I remained on the lawn, my slipper-clad feet sinking deeper and deeper into the muddy sod. I continued to look at the window but didn’t detect any other movements; my neck became stiff and I finally changed positions. I pushed my wet hair off my face and thought about my options for the second time that morning. I decided that calling Crawford—despite the consequences—was my best course of action. If the cop that had answered the 911 call earlier was any indication of the caliber of officer on the crack DF police force, I was in trouble.
I gingerly made my way back to my own house, kicking off my muddy slippers when I entered the back door. Trixie came running and took both slippers in her mouth, her tongue rolling around them like they were a fragrant and delicious foie gras. I called Crawford again.
“Fiftieth Precinct. Detective Arthur Moran speaking.”
“Good morning, Detective. This is Alison Bergeron. Is Detective Crawford available?” I assumed that I was speaking with my old friend, the infamous Champy. Now I knew why Crawford was so cranky when I called earlier; Champy got on his last nerve.
“I believe he went to see a man about a horse, Ms. Bergeron.”
Huh?
“The latrine, ma’am. He’s in the head.”
“Oh, okay.” This guy was on another planet.
“He didn’t take his newspaper, so I don’t expect he’ll be long.”
Yuck. Talk about too much information.
“Would you like to hold?” Moran asked.
This would be a great time to get some information. “Uh, no. We can chat,” I said sweetly. “What’s going on with the case?”
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Not too much. But we did meet one of your students from St. Thomas.”
“Oh, really? Who?”
“Julie Anne Podowsky? Know her?”
Know her? Sure do. “Uh, a little.” But I call her Miss Blurry Tattoo Ass.
“Came in on her own. Seems she and Dr. Stark were doing the horizontal mambo.”
The what? Ohhh. I played along. “Really?”
“Yep. And guess what else?”
“What?”
“She’s a fencer.”
I think I had heard that once but had forgotten that little detail. I wasn’t entirely sure what it had to do with anything, not really picturing someone hacking off someone’s hands with a long fencing sword, but Moran seemed to think it had merit. Had he noticed that she could probably crack walnuts with her thighs? That, to me, was more compelling.
When I didn’t reply, he spelled it out. “Swords?”
I tried to sound convinced. “Right!” I wondered who was going to tell him that foils and épées aren’t sharp. But he sounded elated at this new development and who was I to ruin his good mood?
“So, anyway, that’s where we are. Hey, can I put you on hold for a minute? I’ve got another call coming in.”
“Sure.” I sat chewing the skin on my thumb until Crawford came on the line, about thirty seconds later. He startled me with a gruff greeting and I tore off a thick patch of skin from around my nail, blood erupting on the surface. “Hi,” I said. “Everything come out okay?” I asked, using a joke my father used to love.
“What?” he asked.
“I hope I didn’t get you at a bad time.” I put my thumb in my mouth and attempted to stanch the flow of blood.
“It’s always a bad time when a special someone is around,” he said, sotto voce. “If you get my drift.”
I cut to the chase. “Crawford, there’s someone in that house.”
“And you would know that how?” he asked, irritation creeping into his normally calm voice.
“I went over there.” I took my thumb out of my mouth and wiped the blood onto my pajama pants. “I didn’t break in or anything. I just did a survey of the perimeter.”
“‘A survey of the perimeter’?” he asked. “Leave the crime scene talk to the professionals.”
I rolled my eyes. Will do, Detective Pissy Pants. “Do you think I should call the Dobbs Ferry police again?”
“Uh, yes,” he said, as if I were a complete moron. “I told you not to go over there, didn’t I?”
“You did, but—”
“But what?”
“You know what? Go back to work. You’re cranky and I can handle this myself.” I sucked on my bloodied thumb again. “Call me when you’re in a better mood if you want to know what happened.” I began to put the receiver back on its cradle but heard his voice calling me.
“Wait!” he said.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“I’ll come over later. I’ll bring the girls with me.”
I looked at my thumb, blood still pooling around the cuticle; this was going to hurt like a mother later. I hoped one of his kids was premed-bound because I’d be comatose from loss of blood by the time he got here. I walked over to the back door and peered out; the rain was still falling and the sun didn’t seem to want to make an appearance. All seemed quiet next door as I half listened to Crawford blather on about the schedule of events for his day. I fixed my gaze on the door of the detached garage of Jackson and Terri’s house.
“…and that’s if we don’t catch any cases,” he said.
“What?” I asked, realizing I had missed his entire monologue about a day in the life of Detective Crawford. Scintillating stuff. I focused on the window of the garage door, seeing movement behind the glass.
“I was just…”
“There’s someone in the garage,” I said.
“…and that’s if we don’t catch any cases,” he repeated. He paused. “What did you just say?”
The door to the garage began to rise slowly and I stood in the window, mesmerized by its slow and steady progress. A plume of smoke emerged from the car idling behind the half-closed door. “There’s someone in the garage.” I squinted in order to get a better look. “Someone’s in that garage and the door is opening.”
“Stay in the house, Alison, and just tell me what you see,” he said.
But I had other plans. I hung up without saying good-bye and went searching for a pair of shoes, decided that I didn’t have any on the first floor of my house, and stole my saliva-soaked slippers from Trixie’s mouth. I ran back into the kitchen in time to see a small red car exiting the garage, slowly, in reverse. I grabbed my keys from the counter, letting out a little shriek as the phone began ringing—Crawford, I presumed—and left the house, running across the sopping grass of the backyard. I hit the key pad and unlocked my car doors, at the same time trying to get a look at who was driving the car. The rain and darkness conspired against my making an identification, so I contented myself with backing down the driveway at fifty miles an hour, hoping to catch the car, which had picked up speed on the straightaway of my block.
I spied my cell phone on the passenger’s seat next to me and I turned it on. Moments later, it began ringing.
“Hello?” I said, making a left turn onto Broadway, keeping a safe distance from the red car. I’m sure whoever was driving knew that I was tailing them because when we approached Route 9 the driver ran the red light at the corner and took a hard left.
“What are you doing?” Crawford asked, none too pleased. “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”
“Crawford, whoever this is, I’m not letting them get away.” I sped up as we approached the light at the Stop & Shop and sailed through as the light went from yellow to red. I couldn’t drive like Jeff Gordon and talk to Crawford, so I put the phone back on the passenger seat and both hands on the wheel. Ashford Avenue led straight to the Saw Mill River Parkway, winding through a residential and business area; I continued behind the red car, speeding along, hoping that I wouldn’t lose whoever this was once we hit the highway. I looked at my speedometer and saw that I was going sixty miles an hour in a thirty zone and hoped that all of the cops were either asleep at the station house or getting their morning coffee. If I got pulled over I would (a) lose the driver in the red car, (b) get a h
efty summons, and (c) be exposed as being dressed only in pajamas. I sped up and was now tailgating the red car, still unable to identify anyone at the wheel.
We approached the light at the Saw Mill and the red car surprised me by blowing right by the highway and driving straight, heading down the hill toward the next light and the center of Ardsley, the town next to Dobbs Ferry. I stayed with whoever it was, in the center lane, until the driver took a sharp right and headed toward the thruway. We headed south on the thruway, and the red car blew through the toll plaza’s E-ZPass lane, not slowing down (as recommended) to the fifteen miles an hour posted. I did the same, not noticing the state trooper waiting for me on the shoulder.
I heard the trooper before I actually saw him. I had just passed the exit for Home Depot when I heard the sirens and looked in my rearview mirror. The red car sped up and pulled out of sight in that instant and I realized that the jig was up, so to speak. I drove a bit past the exit, slowed down, and pulled over onto the shoulder, banging my head on the steering wheel. “Stupid.” I realized that my cell phone was still on the passenger seat and that Crawford might still be on it. I picked it up while I waited for the trooper who sat in his car, probably running my plate. “Crawford?”
“Yes?” he said, preternaturally calm. “Is that you, Lucy?” he asked, doing his best Desi Arnaz impression. Not funny.
“I just got pulled over.”
“Big surprise.” I could hear him sighing over the lousy connection. “NYPD or State?”
“State.”
“You’re dead,” he said. “The only trooper I know retired last year. Where are you?”
“Stew Leonard’s.” I looked in my mirror again and saw the trooper sitting in the front seat, looking down. I could feel the sob starting in my chest and took a couple of deep breaths. “What should I do?”
“Cop a plea,” he said and started laughing.
“This is not funny, Crawford.” I bit my lip. “He’s coming. I have to hang up.”
“Tell him that I—” I heard him say before I flipped the phone closed and put it on the seat beside me.
The trooper tapped on my window, surprising me with the speed at which he had arrived, and I hit the roll-down button. He was a chiseled-jaw Ken doll, kind of cute in a plastic-doll kind of way, with intense blue eyes and, apparently, no sense of humor. His gun was drawn and hanging down by his side. To me, it didn’t look like your standard traffic stop, but how menacing could a woman in pajamas be? Judging by his behavior, very. “License and registration, ma’am.”
I didn’t have either one with me and had to confess that.
“Step out of the car, ma’am.”
I let out a little laugh. “I’m in my pajamas.”
He didn’t seem to care. The trooper stood next to the car, stone-faced, waiting for me to follow his order. When I got out, he asked me to place my hands on the hood of the car. The rain was heavier than when I had left the house and I was soaked instantly. The trooper began patting me down, and unlike my fantasies about being frisked, it wasn’t exciting at all.
It was starting to dawn on me that perhaps I was under arrest.
Crawford sat on the edge of his desk, facing away from the squad room, eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut from the box that Carmen had brought him when she arrived in the squad a few minutes earlier. Champy had gone out with a young detective to interview a witness in a homicide from the day before and, once again, things in the squad were quiet. He hadn’t heard from Alison in the last two hours and all of his calls to her cell phone went directly to voice mail. He felt guilty that he had laughed when she had sounded so nervous; it was apparent that something had happened since their last conversation. He ate the rest of the doughnut—his third—in one bite and dug into the box for another one.
“Easy, big fella,” Carmen said, noticing his excessive eating. She was at her desk, typing a “five” at her ancient computer. “She’ll call.”
He swung around. “Where do the Staties take you for questioning?”
Carmen shrugged. “Don’t know. Where was she when you last spoke?”
“She said that she was at Stew Leonard’s. I don’t even know who that is.”
Carmen laughed. “Not who, baby. What.” She stood and tottered over to his desk. Today, her sizable backside was packed into a pair of skintight black pants and four-inch high-heeled boots were on her feet. The buttons of her shiny red top strained across her bosom and she pulled the tail of the shirt down over her hips. “It’s a giant grocery store in Yonkers. Right off the thruway. You know, right after the fifty-cent toll?”
“Right,” he said.
“You think they took her in?” she asked, grimacing.
He nodded.
She exhaled loudly. “That can’t be good. Those Staties got no sense of humor. And you can’t reach out to them, they’re so fucking insecure, thinking you’re going to steal their collar or whatever.” She perched on the edge of his desk. “What makes you think they took her in?”
“Well, she was speeding, she probably didn’t have her license or registration, and God knows what she said when she got stopped. I think they took her in. You know how they are.” Crawford worked on his doughnut, licking powdered sugar off his thumb. “I have no idea where they would take her, though. Any ideas?”
“Not a clue,” she said. “I’ll call Ricardo and see what he can find out,” she said, picking up Crawford’s phone and dialing her husband. She put her hand over the receiver. “His cousin Javier has been a trooper for the last couple of years. Dios mio,” she said, fanning herself. “What a gorgeous man, that Javier. That man is built like a brick sh—” Ricardo must have picked up because her tone changed in an instant. “Hey, honey.” She explained Crawford’s situation, waited a moment and then hung up. “He’ll call us right back.”
Crawford finished the doughnut and took another one from the box. He held it out to Carmen. “Want one?”
“Trust me, Crawford. That will look better on your hips than mine.” She put her hands on her hips and wiggled from side to side before returning to her desk and resuming her typing.
Crawford sat at his desk and ate the doughnut slowly, washing down the remnants of it with his sixth cup of coffee. He hoped the doughnut would absorb some of the caffeine in his system, not taking into account how much sugar he had eaten. He opened the Stark case file again and looked at the crime scene photos from both the park and Alison’s house.
In the background, he heard Carmen talking on the phone in Spanish. He recognized a few words and determined that she was probably speaking with Ricardo and not on a business call.
After a few minutes, she said, “Muchas gracias, baby. I’ll see you later.” She pulled a piece of paper off her legal pad, the noise startling Crawford. She threw the piece of paper on his desk. “She’s at the barracks at the junction of the Saw Mill and 9A in Hawthorne. Do you know where that is?”
He grabbed the paper. “I’ll find it.”
“Hey, what do you want me to tell Concannon?” she called after him.
Crawford stopped in his tracks. Good point. He turned slowly. He had used up his “get out of jail free” with Concannon a long time ago and didn’t want to push his luck. “I don’t know.”
She looked at him, her black eyes twinkling. “Get going. I’ll figure it out. Maybe I’ll give him a lap dance,” she said, laughing. “That ought to throw him off. Hell, it will probably put him in the hospital.” The phone on Crawford’s desk began ringing and she went over and picked it up. “Fiftieth Detective Squad. Montoya.”
Crawford watched her face for some indication of who it might be and whether he should wait. She held up one long, red-lacquered fingernail, indicating that he should wait. Finally, she held the phone out to him. “Alison.”
Chapter 22
I sat in the barracks of the New York State Troopers, in my pajamas and slippers, looking like a sad homeless person who had been picked up on the side of the road. The only differenc
e between me and a sad homeless person was that they probably wouldn’t be handcuffed to the chair on which they were sitting. I sat in the room, alone, watching people go past the window in the door, hoping that I would recognize one of them sooner or later. My stomach growled from hunger, but it was obvious that I wasn’t getting anything to eat in the near future.
I heard a loud voice, not unlike Crawford’s, coming from outside the room and the door burst open suddenly. A short, pudgy man with eyes and coloring similar to Crawford appeared, his long-sleeved polo shirt half-tucked into khaki pants; he was swinging a beat-up leather satchel. He was Crawford after a whirl in a food processor—same features, but lost in the fat of his face. Everything was compressed and rearranged. “Hey,” he said, holding out his hand. “Jimmy Crawford. I’m your lawyer.”
“Hey,” I said back, waving my uncuffed hand. “I can’t shake right now.”
His face turned hard. “They’ve got you cuffed?”
I pointed with my good hand to my cuffed hand, attached to the metal chair on which I sat.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said, and exited the room. Moments later, he returned with the state trooper who had pulled me over. The trooper knelt beside me and uncuffed me, without speaking a word. I didn’t think he was so cute anymore. He gave Jimmy a look as he prepared to exit and it wasn’t the “pleased to meet you” look.
“You ever hear of professional courtesy, son?” Jimmy asked.
The trooper stopped and turned to stand over Jimmy, at least a head taller. The scene resembled a terrier squaring off with a Doberman, but my money was on the scrappy ratter, aka my new lawyer. Crawford had told me that his brother was an experienced attorney and quite the legal mind. When I called him with my sanctioned one phone call, he said he would call Jimmy instead of coming himself, given the circumstances of my situation.
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