COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  My anger made me ignore his statement. “How was this reported?”

  “A neighbor called it in a little after six. She’s in the next apartment. She said there were several loud explosions, which sounded like gunshots. The first on the scene were two uniforms. They got there within ten minutes of the call. They took one look and called it in to homicide. Sonny Marks caught the case. He knew Scotty and I were friends. He called me.”

  I knew then he was holding back. “You don’t think it was a robbery either. What burglar in his right mind breaks into an apartment at six in the morning when everyone is getting up for work? No way, amigo. You’re going to talk to the people in the play, right?”

  “Back. Off. Gabe. Let me do my job before you go off on one of your half-cocked quests and screw everything up. No, it doesn’t look like a regular burglary,” he reluctantly admitted, “and until we have something telling us different, that’s the way it will be played.”

  “By the book,” I said, the words coming out more like a sneer than a statement.

  Chris’s eyes softened. “Gabe, I know how much Scotty meant to you. I loved him too damn it! I won’t let this become another dead end case. You know me better than that. I’ll use everything the department has to find the killer.”

  “Do what you have to.” I stood, dropped a five on the table and started out.

  “Gabe,” Chris called from behind me. I turned to look at him. “Let’s talk tonight when I have more. Come to the house for dinner. Be there at seven.” He paused, his voice went thoughtful “Why just the people involved in the play? Why not one of predators Scotty exposed? And don’t forget those pimps he’s pissed off by rescuing kids from them.”

  “I don’t forget anything,” I reminded him. “I’m going over to Scotty’s apartment later, to catalog it. Make sure they know.” I pushed the glass door open. The heat hit me fast. I breathed it in and kept walking west. When I reached the Hudson River, I stopped. To my right was the renovated USS Intrepid, the permanently docked Navy museum. The waiting line of tourists standing in the bright sun, stretched for a half block. I walked until I was alone and could stare out at the river.

  Sadness leached away my anger. Scotty was gone and I had to accept that. When Chris had said he loved Scotty, I knew how he felt. But the word love didn’t cover what I felt. Very few people understand what unconditional love is. I did, so did Scotty and Chris. In the two and a half years I had spent behind bars, both in Riker’s and at the state’s maximum facility in Ossining, Scotty had never been far from me. He’d sat behind me every day in the courtroom, and he’d visited me at least once a week, no matter what was happening in his life. He and Chris had devoted thirty months of their lives to keeping me sane and to proving my innocence. I would never have made it without them.

  When I got out of prison, Scotty gave me a job as the Assistant Director of his second play. And although the job, and the ghosts of the past who had come with it, had shown me I couldn’t pick up where I’d left off three years earlier, it was another example of Scotty’s friendship and love.

  Now he was gone. I shook my head. The tears came before I could gain any control, so I let them flow and, leaning over the railing, watched them fall into the Hudson. What happened wasn’t right, and I would be damned if I’d let anything stop me from finding out who killed my friend. When I found out who it was, I would make him pay the price!

  I wiped my eyes with a thumb and forefinger then looked at the water. Sunlight scampered across the choppy waves.

  I stood still until my emotions settled and until I knew there was just one thing for me to do—go to work.

  Chapter 4

  The rehearsal hall was on Forty-third between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, three quarters of the way toward Eleventh. The hall was in an old office building that had been gutted and turned into six private rehearsal studios and a small theatre with a hundred and fifty seats. Scotty always used this place for rehearsals, and I knew it well: I’d worked here after I’d gotten out of prison.

  It was one o’clock. I’d spent the last hour at the Times; going over the stories the Times had run on the play. The play is generating a lot of publicity, because Scotty Granger wrote it was producing it. There were memories for me as well: The leading lady, Rebecca Thayer, had become a star in one of Scotty’s plays, the one I had worked as the Assistant Director—but that was nine years in the past.

  Eleven months ago, Rebecca was ending a three-year run with the number one show on Broadway. When Scotty learned she would be available, he’d signed her for the lead. She spent the five next months in Hollywood, reprising her stage role for Disney’s film version. She’d returned to New York four months ago and had been in rehearsal ever since.

  Stories of Rebecca’s nightlife were the stuff of tabloids, and the name of the new play, Manhattan Melodrama, was always mentioned in the stories. The stories had been pumped up by the show’s publicists—not only was it standard routine, it was good business. I’d lived through it myself, more than a dozen years before, but it wasn’t a memory I wanted to look at.

  Several of the show’s Angels—the shows backers—were gossip column fodder and they too had their names dropped with regularity. The advance publicity for the show was hot, and even before opening, everyone expected the show to be a blockbuster.

  The PR didn’t matter much to me: I had looked up the stories in search of a lead. But, there weren’t enough real facts to give me any ideas.

  When Chris’s call came at twelve-thirty, it caught me off-guard. “We’re going to the hall to do interviews.” I told him I’d be by, which is why I was pulling the door open and stepping out of the heat and into the air conditioning.

  I pulled my wallet and flipped my shield to the kid at the desk. “They’re inside?”

  “Yes sir, fourth door on the right.” Most people don’t know the difference between a police badge and a PI shield; he was one who didn’t.

  When I pushed inside, the scent of the theatre hit me. More a feeling than a smell, it was sweat, mustiness and the sensation of being somewhere else. The rehearsal theatre was a miniature version of a Broadway house. Twelve rows of theatre style seats were set in three sections, the center having the majority of seats. The floor was brown vinyl tile. The stage was small but serviceable, and the dark blue curtains framing each side, gave the stage real presence—there was no set, just open space and a matching blue backdrop curtain to hide the cinder block wall. Two groupings of chairs were on the stage.

  I stared at the stage and waited for my old ghosts to haunt me, but for a change, they left me in peace. My stomach twisted: maybe this morning’s nightmare was penance enough.

  The house lights were on, turning the room stark. Like the seating sections, the play’s company each sat with their own. The actors were in the right side section, there were seven of the show’s angels present, and were seated in the center along with the director and his assistant and the production manager. In the left section were a couple of the stage crewmen who worked the rehearsals. The rest were at the shop, building sections of the set.

  My scan of the theatre took five seconds, just enough time for Chris to see me. To my right, Sonny Marks and his partner were talking with one of the actors.

  Ahead, where the actors were gathered, a solitary form stood near the aisle. He was big: Six-three, two hundred twenty pounds of broad muscle, topped by a rugged yet handsome face and capped by longish brown hair combed straight back. I knew he had deep green eyes, but I couldn’t see them at this distance. His name was Jonathan Mondale—Tarz for short, which was short for Tarzan. Jonathan Mondale looked just like the Tarzan Edgar Rice Burroughs had described in his books. Except Tarz wasn’t a fictional English Lord; rather, he’d earned the name serving twelve to fifteen at Ossining On The Hudson—Sing-Sing— for armed robbery. He’d gained parole after seven years. He’d also been my cellmate.

  Close up, his face was shadowed with pain. In the joint, Tarz had been my s
tar pupil. Yeah, I had friends in high places: They had helped to make things a little easier for me on the inside, so my work duty was teaching a high school equivalency class and a theatre class. Tarz had been a natural actor. He’d been easy to teach.

  This was the reason he was here. Scotty had seen his talent at a play we’d staged in Sing-Sing. When Tarz had gotten out, almost two years ago, I’d found him a decent day job and had bankrolled him at the Actor’s Studio. Six months later, when Scotty was setting up the first stages of production, he’d offered Tarz a supporting role. But right now Tarz didn’t look like the tough ex-con who could put anyone down, he looked like he’d lost his best friend.

  “What happened Teach? They said it was a robbery.”

  Teach was what they’d called me in the joint—and stereotyped for obvious reasons. “I don’t know, yet. All I know is someone blew him apart. You hear anything from the cast?”

  His eyes narrowed and he blew out a sharp breath. Loyalty was one of Tarz’s strong points. He believed in unwavering loyalty to those who he considered friends. “You think maybe it was someone here?”

  When I shrugged, he gave me a quick shake of his head. “No, everyone’s real upset.”

  “Okay. Keep your eyes open, just in case.”

  “I will,” he said before going back to the group staring at us.

  Chris walked passed Tarz without looking at him. His eyes were fixed on me. When he reached me, he cocked his head to one side. “Have you cooled down yet?”

  “Yeah.... What do you have?”

  He shook his head. “Everyone seems in genuine shock. The backers are worried. They don’t like the publicity and want us to tie this up fast.”

  It was and expected reaction: There was good publicity and bad. This was bad. I looked at the three groups. In the theatre, the class distinctions were high and the way everyone was grouped reinforced the feeling.

  “Any word yet on the autopsy?”

  Chris looked at his Rolex President. His father had given him the watch when he graduated from Fordham. It was worth twenty percent of a uniform cop’s annual salary. For Chris, it was his everyday watch.

  “It’s been a busy day. The M.E. is short staffed and backed up. He’ll be working on it soon.”

  I winced at the way he’d said it: It, was Scotty Granger. I bit back my anger. Somewhere deep inside, I understood Chris’s need to keep this impersonal. It was how he had to work. Not me: for me this was very personal.

  Chris’s cell phone rang. He looked at the readout and walked to the rear of the theatre. When he left me, one of the angels came over. He was five eleven, a little past chunky, and weighed in at around two hundred pounds. He wore an expensive blue suit and a Dior silk tie. His face was clean-shaven except for a thin salt and pepper mustache set equidistant between a thin-lipped mouth and a slightly humped nose. The salt and pepper of his short hair completed the look of a rich and confidant businessman, even if he looked more Lebanese than his English surname suggested.

  I knew him from the newspapers. Thomas Albright was a big name in the financial district: A Wall Street broker with a well-known reputation for guiding his clients to big scores. Reputed to be one of the richest people in the city, and one of the two largest backers of the show, he was one of the few men who, just before the bubble burst at the start of the millennium, had managed to save himself and most of his clients.

  “Mr. Storm, I’m Thomas Albright.” He extended his hand. His handshake was firm, but without pressure, like a politician who was used to shaking a lot of hands and didn’t want it to end up sore. “I’m sorry for your loss. I know he was a friend.”

  “He was more than that,” I said, the words coming sharper than I’d intended.

  “Are you going to investigate?” His concerned eyes searched my face.

  I held his gaze. “Let’s see how the cops do first.”

  Albright glanced toward the other ‘angels’. The six people sitting there watched us intently: One face stood out from among the others: A thirty-something woman with classically beautiful features framed by straight blonde hair. When Albright turned back to me, the pink tip of his tongue darted out to moisten his lips.

  “We… uh, we’d like to talk to you, but not here.”

  “We?”

  “The show’s backers.”

  I didn’t have to ask why. I knew. I reached into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet, extracted a white business card with raised black print, and handed it to him. “My office at four.”

  “Thank you.”

  With a parting nod, I walked over to Rebecca Thayer. She was as beautiful up close, sitting in this drab rehearsal hall without stage make-up, as she was on stage. Her blonde hair glowed, and her large pale blue eyes were set with just the right spacing. She wore a simple peasant top and a pair of blue jeans. Yellow flip-flops hung on her feet.

  She and Scotty had had a short romance and had parted as friends. Today her pretty eyes were clouded. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m having trouble believing it, Gabe. I miss him already.”

  I understood. Scotty was someone who you either loved or didn’t like at all. There was no in between with my friend. I folded myself into the seat next to her and took her hand. It was cold, but her fingers tightened on mine.

  Why would someone kill Scotty? He was the gentlest man I know.”

  “I don’t know, but you can be damned certain I’ll find out.” I spent a few more minutes with Rebecca, and learned the last time she’d seen Scotty had been two days ago, at rehearsal on Friday. I glanced at the other faces, reading the shock of what had happened on them, and decided to let it go for now. I found Chris by the entrance, talking to Sonny Marks.

  “Anything?”

  Chris shook his head. Sonny Marks looked at me for a second. “Everyone has an alibi. No one knows nothing.”

  “Of course. And you have it down as a robbery homicide?”

  The detective exhaled. “It reads like one.”

  I turned to Chris. “I’m going over to the apartment. Have you cleared it yet?”

  Chris nodded. “What did Albright want?”

  “To tell me he was sorry for my loss.” I wasn’t ready to share anything else, yet. “I’ll see you later.” I pushed between them and, when I reached the exit doors, I had a sense of someone watching me. With one hand poised on the door, I looked over my shoulder and met the green eyes of the blonde angel.

  I made it to the street before my cell phone rang. The digital readout informed me it was the NYPD.

  Chapter 5

  Standing in the heat, I answered the call. “Storm.”

  “This is Sergeant Cooper. You were involved in a situation last night. Officer Herman said you were coming in to file charges.”

  “Yes. Something came up and I’ve been delayed.”

  “Well, we’d appreciate you coming in and filling out the papers.”

  The way he said appreciate sounded more like, ‘I don’t think you’re going to show up and do what you said’. He didn’t know me.

  I hailed a cab and, eight minutes later, I was standing in front of the precinct on Fifty-Second Street. When I entered the old building and reached the desk, two detectives I knew flipped me a casual wave as they walked by. “Hey Gabe,” called one.

  I nodded to the vice cop then looked at the desk Sergeant. “Cooper?”

  “Thought I recognized the name,” the Sergeant said, his attitude turning buddy-like. “Glad you came by. Those two Danny brought in were released on bail three hours ago.”

  The news surprised me. “Really.”

  “Connections. Not nice ones.”

  “You have the papers?”

  He pushed some papers to me. “Danny filled them out for you. All you need to do is sign them, unless you disagree with what he put down.”

  Danny Herman had written out exactly what had happened—or rather, what I told him had happened. I signed the papers and handed them back.

&
nbsp; “We’ll notify you of the court date—but don’t hold your breath.”

  “Thanks,” I said and left.

  As I walked to Scotty’s apartment, I filed last night’s incident into the back of my mind. I entered the building, nodded to the doorman who knew me and went to the elevator. No one was in the lobby. The only person visible on the fourth floor was a uniform cop in front of Scotty’s door.

  I held up my wallet. “Chris Bolt called ahead.”

  “Yes, Sir.” He stepped aside as I reached for the knob. I hesitated for a second, a feeling of not wanting to go inside gripped me.

  The inside of the apartment was eerily quiet. The duty cop followed behind me. He was young, twenty-two or twenty-three, with the green look of a rookie. “You need gloves,” he said, extending a pair of thin latex gloves.

  I slipped them on. The Crime Scene Unit had already dusted, but precaution was always called for; they might be back. I went into the living room where the blood-spattered wall greeted me. I forced my eyes away.

  The blood on the floor had dried. The scene markers were still in place -- five of them represented the spent shell casings. Three feet to my left was a group of three markers, all within a two-foot radius of the center. The fourth and fifth markers were closer to where they had found the body. I knew the last two rounds were fired to make sure Scotty was dead. The shooter had moved once after he’d begun firing. There were chalk mark circles surrounding the bullet holes.

  I looked at the mahogany wall unit. It was a mess. I closed my eyes and drew up the memory of the last time I was here and saw the shelving unit exactly as it had been. My memory was an asset most of the time, other times it was more a haunting: But it had helped a lot in school, during my time in the theatre, and now in my detective business.

  I scanned every shelf on the unit. His Tony statuette lay on its side; even the cast iron Buddha I’d given him on his twenty-first birthday had been moved. Everything was there. It seemed like someone had swiped a hand across each shelf just to knock it all down.