I could sense where this was going.
“She married an older man?”
Just then a large tour group walked down one of the aisles and stopped behind us.
“Excuse me,” Ostermann said.
She walked over to the group and was introduced by its guide, a young man wearing a maroon Radio City Music Hall blazer. She spent a few minutes talking to the group, explaining the history of the Rockettes and the mechanics of the audition. It was obviously a speech she made hundreds of times. Then the tourists were allowed to snap pictures of the dancers, who never paused in their workouts. After ten minutes the guide ushered his charges back up the aisle and Ostermann came over to me.
“Sorry about that. Where were we?”
“Sharon’s older husband.”
“Right. I never met him. Sharon invited me to the wedding, which was very nice of her. But we were on the road at the time. Russia, I think. Otherwise I would certainly have gone. Would you believe I’ve never been to Staten Island.”
“Staten Island?”
I don’t even know why I said it. I was on autopilot by then.
“Yes, she married the District Attorney out there, or whatever they call him. I get a Christmas card from them every year. Maybe I’ll take a trip to see her at that. Hell, I go all over the world and I’ve never been to, what do they call it, the forgotten borough. Anyway, that’s where she is. I’m sure you can reach her through her husband’s office. Which is probably what you should do if there are legal issues involved. But I imagine they won’t be too happy with you snooping around Sharon Sullivan. That’s her married name, by the way.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful that my private investigator’s license didn’t list my business address. I don’t know what I would have said if Lisa Ostermann had asked me why a Staten Island detective was having a hard time finding the Staten Island District Attorney’s wife.
“Anything else?”
“One more thing. Where do people go for a drink around here now that Hurley’s is closed?”
She looked sad.
“Try the Pig ‘N’ Whistle on 48th, between Fifth and Sixth.” She actually said ‘Sixth.’ “It’s pretty good, gets some of the old crowd. But it’s not the same.”
“Thanks.” I turned to leave, then said. “I don’t suppose any of these girls will be doing a kick line anytime soon.”
She smiled.
“Not today. I bet you came here as a kid. Sorry, it’s like Hurley’s. You can’t go back.”
The Pig ‘N’ Whistle was no Hurley’s, but since I had missed lunch running around Manhattan turning my case into a hair ball I was easily seduced into ordering one of its signature, if overpriced, hamburgers. Bourbon and burgers is my fallback comfort meal. The bartender was a nice fellow, and our debate about the Yankees’ depleted pitching staff served to take my mind off Laura Lee Litton Sharon Starr Lee Sullivan. But I doubted if he’d remember me the next time I came in. And there was no rhubarb pie on the menu.
I took the subway to South Ferry and picked up my car on the other side. I debated going to my office but figured I had done enough damage to my career for one day and went home. Scar, the feral feline, was waiting for me on my rear deck. Despite the fact that he wasn’t really my cat, he looked at me as if to say, “What kept you, you’re late!” I started to tell him that I was never home this early when I realized I was talking to something with four legs. I went in to my house and opened up three cans of tuna fish. Then I got out onions, celery, Dijon mustard, lemon, sea salt and mayonnaise and made enough tuna salad for both of us. I wasn’t hungry but knew I would be later. At this point any normal cat will rub up against your leg. Scar sat on his haunches staring at me. If he wore a watch, I think he would have raised a paw and looked at it. I split the salad and put Scar’s half in a small bowl. The rest I put in the fridge. I prefer my tuna salad chilled for a couple of hours. If Scar didn’t like the added condiments it didn’t show. He ate steadily and neatly. I took it for a rave, so I also put out a small plate of milk.
I went to the laptop on the desk in the alcove off my kitchen and, in a moment of perverse curiosity, called up the website of the Richmond Register. I had been overseas when the Sullivans were married. I quickly found their wedding story and the accompanying photos, all of which had been given prominent play. They certainly made an attractive couple.
I knew Mike’s biography pretty well. It was all there and nothing about him in the story surprised me. Born in Great Kills. Monsignor Farrell High School. Holy Cross College. Harvard Law. Wall Street corporate lawyer, Manhattan D.A.’s office, Assistant D.A. on Staten Island, and, finally, District Attorney. His bride, Sharon Lee, was described as a native of Kentucky, an actress and dancer who “studied at the prestigious Gotham Theatre of Dance” and became a world-famous Rockette. I figured that the Kentucky part might even be true, given her family’s peripatetic lifestyle. Or maybe she just picked the Southern state that sounded the most respectable. The article said that they met in Manhattan at the Abused Children Consortium, a non-profit charity where they were both volunteers. In addition to the photo of them together, there was a separate shot of the bride in her wedding dress. Laura Lee Litton, a.k.a. Sharon Starr, a.k.a. Sharon Lee, looked radiant and very happy.
I was not happy.
CHAPTER 26 – PERSONAL BEST
I got up before dawn the next morning without any idea of what to do with the information. Just head down to the District Attorney’s office to see Mike Sullivan? I tried to imagine how the conversation might go:
“Mike, it seems that your wife is a former hooker named Laura Lee Litton who bopped the entire 3rd Infantry Division back in high school. Not to worry, she changed her name before she married you and has apparently straightened out pretty much. Oh, there is one more thing. She was doing a Cirque du Soleil routine naked with John Denton around the time he was murdered.”
Since I didn’t expect Mike’s comeback would be, “I know, ain’t she a card,” I decided to go for a run to think things over. It was still semi-dark out when I headed toward the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Randall Manor. I had just broken into a nice sweat when I entered the grounds and began an interior circuit of the property, which occupies 44 acres, a good portion of it wooded. A half hour later I took a break at the pond near the main administrative buildings. Several ducks paddled over toward me expectantly as I leaned against a “DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS” sign that was ignored by everyone. When they realized that I had no bread, they began quacking angrily. Two of them actually left the water and headed toward me. I thought about showing them my gun but even a duck might laugh at the .25 Beretta I carried for jogging comfort. So I hastily beat an ignominious retreat.
I headed back toward home on a dirt road through a long stretch of woods that led out of Snug Harbor. Birds were chirping and squirrels were scurrying up the trees that lined both sides of the path and created a solid canopy. Even during the mid-day sun that stretch of road was bathed in a cooling shade. As it was, the sun was barely up and had I not maintained such a fast pace I might have been chilled. There was no one about and I relished the isolation. It brought back memories of youthful hunting trips with uncles who lived upstate. I will never regret those times – the shivering silence of a tree stand in the snow, the bragging around the campfire, the first taste of venison – but I’ve shot too many men since to ever again find sport in killing creatures that don’t mean me any harm.
The memories were so vivid that when I heard the distinctive report of a high-powered rifle I thought I’d imagined it. Only the familiar whisper of air just behind my neck began to nudge me out of my reverie. I slowed next to a tree on the side of the trail. The second shot, and the bark splinters that peppered my face when a bullet tore into the tree inches to my left, brought me all the way back. I knew that kids occasionally used the woods for target practice with their BB guns but nobody in their right mind would take as much as a .22 into Snug Harbor, bordered
as it is by residential neighborhoods. And that was no .22.
I plunged into the woods and had almost reached the partial shelter of some fallen trees when a third bullet smacked into a tree not a foot from me. Whoever was doing the shooting in the half light was damn good. I dove behind the logs and pulled my gun. So this was how Bambi’s mother felt.
I fired off three quick shots in the direction I thought the rifle fire came from. Another bullet smacked into a log, but nowhere near me. He was firing blind now. I didn’t bother to fire again. I knew I couldn’t do any damage at that range. The .25 Beretta is what the politically incorrect call “a ladies’ gun” and is small enough to fit in my shorts. Mae West probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. I may have to rethink the comfort part of the jogging equation, although I couldn’t imagine what kind of handgun would be useful in the predicament I was in. And going for a run with a rifle is awkward. It tends to scare other runners and attract the police.
But at least the Beretta is loud. I was actually hoping to attract the gendarmes. Between the sniper and my return fire the normally quiet woods of Snug Harbor sounded like the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. Sure enough, I heard the first sirens. I got up and ran, zigzagging and dodging trees, if not branches, adding several more cuts to my face. There were no more shots. The sniper was hopefully making himself scarce as well. I had no intention of spending the whole day explaining to the cops what happened, especially since I didn’t know what happened. Just the fact that I fired my weapon could cause me all sorts of aggravation. In New York that’s a bigger offense than trans fats.
I eventually exited the woods near the north entrance of Snug Harbor. The siren sounds were all south, so I jogged back to my house, avoiding the road that borders the cultural center. That added another mile to my normal workout, the only upside to the whole incident. I was pretty certain the sniper was long gone, but pretty certain is not absolutely certain. For all I knew he was a persistent cuss and was now sitting in a car waiting to finish me off before I reached home.
Winston Churchill once said that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Far be it from me to amend a statement made by the man who temporarily saved Western Civilization, but being shot at by a known enemy is infinitely preferable to being the target of an unknown sniper. Especially when out for a quiet jog.
I don’t know how long my total run was, but, time-wise, it was undoubtedly my personal best.
***
“They didn’t find the shooter and nobody reported a jogger fleeing the area.”
Mac had just gotten off the phone with the cops at the 120 Precinct in St. George, whose patrol area encompasses Sailors Snug Harbor.
“I wasn’t exactly fleeing.”
“I bet you weren’t jogging, either.”
I was sitting in Mac’s kitchen drinking coffee and eating one of the bagels I’d brought. He and his wife, Irene, had recently moved to Oakwood, a few blocks from Great Kills Park, which is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. A couch potato in all other respects, Cormac was an avid fisherman and could often be found casting into Raritan Bay from Gateway’s rock jetties. I’d driven out to see him after the shooting incident.
“Did they ask you how you heard about it?”
“Yeah. Said my cousin lived on Henderson and saw the activity and wanted to know what was up. They didn’t care. Cop courtesy. Everybody has a cousin somewhere.”
“Where’s Irene?”
“Out. There’s a sale somewhere between here and the Mississippi. Where did you get these bagels?”
I told him.
“They’re pretty good. Almost as good as my mother used to make.”
“Jewish mothers don’t make bagels, Cormac. And your mother was Irish.”
“Figure of speech. Anyway, the area cars didn’t find anything. Couldn’t even tell where the shots came from. And since you didn’t report it, I guess you don’t want to tell them where they were going.”
“What’s the point?”
“They may be able to pull a bullet out of one of those trees he hit,” Mac said as he put cream cheese on his second bagel.
“Gee, I forgot to mark them with a yellow ribbon.”
“Any idea who the mystery sniper was?”
“No. But I’m going under the assumption the shooting is related to the Olsen case and what I’ve found out. It’s the only one I’m actively working.”
“It could have been random.”
“He fired at me after I shot back. That smacks of specific intent.”
He chewed on that, and his bagel, for a moment.
“OK. Tell me what you found out.”
After I finished, Cormac poured us both more coffee.
“Want to know what I think?”
“That’s why I bought the bagels.”
“You should have let the sniper hit you.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
There was a scampering sound and a large hot dog slid halfway through the kitchen. Actually, it wasn’t a hot dog, but rather a Dachshund puppy. It slid because it went from hallway carpet to kitchen tile without putting on the brakes.
“What the hell is that?”
“That’s Brutus. We’re dog sitting for Nelson.” The Levines married young and Nelson was one of their three out-of-the-house kids, and the only one married. Mac broke off half the bagel and gave it to the puppy, who, having regained some stability, headed cautiously back to the safer environs of the hallway, looking like it was carrying an inner tube in its mouth. “He and Mary went to Disneyworld.”
“Their baby can’t be a year old.”
“Nelson loves Disneyworld. Goes every year. Hell, they honeymooned there.”
“How are the other boys?”
“Fine. Trying to avoid Irene’s matchmaking schemes.”
I was also on Irene’s “To Do” list, which made me glad she was out shopping.
“So, assuming I don’t take the easy way out and let myself get shot, you have any constructive advice?”
“Well, it’s a fucking nightmare. Ordinarily, I’d tell you to forget everything you know. Sharon Sullivan was shtupping Denton, but so what?”
“You don’t like my ‘moving furniture’ theory?”
Cormac ignored me.
“For the life of me,” he went on, “I can’t understand what she would see in a turd like Denton. She’s not hooking anymore, and for a retired whore she has class. And a lot to lose.”
“We’re both passed the point where matters of the heart surprise us, Cormac.”
“Sure. But that doesn’t change anything. You have information that would destroy both her and her husband. I wonder if Mike knows about her background.” I was wondering about that myself. “Either way, it will crush him to find out about her affair with Denton. And what purpose would it serve now? Chances are Elizabeth Olsen killed Denton, anyway. Unfortunately, you can’t let it drop?”
“Why?”
Mac was right. I wasn’t going to let it drop, but I was interested in his reasons.
“First off, you gave Konrad Olsen your word you’d do everything to clear his daughter’s name. I know you. You won’t let it go. You’re like a Dachshund with a bagel.” Cormac always liked to make things topical. “Second, and we knew this from the start, putting a hooker in that room creates another viable suspect. The fact that she is the wife of the District Attorney fucks things up to a fare-thee-well, but that’s par for the course for anything you’re involved in. Finally, there’s the sniper. If that’s related to the Olsen case, and we can assume it is, then someone doesn’t want you to follow it through to the end. You won’t be safe until you find out who that is and what’s his motivation.”
“Or hers. It’s possible Sharon Sullivan killed Denton.”
Cormac shook his head.
“Does Sharon Sullivan seem the kind of person who runs around the woods with a rifle?”
“She’s a Southerner, so who
knows? I admit it’s unlikely, but she could have hired someone.”
“Too risky. What respectable hit man is going to take an assignment from a D.A.’s wife?”
Brutus padded into the kitchen. He’d learned his lesson in locomotion. Cormac gave him another half bagel, which he decided to play with before he ate it. He pushed it across the floor with his nose and finally trapped it in a corner. When he bit into it, he shook it back and forth violently. For a Dachshund.
“He’s making believe it’s a rabbit,” Mac said. “They bred Dachshunds to chase them into their holes and drag them out. Prairie dogs, too. Great hunters.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “Next time I’ll bring a bag of prairie dogs. But let’s get back to whoever is hunting me. Maybe someone else is trying to head off a scandal that could cost Mike Sullivan the election. He holds a powerful office and there is a lot of patronage involved.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t think it’s someone tied to the D.A.’s office. They know about the prints, but if they wanted to ace you they wouldn’t use a fucking rifle. You’d be shot close range with a silenced pistol and there would be nothing traceable. Cops would chalk it up to mob revenge or overbilling.”
“I don’t overbill.”
“But you get my point.”
I did, and agreed with it. I had briefly harbored the suspicion that the Rahms might want to take me out. With a mole in Sullivan’s office, they would want him to be reelected. But even if I thought Marat or Arman Rahm wanted to stop my investigation, I knew they were, in their own perverse way, fond of me. They’d try to reason with me first. Only if that didn’t work might they send their killing machine, Maks Kalugin, to turn me into a sidewalk stain. It would be messier than the cops might manage, but just as unsolvable. No, my assailant had another agenda.
LAURA LEE (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 2) Page 15