by John Lutz
Da Vinci stood up behind his desk and Nell actually winced.
So did Beam. “She didn’t mean that, Andy. Not the way it sounded.”
“The politics of this business are delicate and complex. I’ll concentrate on that part of our game while you concentrate on yours.”
“That’s what I was—”
“Nell.” Beam reached over and rested a big hand on her knee. For an instant she thought inanely that he might squeeze just behind the kneecap, prove she was boy crazy. “This is one phase of the game you don’t understand, Nell. You did nothing wrong and everything right—we all know that. It’s just that we handed Andy something valuable, but hot enough to burn his hand.”
We. Nell liked that. Beam and Nell together against the bureaucratic monster. “Okay,” she said, “I’m sorry, Chief.”
“Deputy Chief,” da Vince corrected. He actually smiled. Nell had to admire him for it. “Keep unearthing whatever you can,” da Vinci said. “And go wherever the investigation takes you. You’re the one who’s right, Nell, we’ve gotta have faith that the truth will bear us out. It’s our job, finding the truth.”
Nell thought he was getting a little sickening. Beam gave her a cautioning glance.
Beam stood up suddenly, surprising Nell.
“We’ll get back to our end of the game while you take care of business on your end,” Beam said to da Vinci. “All I’ll say is that if I were you, I’d dump it all on the media before it leaks on them. You know how it works; there’ll be less pressure on us that way in the long run.”
“Yeah,” da Vinci said, obviously pretending to become engrossed in some papers on his desk. “They’ll think we’re actually doing something.”
Outside One Police Plaza, as they were walking toward Beam’s car, Beam said, “da Vinci’s right about this, in some ways.”
“I thought you were on my side,” Nell said.
Beam smiled. “I am. You’re right about it in every way.”
“Departmental politics are a pain in the ass,” Nell said. “I’ll never understand them.”
“Probably not. Best thing.” They crossed the street. “Know what would help?” Beam said,
“Tell me.”
“If we solved one of these crimes.”
“And then the others,” Nell said, reaching for the Lincoln’s sun-warmed door handle.
“And then the others.”
16
Cold case files, suddenly hot.
Beam and his detectives studied the Rachel Cohen and Iris Selig murder files, then Beam sent Nell and Looper to snoop around the Selig crime scene. He took the Rachel Cohen murder, in the Village, himself.
Cohen had been single and a freelance journalist who hadn’t sold much. She’d been supported by her lifetime partner, a woman named Angela Drake, who’d discovered Rachel’s corpse in their apartment on MacDougal Street. Drake had long ago moved from the city. The people who lived in the apartment now, a young artist and his wife, consented to let Beam look around; but as Beam suspected, nothing much resembled the four-year-old police photographs of the murder scene. The furniture was different, and the papered walls with their fleur-de-lis pattern had been stripped and painted.
Beam was driving back uptown and turned onto Fourteenth Street when he noticed a small antique shop, Things Past, where he’d expected to see a jewelry store. His reaction was out of proportion to his surprise. A block away, he pulled to the curb and switched off the ignition.
Five years ago Things Past had been Precious Gems Limited, and was owned and managed by a fence, Harry Lima, who was one of Beam’s most valuable and reliable snitches. More than one burglary ring had been broken up after using Lima’s services to handle stolen goods, without the arrested parties suspecting the reason for their downfall was their fence.
But Beam had pushed when he shouldn’t have, and pressured Lima into informing on a jewel theft ring that was connected to organized crime and particularly dangerous. Despite Beam’s promises of protection, Lima was killed. Most of his body was found in a dumpster; his severed right hand, wearing his gaudy trademark diamond ring and clutching a dollar bill, was discovered six blocks away and served as a ghoulish and striking message as to why he was murdered. Tabloid news photos of the hand and ring were viewed by others in Harry Lima’s business who might be considering informing. It was more than a year before sources of information about jewel thefts in Manhattan began to open up again.
Beam was still haunted by the ghost of Harry Lima. Harry was one of the few major mistakes in his career, but more than that, he’d given his personal guarantee and let Lima down. Beam had been—and this is what Beam still came face to face with in his dreams—responsible for Harry Lima’s death.
It wasn’t only Harry Lima who haunted Beam. It was Harry’s wife, Nola, who’d been skeptical from the beginning about her husband’s safety, and who’d never completely believed Beam about anything. Nola had been a stunningly beautiful woman whose dark eyes and wide cheekbones suggested Native American ancestry. Harry had once caught Beam looking at his wife with more than professional interest, and it seemed to amuse him. He’d begun bragging about Nola’s beauty and passion, more than Beam wanted to hear, and told Beam she was half Cherokee. Both men knew Nola was off limits to Beam, not only because of Harry, but because of Nola herself. This wasn’t a woman to be used; she was the brains behind the legitimate retail jewelry business, and for all Beam knew, the brains behind the fencing operation.
Beam had found himself thinking more and more about Nola’s calm beauty, her slender waist, ample breasts, and what he saw as her noble bearing. He was attracted to her and couldn’t deny it. For a while, it even threatened his marriage to Lani. Not that Nola showed the slightest attraction to Beam. He knew that to her he was simply a danger to her husband, a cop, somebody on the other side, a liar. Nola had been right.
Beam’s problem was that he’d genuinely liked Harry Lima, and he’d more than liked his wife. Nola hadn’t known she’d been a threat to Beam’s career and marriage. She was the one woman who might have derailed him, if she’d taken the time to notice him as anything other than rain in her life.
Without really thinking about what he was doing, Beam climbed out of the car, fed the parking meter all the change in his pocket, then began walking along the sidewalk toward Things Past.
The antique shop appeared smaller than when it was a jewelry store, because of the clutter of merchandise. Antique clocks were mounted on one wall. The other walls were lined with display cases. In the central part of the shop were shelves of glassware and pottery, along with various antiques or collectibles ranging from ancient oil lamps to postcards. And to furniture, on which some of the merchandise was displayed.
Beam stepped around an antique oak bureau on which sat a brush-and-comb set, an old wash bowl, and a two-tiered painted globed lamp of the sort he’d heard called “Gone with the Wind” lamps. When he moved to his left and looked beyond a brass coat rack on which were draped various period garments, he could see a woman seated behind a glass display case on which sat a cash register and charge card scanner. She momentarily took his breath away.
Except for the gray shot through her dark hair, Nola Lima didn’t look any older than the last time Beam had seen her. She was sitting down and had been reading something, and when she glanced up to greet the customer she’d just heard enter her shop, her amiable smile faded and her dark eyes bore into him.
In a fog, Beam moved toward her. “I’m—”
“I know who you are.” Her distinctive, surprisingly throaty voice took him back years. “Detective Beam.”
“Not exactly.”
“Exactly enough,” she said. “I follow the news.”
He said nothing. Could think of nothing to say.
“Are you here because you’re interested in antiques?” she asked, her tone businesslike.
“I’m not here for the reason you might think.”
She smiled. “I might think som
ebody’s stolen some antiques and you’re here to see if any of my stock matches their description.”
“It isn’t that at all.”
She stood up slowly, letting whatever she was reading slip to the floor. Beam couldn’t help but notice she still had her figure. There was still something about her that made you think of royalty—the kind that had nothing to do with titles. Harry Lima had never known how lucky he was before his luck ran out.
“Then what?” she asked.
“I heard you’d stayed with the shop,” Beam said, “turned to antiques instead of jewelry. I was in the Village and noticed your sign and wanted to look in on you.”
“And now you have.”
“Why didn’t you continue with jewelry, with what you knew?”
“After Harry died, I chose to surround myself with the past. It’s already happened, so it provides the ultimate in predictability.”
Beam smiled. “Does that make sense?”
No return smile. “To me it does.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, as if it might help him find some kind of equilibrium with this woman. It wasn’t to be found. Not today in this musty, smothering little shop that smelled of the past. “I’m not welcome here,” he said, stating the obvious.
“Why shouldn’t you be welcome? You extorted cooperation from my husband, tricked him into informing on dangerous people, and are responsible for them killing him.” There was nothing in her impassive, beautiful face he could read. “Do you intend to try the same thing with me?” she asked.
“For God’s sake no!”
“You’re here looking for a discount, then? A policeman’s discount? Or something bad might happen to my shop?” She was coming out from behind the display case, approaching him unafraid, her broad, handsome features still oddly placid. It was as if they’d played this scene before, and she recalled it but Beam didn’t. “Is that what you want, Detective Beam?”
“Stop it with that crap, Nola.”
She moved closer, until they were only inches apart. Beam almost backed away, but stood his ground. She looked up at him impassively.
“Then what? Why are you here?”
“To say I’m sorry.”
She stared into him for several seconds before answering. “What I said about you being responsible for Harry’s death, it’s true.”
“Yes, it is.”
He wished he could explain to her the relationship between a cop and his snitch, the relationship he’d had with her husband. He’d respected Harry Lima. You might even say they were friends. But they were opponents playing the same game, and Harry found himself at a disadvantage. It was Beam’s job to press his advantage, to use Harry Lima, and he’d used him up.
“I don’t forgive you,” said Harry’s widow.
“That’s not what I’m expecting, or asking. I simply wanted you to know how I felt.”
“Why should I care?”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I remember the way you used to look at me,” she said, surprising him. Horrifying him. This wasn’t why he’d come here.
“Look at you?” Beam automatically feigning ignorance.
“When Harry wasn’t watching.”
Christ! Where’s she going with this?
She surprised him again by slapping him hard. The sharp impact was like a gunshot in the cluttered little shop.
Beam didn’t move. The left side of his face stung as if bees had swarmed it. He couldn’t feel anger. She seemed completely unafraid of him. He understood why. I’ve already done my worst to her.
“You came in here to make yourself feel better,” she said.
His heart was hammering hard. “Yes.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then leave.”
They stared as if trying to see deep into each other, neither so much as blinking, until finally Beam nodded, turned, and moved toward the door.
“I miss Harry,” she said behind him.
“So do I,” Beam said, and pushed out into the heat.
He thought she might yell after him not to come back, perhaps that she hated him. But she held her silence. She wasn’t the sort to yell anything after anyone.
Beam knew he would be back, because he understood that he needed this woman’s absolution.
And that she knew it.
17
The court had been informed that the witness, the former William Tufts, had legally changed his name to Knee High and would be so addressed. The squat, frenetic little man with the screwed up features was, as far as Melanie could perceive, Cold Cat’s factotum, though his job title was, as he described it, Assistant to the Man. Like Cold Cat, he was African American, but unlike Cold Cat, his demeanor was anything but cool; he seemed unable to sit still in the witness chair.
“Is it true you and the defendant shared lunch in your apartment on the day of Edie Piaf’s murder?” asked Farrato the prosecutor, as if the very act of sharing lunch on that fateful day somehow suggested guilt or, at the least, dark secrets.
“We did lunch, yeah.”
“We being…?”
“Knee High an’ Cold Cat. Had us some sushi an’ beer an’—”
“Please confine your responses to answering the questions,” Judge Moody wearily reminded Knee High. It was the fourth such warning since he’d been sworn in. “And try to refer to yourself in the first person rather than the third.”
“Yeah. Yes, your honor. Knee—We had us some—” Knee High bit down on his words and was silent. The judge seemed pleased by this restraint.
“Was this lunch delivered to your apartment?” Farrato inquired.
“Naw, was leftover from the night before. We had us—” With a glance at Judge Moody, Knee High fell silent.
“Was anyone else present for this lunch of”—Farrato made an unpleasant face—“leftover sushi?”
“Jus’ me an—No.”
“Then you and the defendant were alone?”
“Yes.”
Farrato smiled thinly. He would step by step reveal to the jury that no one, not the doorman, not any of Cold Cat’s backup musicians, not Cold Cat’s chauffeur—no one—could testify in court that Cold Cat was anywhere near Knee High’s apartment at the time of Edie Piaf’s murder.
He faced the toad-like witness, who seemed so guileless that he worried Farrato on that minor point. Knee High didn’t look smart enough to lie to protect his friend, though that surely was what he was doing. “During what time did this lunch take place?”
“Cold Cat—”
“Richard Simms,” Judge Moody reminded the witness.
“Mr. Richard Simms, he showed up all dressed real sharp—”
“Simply give us the times,” said the Judge
“He showed up right at one o’clock, left right at two.”
“Are you certain of the time?”
“I am ’cause I got this new Rolex.” Knee High held up his left wrist. “Knee High been checkin’ the time most every few minutes, make sure I’m with Greenwich Village, an’ jus’ to look at the watch.”
Judge Moody let that one pass.
Farrato appeared pained, but continued. “Is there anyone who can corroborate your story that Richard Simms was with you between the hours of one and two o’clock on the date of Edie Piaf’s death?”
Knee High appeared puzzled. “Collaborate?”
“Corroborate,” Farrato repeated.
Knee High looked to the judge.
“Did anybody else see or talk to you there?”
Knee High bit his lower lip, thinking hard. “No. But we was there. Ain’t no way Cold Cat coulda got to his an Edie’s place an’ killed her. Not if she died ’tween one an’ two.”
Which Edie had, Melanie knew, because before the trial the news media had revealed that Edie phoned a friend and left a message at 12:55, and her body was discovered five minutes after two o’clock, when her personal trainer arrived to find Edie’s door unlocked and Edie de
ad.
“Is it not possible that the defendant left your apartment slightly before two o’clock?” Farrato asked.
“No—yes, it is not possible. Knee High looked at his—my—gold Rolex ’cause—”
“Mr…High,” the Judge cautioned.
“No.” Knee High crossed his arms and shook his head. “Knee High an’ Cold Cat was there together till one minute past two. Knee High looked, ’cause a second hand on a Rolex move steady like, an’ Knee High wanted to—”
“Mr. High!”
“No. Yes. Not possible.”
Melanie stole a look over her shoulder and saw that Cold Cat’s mother had been allowed back into the courtroom. She was smiling, knowing the innocent believability of Knee High. This attorney-witness exchange was good for her son, with whom she exchanged encouraging glances.
Farrato was unmoved by Knee High’s act. He knew the little man was lying, and he knew that before the trial was over, he would remove Richard Simms, aka Cold Cat, from that meal of day-old sushi, and place him where he belonged, in Edie Piaf’s apartment at the same time Edie Piaf died. Knee High was impressing the jury now, and no doubt he’d impress them when Murray presented the defense phase of the trial, but Farrato would slice Knee High to pieces on cross-exam. The stubborn gnome obviously worshiped Cold Cat, and was obviously—to Farrato, anyway—lying to protect him. Farrato smiled a quarter inch wider. A lecture on the consequences of perjury would do the trick with Knee High, at the opportune time.
Melanie saw Farrato smile and didn’t like him. He seemed so arrogant, so unlike the defendant Cold Cat, who looked genuinely hurt and puzzled that he should be here. And he was suffering emotionally because of Edie Piaf’s passing—you could read the grief on his face for his lost love.
Even as Melanie thought this, she watched Cold Cat glance at his mother, who was returning the look with an expression of mother’s love that couldn’t be faked.
Cold Cat’s mother seemed to sense Melanie staring at her. She glanced Melanie’s way, then lowered her gaze to her lap, as if embarrassed to be caught in a moment of tenderness.