Unholy City

by Carrie Smith

  Then Codella took a deep breath and spoke the words she knew would resonate most with Anna Brookes. “You’re a person of faith. You know there are two paths you can go down—the path toward God or the path away from God. I admit, I’m not a religious person, but I know that your faith has deep meaning for you, and I think that you might not forgive yourself if you walked away from that faith. These people need you, and quite frankly, I think you need them.”

  She paused. Anna was sitting taller on the couch and listening intently.

  “Vivian Wakefield is right about one thing,” Codella continued. “St. Paul’s has survived for more than two centuries. This is not its first crisis. Look at this tragedy as proof of the resilience and strength of your community. The night I walked into this church, the first thing I saw was the wall right outside of this room, covered with the portraits of past rectors who’ve served this congregation. Your photograph is up there, and now you need to decide what you want your legacy to be. Are you going to leave in the wake of tragedy, or will you make a long and lasting impression?”

  CHAPTER 77

  Codella wouldn’t allow herself to be carried out of the church. She walked between Muñoz and Haggerty, her arms around their shoulders, careful not to put any weight on the ankle that was broken. Beyond the church gates were news vans and as many NYPD vehicles as there had been three nights ago. Several reporters stood behind a barricade, and Codella recognized the one who had interviewed Vivian Wakefield for New York One. Across the street, she spotted McGowan double-parked in an unmarked car. Their eyes met. “Take me over there,” she told Haggerty and Muñoz as reporters called out their questions to her.

  Codella slid into the front passenger seat of McGowan’s car while Haggerty and Muñoz waited on the sidewalk for her.

  “So you got your man,” he said flatly.

  She nodded.

  He narrowed his eyes. “You never fuck up, do you, Codella?”

  “Everybody fucks up, Lieutenant.”

  His hands pressed against the steering wheel as if he were pushing away a wall that was closing in on him. “Shit, Codella. I could send you back to a uniform, you know.”

  Codella shrugged.

  “But I don’t give a shit anymore. You’re someone else’s problem now. I gave my notice yesterday. I’m retiring.”

  She turned to look him in the eye. So that was it, she thought. He knew he couldn’t beat the charges against him, and he was throwing in the towel. That’s why he hadn’t crucified her on the spot when she went over the line. That’s why Fisk had called her instead.

  “I admit, I’m not blameless,” he said. “But she asked for it—Jane Young. She wanted it.”

  “I don’t need to hear the details, Lieutenant.” She didn’t want to hear them. All that mattered was that his claws had been clipped, his fangs extracted, and his venom drained. He couldn’t hold her back anymore. She thought of all the times he’d handed her insulting assignments below her grade and capability, refused her requests to lead investigations, and thrown roadblocks in her path. Her mind regurgitated all the protests, rebuttals, and condemnations she’d wanted to hurl at him over the past two years, but all she said now was, “Good luck, Lieutenant.”

  Then she pushed open the car door and stepped out on her one good leg. Haggerty and Muñoz supported her back to the church gate where reporters were waiting to descend upon her. Codella was in no mood to answer their questions. All she wanted to do was make a statement and get to the hospital for an X-ray—because the sooner she got her ankle in a cast, the sooner she’d get out of that cast. She held up her hand to get the reporters’ attention.

  “Homicides happen everywhere. We all know churches aren’t exempt. It only takes one or two self-serving people to ruin the lives of many. But St. Paul’s has stood on this little footprint of land for more than two hundred years, and it’s not going anywhere soon. Many people, including Rector Brookes, will pick up the pieces and continue the important work this church has been doing in the community for many years. And Detective Haggerty, Detective Muñoz, and I will help ensure that the guilty receive the punishment they deserve. That’s all I have to say right now.”

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  CHAPTER 78

  Codella stood on her crutches in the bathroom doorway and watched Haggerty. “How is it that you take more time in front of a mirror than I do?”

  “I want to look good for you.” He combed his hair, but it was so curly that the effort had little effect. “You do realize, don’t you,” he said, “that this is the first time we’ve been invited to someone’s apartment as a couple?”

  “It’s just Muñoz,” she said.

  “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’s very excited for us to meet his boyfriend.”

  They went downstairs, and Haggerty flagged a taxi on the corner of Broadway. They’d perfected the taxi routine. She got in while he held the crutches, and then he slid them in across the back seat floor and got in on the other side. She was going to be taking a lot of cabs in the next six weeks, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. Three screws in the ankle were nothing compared to cancer, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that Peter Linton would pay mightily for those screws—not to mention everything else he’d done.

  As they sped down the West Side Highway, it occurred to her that in all her years on the NYPD, she’d never had dinner at another cop’s apartment. She told Haggerty this.

  “It’s because you’re all work and no play, but that’s going to change with me in your life.” He grinned.

  Codella rolled her eyes.

  “Hey, be nice,” he said. “Remember, you’re a little dependent on me right now.”

  “I’m not amused,” she said.

  “Not even a little?”

  “Who do you think will do the cooking?” She changed the subject.

  “My money’s on his boyfriend,” Haggerty said. “Unless we’re having vanilla milkshakes, since that seems to be Muñoz’s staple.”

  Ten minutes later, Muñoz opened his apartment door. His head was only inches from the top of the doorframe. Another man peered around him and held out his hand. “I’m Michael.”

  “You’re the one we really came to see,” Haggerty said as he shook Michael’s hand. “Please tell us you’re doing the cooking and not him.”

  The dining room window looked out onto the High Line, and from her seat at the table, Codella could see a steady stream of pedestrians walking by on the narrow trestle tracks of the trains that once had run to and from the meat-packing district. As they finished their meal, Codella told Michael that his food was remarkable, and Muñoz said, “That’s not his only talent. He can do so much more with a computer than hack into people’s personal data. Michael stays up all night and makes games for people to play.”

  “Todd Brookes should have played some of those games,” said Haggerty, “instead of doing Philip Graves’s dirty work. Then he wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” asked Muñoz.

  “Well, the DA’s definitely going to take it to a grand jury,” said Codella. “And meanwhile, he’s moved out of the rectory. Anna isn’t in a very forgiving mood. And who can blame her?”

  “Linton’s wife wasn’t in a forgiving mood either, I guess,” noted Muñoz. “I was glad she refused to post bail for her husband. I’m inclined to believe she didn’t know he was siphoning off the cemetery profits, but she had to know about his drug use. She should have insisted that he get help instead of covering for him. People who snort their savings away don’t just wake up one day and pull themselves together.”

  Codella took a sip of her sparkling water and thought of Stephanie Lund. When Stephanie’s parents finally took her off the life-support systems a week after Haggerty found her unconscious, she’d died within an hour. She became the third homicide for which Peter Linton was charged. The DA had already made up his mind to charge Peter in the death of Emily Flounde
rs. “He’s going to have a long time to think about what he did. What gets me is how stupid he was through the whole thing—hiding the shovel in the closet, moving Emily Flounders’s body, taking the vestry minutes home in his briefcase. He managed to wipe his prints off the shovel, but he didn’t wipe them off Emily’s minivan. And on top of everything else, he used a phone app to charge his taxi ride down to Houston Street, a block from Stephanie’s apartment. He’s a criminal defense lawyer, and he left a mountain of evidence for the prosecution. The only thing he’s not guilty of is the defibrillator malfunction. That was purely coincidental. We got the manufacturer’s test results this week. The unit had a defective battery.”

  “What about Roger Sturgis?” asked Muñoz. “What do you think will happen to him?”

  “It’s up to the DA,” said Codella. “He could face obstruction of justice charges, but he came to my defense, and that’ll count for something. He’ll probably work out a deal and be a witness for the prosecution.”

  “And Susan Bentley and Vivian Wakefield?”

  Codella sipped her water again. “They won’t be charged. They’ll just have to live with their consciences.”

  Codella recalled her final conversation with Susan Bentley, when the vestrywoman brought a bouquet of flowers to her room at the Hospital for Special Surgery the day after her ankle surgery. “I know I have no right to ask you this, Detective,” she said, “but did you include my past in your report?”

  “There was no need to do that, Doctor,” Codella assured her. “Peter’s guilt is beyond a doubt, and I’m not in the business of telling other people’s secrets gratuitously.”

  Susan pulled up a chair next to Codella’s hospital bed. “You’re the only person I’ve told my secret to. May I tell you something else?” She didn’t wait for Codella’s answer. “I hate that I’ve lived with so many lies. Just before I married Daniel—my second husband—I came so close to telling him the truth, but I was too afraid he would walk away. And after our marriage, there were so many times when I almost told him but lost my nerve or talked myself out of it. And then, after lying for so many years, how could I tell the truth? It seemed cruel and unfair. He would think our whole life had meant nothing.”

  As Muñoz and Michael cleared the table, Codella recalled what Susan had said after Peter’s arrest. I’m not proud of myself, Detective, but self-preservation is a compelling motive for silence. Self-preservation, it occurred to Codella now, had motivated everyone who lied at the vestry meeting on Wednesday night. They had all tried to preserve something precious and irreplaceable. Susan had hidden the true self she knew the world wouldn’t understand or accept. Roger had concealed the lover who made him feel whole. And Vivian had protected the institution that embodied her cherished and precarious family history. But self-preservation had motivated far more than sins of omission. This basic human instinct had driven a man to commit three murders. And it was the instinct that compelled her to hunt down killers over and over, to prove to the world—or maybe just to herself—that she had nothing in common with her father.

  She looked up when Muñoz returned to the table holding a bottle of wine. “Who needs a refill?”

  Haggerty held up his glass.

  “I saw a key lime pie in your kitchen,” Codella said.

  “An Edgar’s Café key lime pie.” Muñoz smiled. “Because I pay attention.”

  As they ate the pie, Muñoz and Michael told the story of how they’d met. And Haggerty told how he and Claire had gone from precinct partners to enemies to lovers. An hour later, they said their good-byes, and Haggerty hailed another taxi. The traffic on the West Side Highway was light, and the car sailed uptown. The sky was clear. The lights on the George Washington Bridge sparkled in the distance. Codella took Haggerty’s hand and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said, “who do you think will get married first? Them or us?”

  “Don’t be a wise guy,” she said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. I’m not in the mood to think about anything that involves a church.”

  “That’s no problem.” He hugged her tightly. “There’s always City Hall.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It takes a village to build and sustain a book series, and I would like to thank the people who have contributed in large and small ways to the Claire Codella mysteries.

  Thank you to my editor at Crooked Lane Books, publisher Matt Martz, for his invaluable feedback and willingness to give Claire Codella time to find her audience. Thanks also to Sarah Poppe and Jenny Chen for all their hard work. And thanks to all my fellow Crooked Lane Books authors for their camaraderie.

  I’ve been fortunate to have the brilliant novelist SJ Rozan as a teacher and mentor for the past four years. Thank you, SJ, for not letting me go astray—and for keeping that red toothbrush light out of chapter 1.

  Kathy Green, my agent, was the first person to recognize the potential of Claire Codella. Thanks for your loyalty, Kathy, and for pushing me to go in new directions.

  Writing can be lonely without a group of smart and supportive fellow writers willing to read and reread your drafts. Jackie Freimor, Ilaria Papini, Lorena Vivas, and Jane Young, thank you for your honesty, insight, and encouragement.

  The mystery community is full of kind and generous people, and I am grateful to so many of them for welcoming me into the fold. A special thank you to Wendy Corsi Staub, Robin and James Agnew, and Hank Phillippi Ryan.

  I would like to thank many others as well for their help, support, and friendship: my sister Constance Smith, Sue Foster, Sue Lund, Jean Bowdish, Judith Oney, Chris Reilly, Carol Christiansen, Elizabeth Avery, Warren Hecht, Kurt Anthony Krug, V. K. Powell, Ben Keller, Paul Willis, Adria Klein, Sera and Tom Reycraft, Gabe Salzman, Sunita Apté, Loren Mack, and all my friends and colleagues at Benchmark Education Company.

  I could not do any of this without the love and support of my wife, Cynthia, and our children, Cammie and Mattie. We are a family that believes in pursuing dreams. Dreams, we know, are what sustain us all.

  And last but not by any means least, thank you to every reader out there who has embraced Claire Codella. Without you, none of this would be possible.