by Carrie Smith
Codella walked around the apartment. “How long do you suppose she was lying in here?”
“The EMTs couldn’t say. We’ll have to talk to the doctors.”
Codella stepped into the room where Haggerty had found Stephanie. “If Todd did this, when did he come down here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is CSU on their way?”
Haggerty nodded.
“All right. Let’s take a look around here while we wait. Maybe we’ll find something to connect some dots.”
Haggerty pointed to the cell phone lying on the top of the piano. “We could start with this. You got gloves?”
“You know I always have gloves.” Codella reached into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a pair of nitrile gloves. She handed them to Haggerty, and he put them on, lifted the phone, and pressed the home button to light up the screen. “It’s not password protected.”
Codella looked on as Haggerty tapped the messages icon, pulled up Lund’s list of contacts, and found Todd’s name. They read the most recent exchange from two days before the homicides.
Why are you so upset about it, Steph?
Because it was wrong. I told you.
I thought you’d like a good story.
Well, I didn’t. I feel bad for her.
For HER? Oh, come on.
“I wonder who she felt bad for,” Haggerty said.
“The rector?”
“What should we do?”
“Pick up the son of a bitch. Let’s have a chat with him in an interview room.”
CHAPTER 48
When Gambarin finished Emily Flounders’s autopsy, Muñoz knew he had to ask the questions Codella would have asked if she were still here. “What can you tell us, Doctor?”
Gambarin pulled off his mask, removed his glasses, and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Frankly, I’m stunned this woman was even walking around. She had severe occlusive coronary atherosclerosis. She was a ticking time bomb.”
“So you think she had a heart attack?”
“I don’t just think it, Detective.”
Muñoz pictured Emily Flounders’s body sprawled across the front passenger seat of her minivan last night, her left cheek resting on the center console. “Then her death had nothing to do with Philip Graves’s death?” Muñoz tried to fathom that. Had Flounders simply felt unwell on her way to her car, tried to call for help, and dropped her phone as pain radiated down her arm? Had she managed to crawl into the car just before she suffered a massive heart attack? “Are you saying she died of natural causes?”
Gambarin shook his head. “Your two questions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.”
“What do you mean?”
Gambarin moved to the sink and picked up a water bottle. “A myocardial infarction—a heart attack—occurs when blood flow to the heart muscle is severely reduced or cut off. That happens because plaque builds up in the arterial walls.” He sipped some water. “If the plaque breaks off, a blockage forms, and a myocardial infarction results. The question becomes, did the victim have the heart attack simply because a random piece of unstable plaque dislodged, or did an event contribute to that plaque breaking off?”
“What do you mean by an event?”
Gambarin set the water bottle down and massaged his neck as he spoke. “Remember, despite humans’ so-called higher intelligence—which I seriously question these days, by the way, given our species’ poor decision making—we’re still just animals. When we feel threatened, our primitive sympathetic nervous system takes over and activates our fight-or-flight response. Without getting too technical, Detective, the sympathetic nervous system sends a cascade of hormones through our bodies, and any flood of chemicals through this woman’s compromised coronary arteries could have triggered a plaque rupture that caused instantaneous death.”
“You mean like someone attacking her on her way to her car?”
“Yes, like that, except that she wasn’t on her way to her car.”
Muñoz frowned. “But we found her in her minivan.”
“I know, but she didn’t have her heart attack there.”
“Then where did she have it?”
“In the garden.” Gambarin offered this information in the even, unemotional tone of someone describing the weather.
“How do you know that?” Muñoz pressed him.
“Because sediment and a small spiky leaf were in her hair, Detective. I’m not a horticulturist, but even I know rosemary when I see it. I believe she fell on the stones near the rosemary shrub. She has a bump and a slight abrasion over her left temple where she might have hit the ground. I collected the leaf and sediment samples from her hair for analysis, of course.” He gestured toward a tray as he ripped off his gown, bunched it up, and threw it into a bin.
Muñoz followed his example. “So we don’t know if the death was natural or not?”
“That’s right.” Gambarin smiled. “You and Detective Codella will have to figure that out.”
Muñoz thanked him and left. He was on his way uptown when Haggerty called and told him about Stephanie Lund. “EMS took her to the Bellevue ER. Codella and I can’t get there right now. Can you head over? Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll wake up and tell you something.”
“I’m on my way,” said Muñoz.
He was across from the hospital when Michael called. “I went shopping and bought us salmon for dinner. What time do you want to eat?”
Muñoz spotted a car pulling out of a parking space.
“How’s eight?” asked Michael.
“I guess.”
“Or nine. Is nine better?”
“I don’t know,” Muñoz snapped. How was he supposed to think about eating salmon—or anything, for that matter—with the odors of formaldehyde and rotting flesh on his clothing and skin? Michael didn’t speak, and Muñoz said, “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling all that well right now. I just spent four hours in an autopsy room.”
“Oh, God, and then I call you about salmon. I’m so sorry.”
Muñoz backed the car into the small parking space and got out. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have snapped. You’re just trying to be nice.” He remembered his words to Michael last night. Why don’t you move in with me? Had he spoken too impulsively? Relationships were difficult in the best of circumstances. How could he ever hold up his end of this one? “Look, maybe you want to think twice about me. I don’t have the kind of job that makes relationships easy. We can slow things down if you want to.”
“You’re already kicking me out?”
Muñoz sighed. “I’m just—”
“You’re just a mess right now, aren’t you?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, you can’t scare me off that easily. Forget the salmon. We’ll have some ice cream whenever you get home.”
Muñoz smiled.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” Muñoz crossed the street and stood in front of the Bellevue ER entrance. He didn’t want to hang up. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“And forget what I said just now. I want you to move in.”
“I wonder how you’ll feel about that when you see all the boxes I brought to your apartment today.”
Muñoz closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Our apartment,” he said.
CHAPTER 49
Codella’s phone vibrated just outside Interview Room A. “Shit, it’s McGowan,” she told Haggerty. “I better take this before we go in.”
She lifted the phone to her ear as Haggerty looked on. “Yes, Lieutenant.”
“Where are you, Codella?”
“At the one-seven-one.”
“Well, I want you here. Right now.”
“Can it wait an hour?” she asked. “I’m about to interview a suspect in the St. Paul’s homicides. I think we’re making some—”
“No, Codella,” he shouted. “I want you here now.” He slammed down the phone.
She looked at Haggerty. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. But McGowan’s still in his office, and something’s got him wound up. I have to go.”
“All right,” Haggerty said. “Just keep your cool. We’ll let Todd sweat in that little room until you get back.”
Codella was sweating when she reached McGowan’s doorway ten minutes later. He pointed to a chair and said, “Sit your ass down. I got a little video cued up for you.”
He lifted a remote off his desk and aimed it at the flat screen on the wall behind her. She rotated her chair in time to see a New York One reporter saying, “The day after two apparent homicides at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side, churchwarden Vivian Wakefield gave a scathing indictment of the NYPD’s investigation.”
Codella watched the camera cut to a close-up of the warden and rector at the St. Paul’s church gates as Vivian Wakefield stated, “The detectives who came here last night treated us like suspects—not victims of a terrible crime. They weren’t interested in the leads we had. They were only interested in pointing fingers at us.”
McGowan pressed his remote and the screen went black. “That church lady is out there telling the world these killings are the work of someone who wants to shut down their homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Did you check that out?”
“There are no leads to check out, Lieutenant. There are no complaints on file. And she mentioned none of this last night. She’s fabricating. The question is why.”
“I don’t give a shit why. People in the community think some nutcase is out there and we’re not doing anything about it. The media are eating it up. Our phone lines are flooded, and I got a call from the brass.”
Codella nodded. No wonder he was still at his desk. “I understand, sir,” she said in a calm voice, “but these deaths aren’t the work of a person who doesn’t like homeless people hanging around. We think someone at the church is involved. This afternoon, we found the interim choir director of St. Paul’s unconscious in her Soho apartment. There’s evidence to suggest she was having an affair with the rector’s husband. We were about to interrogate him when you called me up here.”
“We? Who’s we? Who are you working with on this?”
“I’m working with the detective who originally caught the case. Detective Haggerty from the one-seven-one and his second, Detective Muñoz.”
“Them again? Shit, Codella. Are you starting your own little rogue homicide squad? We take cases away from cops like them. We don’t work with them.”
“They’re good detectives.”
“We’ve got better detectives in Homicide.”
Codella’s anger and frustration rose in her throat, and although she heard Haggerty’s words in her head—keep your cool—she could tell she wasn’t going to. “I wouldn’t know about that, Lieutenant, since you never require any of them to bring me onto their cases.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?” There was no backing down now. She didn’t even want to back down. “Just last week, you handed me a year-old case file and told me to stir the pot and see what floats to the surface. And meanwhile, you send Dan Fisk and three other detectives to work with the FBI on the gangland shooting in that restaurant in Harlem.”
“So?” McGowan gave an exaggerated shrug with his arms raised. “We have to clear those files. And you’re good at doing that.”
“You mean I’m good at doing what other detectives don’t want to do—or fixing what they screwed up.”
“That’s enough whining, Codella.”
“I’m not whining, Lieutenant. I’m telling you how it is. You have a problem working with competent women. If you can’t fuck them, you fuck them over.”
As soon as the words were out, she knew she’d gone too far—that referring, even obliquely, to Jane Young’s sexual harassment charge against him was playing dirty. She held his enraged stare. He shook his index finger at her like a knife he wanted to plunge into her gut, and she waited for him to finally speak the words he’d wanted to say for the past year and a half. Get the fuck off my squad. But the words didn’t come. His face just got redder and redder. She’d never seen him hold back like this. He was either too angry for words, or he was in too much trouble to risk speaking. He stared at her until his phone rang, and then he said, “Get the fuck out of here.”
CHAPTER 50
Haggerty’s desk phone rang, and he picked it up hoping it was Claire.
“Detective,” said the desk sergeant, “there’s a man down here who says he’s the attorney for some guy you’ve got up there.”
“An attorney?”
“Yeah. He wants to see his client.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.” Haggerty hung up and ran down the stairs to the lobby of the one-seven-one. Standing by the wooden bench just inside the front door was the short, bald man who had given him so much attitude on Wednesday night. “Mr. Linton,” he said, “what brings you to my precinct?”
“I believe you’re holding Todd Brookes,” said Linton.
“We’re not holding him. He’s not under arrest.”
“Then why is he here?”
“We just want to ask him some questions.”
“What questions?”
“Related to the case.” Haggerty shrugged.
“Have you asked your questions yet?”
“No, but—”
“Well, I’m his attorney, Detective, and I’d like to see him right now.”
“You’re his attorney? Since when?”
“Since he called me fifteen minutes ago to say you had him in a little room.” Linton checked his wristwatch. “Don’t look so surprised, Detective. I’ve represented quite a few church members over the years.”
“Really? Are there that many felons in the church?”
Linton’s smug expression made Haggerty want to slap him. “Blameless people need my services all the time when law enforcement can’t tell the difference between the innocent and the guilty.”
Peter Linton clearly enjoyed delivering this jab, and Haggerty wanted to get him on the ropes, but he wasn’t sure how. “You didn’t like Philip Graves very much, did you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You were awfully quick to text your wife that he was dead.”
“And you’re drawing conclusions from that?” Linton wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “No wonder you’re getting nowhere. Now can I see my client?”
Haggerty led him up the stairs to Interview Room A. Linton opened the door and said, “Come outside with me, Todd. There’s no privacy here.”
He led Todd down the steps and out the front door of the precinct. Haggerty watched from a second-floor window as the two men stood on the sidewalk and exchanged words for several moments. When they returned to the second floor, Linton faced Haggerty and said, “Detective, you have absolutely no evidence to assume that my client has any involvement in these homicides, and until you do, he won’t be answering any of your questions. You’re on a fishing expedition, and Todd is going home to his wife.”
“If he’s got nothing to hide, why won’t he answer some questions that might help us move our investigation forward?” asked Haggerty.
Linton smirked. “You’re not going to move this investigation forward by continuing to interrogate and harass St. Paul’s parishioners.” He gestured for Todd to descend the stairs. “And if you bring any more vestry members in here, I’ll represent them too.”
“You’re not off the suspect list either, Mr. Linton. Who’s going to be your lawyer?”
“Don’t worry about me.” Linton sniffled. “Worry about finding the killer. Go into the community, Detective. Start canvassing. Run the names of local offenders. You guys have all the resources at your disposal. Why aren’t you using them?”
“We are,” said Haggerty.
“Really?” Linton’s eyebrows went up. Then he smiled with what Haggerty took as false sincerity. “Let me tell you
something. I’ve been a member of that church for more than fifteen years, Detective. We’re all pains in the ass, I grant you. We’ve each got our pet peeves. But we’re people of God. We don’t go around killing each other. How many more of our parishioners have to die before you realize that?”
When Linton disappeared down the stairs, Haggerty returned to the squad room. “Goddamn that fucking asshole!”
Portino looked over. “Lawyers. They’re all the same.”
Haggerty called Muñoz at Bellevue Hospital, and then he waited for Claire. Ten minutes later, she finally called to say she was on her way back. “Don’t hurry,” he told her. “Todd Brookes left.”
“What do you mean, he left?”
“His attorney showed up and took him out of here—and guess who his attorney is?”
“Just tell me. I’m in no mood for a guessing game after the scene I just had with McGowan.”
“Your favorite vestry member,” said Haggerty. “Peter Linton.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wish I were. And I just spoke to Muñoz at the hospital. You won’t like this either. Stephanie Lund isn’t going to wake up and talk to us anytime soon. She’s on a ventilator. Her heartbeat’s erratic. They’re trying to keep her blood pressure up. Muñoz will go back tomorrow, but right now he’s on his way back here.”
“Did you get to Anna Brookes?”
“Not yet, but I will,” he said.
CHAPTER 51
Codella left Manhattan North and started walking down Broadway. She didn’t know where she was going, but wherever it was, she was going there fast. Her boots pounded the concrete so hard that her knees hurt. She wanted to flatten McGowan into the ground like an ant, and she wanted to throttle Vivian Wakefield.
She couldn’t throttle her, of course, but she certainly could confront her. And nothing would give her more pleasure than to see Vivian squirm the way she’d been forced to squirm in McGowan’s office. She slowed down at One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street, searching her e-mails for the list of vestry member addresses Muñoz had sent to her, and then she resumed her walk at a pace in proportion to her purpose.