Murder in the Manuscript Room

by Con Lehane

  “She’d have told you not to tell anyone and that she’d come and get it from you, and to wait, no matter how long.”

  Barbara Jean seemed to pull an invisible cloak around her, becoming as wily as her open and honest disposition would allow. With folks like her, basically honest and good people, their instinct was to tell the truth, unless you gave them reason not to.

  “Susan didn’t expect to die. She had no idea her life would be snuffed out in her prime.” He had to pee again; it was making him squirm but he couldn’t let up now. With difficulty, he waited, giving Barbara Jean time to absorb what he’d said. “I know her memory is important to you. You were the only one she had, really, and her father, who, well, isn’t the sort of man who could get close to a daughter. You’re the person who keeps Susan’s memory, who cares the most that there be closure for her.” He let this sink in while he went to pee.

  When he returned, they sat across from one another in silence.

  “Would you like more coffee?” she said.

  He probably should ask for another cup so he wasn’t just sitting there. He just couldn’t; he’d explode. He said no thank you and waited.

  “I didn’t know what to do. She never said what was in the package. It might be personal, and I wouldn’t want to show what was personal to her to anyone.”

  Cosgrove started to speak but caught himself; she wasn’t finished.

  “She said if anything happened to her I should send the envelope to Paul. She gave me his phone number. After she died, I called and called and could never reach him. And now he’s dead. I don’t know what to do. It could be mementos from their marriage.” She paused.

  Cosgrove let her drift in her memories.

  “They really did love one another. It’s sad.… I didn’t know what I should do when I couldn’t reach Paul. I didn’t want to go through her things. I’m not like that. I care about a person’s privacy. Because she really really didn’t want anyone to see what she sent, except Paul, I thought it might be best to destroy it.”

  Cosgrove’s heart sank. “It wasn’t personal,” he said glumly, like he might say, “That train has left the station.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I know what’s in the package.” He didn’t know, like he hadn’t known there was a package. He’d bet his career Paul’s files were in the envelope, but he didn’t know. He felt a glimmer of hope. “There should be files. Open the package and look. If you don’t find police files, close it up, burn it, do whatever you want. If you find police files, you might have found Susan’s killer.”

  Chapter 43

  That same morning at his apartment in New York, Ambler watched Adele open her eyes and gaze about the room before sitting up. He was across the room at what served as his dining room table, drinking a cup of coffee, watching her until her eyes met his.

  “Was I awful last night? It’s a blur. I think I’m going crazy.”

  “You were fine. You had to recover from a terrible shock. You did, and you crashed. Everything’s fine.”

  “Thanks for helping me.” She smiled as she got herself upright and then onto her feet. “I’m going home to take a shower. I’ll see you at work.”

  Late in the morning, when she came to get him for lunch, he told her he’d heard back from the imam she’d asked him to contact about Gobi. “The message is to go this evening to the coffee shop in Bay Ridge where I first met the imam. He’ll arrange for you to talk to Gobi.” He examined her face, the circles under her eyes, the lines of worry at the corners of her mouth. “You’ve been through a lot. You don’t have to do this.”

  She wanted to go, as he knew she would. She was sure Gobi didn’t kill anyone, that the men who killed Paul Higgins and abducted her were the men Gobi had escaped from when he first got out of jail. She was sure he’d help, that he’d know enough about the men to get himself off the hook and get them arrested. Ambler didn’t think problems as large as this one got solved so easily.

  After work, they took the train from Times Square to Bay Ridge. The trip took almost an hour, the subway cars overcrowded, everyone grumpy and dispirited because it was Monday after work on a gray day in late winter. Ambler was plain weary and Adele, he was sure, felt worse. Every now and again, their eyes met and she’d smile. At one point, when the train lurched and she leaned against him, she put her arm around his waist and leaned her head against his chest, her eyes closed. He pressed his lips gently against her hair.

  The imam was sitting at the same table, wearing the same sort of outfit, this one light blue rather than white. He stood when they entered and motioned for them to follow him. The room he took them to, in the back of the restaurant, wasn’t plush and ornate like the front; it was a private, no-frills function room. Gobi sat at one of the three or four wooden booths against the far wall. He was alone.

  The mixture of joy and pain on his face when he saw Adele caused Ambler’s heart to sink. He was glad he was behind Adele, afraid of what her expression might say. He waited for her to take the lead.

  “Hello Gobi,” she said.

  As Gobi raised his eyes to look beyond them, his expression changed from borderline ecstasy to a look of horror. Ambler half turned before he was brought to the ground by an arm around his neck and under his chin from the back. The last he saw was Gobi half stand and then sit back down, a look of defeat on his face.

  The room exploded into a loud commotion, men running, shouting; someone grabbed Adele, pushing her into a booth across from where Gobi sat. Ambler was on the floor, two large, black automatic rifles pointed at him by two burly men in flak jackets who looked prepared to pull the trigger. Not a time for questions or explanations, he put his head down on the floor and waited.

  After some minutes, someone yanked him to his feet and patted him down. The same person took him by the arm, led him to a booth, and told him to sit. Gobi knelt on the floor across from him, his hands cuffed behind his back. Adele sat in her booth weeping. He expected to see Brad Campbell lording over the proceedings. But he wasn’t there. Adele tried to say something to Gobi as the cops led him away, but they wouldn’t let her out of her booth. As Gobi walked past, he glanced pitifully at Ambler. Expecting accusation, Ambler felt worse than if he’d been accused of betrayal.

  “I’ll call David Levinson. Don’t talk to anyone.”

  A man in a trench coat with a badge crookedly pinned to it stepped in front of Ambler, glowering at him as if he barely restrained himself from smashing him in the face. “Shut up if you don’t want to go with him.”

  Ambler forced himself to look the man in the eye. It was difficult because he felt helpless in front of all the firepower.

  The police left the imam behind. He was philosophical about the arrest; glad it wasn’t him, Ambler guessed, not seeming to accuse him or Adele of anything either. They hadn’t lead the police to Gobi on purpose. Ambler was angry at himself. He should have known either he or Adele was being shadowed. Why wouldn’t they spy on him?

  He talked with the imam for a minute or two, after he called and left a message for David Levinson, Gobi’s lawyer. The imam said he would talk to the community board and their city councilman, taking in stride that the police would come and snatch someone from his flock. He made clear to Ambler and Adele, who stood beside him red-eyed, not saying a word, although probably not consciously, that this trouble that befell his world had not much to do with the naïve couple who’d unwittingly brought the trouble with them.

  The restaurant called a car service for them. On the way back to Manhattan, Adele was subdued. She hadn’t said a word since the police hauled Gobi away. “We did that, didn’t we?” she said, a rebuke not a question. The anger in her voice brought back unpleasant memories of the self-accusations, the self-flagellations of Liz, his ex-wife. He didn’t want Adele to take this out on herself. He’d rather she took it out on him.

  “It was my fault. I should’ve known we were being followed.”

  “Who were they following, me or
you?”

  It was probably her but he didn’t want to say so. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any difference.”

  “It was me, wasn’t it? I’m such a goddamn idiot.” She raised her arm to strike herself in the face. He recognized the movement and grabbed her wrist before she could do it.

  He held both her wrists for a moment looking into her reddened eyes. “We’re not finished yet. Neither Gobi nor the radical Muslims had a reason to kill Paul Higgins.”

  Adele moved her wrists from under his grasp and grabbed his hands with both of hers. He could feel her energy, her rising excitement. “What do you mean?” Her eyes lit up.

  “Paul Higgins’s killing was an assassination. In the papers he donated to the library was the story of a murder. He wasn’t going to reveal what he knew about it. The files with the story were embargoed. He told someone what he did, or was going to do, someone with a lot more to lose if the story was discovered. The night we delivered the files to the library that someone followed us. He couldn’t get the files that night, so he enlisted Leila’s help to get them. Why would she help him? She had to; he was her boss. But she was loyal to Paul Higgins and took the files before her boss could get to them. When she wouldn’t tell him where they were, he killed her.”

  Adele slumped back against the seat of the cab. “She died to protect her ex-husband? Brad Campbell killed her? But the men who killed Paul Higgins, who were they?”

  “They work for Campbell. Your abduction was a ruse to implicate Gobi, as was the phone call that brought you to the Library Tavern to witness Campbell’s thugs murder Paul Higgins, again to implicate Gobi.”

  Adele sat up straight. Her eyes shone. “Paul knew Brad Campbell killed Leila? He must have known. He knew what Campbell needed to hide and that those records were in the library where Leila was murdered.”

  Ambler leaned toward Adele and put his hands on her shoulders, his face close to hers. “Paul was determined to kill the killer of the woman he loved. Campbell knew that. Paul wasn’t absolutely sure it was Campbell, so he wanted to eliminate Gobi as a suspect. Paul, whatever else he might have been, had enough honest cop left to need proof before he acted. And so do I need proof.”

  * * *

  The car service dropped Adele off at her apartment. Ambler had himself dropped off at the Library Tavern; he needed to think. He tried not to look for bloodstains on the sidewalk as he went in. He drank a beer and told McNulty what happened in Bay Ridge and that he was waiting for a call from David Levinson.

  “I found the guy and he dies on my doorstep.” McNulty’s expression was hard, unforgiving. “That’s on me. I owed him a dinner.”

  Ambler felt guilt also. He’d been wrong about Paul Higgins. Prejudice he didn’t like to admit to clouded his thinking. He should know better than to be quick to judge. “It’s not your fault.” He looked at McNulty squarely. “I should have known he’d be killed. I didn’t put things together fast enough because I guessed. The problem is I’m still guessing.”

  “Pop called me. He had something for you on that guy—”

  Ambler’s phone rang. McNulty didn’t allow cell phone conversations at the bar, so he took it outside, expecting a call from David Levinson. Instead, it was his son, John.

  “The guy you’re interested in? He copped to the hit.”

  “The contract?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told you about the contract on Devon? Why would he?”

  “Who knows? Bragging. Making himself a big deal, so he’s more important than the rest of us sad sacks in here. He was a snitch for a cop when he was on the street, a higher-up cop, who got him out of jams.” John paused. “So you can call me as a witness. Do I get anything out of it?”

  Ambler felt a moment of panic. “I don’t want you to be a witness. Even with evidence we might not convict the man we’re going after. And we don’t have any evidence. You’ll still be in there, a sitting duck.”

  “I’ll take the chance to get some time lopped off.” There was a different tenor in John’s voice, stronger, more confident, than before. “I want to get out of here while my kid’s still a kid.”

  * * *

  “Levinson?” McNulty asked when he came back in.

  “My son.”

  McNulty looked at him with that soulful gaze. One reason for the loyalty of his bar patrons was he offered you sympathy without requiring you to explain what hurt.

  “You were telling me about something from your father.”

  “Pop said to tell you all of the papers from the Party—that’s the Communist Party—are collected down in the Village at this library at NYU. He wants you to meet him there tomorrow morning. He found something on Richard Wright.”

  Chapter 44

  Cosgrove knew, after a quick glance through the documents in the files Barbara Jean showed him, that he’d found what he came for. He’d go through Paul’s files thoroughly on the plane and take them to the DA’s office when he got back. They were volatile enough he wouldn’t even go home first. Nor would he log in the evidence at headquarters. He’d never skipped that step before. He didn’t want to admit to himself he didn’t trust his own department with the evidence. He wouldn’t let himself think it.

  Once the stuff was under lock and key in the DA’s office, he’d tell Halloran what he had, and run for cover. On the plane, he thought about going to the press first, not sure Campbell’s tentacles didn’t stretch into the DA’s office. He decided instead to make copies and have them ready to send to the press if something went wrong with the DA’s office.

  He called Dan Collins, a longtime ADA in the Trial Division, when he landed and asked to meet at a coffee shop on Church Street near the DA’s office. Collins, with whom he’d worked on more than a few trials over the years, had stood up to the powers more than once and was one of the few lawyers Cosgrove trusted. They met. He gave Collins the files and told him what was in them.

  Collins’s eyes widened. “I’ve got to take this to the boss, Mike. It’s a bombshell.” He seemed both excited and nervous. “I’m not sure I’m happy you brought this one to me. Are you sure it’s enough for a guilty verdict?”

  “I’m not done.”

  “You’re afraid to log in your evidence. Don’t tell me you’re not worried, too.”

  Cosgrove left the files with Collins. Halloran was still in his office when he called, so he walked over and told him he’d found the missing Higgins files.

  “Where are they?”

  He told him.

  “Why?”

  He told him.

  Halloran stared at him for a full minute. “You wanna get yourself some good shoes for when you’re walking a beat in Staten Island.”

  “I’ve got copies.”

  “Log in the copies as evidence. When that’s done, give them to me. I’m going to talk to the chief, and we’ll probably talk to the commissioner. Be where you can get here on a minute’s notice. Needless to say, you don’t talk to anyone on this.”

  “Only one person I need—”

  “No one. Not a fucking soul!”

  * * *

  The morning after the disastrous trip to Bay Ridge, Ambler dropped Johnny off at his school and headed downtown to the Tamiment Library at NYU. McNulty’s Pop had found a transcript of an oral history interview with a man, Walter Scott, a Communist informant for the FBI in the sixties and seventies who lost heart in what he was doing and rejoined the party. The transcript was an account of his undercover work with the FBI on a number of projects, one of them a federal investigation of trucking in the garment industry.

  Ambler called Mike Cosgrove as soon as he left McNulty’s father and told him what he’d learned.

  “That will help. All hell’s about to break loose.”

  “Oh?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Are you back on the force?”

  “Yes and no. I got a situation where I have to keep something to myself. It won’t be long.”

  “
Are you going to talk to Hector Perez?”

  “I hope I won’t need to.”

  Cosgrove bent a lot of rules and took liberties other homicide detectives wouldn’t take in dealing with Ambler. Still, Mike remembered he wore a badge. “I want to tell you something about Perez I don’t want you to use.”

  “From your son?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I told you he needed to be careful.” Cosgrove paused. Ambler didn’t mind the silence. He trusted Mike as much as anyone he knew. “Okay. I think I know what he told you. Here’s how it works.”

  Cosgrove laid out a plan only someone with a couple of decades behind a homicide desk could devise. Like a good chess player, he thought out his moves a number of steps ahead of the move he was making now. “If you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll figure out where I’ve been and what I found.”

  “I see you’ve come from Dallas,” Ambler said.

  * * *

  Mike Cosgrove had what he needed. Ambler’s information from his son—that Ed Ostrowski paid Perez to kill Devon Thomas—was more useful as a tool than it would be in court. A prisoner testifying to what another prisoner told him in jail would be challenged by a good lawyer and often not believed by a jury. Fortunately, the information had other uses. He called Ed Ostrowski and arranged to meet him at a bar on Bell Boulevard in Bayside that night.

  His proposition was simple. “Brad Campbell’s going down. You can go down with him or you can help me out.”

  “You’re crazy; you can’t take Brad down.” Ostrowski’s tone was challenging; but mean and tough as he was, fear was in his eyes.

  “I’ve found where the bodies are buried, Ed. You did me a favor. (This one almost choked him.) Now I’m doing you one. We got you for the Devon Thomas killing. Hector Perez was yours. Should’ve used a stranger. I’ve got the CI log. Perez will testify to save his ass. I want Brad. You flip on the murders Brad did personally and get a pass on Devon Thomas.” Cosgrove paused to calm himself down. He was so tightly wound, he was creaking. He needed to relax or he’d scare Ostrowski off. “I’ve got Paul’s files. You think Brad won’t turn on you? He had Paul killed, Paul who was like a brother to him. You think you won’t end up like Paul someday when you cross him? Which you will, Ed, it’s your nature.”