Dead of Winter (CSI: NY)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Slightly. My attorney will be here in fifteen minutes,” she said. “I must ask you to put everything back just as you find it.”

  Mac nodded.

  “I plan to watch,” Louisa said. “Front-line research for my next book.”

  “You finished your latest?” asked Mac politely.

  Louisa smiled and said, “Almost.”

  Aiden and Mac stood silently for a moment, waiting for her to continue. Louisa put a hand to her forehead and said, “It may be my last, at least for a while. As you can see, it has taken a great deal out of me. May I ask what you’re looking for? I might be able to save you some time and keep my carpets clean and my privacy intact.”

  “Among other things, a .22 caliber pistol,” said Mac. “Not the one you showed us yesterday. And a bolt cutter.”

  “A bolt cutter?” she asked.

  “The lock on the box at the firing range where you keep a pistol was cut, probably some time yesterday.”

  “And the gun from the box is missing?” she asked, her eyes meeting his.

  “No,” said Mac.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to look,” Louisa said. “You won’t find anything. I should take notes about how it feels to be a murder suspect. I am obviously a prime suspect aren’t I?”

  “Looks that way,” said Mac.

  “A prime suspect without motive,” she added.

  Neither Mac nor Aiden responded. They put on their disposable gloves and began with the entryway in which they were standing.

  “They were going to kill me,” Big Stevie said to Jake the Jockey.

  Stevie was sitting on the sofa, sunk deep, leg hurting, thinking not about his birthday or the pain in his leg but the betrayal by Dario Marco. That’s all it could be, the only explanation. Stevie was a liability. He knew what had happened to Alberta Spanio. Marco couldn’t take a chance on Stevie’s being picked up and talking, so he had set him up at the apartment in Brooklyn.

  Stevie wouldn’t have talked. He had little besides a small apartment, a job driving a bakery truck, some favorite shows on television, a bar he sort of liked hanging around in, Lilly and her mother across the hall, and Marco. Until yesterday that had been enough to make him content.

  “Want some coffee, a drink, something?” asked the Jockey, himself sitting at the table in the studio apartment.

  “No, thanks,” said Stevie.

  Stevie and the Jockey had done jobs together, mostly for the Marco family. The Jockey did most of the talking when they were together, not that he was one of those can’t-stop talkers, but compared to Stevie he was Leno or Letterman.

  “What’re you gonna do?” asked the Jockey.

  Stevie didn’t want to think about his options, but he forced himself. He could gather whatever money he could, which was not all that much, maybe twenty-thousand or so if he could get it out of the bank after checking to be sure it wasn’t being watched by the police. He could turn himself in, testify against Anthony and Dario Marco, maybe duck the murder charge, go into witness protection. What did he owe them now? He had given them total loyalty and they had tried to kill him.

  No, even if he got a good lawyer and made a good deal, he would have to do some time. He had strangled a cop. No getting around that. Stevie was seventy-one years old plus a few hours. He’d die of old age in prison if the Marcos didn’t get to him first.

  Stevie could more than hold his own now, but in a few years maybe, he wouldn’t be fast enough to stop a prison shank from being plunged into his back. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be isolated from the population, live and die in a cell.

  No, there was really only one thing he could do. He could kill Dario Marco. Killing Dario had no reward other than making things even. He probably should have killed the two who had tried to trap him in the doorway of Lynn Contranos’s apartment building. Maybe he did kill one of them, the one he had punched in the stomach. Maybe he was off somewhere or in a hospital dying of internal bleeding. He had broken the nose of the second guy. Stevie seemed to remember his name was Jerry. Stevie had taken the gun from Jerry and thrown it away. Maybe he should have kept it, but Stevie had never liked guns. Maybe he should also kill this Lynn Contranos. When he put it all together, there really weren’t many options other than to be the last man standing.

  There was a knock at the door. The Jockey stood up suddenly, looked at Stevie, looked at the door.

  “Who’s it?” asked Jake.

  “Police.”

  Not many choices of places to hide. The closet or the bathroom. The Jockey pointed to the bathroom. Stevie got up. Jake whispered, “Get behind the door. Don’t close it. Flush the toilet.”

  Stevie struggled out of the deep chair and limped toward the bathroom while Jake went to the door. He glanced behind him as he moved, checking the floor for telltale drops of blood. There were none he could see.

  Stevie flushed the toilet and stood behind the open door.

  “I’m opening,” the Jockey said, looking back to see that Stevie was inside the bathroom.

  He unzipped his pants and opened the door. Jake zipped his pants back up. The cop was alone, plain clothes, leather coat.

  “Jacob Laudano?” asked the cop.

  “Lloyd,” the Jockey replied. “Jake Lloyd. Had it changed legal.”

  “Can I come in?”

  Jake shrugged and said, “Sure, I got nothing to hide.”

  He stepped back and Don Flack entered the small apartment. One of the first things he looked at was the partially open door of the bathroom.

  There were eighteen employees at Marco’s Bakery in Castle Hill. They were all at work except for Steven Guista.

  Stella had a list of names which she checked off as each man and woman came into the office supply room where the CSI investigators had set up.

  By the time they had talked to and gotten DNA and fingerprint samples from the first nine, it was clear that every employee was either an ex-con or some kind of relation of the Marco family, or both.

  Jerry Carmody was number ten. He was big, broad, about forty, going to fat, and wearing a bandage on his nose. His eyes were red and swollen.

  “What happened to your nose?” Stella asked after Danny had taken a throat culture from the man.

  “Accident, fell,” he said.

  “Fell hard,” she said. “Mind if I take a look?”

  “Went to the doctor this morning,” said Carmody. “He set it. It’s been broke before.”

  “You’re lucky the bone didn’t get driven back into your brain,” Stella said. “You were hit hard.”

  “Like I said. I fell hard,” Carmody said.

  “You in Brooklyn last night?” she asked.

  Carmody looked around at Danny and the uniformed cop who had brought him into the supply room.

  “I live in Brooklyn,” Carmody said.

  “Know a Lynn Contranos?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll need some of your blood,” said Stella with a cough.

  “What for?”

  “I think Stevie Guista did that to you,” she said. “You bled on Lynn Contranos’s doorstep. We’ve got some of that blood.”

  Carmody went silent.

  “You do know Helen Grandfield?” asked Stella.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “She’s Lynn Contranos,” said Stella.

  “Yeah, so?” said Carmody without interest.

  “Where is Guista?” she asked.

  “Big Stevie? I don’t know. Home, out getting drunk or laid. How should I know? It’s his birthday. Yesterday. He’s probably sleeping off a binge.”

  “We’ll talk some more about Stevie after we match your blood to the blood on the doorstep. Roll up your sleeve.”

  “What if I say, ‘no,’ ” he said.

  “Investigator Messer is very gentle,” said Stella. “If you don’t want to do it here, we go to our lab, get a court order. Who’s on duty at the lab?”

  “Janowitz,” said Danny evenly.

  �
��You don’t want Janowitz,” Stella said.

  “Janowitz the Jabber,” said Danny.

  Carmody rolled up his sleeve.

  Ned Lyons was the twelfth employee to be led into the supply room and both Danny and Stella knew they had a bingo.

  Lyons was lean, well-built, worn face older than his thirty-four years. He was also obviously walking with some pain, which he tried, without any success, to hide.

  “You all right?” Stella said as Lyons sat slowly on the wooden chair at the table.

  “Stomach flu,” he said.

  “Should you be working in a bakery with stomach flu?” she asked.

  “You’re right,” said Lyons. “Maybe I’ll tell the boss I’m sick.”

  “Lift your shirt please,” said Stella.

  Lyons looked around, sighed and lifted his shirt. The bruise on his solar plexus was about the size of a pie plate. It was already turning purple, yellow, red, and blue.

  “So what does that tell you?” asked Lyons.

  “What did Mr. Lyons have for dinner last night?” Stella asked Danny, who, looking at Lyons, answered, “Pepperoni, sausage, and a lot of pasta,” said Danny. “Mr. Lyons likes his sauce spicy.”

  “How do you know what I —?” Lyons began.

  “Open your mouth, Mr. Lyons,” Stella ordered.

  A now-confused Ned Lyons opened his mouth and Stella leaned forward to look.

  When she sat back, Stella said, “Got some good news for you. We found your missing tooth.”

  In Louisa Cormier’s third book, the killer, an outwardly mild-mannered office manager, had entered a locker in his third victim’s basement by using a fourteen-inch long two - and - three - quarter - pound steel-handled bolt cutter.

  Louisa had described what it felt and sounded like to cut the lock and hear it thud to the concrete floor. Louisa knew how to use a bolt cutter. The lock on the box at Drietch’s firing range had been cut with a bolt cutter. An examination of the lock had made that clear. On the morning of the murder, according to doorman McGee, Louisa had gone out on her usual morning walk carrying a large Barnes and Noble cloth bag, easily large enough to conceal a bolt cutter like the one the author had described in her book.

  There was no bolt cutter in the collection of objects in Louisa Cormier’s memento case in her library.

  No bolt cutter, no .22 caliber weapon, after thirty-two minutes of looking. What Mac did find in the bottom drawer of Louisa Cormier’s desk below her computer was a bound manuscript. He placed it on the desk as Louisa Cormier protested.

  “That’s the draft for one of my earlier books, when I was still using a typewriter. It was never published. I’ve been meaning to return to it, get it in publishable condition. I’d rather you not…”

  Louisa looked at her lawyer, Lindsey Terry, who had arrived a few minutes ago. He held up his palm indicating that his client should hold her protest.

  Mac placed the manuscript on the desk, opened its thick green cover, and looked down at the top page.

  “Now if you would just put it back,” she said. “It has nothing to do with bolt cutters or guns.”

  Mac flipped the manuscript open to approximately the middle of the book and looked down at the two round holes that ran through the pages.

  Mac pointed to the pages before him.

  “Nothing sinister,” Louisa said. “I shot the book.”

  Mac tilted his head to one side like a bird examining a piece of something curious that might or might not be edible.

  “When I finished it,” she said. “I hated it. I lived in Sidestock, Pennsylvania, at the time, working for the local newspaper, free-lancing to supplement my less than considerable wages. I read the book, thought it was a complete bomb, a waste of a year of my life. So I took it outside to the woods behind the house and shot it. I thought my potential life as a writer was over before it really got started. Pure impulse.”

  “But you didn’t throw it away,” said Mac.

  “No, I did not. I didn’t have to. I had gotten rid of my despair. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the manuscript. I’m glad I didn’t. The manuscript is a reminder of the fact that the muses can be fickle. And now, I actually think someday I’ll be able to salvage it.”

  “Do you mind if we take this?” said Mac, turning to the last page of the manuscript. “We’ll return it.”

  Louisa again looked at her lawyer, Lindsey Terry, who had stood silently at her side and said nothing. Terry was nearly ancient, had retired more than a decade earlier but had come back after concluding that he no longer had the passion he had once had for raising exotic fish. Ancient or not, Lindsey Terry was formidable. He was smart and knew how to play the age card. Mac was also sure that if charges were brought against Louisa Cormier, Lindsey Terry would step aside for another lawyer, someone with a much higher profile.

  “Does that manuscript have any bearing on the crime for which you obtained a warrant to search?” the lawyer asked.

  “Yes sir,” said Mac. “I think it does.”

  “I don’t want him reading it,” said Louisa.

  “Will it be necessary for you or anyone else to read Miss Cormier’s manuscript?” the lawyer asked.

  “I’ve become a fan over the last two days,” said Mac, looking down at the open page.

  “Can’t you…?” Louisa began, looking at the bald, freckle-headed, and clean-shaven old man at her side.

  “I cannot,” said Terry. “I can but warn Detective Taylor that he is engaged in a search which may well be tainted by his exceeding its conditions.”

  “I understand,” said Mac rising.

  Aiden entered the room. Before Cormier or her lawyer spotted her, Aiden gave a nod to Mac to indicate that she had found nothing.

  “The name of your new novel?” asked Mac.

  “The Second Chance,” she said.

  Aiden moved to the chair Mac had vacated and turned on the computer.

  “What is she doing?” asked Louisa.

  “Finding the program with your new novel,” said Mac.

  Aiden’s fingers moved quickly from keyboard to mouse and found herself looking at the desktop page. At the right side of the page was a file titled The Second Chance. She clicked on it and scrolled to the bottom of the document.

  “Page three hundred and six,” Aiden said.

  “I’m almost finished,” said Louisa.

  Aiden went to the hard-drive icon, clicked, opened it, and found files for Louisa Cormier’s novels. She looked at Mac and shook her head.

  “We’re finished,” said Mac, taking off his gloves and putting them in his pocket. The manuscript was under his arm, his kit in the other.

  When they left the apartment, Mac looked back at Louisa Cormier and decided from what he saw that the famous author no longer thought it would be interesting to be a murder suspect.

  “What’s the manuscript?” Aiden asked as the elevator descended.

  Mac handed it to her. Aiden opened it and looked down at the holes.

  “Last page,” Mac said.

  Aiden flipped to the final page. By the time the elevator stopped at the lobby she had skimmed it enough to know that the words she had been looking at were exactly the same words they had found on the typewriter ribbon of Charles Lutnikov.

  14

  “STEVIE GUISTA,” Don Flack said to Jacob Laudano, the Jockey.

  From where he stood in the doorway to the apartment, Don could see the whole room and the toilet and sink behind the open bathroom door.

  Don closed the door behind him.

  “Haven’t seen Big Stevie for months,” said Jacob.

  “He was at the Brevard Hotel night before last,” said Flack. “So were you.”

  “Me, no,” the Jockey said.

  “You won’t mind a line-up then,” said Flack.

  “A line-up? What the hell for?”

  “To see if any of the staff at the hotel recognize you,” said Don. “If they do, you move up the list to murder suspect.”<
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  “Wait a minute here,” said Jake, going to the table and sitting. “I didn’t murder anybody. Not night before last, not never. I’ve got a record, sure, but I’ve never murdered anyone.”

  “Never that we could prove,” said Flack.

  “Maybe I was at the Brevard,” said Jake. “I go there sometimes, drop in. Between you and me and the lamppost there’s a floating card game that rents a room there sometimes.”

  “Night before last?” asked Don.

  “No action. Went somewhere else.”

  “Who runs this card game?” asked Flack, moving closer to Jake who backed away.

  “Who runs it? Guy named Paulie. Don’t know his last name. Never did. Just ‘Paulie.’ ”

  “I want Steve Guista,” said Don. “If I have to step on you to get him, I’ll just be leaving a small stain on the carpet.”

  “I don’t know where he is. I swear.”

  “Right,” said Don. “Why would you lie?”

  “Right,” agreed Jake.

  Don was standing in front of the little man who may well have been lowered down to Alberta Spanio’s window the night before last, swung in, and stabbed her in the neck.

  There was no solid evidence. No fingerprints. No witness. There was just the Jockey’s acquaintance with Guista, who had rented the room, and the Jockey’s size and violent background that made him a good candidate for the crime.

  Don took out a card and handed it to the Jockey, who looked at it.

  “Call me if Guista gets in touch with you.”

  “Why would he?”

  “You’re friends.”

  “I told you. We hardly know each other.”

  “Keep the card,” said Don, leaving the apartment and closing the door behind him.

  When he felt reasonably sure the detective was gone, Jake looked up and watched Big Stevie limp out of the bathroom.

  “He went too easy,” said Big Stevie.

  “He had nothing,” said Jake.

  Stevie took the card from the Jockey and read it.

  “He could have leaned on you harder,” said Big Stevie. “I busted his ribs. He should be mad as hell.”