by Carrie Smith
The title meant nothing to Haggerty. “You were by yourself the whole time?”
Stephanie nodded.
“And no one saw you?”
“Playing the organ? I don’t know. They might have. I wouldn’t have heard or seen them way up there in the loft.”
“Did you see anyone while you were playing the piano?”
“Some guy poked his head in for a second.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe him,” Haggerty said.
“I didn’t get a good look at him. He just peeked in, and then he was gone.”
“What time was that?”
“I’m sorry.” She gave an apologetic look. “I kind of lost track of the time.”
“You said you got to the church at eight. Did you enter on the south side?”
“Yes.”
“So you would have passed the Community Room and the Blue Lounge on your way to the choir loft?”
“That’s right.”
“And did you see any of the vestry members or the rector when you came in?”
“No, but I saw the janitor. I think his name is Mr. Curtis. He was sweeping the floor in the Community Room. The door to the Blue Lounge was shut.”
Haggerty made a note. “Did you see anyone else inside or outside the church?”
She shook her head.
“How do you get to the choir loft?”
“There are several ways to get there. I took the staircase on the left side of the nave. It leads to the second floor, and from there, you take a smaller set of stairs to the loft.”
“And once you went up those stairs, you never came down to the first floor again?”
“Not until those two police officers escorted me down.”
Haggerty stared at the close-shaved side of her head, the blue tints in her hair, and the huge hoops in her ears. He studied the luminous midnight blue fingernail polish on her long thin pianist’s fingers. You don’t look like the kind of person who plays the organ at a church, he wanted to say. But what did church organists look like? The only one he remembered was an elementary school music teacher who’d played the modest pipe organ at Queen of Peace on Staten Island when he was a boy. “Did you hear anything unusual while you were in the church?”
Stephanie shook her head.
“Did you know Dr. Graves?”
“I knew who he was.”
“And Emily Flounders?”
“No. Who is she?”
Haggerty squinted. He couldn’t contain his question. “I’m sorry, but what are you even doing in a place like this?”
“The same thing you’re doing,” she responded testily. “Working. I was an organ major at Juilliard. Where else would I be?”
CHAPTER 30
At four AM, the lone waiter in City Diner didn’t bother with pleasantries. He shuffled over, stopped at the end of their booth, and held his pen poised against his order slip. Haggerty asked for coffee and a cheddar omelet. Muñoz ordered pancakes and a side of scrambled eggs. Codella supposed her body was hungry, although she didn’t feel like eating. “Green tea and a toasted bagel,” she said.
When the waiter shuffled away, she leaned on the table. “Okay, let’s go over what we know—or what we think we know.”
Muñoz yawned and stretched his arms overhead. “Todd Brookes—the rector’s husband—says he was home all evening before his wife came home from the vestry meeting, but no one can vouch for that—except a two-year-old. He used his wife’s extra set of parish house keys to enter on the north side of the church.”
Codella remembered her first sight of Todd Brookes standing on the sidewalk with his child against his shoulder. “Zamora found him upstairs—very near to where I found the shovel. That’s not enough to call him a suspect, but it sure makes him someone we need to look at closely. What else?”
“Vivian Wakefield runs the outreach committee,” said Haggerty. “She’s the one who started the St. Paul’s Saturday Supper program, a food bank, and the homeless shelter. I get the feeling she’s not happy with the direction the church is taking these days. She went on and on about its glorious legacy of reaching across racial and socioeconomic divides.”
He summarized his interview with Vivian and her needless story of Seneca Village. “She seems to think these killings are a sign of the times and that things are only going to get worse.”
The waiter appeared with a Pyrex pot and poured coffee for Haggerty and Muñoz. When he left, Codella said, “Peter Linton was very resentful that his cemetery improvement proposal got voted down. I’ve never heard someone speak quite so passionately about cremation.”
The waiter returned with a stainless-steel pot of hot water and a tea bag. Codella stuck the bag in the water and closed the lid to let it steep. Muñoz added sweetener to his coffee while Haggerty said, “Rose Bartruff, the one who found the body, seemed really shaken up by what happened. She started crying while I interviewed her. She was worried about her daughter, who’s got asthma. She told me she hadn’t planned to attend tonight’s meeting at all, but they needed a quorum. Earlier, I found her in the kitchen sneaking a phone call to her babysitter while everyone else was sitting in the Community Room.”
“You know for a fact she called the babysitter?” Codella asked. “Did you check?”
“No,” Haggerty admitted, “but I’m sure she was telling the truth.”
Codella didn’t believe in ever taking people at their word during an investigation, and she let Haggerty know it with a what-were-you-thinking look across the table. “We need to piece together where everyone was right after Philip Graves left the parish house.” She asked Muñoz for paper, and she began to consolidate their collective notes about everyone’s reported comings and goings.
“Vivian told me Philip Graves got up at exactly ten forty-two,” Haggerty said. “She claims she’s a clock watcher. Emily Flounders left two or three minutes later, and then Vivian went into the kitchen. She took the tea service there to wash it out. Rose Bartruff confirmed that.”
“Roger Sturgis did too,” said Codella. “He says he went to the men’s room.”
Haggerty nodded. “Rose Bartruff put him in the men’s room too, and so did Vivian Wakefield.”
“Why did he feel the need to announce his intention to relieve himself?” Codella wondered aloud.
Haggerty sipped his coffee. “According to Rose, Susan Bentley walked Graves to the door. She doesn’t think Susan went outside with him though. She said the doctor was looking for the rector, and then Rose didn’t see her again until after she found the body.”
“Susan Bentley told me that she and the rector were in the Community Room after the meeting ended,” Codella reported. “Supposedly the rector got a book from her office, and they talked about meditation.”
“Which means the rector was also alone for a time,” pointed out Muñoz, “while she got that book.”
“Right,” agreed Codella. “And no one can confirm that she actually went to her office during that time—although Susan Bentley made a point of taking a meditation book out of her purse and showing it to me.”
“What about Peter Linton?” asked Muñoz. “Did you notice how that guy kept sniffling? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he snorts cocaine.”
“Maybe he does,” said Codella. “Just because you go to church doesn’t mean you’re an angel. I bet every one of these people has something they don’t want others to know. He claims he went into the hallway to take a call from a client. Let’s try to confirm that. We need phone records. We need to know who he texted in the garden and who he spoke to in the hallway. And we need to know if Rose Bartruff really called her babysitter.”
“I know she did,” Haggerty insisted.
“But how do you know?”
“I just do.”
“Gut instincts aren’t facts,” Codella argued. “I’ll wait for the phone records.”
“That could take a long time,” Haggerty
reminded her. “We might get a court order, but that won’t get us calls and texts from the past hundred and eighty days.”
“I know.” Codella frowned. “We need warrants, and for that we need probable cause, and we don’t have that yet.” She turned to Muñoz. “Talk to Portino in the morning. He’s got sources. Ask him to help.”
“That blue-haired choir director was up on the second floor when Zamora’s guys found her,” Haggerty continued. “That puts her in the vicinity of the shovel along with Todd. And she says some guy stuck his head in the reception hall while she was playing the piano.”
“What guy?” asked Codella.
“She didn’t see his face. It happened too fast, she says.”
“Or maybe it didn’t happen at all,” Codella conjectured. “What time does she claim she saw this face?”
“She didn’t know. Says she lost track of time.”
“How convenient,” Muñoz commented as the waiter approached with their breakfasts. Codella stared at the messy graphic she’d constructed—part timeline, part list, and part map. Unraveling the facts from this intricate knot of stories wasn’t going to be that easy.
Muñoz upended the ketchup bottle and slapped his palm against the side. “Virtually all of the vestry members were alone at some point after Philip Graves left.”
“Except Rose Bartruff,” pointed out Haggerty. “She was always with someone else until the body was discovered. If you ask me, Todd Brookes is the most obvious suspect. He had all the time in the world to move around without anyone else observing him.”
“Did we check out the janitor yet?” asked Codella. “Mr. Curtis, the one who lives above the rector’s family?”
Haggerty nodded. “Zamora’s guys took his statement. Curtis confirms that Stephanie Lund entered the parish house around eight o’clock. He finished up his work at eight fifteen and left the church. Then he and his wife walked to Pearls—that Chinese restaurant on Ninety-Ninth and Amsterdam. They were there from about eight forty-five to nine thirty. He had a receipt from the restaurant. Then they walked home and were together the rest of the evening.”
Codella removed the tea bag from her teapot and buttered her bagel lightly. “Okay, let’s engage in speculation for a moment. We’ll accept the premise that Todd had the best opportunity to be alone with Graves in the garden. Why would he want to kill Graves?”
Haggerty wiped his mouth with his napkin. “You might not be asking that if you’d seen the rector when she found out Graves was dead.”
“What do you mean?”
Haggerty described how Anna Brookes had wept and prayed over the body.
“You let her do that?”
“She’s a priest. How do you say no to a priest?”
Now Codella rolled her eyes. “You’re still such an Irish Catholic boy.”
Haggerty shrugged. “Hey, I hope someone cries for me like that after I take my last breath.”
Codella glanced around the diner. The waiter was slumped in a booth, semiconscious, and no other customers were in the restaurant to overhear them. “You’re suggesting she was in love with Graves—maybe having an affair with him—and her husband found out and took his revenge?”
“It’s possible,” he argued.
“Possible, but there are less drastic ways to get even with your wife’s lover—if he’s her lover. And it doesn’t explain Emily Flounders lying in the front seat of her car.”
“Maybe Todd had a different reason to kill Graves,” suggested Muñoz.
“Okay,” said Codella. “Let’s suppose he did have a different motive. Are we going to assume he stood outside and waited for Graves to emerge, hoping he was alone? It seems a little farfetched.”
“Unless Philip Graves is a creature of habit,” said Haggerty, “and Todd knew his habit.”
“Maybe Todd sent him a text message to come outside alone,” speculated Muñoz just before he shoveled hash browns into his mouth.
Their speculation was getting a little too speculative, Codella thought. “Okay, I could see Todd targeting Graves for some reason, but why would he kill Emily Flounders? What’s the connection between Philip and Emily?”
No one offered a theory.
Codella poured her tea and took a sip. “Maybe there is no connection,” she finally supplied an answer herself. “Maybe Graves was the only target, and Flounders was unintended collateral damage.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Haggerty yawned. Muñoz rubbed his eyes. “You know what bothers me about this?” she said. “Banks’s guys found Philip Graves’s wallet in his pocket. His money and credit cards were there. But no keys. Why not? How was he planning to get back into his apartment tonight—unless he keeps his door unlocked or a key under his mat, and who does that in Manhattan? I want to know where those keys went.”
THURSDAY
CHAPTER 31
Codella opened the heavy door to Manhattan North, rushed past the glassed-in reception area, and flew up the stairs as if there had never been a time right after cancer when she couldn’t manage this simple feat.
Lieutenant McGowan’s door was open, and she expected him to look up and growl, “Give me an update, Codella,” but all he said was, “What is it?”
“Did you get my messages?”
“Yeah, I got them.”
She waited for him to say more.
“What?” he finally snapped. “It sounds like you’ve got things under control, Codella. Take whoever you need and keep me posted.” He gave a dismissive flick of the wrist and returned to the papers on his desk.
He hadn’t looked her in the eye even once, she realized, and although he was hardly her favorite person, she considered asking if he was all right. Before she could open her mouth, however, he was saying, “Close the door on your way out.”
Codella shut the door and headed down the hall. What was going on with McGowan? If anyone knew, it would be Dan Fisk, the senior detective in the homicide unit. She glanced into his office as she passed it. He was sitting at his desk, but she didn’t go in. Fisk warmed a barstool next to McGowan almost every night of the week, and on the weekends, they watched Liverpool matches together. Fisk wasn’t going to tell her anything.
She continued past the large detectives’ squad room crammed with desks and reached the little kitchen at the end of the corridor. No one was there, and she stared at the glass coffeepot sitting on a warm burner. Facing a day on two hours of sleep wasn’t going to be easy with only green tea, but she hadn’t had a sip of coffee since her cancer treatment. And even if she were tempted to return to old habits, she’d never touch the poison in that pot.
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. She took several gulps as she stared back at McGowan’s office. She needed someone to run background checks on the St. Paul’s vestry members, but before she could concentrate on the case, she had to satisfy her curiosity. She went downstairs, entered the patrol officers’ bullpen, and tapped the shoulder of Farah Assiraj. “Got a minute?”
Farah turned and smiled. She was a young uniformed officer who’d conducted research for Codella on a cold case last month. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
Codella led her into the first-floor women’s room and checked the stalls for feet. Then she leaned on one of the two porcelain sinks. “What’s going on with McGowan?”
Farah rolled her large almond-shaped eyes. She looked more like a model than a cop with her high cheekbones, sensuous mouth, and perfect olive complexion, although she kept her long dark hair discreetly hidden beneath a hijab. “Jane Young is suing him for sexual harassment.”
“Jesus!” Codella pictured Jane Young, another uniformed officer, who dyed her hair blonde and wore more makeup on her shifts than Codella had worn in her lifetime. In the last three months, Jane Young had probably spent more time in McGowan’s office than all the detectives combined—until her abrupt transfer from the precinct a week ago. “What does she claim he did?”
Farah shrugged. “Nobody
knows—or if they do, they’re not saying.”
Dennis McGowan had made Codella’s life miserable since the day she’d walked through the front doors of Manhattan North with so much enthusiasm, and Haggerty had talked her off the ledge too many times to count. Wait him out, he’d advised. Sooner or later, he’ll do something really stupid, and they’ll ship him off to some other unlucky squad. Was Haggerty’s prediction coming true?
During the Lucy Merchant case, McGowan had assigned Jane Young to Codella’s research team—even though the case was high profile and Young had no experience. She’d spent an entire briefing playing with her ponytail and making eyes at McGowan across the conference room. Codella didn’t doubt for a minute that McGowan had made advances, but she also had no doubt that Jane had egged him on. More than a few female officers played the flirtation game. Occasionally, sexual chemistry dissolved the old-boy bonds and got you up a rank or two, but most of the time you gave a lot more than you ever got in return. Had Jane Young gotten a little more than she bargained for? Or had she gotten exactly what she’d set out to get and was now planning to trade it in for a nice payoff or a promotion?
Codella’s first sergeant in Brooklyn had wanted her to play that game. “Let’s have drinks and talk about your future,” he’d whispered close to her ear her second day in his squad. She’d turned him down, but the invitations kept coming until he got pissed and said, “I get it. You’re a dyke, aren’t you, Codella?” and gave her the cold shoulder until she moved to Vice.
She almost felt sorry for McGowan. Almost. She thanked Farah for the information, walked to the door, and turned to look back at the uniformed woman. “I’ve got two dead bodies, and I need some research. You want in?”
“Hell, yes,” Farah said. “That’s my kind of proposition.”
“Come up and see me as soon as you can.”
CHAPTER 32
Susan Bentley stroked the smooth skin of her wrists. The impressive display of diplomas and certificates on the wall across from her desk attested to her world-class reputation, but it didn’t change the fact that she was a coward. Five hours ago, she’d set down the straight razor; she hadn’t been able to accept a few moments of agony to avoid years of shame and loss. She would have to live with the consequences.