Never Tell

by Alafair Burke

  “Damn it. Rogan’s waiting. We’ve got to find Adrienne Langston.”

  “You can’t say yes before you leave?”

  “Not like that, Max. I want to, but I want it to be real. I want us both to feel right about it.”

  “Okay, I get it. The offer still stands.”

  “We’ll figure it out, okay? I promise. I love you.”

  He nodded, but didn’t respond as she turned to walk away.

  Chapter Fifty

  For the sixth time in a mile, Rogan hit the dashboard lights to cut through a snarl of traffic on Highway 27.

  “What is it about white people and the Hamptons?”

  To call 27 a highway this far east was misleading. The state should relabel it Gridlock 27. Parking Lot 27. Fancy Car Show 27. Come Memorial Day, this two-lane road that connected Southampton to Watermill to Bridgehampton to East Hampton to Amagansett to Montauk would be a knot of Porsches, Range Rovers, and Jaguars filled with beautiful people bouncing between the beach, gourmet restaurants, and designer boutiques. Cars were at least moving this time of year, but at a crawl.

  “And what’s up with you?” he said. “You been staring out that window the whole ride. This got something to do with that pop-in from Donovan?”

  She didn’t want to talk about Max to anyone else. It would feel like a betrayal. “I think you’d fit right in here with your black BMW and fancy Joseph Abboud suits.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but Abboud’s not fancy. This here’s Valentino.”

  “See what I mean? Wait. Turn right up here.” They had decided not to call ahead. Sometimes a witness’s startled face said more than her words. They wanted to see Adrienne’s expression when they showed her the photograph of Julia at the country house. They wanted to watch as they asked her about a phone call to their home from a family law attorney. They needed to be there in person as they raised the possibility that her husband had been sleeping with a girl she’d treated like a daughter.

  Sometimes their work was cruel.

  Ellie continued to navigate. As they passed the turnoff for the Maidstone Golf Club, they saw water ahead. “This is it. The last turn. Take a right. The Langston house should be on the left.”

  As soon as Rogan made the turn, she saw the overhead lights of an East Hampton Town Police patrol car to her right. At first it was just the one car near the intersection, but further down, she caught sight of at least one more East Hampton marked car, a Suffolk County Police car, two unmarked fleet cars, and an ambulance.

  A uniformed officer next to the first car held up a hand to stop them. She rolled down her window, and Rogan leaned over to speak.

  “What’s up, guy?” The question was code, the kind of easy line retired cops gave during a traffic stop. To call an officer guy meant you were on the job.

  Ellie found that badges worked just as well as macho code words. She wiggled hers near the open window.

  “Home intruder,” the officer explained. “Smashed a back window out with a rock to gain entry. Good thing the resident was armed. Turns out you can be a pretty crappy shot as long as you’ve got six bullets.”

  “Was this at the Langston house, by any chance?” Ellie asked. She rattled off the address.

  “How’d you know? The poor lady’s terrified, but she got lucky. Suffolk County homicide detectives are here. They pulled a wallet off the intruder. I hear the guy did a dime and a half upstate. Murder. Was supposed to be life in prison but he got out early. Shoulda stayed inside, I guess. Good guys, one. Bad guys, zero.”

  Life sentence for murder. Served fifteen. It all sounded too familiar. “The bad guy didn’t happen to be named James Grisco?”

  “Yeah, that’s the name I heard. Seriously, how do you know all this?”

  Rogan was on his third cup of coffee since they’d arrived at the East Hampton police station. It was two in the morning, and everyone was exhausted. “I’m surprised she hasn’t lawyered up.” He drained the rest of his cup.

  They were watching Adrienne Langston and Suffolk County Homicide Detective Marci Howard through a one-way interrogation room window.

  “She doesn’t need a lawyer if it’s justified,” Ellie said.

  “That’s how poor people think. Rich folks from Manhattan call a lawyer every time they sign their name on a piece of paper.”

  “So far she’s doing just fine on her own.”

  Detective Howard was reluctant to involve them at first, insisting that the shooting had occurred in her jurisdiction. But when she realized that they had a head start on the background, she had at least permitted them to stick around and observe. She’d even stopped a few times to give them updates in a voice that hinted of a southern upbringing.

  Everything they had learned indicated that James Grisco had arrived at the house with the intention of harming Adrienne. A rock was found inside the back kitchen window, surrounded by broken glass. Signs of the resulting struggle ran from the kitchen, through the dining room, to the adjacent study, where Adrienne had gone for the gun in her husband’s bottom desk drawer. The legally registered .38 had been purchased nearly twelve years earlier when George’s first wife complained that she thought she saw someone watching their house. Adrienne had fired all six rounds, managing to clip Grisco first in the shoulder and then deliver a fatal shot to the head. A knife was found next to his body.

  Through the glass, they watched as Adrienne walked Detective Howard through the lengthy story of her blog, the book deal, the harassing comments, the box delivered to her apartment, and now Grisco’s arrival to her home this evening.

  “And you filed a police report when?”

  “After the box showed up at my apartment. Until then, I figured words were only words and the police wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

  “And you have no idea who this James Grisco is? Or why he’d be wanting to hurt you?”

  “No, I’ve never heard of him.”

  Howard rapped her knuckles against the tabletop. “All right. I know you’re tired. Let’s see about getting you out of here pretty soon.”

  When Howard emerged from the interrogation room, she seemed surprised to see them standing there. “You guys are still around?”

  “Of course,” Ellie said. “We know tonight’s shooting is yours, but we think it could be related to our case in Manhattan.”

  “The teenaged girl.”

  “Correct.” They had given Howard an abbreviated version of the facts, but could tell she was having a hard time tracking all the moving pieces.

  “Well, I’m about to call the riding ADA, but I think we’re about set here.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What else do you want, Detectives? I’ve got an upstanding citizen with a legal gun defending herself against a convicted killer whose fingerprints—as you told me—were found all over a box full of maggots left at her primary residence, and who now drives all the way out here to break into her other home while she’s alone. I mentioned the knife by his body, right? Just next to his right hand.”

  “We think Grisco may have been sent here by Adrienne’s husband, George Langston.”

  “I know. You already told me that, Detective. Here’s how I look at it. You’ve been dealing with this crowd for, what? A week? And all that business with the drug research and the online stalking and the girl in the bathtub all happened in Manhattan. As far as I know, James Grisco came out here one time only and got himself killed over it. I’m pretty damn sure I know exactly how and why that came to be. We’ll run the prints on the knife. Have our ballistics and blood experts look over the shooting for anything fishy. But until I learn different, I am treating Mrs. Langston in there like an innocent citizen. In fact, some might say she’s a hero. There may very well be more to the story, but unless you’re telling me that James Grisco’s death wasn’t justified, I’ll consider it to be your story and not mine.”

  “But—”

  Ellie felt Rogan’s arm on her bicep.

  “Looks like your
partner’s getting my drift, Detective Hatcher. Some of my colleagues would be trying to fight you for jurisdiction. They might’ve asked you to leave hours ago. What I’m telling you is that you’re now free to answer any remaining questions you have about what may have happened back in the city. I’m not in your way.”

  They were interrupted by the sounds of a panicked voice beyond the interrogation rooms.

  “My wife. Where’s my wife? Adrienne Langston? I need to see her. Adrienne? Adrienne? Is she okay?”

  Detective Howard walked toward the sound of the voice. “Are you Mr. Langston? All right, sir. It’s okay. I’ve got your wife right back here. I think it’s about time we sent her home.”

  As she led him to the interrogation room and opened the door, George Langston did not appear to notice their presence. He ran to his wife, fell to his knees, and wrapped his arms around her.

  Howard let out a loud sigh. “Like I said, the rest is pretty much up to you, but if you want my two cents: that’s not the face of a man who sent James Grisco out here to kill his wife. He looks even more scared than his wife did fifteen minutes after she killed a man.”

  The couple seemed oblivious to the three of them watching their reunion through the window. George’s sideways hug around his still-seated wife was awkward, but he managed to rock her like a baby anyway. It was Adrienne who finally pulled away, wiping tears from her husband’s face.

  The first thing Adrienne said to him was, “Where’s Ramona?”

  “I told her there was an emergency at work. I knew you’d want to be the one to explain this to her.” He held her tightly again.

  If George Langston was faking concern for his wife, he was a hell of an actor.

  “Careful on the drive back,” Howard said. “Nothing but drunks on the road this time of night.”

  Ellie looked at her watch. It was nearly three in the morning, and they still had a long drive back to the city.

  “And I’ve got a present for you before you leave. We found a 2004 Malibu on the street outside the Langstons’ house, registered to Grisco at the same address as his driver’s license. Looks like it’s a relative’s place. Nothing of interest in the vehicle, but we did find directions to the Langstons’ address. Follow those backwards, and you’ll probably find out where he was staying.”

  “You’re not going to check it out?”

  Howard looked at Rogan. “Will you please explain to her I’m doing you two a favor?”

  Rogan gave her an exhausted smile. “Trust me. She appreciates it.”

  “All right now. You let me know if you hear anything I need to care about. Otherwise, I’ll tell you when our ADA clears this bad boy. As it stands, I’m willing to bet a paycheck on it.”

  The sun was coming up by the time Ellie made it back to her own bedroom. She had hoped to find Max waiting for her there. Instead, she fell asleep alone, telling herself she might have to get used to the solitude.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  She was still yawning at eleven o’clock the next morning.

  “Damn it, Rogan. I’m telling you, I’m about to burst. I don’t have any choice. I’m doing it.”

  “That is disgusting. You are officially a disgusting person.”

  “God, you are such a germaphobe. I’ll wash my hands when I’m done.”

  “Don’t be counting on any soap in there. Or you know it’s going to be all funked up.”

  Ellie hovered over James Grisco’s toilet. The bathroom, like the rest of the apartment, was filthy. She tried not to think about the yellow streaks beneath her feet.

  Rogan was right. The only soap was in the mildewed shower stall, and she had no interest in touching soap that had been rubbed on the body that had occupied this space. She found a bottle of dish soap in the kitchen, then rubbed her hands on her pants to dry them.

  “Told you it’d be nasty,” Rogan said.

  “You and your Starbucks.” That’s the last time she’d suck down a Venti Americano before heading to an ex-con’s crash pad. Regular deli coffee in a normal-size cup was just fine for her.

  They’d found the apartment just as Detective Howard had suggested, working backwards from the handwritten directions to the Hamptons that Grisco had left in his car. That had landed them on Ninety-first Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. She took the north side of the block; Rogan took the south. The fourth door she’d knocked on belonged to a sweet old man who had no idea the new tenant living above his garage was a convicted killer.

  The landlord could use a lesson in property management, because he confirmed that Grisco had rented the filthy prefurnished apartment only six days earlier. He also confirmed that Grisco lived alone. Now that the sole tenant was dead, so were his expectations of privacy, which meant they didn’t need a warrant.

  As it turned out, there was very little to search. The single room was no bigger than four hundred square feet. No computer. No television. Just a few items of clothing in a rickety dresser, undoubtedly unpacked from the empty duffel bag in the closet. Milk, cereal, and two frozen dinners in the kitchen.

  “Why can’t this be easy?” Rogan asked. He was searching through Grisco’s clothing more thoroughly.

  “What did you expect to find? A neatly typed memo from George Langston to one Mr. James Grisco, subject line ‘re: Murder My Wife’?”

  “A computer. A phone. The kinds of things that hold people’s secrets. Wait, I got something.” He reached into a balled sock and pulled out a roll of money. “About fifteen hundred dollars. How much did the old man say Grisco paid for this place?”

  “Twelve hundred a month.”

  “You could get a palace in Buffalo for that.”

  “It may be a dump, but how was he paying for it, and with fifteen hundred bucks to spare?” They had no explanation for why Grisco was in New York City. Now they had learned that Grisco had paid his landlord first and last months’ rent plus deposit—all in cash, despite having no apparent source of income.

  Ellie crouched next to the bed, supporting her weight with her knees so she would not need to place her clean hands on the threadbare carpet.

  “Grisco was a reader.” She used a pen to slide the stack out from beneath the bed. “Two pornos and a paperback. Hey, look—he’s got the same taste as you.”

  She recognized the image on the cover—the trunk of a Lincoln Town Car—as a series Rogan was always raving about.

  “I’m strictly online now for all my pornography needs.”

  “Very funny. I meant this.” She held up the paperback, and two small cards fell from the pages. She immediately recognized the first as a MetroCard for the buses and subways. The other was one of those frequent-customer cards promising a freebie after the requisite number of purchases. Ellie’s own wallet was bursting with them, and she hadn’t filled one yet. She was about to replace the cards in the book when she pulled the frequent-customer card out again. Grisco had been halfway to a free cup of coffee, but it wasn’t the regularity of his beverage consumption that caught her attention.

  The card was from Monster Coffee. “Check this out.”

  “Monstrous Coffee. Still have the taste of burnt oil in my mouth.”

  Ellie pulled up the Monster Coffee website on her BlackBerry. Eleven locations scattered throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Maybe it was only a coincidence, but she didn’t like the fact that one of those branches was right across the street from the Casden School.

  They moved on to the less obvious places to search: above the kitchen cabinets, behind the dresser, inside the toilet tank.

  Rogan must have seen the disappointment in her face. “Maybe we’ll find something in George’s bank records.” They had sent all the major banks a request for account statements for the Langstons, hoping to find proof that George Langston had paid money to James Grisco.

  But Ellie’s mind was elsewhere. “You know, I keep thinking about Langston showing up at the police station last night. He looked terrified.”

  “If we’re right about him,
then things didn’t exactly go as he planned, did they? He might have been terrified of getting caught.”

  “No. He looked genuinely worried about Adrienne. Plus, I did some Googling this morning on that family law attorney whose number I got from the Langstons’ caller ID. We assumed George was looking for a divorce, but it turns out Michael Wiles, Esquire, Attorney at Law, is seventy-eight years old with an office above a Chinese restaurant on the Lower East Side. Not exactly the kind of hired gun a guy like Langston would need for a high-priced divorce fight. And why would he send Grisco to the Hamptons house with a knife when he knew Adrienne would have access to a loaded gun?”

  “Damn. Are you actually rethinking this?”

  “We already made a mistake with Casey. I just don’t want to jump to the wrong conclusion.”

  “But you never did jump to any conclusions with Casey. You said all along it didn’t feel right. George, on the other hand, is the one person who ties it all together, remember?” He used his fingers to count off all of the relevant points. “We know one of the threats about his wife came from Julia’s computer. Julia has a mystery boyfriend. Julia is Langston’s daughter’s best friend. And, oh yeah, don’t forget about that picture we have of her at his country house.”

  He suddenly stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling.

  “What?” She followed his gaze. “You see something?”

  “No. But the country property. Ramona said her dad bought it right out of law school with a group of friends. What do you want to bet one of those friends is David Bolt?”

  “We’ve been focusing on George because he’s married to Adrienne and obviously knew Julia. But if Adrienne knows that George helped Bolt sweep the Moffit family’s lawsuit under the rug—”

  “Then Bolt might have more to lose than even George.”

  “Shit. Remember Casey said yesterday that Brandon sent him an e-mail apologizing? According to Brandon, Julia was the one who originally hooked him up with Dr. Bolt, which means she knew about the drug testing, even though Ramona didn’t. Maybe she knew Bolt.”