And the paper band behind the dresser? Maybe it really had fallen there by accident, and just gone unnoticed by everyone until Little Murco turned it up.
“You’re lucky,” I said. “Once everyone thought you were dead, it would have been simple for Lenz to kill you for real and just keep all the money for himself.”
“Sure,” she said, “if he’d known where the money was.”
“How could you keep it hidden while you were staying at his apartment?”
“Oh, John, come on, I’m not that stupid,” she said. “I didn’t keep it at the apartment. I put it in a safe deposit box. Or I should say Jessie Masters did, since that’s who the bank thought it was renting to.”
And that explained why she hadn’t left the city after killing Lenz — the murder had taken place on Friday night, and a bank wouldn’t let her get into her safe deposit box until Monday morning. Yes, all the pieces fit now. It had all been constructed so carefully, right from the start. I thought back to what Susan had said that first night at the Derby about how Miranda had told her in the dressing room that she was afraid that Murco was going to kill her. It was a perfect way to set the stage for her apparent death the next day. There might be some dispute later about who’d killed Miranda, but not about whether it had actually been Miranda who’d died. She’d put it all together masterfully.
“You really thought of every angle.”
“A girl’s got to take care of herself,” she said. “Jocelyn taught me that.”
A girl’s got to take care of herself — even if doing so meant killing. It had meant killing Lenz when it had looked like he might talk. It had meant killing Susan, or trying to, presumably because she was making too many calls to too many people, asking too many questions, getting too close. And now did it mean killing me? I imagined it had to, despite what she’d said about not wanting to.
“What happens now?” I said.
“You tell me, baby,” she said. “I’m not going to go to jail. Not after everything I’ve been through. And I’m certainly not going to let you hand me over to Khachadurian. I don’t want to kill you, John, I swear to God I don’t, but it’s kind of up to you, isn’t it?”
She reached between the cushions of the couch and came up with a knife. It was a simple steak knife, the same sort as the one she’d left by the sink, probably the same sort she’d used on Susan. Maybe the same one, washed clean and ready for another use. She wasn’t holding it in a threatening manner, not yet, but she was pointing it in my general direction. Her eyes had a question in them. I stood up.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t pretend you’re giving me a choice. Do me that one favor, Miranda. Don’t treat me like you treated the others. I’m sure you told them it was up to them, too, that as long as they worked with you, you’d be on their side. That you loved them. It lasted just as long as you needed them, and then when you didn’t any more, when it was more convenient to you for them to be dead, all the sweet talk went out the window.”
“It’s not the same,” she said. “It’s not. Wayne Lenz was a disgusting man. It made me sick to touch him. And you know what Jocelyn did to me? After nine years, after I followed her across the whole goddamn country, after I gave up everything for her, she takes one look at this... at this... woman, and I don’t matter any more. After nine years, John. You can’t imagine what it’s like.” She stood up and came toward me. The knife was between us. “I’ve never had anyone, John, not since you. That’s the truth. No one I could trust.” I saw tears forming in her eyes. “You were always good to me. If you said you’d leave me alone, if you swore that you wouldn’t tell anyone, I know you’d keep your word. You’ve changed, but you haven’t changed that much.”
Now the point of the knife pressed against my shirt, and through my shirt, against my chest. “But I have to know. I can’t let you out of here otherwise. I can’t.”
I saw her in front of me, holding the knife to my chest, but I also saw her as she had been at age eighteen. Where along the way had Miranda turned into the person she was today? How had it happened? Was there any trace of my Miranda still in there somewhere? Or was there only the murderer, the betrayer, the woman who deserved the sort of punishment I’d imagined in the cab on the way downtown? I wanted to believe there was more. I wanted to desperately.
I reached out, touched her wrist gently. “You can put the knife away,” I said. “I won’t hurt you, Miranda. I could never hurt you.”
“Swear it,” she said.
“I swear.”
“On your life. On your mother’s life.”
“I swear,” I said. “On everything I love, on everything I care about. On your life, Miranda. I swear. Now put the knife away.”
“I want to believe you,” she said.
“I may be many things, Miranda, but I’m not a liar. Put the knife away.”
“Just give me a few days,” she said. “I’m realistic, I’m not asking for forever. But don’t tell anyone for a week, okay? I can get far away in a week.”
“Okay,” I said. “One week.”
The knife lowered. It was by her side, and then her fingers opened and it dropped to the floor. She was crying freely now, tears streaming down her cheeks. I took her in my arms and realized that I was crying, too, for her, for both of us. How had we ended up here, in a filthy tenement with a knife on the floor between us, she a killer and I — and I—
I stroked her hair back behind her ear with a thumb, and tried not to think about anything, tried only to feel her in my arms, to burn this fragile instant into my memory.
I let her go. I lifted her chin and pressed my lips against her forehead. “Goodbye, Miranda.”
“One week,” she said.
“One week,” I said. “I promise.”
She stood at the door as I went downstairs. At the first turn of the stairway, I looked back and saw her there, leaning against the door, framed in the light. If this was going to be the last image I ever had of her, despite everything, I was grateful for it. I’ve never hated myself as much as I did at that moment.
I turned back and kept going down.
They were waiting on the sidewalk when I opened the building’s front door. They were wearing heavy overcoats and leather gloves and dark fur hats with flaps to cover their ears. The father was patting his hands together impatiently, while the son stood absolutely still, looking at me over his father’s head.
“Where were you,” Murco said. “We’ve been here ten minutes. We were starting to think you’d doublecrossed us.”
“She’s upstairs,” I said.
Chapter 29
Leo stood beside me at the foot of the hospital bed. Susan looked terrible — pale, drawn, in pain. But she was alive. The doctors had told us that she’d regained consciousness briefly, but now she was asleep, the thin sheet over her bandages hardly rising and falling at all with her shallow breaths.
Leo tugged on my sleeve and I followed him out into the waiting room. “You’re going to have to tell them everything,” he said, speaking quietly.
“Leo, I need you to take care of this for me. I’ve never asked for anything like this before, but I’m asking now.”
“There are three precincts involved, Johnny. I can’t just wave a wand and make it go away.”
“Do you think I should go to Murco?” I said.
“Murco will be lucky to keep himself out of jail,” Leo said. “If what you’re telling me is true.”
“I wish it weren’t.”
“Let’s not forget,” he said, “that I told you so.”
“Yes, you did. So did she.” Stop looking for me, she’d written, or you’ll be sorry. I hadn’t, and I was.
I was trying very hard not to think about what Murco had done to her in the hours since I’d walked out of her building. I tried to think instead about Susan and Jocelyn and even Lenz and the two burglars, all the lives she’d ruined. But all I could see was her face at the door, tears in her eyes, begging me to give her a week’s he
ad start and trusting me when I said I would. She’d turned into something unspeakable in the ten years since we’d known each other — but was what I’d turned into so much better?
“It’s almost eight,” Leo said. “You’d better go.”
I zipped up, went out, hailed a cab. “Pitt Street,” I said.
They kept me there all day. I told the story, and then I told it again, and I kept telling it until they stopped asking me to. Different cops came and went. I saw Kirsch stick his head in once, and once I thought I saw Lyons from Queens through an open door, but mostly it was Frank Gianakouros and me, questions and answers, back-to-back sessions with no bathroom breaks and only coffee to keep me going. They were trying to wear me down till the truth came out. What they didn’t realize was that I was giving them the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but certainly the truth.
Jocelyn had never had her prints taken and neither had Miranda — but now that they knew it mattered, they’d take a closer look at what was left of Jocelyn’s teeth, do a DNA match on whatever they could turn up in the apartment on Avenue D, match any prints from Avenue D to the partials they said they’d found on Leo’s gun. I’d given them the videotape, which Leo had brought from the office, along with a sheet of phone numbers: Daniel Mastaduno, Bill Battles, Danny Matin. I’d told them about Roy and Keegan and what I knew about Lenz. I’d basically given them everything I had.
All I hadn’t done was tell them about the role Murco had played at the beginning and end of the affair. The burglary, sure — there was no way to tell the story without that. But what had happened to the burglars? I had no idea. How much had they stolen from Murco? I couldn’t speculate. And what had happened to the money? Not for me to say. All I knew was that Miranda had conspired with Lenz to rob their mutual employer and that they’d killed Jocelyn to cover their tracks. Then Miranda had killed Lenz to cover hers, and had tried to kill Susan for much the same reason. And what had happened to Miranda? I didn’t know. The apartment was empty when I got there.
They left me sitting in the interrogation room from five o’clock on, and it was seven before the door opened again. When it did, Leo came in with Gianakouros. Neither man looked happy. “You’ve got some good friends behind you,” Gianakouros said.
“Don’t make it sound like I’m pulling strings, Frank,” Leo said. He turned to me. “They found the rest of the statue she hit you with in a trash can on Parsons Boulevard. That, and the luggage matches. It took a while, but the 109th is satisfied you’re clean for Lenz’s killing. And nobody’s got any reason to hold you in connection with the attack on Susan. Right?”
Gianakouros nodded, reluctantly. “She backs up your story. Says it was Sugarman.”
“Susan’s awake?”
“On and off,” Leo said.
“Can I see her?”
He looked at Gianakouros. “I’ve got no reason to hold you,” Gianakouros said. “That’s what I’m being told.”
“Do you disagree?” Leo said.
“All I’m saying is, I hope I have half the clout you do when I’ve been off the force as long as you have.”
“It’s not clout, Frank. The boy didn’t do anything.”
The boy sat there and kept his mouth shut. Gianakouros wrestled with it for a minute. “He obstructed a police investigation. He could have told us all this last night.”
“He was in shock,” Leo said. “A woman he knows had just been stabbed practically to death. Anyway, he’s telling you now.”
“Sure, twelve hours later. Sugarman could be anywhere by now.”
“You’re going to book him for that?”
“No,” Gianakouros said. “But I don’t have to like it.” He turned to me. “Get out of here.”
As badly as I needed it, I didn’t even stop in the bathroom on the way out.
We stopped at a Burger Heaven instead. Leo ordered a cheese danish at the counter and I found my way to the men’s room. When I got back, he handed me half.
“Thanks, Leo,” I said. “You really came through.”
“It’s just a fucking cheese danish.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m all out of favors in the department now, so you’d better not get in any more scrapes.”
“I don’t plan to,” I said.
“You didn’t plan to this time.”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” I said.
Visiting hours were ending as we came through the lobby, but the nurse on Susan’s floor agreed to let us in for a few minutes.
Susan didn’t look any better than she had in the morning, but now her eyes were open. She said something. I couldn’t hear it. I leaned close to her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was a small whisper.
I found her hand under the sheet, gripped it tightly.
“Chest hurts like hell,” she whispered.
“You’ll be okay.”
“Never dance again,” she whispered. “Scars.”
“You kidding? The fetish crowd will love it.” A small smile.
“We should have known it was Miranda,” she whis- pered. “Only person who would know... about your childhood apartment.”
She was right, I realized: there was no way Jocelyn could have known to look for me at my mother’s apartment or to leave a threatening letter for me there; even if she’d somehow followed me to the right building, she wouldn’t have known what apartment I’d gone to or what my mother’s name was. Miranda, of course, knew both. It was the sort of thing you always think of when it’s too late to do any good.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said again.
“Police said,” Susan whispered, then she had to stop and take another breath. It hurt to see her strain. “... Miranda got away.”
“She didn’t,” I said.
I was exhausted, but still couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Miranda. I didn’t want to face her in my dreams. I’d have to eventually, but any excuse to put it off was welcome.
I called Daniel Mastaduno. He’d already heard from the police, but he still took it badly. What did I expect? It was his daughter, whom he loved, and no matter what he’d said, he’d never given up hope. Well, he could give up now.
I told him to call me later if he wanted to talk about it any more, ask any questions. He said, “No. Thank you, Mr. Blake. I don’t want to know any more. I wish I didn’t know this much. We were happy when we thought she was out there somewhere, living her life, and just didn’t want to talk to us. We didn’t know it, but we were.”
The terrible thing was, I knew he was right. I’d set out to do some good, for him, for Jocelyn, for Miranda, and I’d brought nothing but pain to everyone. Susan was hooked up to tubes and could hardly speak. I was still aching and bruised. The only person I’d actually helped was Murco Khachadurian.
Well, it wasn’t too late for one last attempt. I called Bill Battles, at home.
“John! Am I your one phone call?”
“I’m not in jail,” I said.
“I thought I heard they were holding you.”
“They were. They let me go.”
“You didn’t give them our file, did you?”
“It wasn’t mine to give.”
“Good, good. They’ll probably subpoena it, but that’s fine. We’ll give it to them when we see a court order saying we have to.”
“There’s nothing in it, Bill. What difference does it make?”
“Matter of principle,” he said. “You can’t start caving in every time NYPD asks for something. They’ll think they can walk all over you.”
“Listen, Bill,” I said, “you know how you’re always saying you’re looking for good people?”
“Sure — but John, I don’t know, you’re a little hot right now for a firm like ours... “
“Not me,” I said. “There’s a woman I used on this case. She’s new to the business, but she’s damn good at it. A real natural. She broke the case for me in thre
e days, just working the phone. I was thinking Serner would be a great place for her to learn the ropes. Just phone work, though — not out on the street.”
“Why don’t you want her yourself?”
“A little firm like ours? You think Leo can afford another head?”
“What’s her name?”
“Susan Feuer.” I heard the scratch of a pencil against paper. “She got hurt on the case. She’s in the hospital now, recovering. But when she gets out—”
“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “No promises.”
“Of course. I’m just telling you, she’s great.”
“We can always use someone great,” he said. “When things quiet down, maybe we can even talk about you. Just not now, you understand.”
“I don’t want a new job, Bill,” I said. “I’m not sure I even want the one I have.”
Sleep came quickly, and at first it was the blank, dreamless sleep of the bone-tired. But somewhere along the way I had the impression of waking up. Only I wasn’t in my apartment any more — I was in Miranda’s, and not the one on Avenue D or the one on Fifteenth Street, but the one from our childhood. We were in bed together, side by side, and we were both young and hopeful and unscarred. But her hair smelled the way it had on Avenue D, and she felt in my arms as she had the last time I’d held her.
She unfolded a Rianon brochure, held it up so I could see the green lawns and pueblo-style buildings, and she pointed to a photo of the medical school campus. “I’m going to go the pre-med program for ophthalmology,” she said, “but just for a couple of years. Then I’m going to drop out and drive across the country, working as a stripper with a girlfriend. She’ll betray me, eventually, and I’ll kill her, but not because of what she’s done to me, just because she’s handy. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to do. What about you?”
What about me.
“I’ll hunt you down,” I said, “not even knowing that’s what I’m doing, and then when I find out, I’ll hand you over to the man who kills you.”
She snuggled closer. “At least tell me it’ll be painless, sweetie.”
“No,” I said, “it will be horrible. For both of us.”
Little Girl Lost (Hard Case Crime) Page 19