by Mark McNease
Linda nodded, trying to look reluctant but knowing from the first words Kyle mentioned of a killer she’d be hooked.
“Good. I emailed Kate already and she’s expecting you at the gallery. Two things: one, what became of the other artists in the show. Their names are here.” Kyle quickly pointed out the names of the graffiti duo, the woman Suzanne DePris, and Javier Velasco. “And two …”
“Whose names are not there.”
“Exactly.”
“Notice the plural, Kyle. ‘Names.’ What if we’re looking at several people here? What if Kate Pride turned down a dozen?”
“We’ll worry about that if it’s true,” Kyle said, closing the catalog.
Kyle looked at his watch and began to eat. He was running late again, but he knew Imogene wouldn’t notice today. She was being honored at a luncheon at the Carlton Suites Hotel, a big deal for someone whose career had been on the wane just six months ago. She’d be consumed with how she looked and what she would say, should she find herself at a podium.
“Have you thought about women?” Linda asked, setting her toast aside.
“Not since … ever, really,” Kyle replied.
“Not like that, silly! I mean for the killer. Isn’t it a little misogynistic to assume a man is doing this?”
“I don’t think Richard Morninglight would make a sex date with a woman.”
“What if he didn’t know?”
Kyle was intrigued, but not convinced. The murders were too brutal, too personal. They had all the hallmarks of a very angry man. “One step at time. Let’s narrow down the possibilities and see what’s left.”
Linda nodded. Her visit to New York City was turning out to be more than she’d imagined. It also reminded her of the things she loved most. Did she really want to walk away from the police force? Or could she do both? Could she run a store named after her father, and be Detective Linda? And what would Kirsten make of all this when she told her? So many thoughts turning around in her mind. She would have to shut them off and focus. Twenty minutes from now she’d be at the Katherine Pride Gallery, looking for answers and needing to think clearly.
“When do we get the police involved?” she said at last.
“They already are,” Kyle said. “They bark up their tree, we bark up ours.”
He winked at her then, not something that came naturally. His father had been a winker, and Kyle had no idea why he’d done it. Maybe his mother, and whatever she had to tell him – mercifully forgotten in the chase – had made him think of his father.
Kyle waved at the waitress for the check. “You finish,” he said, seeing that Linda was barely halfway through her breakfast. “I’ll get breakfast, you get yourself to the Katherine Pride Gallery. We’ll meet after the luncheon. I’ll text you the address.”
Before she could say anything, Kyle took the check and hurried out. It wasn’t being late he dreaded, but the list of things he knew Imogene would already be asking for. Timing was everything, and the timing right now could not be worse.
Chapter 23
Claude Petrie, Esq.
Claude Petrie’s office was at the very top of the stairs in a fifth floor walkup on 41st Street a half block from the Port Authority bus terminal. The entire building smelled like exhaust from buses rolling in from the Lincoln Tunnel, endless lines of them that never seemed to stop. And if you stood on the fire escape, craned your neck out and looked south, you could see the Hotel Exeter. You could also fall to your death, as one burglar did two years ago when she slipped on the ice that had built up on the landing. Her body had gone unnoticed for two weeks; that’s how long it took for the smell of decomposition to be stronger than the small of bus fumes.
To the right of Petrie’s door, which had Claude Petrie, Esq. stenciled on it in chipped black letters, was a dentist who catered to Guatemalans and, to the left, an escort service whose escorts were sometimes seen but rarely heard. Young men for whom wages had remained flat over the last decade and whose appearance reflected the decreasing standards of the service that employed them. Claude had been careful, when under the tutelage of Evan Evans, never to meet here, lest they encounter one of the “models” or overhear an argument about compensation. His relationship with the old gentleman had begun as a favor to Claude’s late father, who, like Margaret Bowmen, had retained Evans for many years. Noah Petrie had no idea his son moved in such seedy circles, and Claude had made sure it stayed that way until Noah’s death, and Evans’s three years later. It wasn’t that Claude would not prefer an office on Central Park South or somewhere in TriBeCa, but this is what he could afford, and most of his clients were quite at home in this environment.
Danny stood outside the door wondering how long ago Petrie’s name had been painted on it and if he would ever have it refreshed. He’d seen a short man who looked to be of Central American stock leaving the dentist’s office with an ice pack held to his face, listening while an older woman hectored him as they walked down the stairs. Danny checked the business card Margaret had given him. While he was obviously in the right place, it just didn’t seem like somewhere old Evan Evans would have spent time. Danny assumed Claude Petrie did the visiting.
After pressing the door buzzer and waiting several seconds, Danny was greeted by Claude himself. There was no receptionist, no receptionist’s desk, and no one else in the office, which proved to be one room. A desk was in one corner by a window that hadn’t been washed in thirty years. Behind it, a swivel chair that looked to be among the first manufactured. On the desk were stacks of manila folders, pieces of paper, two staplers, a phone, and a coffee cup being used to hold pens and pencils. Two guest chairs were in front of the desk; Claude motioned to them as he welcomed Danny in.
“Mr. Durban,” Claude said, shaking Danny’s hand. “I would have been happy to meet you at the restaurant.”
“I enjoyed the walk,” Danny said, in way of an indirect reply. “Gramercy Park to here, it’s a good half hour in foot traffic.”
“Indeed, indeed. Please, have a seat.”
Danny sat in front of the desk and waited for Claude to take his place behind it. A long, awkward moment ensued as Claude leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped together, waiting for Danny to speak.
“I’m going to buy Margaret’s Passion,” Danny said finally and in a tone that did not make it a suggestion.
Claude looked at him a moment, then smiled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Durban, but that’s already been arranged with Mrs. Bowman. I just have to take her the papers.”
“She won’t be signing them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not complicated.” Danny leaned forward, close enough to make Claude uncomfortable. He pulled back from Danny, nearly sliding backward in his chair.
“I know who your investors are,” Danny continued. “At least the one who matters, the one I’m sure is calling the shots. The one you’re going to arrange a meeting with, for me, as a surprise. Linus Hern doesn’t like surprises, this should be fun.”
Claude had gone pale. He slumped in his chair, and even though the office was cool from the spring air coming in its one window, he had begun to perspire.
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information,” he said, “but my investors’ names are – “
“It doesn’t matter who they are,” Danny interrupted. “It matters who they’re working for. We both know it’s Hern, so we can stop this little game of cat and mouse, Claude. May I call you Claude? I’m the cat here, make no mistake about it. Margaret doesn’t yet know what you’ve done or who you’ve done it with. I’d rather not tell her, it could do serious damage to your career, such as it is.”
Claude had slipped into full panic mode. Margaret Bowman was very well known in this town, and very well liked. She could most certainly make his life more difficult than it already was. He flashed on himself being smeared in the daily papers.
“What is it you want?” he asked Danny.
“I want
you to arrange a meeting with Linus, without telling him he’ll be meeting me. This afternoon is fine, say … one o’clock? I can get Chloe to cover while I take my leave from the restaurant early. You know Chloe. She certainly knows you. Just tell Linus you have very important news about the deal with Margaret’s Passion and you’ll meet him at the Stopwatch for lunch.”
Claude’s eyes widened. How could this man know about the Stopwatch?
“He doesn’t like it there,” Claude stammered.
Danny smiled. “I’m sure he doesn’t. So one o’clock it is. And the second thing, Claude, is that you’ll be telling Margaret Bowman in a letter you won’t be able to continue as her attorney. Very sorry and all that, but your workload has gotten just too much. An abundance of riches.”
Claude almost laughed at the barb. He wasn’t about to tell Danny Durban about his gambling debts or the shambles he’d made of his life. He knew that Linus Hern, too, could make things worse for him. He suddenly started thinking of places to go, destinations on a train route where he could stop anywhere and simply vanish. It was coming to that.
Danny stood up. “Don’t worry about the contract with Margaret. My partner Kyle, his mother and I will be seeing another solicitor about that, but we appreciate the offer.”
They hadn’t yet spoken to Sally Callahan about investing in the restaurant, but Claude didn’t know that, and Danny hoped by saying it he could make it so. He stood from the guest chair, declining to shake hands a second time.
“Good day now, Claude. I’ll expect to see Linus at one o’clock this afternoon. I know he’s very punctual. Not from experience, just from his character. Evil is always on time.”
Danny knew he would never see Claude Petrie again and was glad of it. He showed himself out of the office, leaving Claude to wipe at the sweat running down his forehead. Much in both their lives had just changed.
Chapter 24
Tokyo Pulse
“I haven’t been in the top fifty in five years,” Imogene said. “I’ll take forty-seven. This is progress.”
Imogene, Kyle and Lenny-san were gathered around Imogene’s desk while she fretted over the luncheon she and Kyle were attending. It was an annual event recognizing the best of New York women in media. There had been a time in her career when she would have been in the top ten, seated near the lectern and busy signing autographs outside the banquet room, but those days were long gone. She hadn’t even attended the luncheon for the past three years. She’d grown tired of being asked who she was and if she could please provide identification.
“Who’s forty-six?” Lenny-san asked. “Probably that cow from Wander Women, what’s her name?”
“Corrine,” Kyle said, naming the woman who had managed to start a successful YouTube channel featuring New York women’s travel stories. “Corrine Bradlaw.”
Imogene started to say she remembered Corrine when she was just an intern at the local ABC affiliate where Imogene sat at the weekend anchor desk, then she realized it would date her and left it unsaid.
“It doesn’t matter who’s number forty-six, forty-eight, or number one, really, we’re all in this together. Is that what you’re wearing?”
Kyle looked down at himself, sitting in his chair. He’d worn his usual work clothes: khaki slacks, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his wrists. “No,” he said. “I have a suit in the closet for these things.”
“Thank God. You’re my assistant, Kyle, appearances matter.”
Lenny-san nodded, knowing all too well the truth of it. At sixty, he appeared to be what he was: the manager for an obscure, often cheesy, Japanese cable show that prided itself on including segments from America, produced as cheaply as possible. He also appeared to be forty pounds overweight, short of breath after walking across a room, and in need of a good teeth whitener. Leonard Baumstein had been in the business even longer than Imogene Landis. Their paths crossed often over the years but he had never expected to be her boss, which in this case meant joining her near the bottom of the media barrel. He considered himself a short timer now, with only two more years until he could start collecting social security to supplement his various 401(k)s. Then he could take a cruise every summer and spend his days reading autobiographies. Life at the bottom could be good, or at least good enough for Leonard Baumstein.
“I gotta make some calls,” Lenny-san said. “You look great, Imogene. And congratulations. You get, what, a plaque or something?”
“A certificate. Without a frame. These bitches are cheap.”
“Well, if anyone deserves a certificate without a frame, it’s you,” he said, and he turned and headed into his tiny office.
“I might have a story for you after all,” Kyle said when Lenny-san was gone. His tip on the Pride Lodge murders had resurrected her career and gotten her off a financial beat she hated. It was the story that all late-night Tokyo had talked about for a month, and was entirely responsible for her making her number forty-seven out of fifty named in today’s event program.
“More murders I hope,” she said. Then, realizing the insensitivity of it, “As long as no one gets hurt, of course!”
“Of course. No one gets hurt, just killed. Don’t worry, dead people don’t care what you say about them. But I get it. It goes with this business. I’ve run into that with my photography, finding myself in the position to taking a photo of something I think I shouldn’t.”
“Like that guy who got a shot of the man on the subway tracks, just before the train hit him. Gruesome. But great front page.”
“Yes, like that. It’s a fine line sometimes. I felt bad about poor Teddy dead at Pride Lodge, but he was gone and someone was going to tell the story.”
“So what’s the big mystery this time?” She swiveled around in her chair to face him.
“I’m not sure yet, but several people connected to the Katherine Pride Gallery have been killed, and more may be on the way. Which reminds me, I need to make a call.”
He took his cell phone and stood up. He had a landline but making personal calls in an office cubicle always made him self-conscious. Everyone pretended not to be listening when they were.
“I’m looking forward to your opening Friday,” Imogene said. “Lenny-san caved, I’m doing it as a gritty art world after dark piece. The Tokyo audience won’t know there’s nothing gritty about New York anymore.”
Kyle felt his stomach lurch. He had hoped Imogene would abandon the idea of covering his exhibit. It wasn’t news, and the Tokyo kids who so enjoyed laughing at Imogene (something she had never been told but that Kyle knew was among the show’s main attractions) would probably find it pointless. But he loved Imogene and Imogene loved him, and she had dogged their boss to do a short piece about the gallery show. Now she thought it might tie into some murders and get her another salary bump, maybe even a better offer.
Kyle excused himself and walked into the station’s kitchen. It was barely large enough to hold a table with six chairs, a microwave, and the Keurig machine Kyle had bought with his own money. He was a K-cup fanatic and even traveled with their least expensive model. The kitchen was usually empty mid-morning. He walked over to the window where he could look west toward the Hudson and called the familiar number on his speed dial.
“Linda here,” the voice said, answering on the second ring. “You need to unblock your phone, Kyle. You’re one of only two people I know who still has a blocked phone. It might as well read ‘Kyle Callahan’ when you call.”
“I’ll get around to it,” he said. “In the meantime …”
“In the meantime I’m waiting, Kate’s running late, it’s just me and the desk guy.”
He heard Corky correct her in the background.
“Corky,” she said, “more than a desk guy, very available for the right suitor. Does anyone say ‘suitor’ anymore?”
Kyle could imagine her rolling her eyes as she said it. “Listen,” he said, “I just thought of something else.”
“The limp.”
“Yes! How did you know? And please don’t say ‘elementary.’”
“It just makes sense. Maybe she turned down a dozen people for the show, but I’d bet only one of them walked funny.”
Kyle heard more chatter from Corky.
“Oh, sorry. I’m told I shouldn’t say ‘walked funny.’ People who walk funny might be offended.”
Kyle smiled. He knew there were things about living in a culturally sensitive world Linda needed to learn, or that, being Detective Linda, she might reject out of hand, like fretting about language when lives were at stake.
“I’ll remember to ask about the man who walks differently,” she said, “and soon. Kate just pulled up in a taxi.”
“I’ll let you go then. No phone calls until the lunch is over, but text me, I’ll keep it on vibrate. Meet me outside the Carlton Suites at 2:00. If it’s not over by then I’ll leave anyway.”
Kyle clicked off, wishing he could be there with her. The last place he wanted to be was a luncheon listening to Imogene whisper criticisms of the forty-six women ahead of her.
Chapter 25
The Katherine Pride Gallery
Corky pegged the woman as lesbian the minute she entered the gallery. Kate Pride had not told him to expect a Detective Linda Sikorsky, so when she walked through the door as if she had something terribly important to discuss with Kate, he switched to full screening mode. Filtering was part of the job; Katherine Pride was well known in the art world, especially its cutting edge, and plenty of artists tried to get their portfolios to her through improper channels. Pretending they were there for some other reason was a favorite and transparent ruse. It was like impersonating a doorman to give Taylor Swift a CD of your material as she stepped out of a limo. Corky was not easily fooled, and would have none of this “I have to see Kate Pride right away” business. Besides, information was power, and screening people who insisted they had booked time with Kate was one of his best ways of staying informed. To be informed was to have leverage, New York City’s most valuable currency.