Death by Pride: A Kyle Callahan Mystery

by Mark McNease

  They waited nervously in the back seat as the motorcade seemed to go on forever. Even the cab driver was impressed, gawking at block after block of black SUVs, many with SWAT types perched in the open backs, ready to jump out and fire in the event of an attack.

  “What do we do now?” Linda asked, resigned to waiting for the motorcade to pass, the way one sits at a railroad crossing watching freight cars go by in a crawl.

  “We re-group,” Kyle said. “We go back to the apartment, we talk it through.”

  “When do we go to the police?”

  “Today, I imagine. I just want to consider everything. I don’t want to accuse a man wrongly, I don’t want to assume that just because he spoke to Victor he killed him.”

  “But that’s what you think.”

  “That’s what I think, yes. If he didn’t do it, if he’s not the Pride Killer, then he’s involved somehow.”

  “You mean he doesn’t work alone?”

  “It’s not unheard of. And remember, if we move too quickly, we tip our hand. Who knows what might happen then. He might vanish again and we’d never catch him.”

  Kyle watched as the end of the motorcade finally passed by. They waited awhile longer as the traffic slowly started up again. Kyle felt his foot twitching furiously—they’d lost precious time waiting for the most powerful man in the world to pass by in one of those dozens of black SUVs (surely not the sedan with the Presidential flags flying from the hood, that had to be a decoy).

  “It takes them awhile,” the driver said, sensing his passengers’ impatience. “They block all these streets, then they have to open them again, maybe five more minutes. You in a hurry?”

  “Yes,” they both said from the back seat.

  “Let’s just walk,” Kyle said. “We can talk along the way. It’s good for the thought processes.”

  “But it’s twenty blocks.”

  “This is New York City. Twenty blocks is like walking across the street. Come on, we can bounce ideas off each other.”

  Kyle told the driver they were getting out. He handed a ten dollar bill through the plastic divider separating the front and back seats and opened the door. They could walk almost as quickly as the cab would get them there, especially if there were any more delays. And they could talk. They had the Pride Killer in their sights with one good shot at him and could not afford to miss.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Four

  Danny’s usual routine was to go home for the break between lunch service and dinner. The bar at Margaret’s Passion remained open starting at noon, but meals were only available for the two sittings. It had always been this way at the restaurant and always would be. Bar food was for bars, and Margaret’s was definitely not in that class.

  Once the kitchen closed each day, Danny would walk the fifteen minutes it took him to get home around two-thirty in the afternoon, then return at five to oversee the beginning of the dinner shift. He did not stay the entire evening—he never had, he was the day manager for all those years before he became the owner—but he liked being there for an hour or so ahead of time, especially now that Margaret’s was his. His night manager, Patrice, did a terrific job and had been Danny’s right hand for six years now. Combined with his recent promotion of Chloe to day manager, the pair gave Danny the level of comfort he needed with the business.

  He couldn’t hear Margaret upstairs; the staff had never been able to hear the Bowmans in the apartment above them. But he knew she was there, puttering around, most likely starting to slowly pack for the move to Florida. He thought about going up to see her for a few minutes, but he’d been upstairs once already today and didn’t want to be a nuisance. Besides, he knew the impulse to spend time with her would only become more frequent as the time drew closer for her to leave. He thought about calling Kyle to let him know he was going for a private fitting but decided against it. The last text he’d had from Kyle was an hour ago, when they were canvassing an Upper East Side neighborhood to see if anyone recognized the photo they had of Victor Campagna. Poor Victor, Danny thought, as he stared another moment out the window onto 3rd Avenue. Poor Vinnie! The brothers were very close. The entire Campagna family must be in terrible distress. There’d been nothing more on the news about the two murders. Danny wondered if the Pride Killer—assuming that’s who was behind this—would once again slip into the shadows.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Chloe said, startling him.

  Danny turned around to see her drying her hands on a towel. Chloe had not changed a bit since her promotion. She would still bus a table if needed, bartend or wash dishes. It was in her nature.

  “A penny won’t get you much anymore,” Danny said.

  “A dollar then.”

  “Just sad, that’s all. But it’ll be this way for the next month until she’s gone.” He nodded at the ceiling. “And for quite some time afterward, I imagine.”

  “Is there anything I can do? Short of talking her into staying.”

  “Nothing, but thank you.” Danny took the business card out of his pocket. “Say, listen, I’m going out for a fitting …” Chloe looked at him curiously. “For a suit.”

  “Ah.”

  “If Kyle calls, don’t tell him. It want it to be a surprise. He went looking for a suit for me, you see, and I … oh, never mind. Just tell him I’m running some errands. I’ll be home by five. We’re having dinner out tonight with our friend Linda.”

  “Will do.”

  Danny took the card in hand, pulled out his cell phone and dialed the private number Diedrich Keller had written on it. He figured two and a half hours was plenty of time to get to where Keller lived, be fitted for a fabulous new suit, and make it back to Gramercy Park by five.

  Keller picked up on the second ring.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Five

  D had barely settled into his living room after a taxi ride home when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw Margaret’s Passion listed. He let it ring twice before answering, staring at the phone as his smile grew wider. He’d been successful in enticing Danny Durban with his gracious offer of a private fitting. He’d been imagining it all the way back in the cab and here it was, about to become a reality.

  “Diedrich Keller,” he said, putting the phone on speaker so he could hold it in his lap.

  “Yes, Mr. Keller, this is Danny Durban, from the restaurant.”

  “Mr. Durban! Let me guess, you’d like that fitting after all. And that deep discount! I’m so glad you took me up on my offer. Unless of course I’m mistaken and there’s some other reason you’re calling.”

  “No, you’re absolutely correct. I’ve just finished up for the afternoon here and I was wondering if this would be a good time to stop by.”

  “Let me check my calendar,” D said. He counted to five, then said, “Fortunately, I have nothing going until this evening. How soon could you be here?”

  “As soon as a taxi can get there. By the way, I’ll need to know where ‘there’ is.”

  D thought about it moment. Should he stick to protocol and give this man a false address several blocks away, then feign stupidity and walk him back? Or did it not matter, considering he would be on a plane by midnight? Danny, unlike like all the others, would not be in the East River but left in the basement as a grand farewell—he’d decided to let them find out who he was, who he had been. This was his pièce de résistance, his big going-away, after which he would be leaving for Europe. First stop: Berlin. He’d already checked into flights and booked one late that night. Yes, he hated Berlin. He hated the country, the people and the language, but he was no fool. He’d survived as the Pride Killer for seven years—albeit three in absentia—and he would reemerge again, somewhere, when the time was ready. But this was his last hurrah in a city he’d grown tired of, his curtain call as Diedrich Keller, owner of Keller and Whitman, master of etiquette and the slow kill.

  “Do you have a pen handy?” D said. Danny said yes, and D gave him the address of the townhouse. Not two blocks away,
not transposed or inverted. The real address of the real home where the very, very real Diedrich Keller lived and so many others had died. He intended for Danny to join them soon, after which Diedrich Keller would vanish, leaving behind him nothing but a ghastly mystery.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Six

  Kyle and Linda walked into the apartment exactly twenty minutes after leaving the taxi. They’d talked everything over on the walk and both were convinced the key to finding the killer was Diedrich Keller. Neither was certain yet it was Keller himself—he didn’t seem the type to be killing men and dumping their bodies in the East River. But, Kyle wondered, is there such a thing as a serial killer type? Most of the good ones—successful ones, he corrected himself, as he closed the door and set his keys on the small table in their entryway—did not look like serial killers. They looked like neighbors, co-workers, even fathers and favored sons. Once in a while they were daughters!

  Smelly and Leonard had heard them coming down the hallway and were waiting at the door. They never ran out into the hallway, seeming to think it led somewhere dreadful and scary for curious cats, but they would perch close enough to make opening the door a challenge.

  “That’s odd,” said Kyle, shooing them away with his foot. “Danny always gives them treats when he gets home in the afternoon.” Then, to the cats, “What’s up, kids? Didn’t Danny give you snacks?”

  “I don’t think he’s here,” Linda said.

  She was right. The apartment was completely quiet. Normally, Danny also turned on the television in the bedroom to get caught up on the news with one of the cable channels. Today there was silence.

  “He must’ve run errands. Or maybe he’s visiting with Margaret,” Kyle said. “I know he’s been spending more time with her before she leaves.”

  He gave Danny’s absence no more thought as they settled back into the apartment. Linda took off her jacket, exposing her gun in its shoulder holster, and sat on one of the two small couches they had in the living room. This one faced the window, and she could see a nearly identical apartment building facing them from across Lexington Avenue. New York City struck her as the perfect place to have a pair of binoculars, if you were given to seeing what your neighbors were up to without them knowing.

  “Do you ever think about being watched?” she asked, peering out the window.

  “Excuse me?” Kyle said. He’d gone into the kitchen to make them coffee. He’d also grabbed the small box of cat treats from a shelf and placed a half dozen of them on the floor, where Smelly and Leonard quickly gobbled them up. He could see Linda from where he knelt just inside the kitchen door.

  “I mean, you can see into other people’s apartments here. And they can see you. Does that ever bother you?”

  “That’s what drapes are for,” he called back, standing and returning to the coffee. “Besides, you get used to it. After a while you don’t think about it anymore. Are they watching? Are they not watching? Some people want them to, you know.”

  “The exhibitionists.”

  “Yes, and there’s no shortage of those in New York City. It’s see-and-be-seen for too many people living here. Danny and I don’t give it any thought. Unless I’m naked after a shower and I suddenly realize it, and it’s like, ooops, I’d better put a towel around me. Otherwise having people see into your windows is like background noise, you can’t even hear it after a few weeks.” Watching coffee drip into a cup, he said, “Let me see if I remember … creamer, no sugar.”

  “Perfect.”

  Kyle finished making their coffee and brought the two cups into the living room. He set them on the coffee table in front of Linda and took a seat on the matching couch across from her.

  “Let me just check,” he said, taking his cell phone off his belt clip. He looked at the message icon. “Nope, no text. No email. I’m guessing he went to the grocery store. We ran out of milk this morning.” He hooked his phone back onto his belt, then took a sip of his coffee. “So what do we know?”

  “We know the Pride Killer has struck twice in forty-eight hours. That’s the first and most important thing we need to keep in mind.”

  “Right. A third is coming very soon unless we get past speculation into action.”

  “But action and accusation are two different things,” Linda said. “What else do we know?”

  “We know Victor Campagna went to Cargill’s for a drink with his friend Sam Paddington, but Sam never showed up. He then left Cargill’s and made his way to Keller and Whitman to look for a suit.”

  “Diedrich Keller said he was alone there that day—something I don’t think we can take as gospel truth—and never saw Victor.”

  “But the bodega owner did see him,” said Kyle. “And he saw him come out of Keller and Whitman’s.

  “Maybe Jarrod was working by himself that morning, we haven’t considered that.”

  “So why would Keller say he was there alone?”

  “To cover for Jarrod. We don’t know what their relationship is outside work.”

  “Jarrod as the Pride Killer? The man seems like too much dust would unnerve him.”

  “Could be a front. Never assume there’s a type in these cases. It’s also possible the bodega owner was mistaken. Or lying.”

  “He’d have no reason to lie,” said Kyle.

  “For his moment of fame? Maybe he wants to be on the news. But I doubt it. I think he was telling the truth. I think the one lying here is Diedrich Keller. But is he lying to protect himself, or someone else?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to get involved. Saying he saw a dead man just before the dead man’s trail grows cold could bring a lot of suspicion.”

  “So,” said Linda, sipping her coffee and setting it back on a coaster. “Do we confront Diedrich Keller, or do we go to the police with what we think?”

  Kyle considered it for several seconds, then said, “I think we have one last conversation with Keller, but we take him by surprise.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We go to his home. He won’t be expecting us, and it will throw him off his game, if he’s playing one.”

  “And it will get us inside that house … or apartment, whichever it is. I’d like to see it for myself, get a sense of the place.”

  “Any secrets it might be hiding.”

  Linda instinctively touched her gun. Secrets could sometimes be fatal.

  “There’s only one problem,” Kyle said. “We don’t know where he lives. I tried finding an address with my cell phone but there’s nothing listed. There’s really nothing about Diedrich Keller at all online, except the store. That’s quite an accomplishment in the digital age.”

  “Let me make a call,” Linda said. She reached down and took her cell phone from her purse on the floor.

  “You’re calling Information? Does that even exist anymore?”

  “Not the kind of information you’re thinking of,” she said. “Remember, I’m a retired cop, with friends on the force.”

  “In New Hope, Pennsylvania. This is Manhattan.”

  “It doesn’t matter. When it comes to digging up information, nothing gets it done like a call from a police department.”

  “I hope you’re right …”

  Linda held her finger up to her lips, silencing Kyle. “Hey, Marty, what’s up?” she said into her phone. “It’s Linda Sikorsky. Listen, I’m trying to get an address on someone who doesn’t want to be found. Can you help me out?”

  She listened carefully as her ex-colleague on the other end of the line went about trying to help her.

  Kyle finished the last of his coffee and took their cups back into the kitchen, followed closely by the cats. It was they, and not the person giving them treats, who decided how many were enough. Kyle fished several more out of the pouch and put them on the floor.

  After several minutes, Linda thanked Marty and walked quickly into the kitchen. “Got it,” she said. “He’s on East 82nd Street. No apartment number.”

  “Probably a townhouse,” Kyle
said. “The Upper East Side is full of them.”

  “So let’s go. He’ll never expect to see us on his doorstep.”

  Kyle rinsed out the coffee cups and left them in the sink. He led Linda to the door, grabbing his keys from the stand. “I have to let Danny know where we are,” he said as they hurried into the hallway.

  “Call him from the taxi. We’re definitely not walking this time.”

  Kyle felt a slight annoyance with Danny for not sending a message. On the other hand, Danny knew Kyle was with Linda and probably thought they were still out somewhere on the trail. Danny wisely kept his distance from the chaos Kyle and Linda always found themselves in. He thought it was dangerous and preferred not knowing to worrying constantly. Kyle would call him once they were on their way. The very least he owed Danny was letting him know they were okay.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Seven

  “This is quite a nice home you have,” Danny said. He’d arrived at Diedrich Keller’s townhouse ten minutes earlier after a surprisingly quick cab ride from the restaurant. Synchronized green lights had gotten them twenty blocks without a stop; the rest was unusually light traffic for a Thursday afternoon.

  “Thank you, Mr. Durban,” D said. He was standing to the side, watching as Danny took in the living room with its fireplace and paintings.

  “Please, call me Danny.”

  “Danny, then.”

  “Is that your grandfather?” Danny was looking at the same painting Scott Devlin admired the day before. D had bought the painting at a flea market for $50.

  “My great uncle, actually. When the family still had its fortune, before … well, everything comes and goes.”