink coffee before beginning reconnaissance. I tiptoed across the minefield of puddles and pools of mud until I hit the macadam of my driveway. I peered down to the street and was confident that the cop who had been snooping around had returned to Dunkin’ Donuts or wherever it was that suburban cops went when there was no action (which was most of the time). I mused on this momentarily, wondering if I should cover my body in powdered sugar to get back in Crawford’s good graces, and finally snapped back to reality when I felt the water flowing into my slippers.
I went into Jackson and Terri’s backyard and approached the big picture window that exposed their family room, complete with cathedral ceiling and wide-screen television. And there, right where they had left it, was the parasol and toadstool wedding portrait. I shuddered when I saw it again.
They had a classic McMansion and I hated unoriginal architecture; I knew that if I could gain access, I would know exactly where everything was, roomwise. I put my face up to the window and pressed my nose against the glass, leaving a lovely nose print from which some crime scene investigator would be able to get a perfect match, if nose printing was a new form of crime scene technology. I hastily rubbed it off the window, leaving giant, albeit smudged, fingerprints on the glass. Besides the unorthodox and inappropriate outdoor footgear, I really wasn’t prepared to be a peeping Tom.
After examining all I could from my position on the back lawn outside the family room, I ascertained that all looked well in that part of the house although I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find. I walked around the perimeter of the house and was unable to see into any of the other rooms; Terri was big on ornate, elaborate window treatments and they obscured my vision of any of the other rooms.
I went back around to the backyard once I was content that the perimeter was secure. I didn’t have the clothing or ability to be a second-story man, so I walked far back into the deep backyard and looked up at the second floor of the house where, presumably, the bedrooms were located. Staring up, my face turned into the falling rain, I focused on where I suspected the master bedroom might be; a garden window next to a bank of windows suggested the master bath. It was only a flicker, a moment, but I thought I detected a shadow moving among the darkness of the bedroom. I turned to stone.
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