by Blake Banner
“How did he know that?”
“He said he caught her sending text messages to some guy.”
“Did he know these men?”
He shook his head. “He said he didn’t. But I reckon he killed her ’cause he was jealous, and now he’s just covering up, pretending he don’t care. I’ll tell you something, he has a wild temper. He can get real mad.”
I sighed and glanced at Dehan. She gave me a nod. I said, “OK, I think what we need to do now is go and study the file, and we may need to get back to you again after that. Do you still have Celeste’s things?”
Her father said, “Her room is just as it was the day she left. We haven’t had the heart to do anything with it.”
“We may need to go through her things at some point, so if you can just keep that room locked for now.” I looked at Dehan and we both stood.
The old man said, “You should talk to Lenny. He knows all about it.”
“You and Lenny friends?”
He nodded. “Sure. We go back a long way. We grew up in the same street. I was older than him, taught him his way around.” He laughed. “Ask him. He’ll tell you. ‘You know old Sean Reynolds?’ He’ll know.”
I smiled. “I’ll be sure to talk to him.”
Samuel let us out onto Beach Avenue and closed the door behind us. I noticed a cream Toyota pickup truck parked outside the gate. The rain had stopped, but odd, icy drops were still falling from fat, low-slung gray clouds, propelled by sporadic gusts of wind. We walked in silence toward my old, burgundy Jaguar. Rusty, wet leaves had gathered in drifts around its spoked wheels and, though it was only five in the afternoon, the lights were coming on in the windows down the street, and headlamps were reflecting wet across the blacktop.
As Dehan stood by the passenger door, she asked me, “You want to grab some coffee and pull the file?”
I nodded like I was agreeing, because my mind was on something else. Then I shook it and said, “No, I already pulled the file. It’s on the back seat. I want to take a five or ten minute walk down Gleason Avenue and have a chat with Chad. I think we should see just how formidable his temper really is.”
TWO
We walked among the eclectic jumble of clapboard and red brick that is Gleason Avenue, with the cold, desultory breeze creeping around our ankles and feeling its way into gaps and openings in our coats and sleeves. Heavy traffic, homeward bound, hissed over wet asphalt, or waited rumbling in long lines at the traffic lights which gleamed off shiny, wet chassis and lay like spilled, luminous liquid among the puddles.
We went three blocks and came to the Watson Gleason Playground, skirted on all four sides by giant chestnut trees. Opposite the entrance to the playground, there was a large, red brick building. On the corner there was a grocery store, and above it apartments. I pointed at the windows and said, “The only witness Lenny could find lived in that apartment up there.”
Dehan looked surprised. “How do you know?”
“When I pulled the file, I had a quick read.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were getting coffee. I didn’t want to distract you.”
“Jerk.”
We dodged through the traffic and I rang on the bell beside a bright, red door. Dehan was still making a question at me with her face. I smiled. “You were talking to the inspector. I found the file, leafed through it and had a quick look, happened to notice there was only one witness. Don’t get touchy.”
“Don’t cut me out.” She poked me on the chest. “You know it makes me mad.”
The door opened to reveal a plump woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She had thick, black hair in a big halo around her head and huge brown eyes that were itching to laugh. She seemed to be dressed in amorphous brown cloth bags and leaned on the doorjamb chewing gum.
“You cops? I was just going to the store.” She made it sound like ‘sto-wa’.
I smiled back at her eyes and that made her grin. “We won’t keep you. Are you Remedios Borja?”
“Not if you’re gonna arrest me.”
“We’re not.”
“Then that’s me. You got me.” She laughed as though she’d made a joke.
Dehan made a strange face that should have been a smile but wasn’t and said, “Do you remember a couple of years back, you made a statement to the police? It was a murder investigation?”
“Uh-huh. But I don’t remember much. It’s rained a lot since then, right?”
I gave her a warm smile, which made her grin again. “Just tell us what you saw.”
She shrugged. “Not a lot.” She pointed across the road. “It was like nine o’clock, maybe a bit earlier. It was dark. I’d left the drapes open. It was around this time of year, November. It was cold. I dunno, I guess I’d been in the kitchen, whatever, I left the drapes open. So I went to close them. And when I did, I saw this girl just, like, standing, right over there on the corner, near the tree.”
She pointed at the giant chestnut outside the gate to the playground. We both turned to look. I said, “She was just standing there?”
“Uh-huh. I thought at first she was a whore, and that made me mad ’cause we don’t get whores around here. This is a nice neighborhood. But then I thought she didn’t really look like a hooker. Her clothes, her hair. She looked a mess.”
“Can you remember how she was dressed?”
“Oh sure. I wouldn’t forget that. It wasn’t raining, but it was kind of drizzling? And she had on this big-ass old red jacket. I think it was a couple of sizes too big for her, with the hood over her head. And she was standing, with her hands in her pockets…”
I asked, “Which way was she facing, Remedios?”
“Oh, she was facing down toward White Plains…”
“East.”
She grinned. “If you say so. Anyhow, next thing I see, there’s a guy there, and they are talkin’ and he seems to be mad. She looks pretty mad, too.”
Dehan said, “Can you describe him?”
“He was tall, taller than her, anyhow. Big. He had a leather jacket, I think, and one of them woolen hats that roll down? Can’t say more than that.”
I said, “What happened next?”
“Next thing, she’s shouting at him. We got triple glazing, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying. But he grabs her shoulders and starts kind’a shaking her. She slaps him and she turns and disappears behind that big tree there…” She pointed at the second giant chestnut. “After that, I lost sight of them and closed the drapes.”
I frowned. “Did you see if he went after her?”
“Oh, for sure. He definitely went after her. He was kind of half running and reaching out for her.”
Dehan shook her head. “You didn’t think to call the cops?”
Remedios rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me no lecture, sister. If I called the cops every time I see a boy put his hand on a girl, or a girl give a boy some attitude, this place would be crawlin’ with cops twenty-four fockin’ seven. I called the cops when I read about the girl in the river, with the big red coat. You feel me?”
I said, “Yeah, we feel you. Did anybody else see anything?”
“Nobody talked to me about it.”
“OK, thanks, Remedios. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Sure, any time.”
She watched us cross the road through the traffic again and continue west toward Croes Avenue.
Dehan fell into step beside me, watching her boots as she trod the wet sidewalk. She spoke to no one in particular, simply voicing her thoughts.
“So she spends most of Friday and Saturday with Chad. The whole day and the night. She comes home Sunday midday. She and Samuel get into a big row in the kitchen and dad comes in to break it up, but winds up joining Samuel in giving Celeste a piece of his mind.” She looked up at me. “Have you noticed how Samuel calls his dad Daddy? Is that weird?”
I nodded, but I didn’t say anything.
She added, “Especially when they talk s
o much about family. It’s like he never grew up and became a man. Am I being judgmental?”
“Probably, but I know what you mean. Keep going, she gets mad and storms upstairs,” I said. “We don’t know what she does up there, but she doesn’t come down for a few hours.”
“Some time between half past eight and nine o’clock. One thing stands out a mile. She was sick of her father and Samuel, and Samuel had had about a bellyful of her. And I think that goes for her dad, too. He makes a big show of not criticizing her, but privately, I am pretty sure he and Samuel had both had about as much of her as they could swallow.”
I looked at her curiously. “Are you suggesting Samuel killed his sister?”
She stuck out her bottom lip and shoved her hands in her back pockets, then looked up into my face. “No… not necessarily. But I sure as hell wouldn’t rule him out.” She shrugged. “Five, ten minutes after she walked out of the house, she stops at the playground to wait for somebody. A guy who could fit Samuel’s description turns up and they have a row. She tries to walk away and he goes after her. Next time anybody sees Celeste, she’s dead, washed up on the banks of the Bronx River. And…” she half turned back the way we’d come. “She was waiting, looking back the way she’d come.”
“So you think, what? That Samuel phoned her, told her to wait for him, and came after her to continue their row?”
“It’s not an impossible scenario.”
“No, it’s not impossible, but is it likely she would stand waiting for him to continue a row she has just walked out on twice before?”
She grunted.
I pointed up ahead. We were approaching a twenty-story tower block on the right. “This is it, here on the left.”
Chad’s house was an ugly, flat, red brick construction with four sash windows on the upper floor and four concrete steps behind an iron railing and gate leading up to a white front door.
Dehan went in ahead of me and rang the bell, but by that time we could already hear the shouting inside. She had to ring three times and eventually hammer on the wood before thumping feet approached and the door was wrenched open. The guy who wrenched it open was probably twenty-five with expensively cut blond hair, pale blue eyes and a face that was cruelly handsome. He was slim, in Levi jeans and a Columbia University sweatshirt. His eyes flicked over Dehan, then over me, and he said, “What?”
She showed him her badge and I showed him mine.
“I’m Detective Carmen Dehan. This is my partner, Detective John Stone. Are you Chad Norris?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’d like to talk to you about Celeste Reynolds.”
He gave a small sigh through his nose. He gazed at the wall, chewing his lip, then he stared at the corner of the door. He put his hands on his hips and stepped away from us, then turned back. “You know, I’m just wondering,” he said, “what could you do—no, seriously—what could you do to make my day any fucking worse? No, I mean it, go ahead, do it! I mean, my roommate just broke my damned television! I tell him to leave and he starts crying like a fucking girl!” He stared up the stairs, as though he wanted to see if his roommate could hear him. “Can you hear me? You fucking pussy!”
I said, “Mr. Norris, unfortunately, we haven’t got time to wait for you to grow up. If you can’t talk to us now, then perhaps you could come down to the station, but one way or another, we need to talk to you.”
He came down the stairs again and walked toward us, jerking out his knees and blinking. “I’m sorry. You haven’t got time for what?”
I watched him with interest.
He said again, “You haven’t got time for what?”
Dehan looked up at me. “Would you say his manner was threatening, Stone? He looks out of control to me.” Before I could answer, she had turned back to him. “Sir, have you been consuming drugs or alcohol? Have you got drugs or alcohol on the premises? You seem to me to be out of control and somewhat threatening in your manner.”
Suddenly, Chad Norris was smiling. His hands were up and he was laughing “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy there, tiger! OK, OK, why don’t we start again without the attitude. I was mad. I apologize. I was certainly not threatening you in any way!” With a touch of sarcasm, he gestured us inside with both hands, like a waiter guiding us to a table. “How about you come in, and, please, tell me how I can help you?”
I gave him a humorless smile. “Yeah, how about that?”
The house looked newly decorated. A broad, light hallway with polished, wooden floors was laid with a cream carpet that climbed a staircase to the upper floor. The banisters and the walls were also painted cream, and on the left a bare pine door stood open onto a room with white calico sofas and armchairs. Chad made for the stairs with an unpleasant smile on his face.
“Go right on in. I’ll be with you in a moment. I just need to deal with something upstairs.”
The room was dominated by a vast, black, flat-screen TV on a stand. Aside from the sofa and the chair, there was practically no furniture, except for a coffee table piled with magazines and books on law. French doors stood closed, spattered with rain in the failing light, offering a view of an unkempt backyard with an overgrown lawn. Pretty soon, we heard Chad’s voice hollering upstairs:
“You get the fuck out of my house! I don’t give a damn what you do. Just get out! You have fifteen minutes to get your shit together and get out!”
A door slammed and feet thumped down the stairs. Chad entered the room and stopped, smiling at us both in turn. “Sometimes you just have to tell it how it is. Then you feel better.” He gestured at the sofa with both hands. “Sit.”
He sat. Dehan sat in the corner of the sofa. I remained standing by the French doors.
“You want to talk to me about Celeste.”
Dehan answered, “We’re from the cold cases unit at the 43rd.”
“You guys have one of those? I thought that was just on TV.” His smile was amiable, but there was no hiding the sarcasm in his eyes. Dehan carried on as though he hadn’t spoken.
“We’re reviewing Celeste’s case, and we understand that you two were pretty close.”
He nodded at her, still smiling amiably. “What of it?”
Dehan raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? ‘What of it?’ That’s your reply?”
He gave a small laugh. “Forgive me, perhaps it’s all the browbeating we get at Columbia: ‘Be precise! Be precise! What, exactly are you saying?’ But I am not clear exactly what you are asking me. You are correct. Celeste and I were, at one time, close.”
Dehan sat forward with her elbows on her knees and took a moment to study the backs of her fingers. “I hadn’t gotten around to asking you any questions yet, Chad, but when I do, I promise you they will be very precise.” Now she raised her eyes to meet his. “Working on the assumption that you want us to find your girlfriend’s killer, I was inviting you to engage with us and share information.”
“Oh, well, now, see, she wasn’t exactly my girlfriend. We were more like friends with benefits.”
“Not much of a benefit to her.”
He shrugged and spread his hands. “What do you want me to say? Her getting killed had nothing to do with being my friend.”
“Well that’s not exactly true, is it, Chad?” She was studying the backs of her long fingers again. “Because she was on her way to see you when she disappeared.”
He gave his head a quick shake. “Oh, but you don’t know that for a fact, do you?”
I laughed. “What’s that thing you guys are so fond of quoting? ‘The truth is a philosophical concept. Fact is something you can prove in court.’ Well, we know for a fact that she was on her way to see you when she was last seen alive. Now, we have a lot of very precise questions that we would like to ask about that. Like, did she ever get here? What happened when she did? But right now what we would prefer, Chad, is for you to drop the Ivy League attorney act and make like you give a damn that she was killed. Tell us about that weekend.”
He
gaped at me for a while, then blinked and readjusted his ass on the chair. “Well, of course I give a damn. But, you know, it was two years ago. You have to move on, right? But I was really cut up about her death. Ask any one of my friends!”
Dehan smiled sweetly at him. “You have any left from back then?”
He swallowed. His face said he was wondering if he had.
I said, “Just tell us about that weekend, Chad. Try to stick to the truth. I mean the philosophical concept. It has a way of coming out and biting you in the ass if you ignore it.”
I moved and sat on the sofa, and he started to talk.
THREE
“You have to understand that one thing I do not have is time. Law at Columbia is a total commitment. And the people who do not commit fail. It is that simple. Commitment is the base line, it’s what you do on top of commitment that makes you a winner. And what you do on top is sacrifice things that other people take for granted as a normal part of life: parties, girlfriends, evenings in front of the TV, chilling, eating pizza… All that will come, and more. But right now—and back then—it is focus, focus, focus. My dad summed it up for me when I was a kid, and I always remember what he said. ‘Focus is commitment, and commitment is focus.’
“So there is only one way you can have a girlfriend in a situation like this. It’s like the Clintons. She wasn’t just helping him and supporting him, she was there doing it with him. But how many women are there with the focus and drive of Hillary? Right?”
The question was directed at me, but then he looked at Dehan and said, “No offense.”
“None taken. Believe me.”
“So I have no time for a romantic attachment. I have needs, like all guys, but I can’t commit to a woman. So along comes Celeste. I can’t even remember where we met. It was at a club. One of the rare occasions when I went out. She was there and hunting for a guy, and a mutual acquaintance introduced us.”