by Carrie Smith
“Sit down, Dr. Barton. We’re not done here.”
Barton’s condescension turned to caution. She returned to her seat apprehensively.
“Why don’t you quit wasting my time and tell me where you were on Monday afternoon, because you certainly weren’t here.”
And then Barton laughed so hard that her eyes began to water. “Is that what this suspicion is all about? The fact that I didn’t admit to you that I slipped out of my office Monday afternoon to go shopping? Oh, Detective, we could have saved each other so much time if you’d just come to the point.”
“You should have come to the point on Monday when I asked.”
Then Barton moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue on an intake of breath. “I just didn’t think it mattered.”
“This is a murder investigation, Dr. Barton. Every piece of information matters to me.”
Barton erased her smile. “You’re right, and I apologize.”
“You say you left to go shopping?”
“My husband and I were meeting each other downtown at Cipriani at six for a fundraiser. He called me that morning and told me we were going to be at a table with the chairmen of the boards of Sloan Kettering and Weil Cornell. I didn’t feel dressed up enough for that, and there was no time to go back to Brooklyn and change, so I thought I’d get a nice silk scarf to, you know, enhance the ensemble.” Her smile returned.
“Where did you go?”
“Saks.”
“And you can prove this, I assume? You have a receipt?”
Barton shook her head. “I didn’t find anything there so I walked up to Bergdorf’s.”
“So you have that receipt?”
“No,” Barton said. “I didn’t find anything there either. There was one nice Roberto Cavalli scarf, but it was just not quite the right color.”
“I see.” Codella had heard hundreds of alibis over the years, and this one, she guessed, had been carefully but naïvely crafted so as to be foolproof. Only it wasn’t, of course. Few false alibis were. “Okay,” she said, “then tell me the approximate times you arrived at each store and which entrances you used.”
And now Barton stared at her quizzically. “Why?”
Codella pulled out her iPhone to take notes. “So we can confirm your alibi.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, I think it is.”
“But how can you?”
Codella shrugged. “You don’t enter Saks or Bergdorf’s without getting your picture taken. We’ll call up the security footage and confirm your whereabouts, and then I won’t have to bother you anymore.” She smiled. “Did you use the Fifth Avenue entrance at Saks?”
Barton continued to stare.
Codella waited several seconds while the administrator’s thoughts brewed into a thick black espresso of panic. Finally, she stared the woman straight in the eyes and said, “You didn’t go to Saks or Bergdorf’s on Monday, did you?”
Barton pressed her lips together and breathed deeply through her nostrils. She raised her chin gamely, but she couldn’t control the small-muscle twitches around her mouth. Codella sensed her panic. She watched Barton glance at her arms. Right now, she guessed, Barton was feeling as if an enormous gravitational force had suddenly immobilized her limbs. Codella remembered how paralyzed she had felt when she had been cornered by cancer, as if every blood cell in her veins, arteries, and capillaries were a microscopic black hole containing entire compressed galaxies worth of terror. Barton’s eyes were closed, and Codella waited for her to decide her next move. Finally, she opened them again and said in a vulnerable voice, “I’m a married woman, Detective. And I have a career that I love.”
“And you have secrets,” said Codella evenly, “that don’t conform with either of those circumstances.”
Barton nodded ever so slightly. “Where I went had nothing to do with Hector’s death, nothing to do with my commitment to the children of New York City.”
Hadn’t Codella heard that same argument from Dana Drew yesterday? “I’ll have to judge that for myself,” she said.
“May I count on your discretion?”
Codella found herself savoring the condescending administrator’s reversal of fortune. “I can only keep secrets,” she said, “if they don’t involve criminality and they don’t interfere with my investigation. You’ll have to take your chances, but one more lie and I warn you, I will see through it, and when I do, I’ll haul you to a police station for an official statement so fast your head will be spinning. I have a crime to solve, and you have already wasted quite enough of my time.”
Barton again insisted, “I had nothing to do with Hector’s or Sofia’s deaths.”
“I’ll give you one more chance to tell me where you were between three and six PM on Monday.”
“I was in a hotel room.”
“With whom?”
“Chip Dressler.”
“The McFlieger-Walsh executive.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re having a sexual relationship with him.”
Barton didn’t answer.
“Which is unethical,” Codella continued, “because you are a Department of Education official and he represents iAchieve, which constitutes an egregious conflict of interest. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct.” Barton managed to hold her head erect, although the muscles around her mouth continued to twitch nervously.
“I assume Mr. Dressler will confirm all this?”
“He won’t be happy about it, but yes, I assume he won’t lie. Please, neither one of us had anything to do with these murders, and this could be very damaging to my marriage and to my plans for the district.”
“Conflicts of interest usually come back to bite us,” observed Codella.
Barton now looked pale and shell-shocked.
“I’ll have to confirm your alibi.”
“I know.” Her usually resonant voice was a whisper.
“I assume you can give me Mr. Dressler’s phone number?”
“Of course.”
Codella picked up the phone on Margery’s desk. “I’m ready.”
“You’re calling him now?” She sounded like a sixteen-year-old caught by her parents in a lie.
“Well, I certainly don’t intend to give you the opportunity to prep him for my questions. The number, Dr. Barton.”
Chapter 46
Dressler climbed out of the limo while the driver got his bags from the trunk. He pressed a twenty into the driver’s palm and walked straight to curbside check-in where he flashed another twenty to get the immediate attention of a skycap.
When his luggage was tagged, he went inside and got in the TSA precheck security line, where he didn’t have to strip off his jacket, belt, and shoes or even remove his laptop from its case before he placed them on the conveyor belt for X-raying. He stepped into the explosive detection scanner the same way he’d stepped into the hot shower yesterday afternoon to wash Margery off his body before the iAchieve demo, and as the imperceptible puff of air surrounded his body, he imagined his New York disguise melt away like stage makeup.
When he emerged on the other side of the mass spectrometer, he envisioned his core identities reemerge: Chip Dressler, devoted father; Chip Dressler, husband of Charlene, the former beauty queen; Chip Dressler, deacon of the United Methodist Church of Greater Dallas. These were his true roles in life, he told himself. These were the roles that meant something to him. The role of sales executive, with all the false charm and compromise it demanded, was only a means to his true purpose in life. Charlene. His son. His future children to come. He grabbed his laptop off the conveyor belt and started toward the gate.
He spotted an empty seat near a charging station and plugged in his phone and computer. Forty more minutes and he would be five miles high in the air, in the dead zone between one life and another. It was there that Chip Dressler completed his transformation, clearing his brain and shifting one foreground for another. He
sat back in his vinyl chair and closed his eyes. He jumped when he heard his ring tone. He looked at the number. It was Margery. Why was she calling him now? Why couldn’t she leave him be? But he swiped his touch screen and said, “Hey, what’s up?”
“Mr. Dressler?” came the unfamiliar voice.
“Who’s this?”
“Detective Claire Codella with the NYPD. I suggest you find a place where you can speak freely.”
“What’s this about?” Dressler snapped, now angry that he had picked up the phone.
“It’s about Hector Sanchez.”
“What does he have to do with me?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I have nothing to do with him.”
“You made a presentation that Mr. Sanchez attended the morning of his death.”
“So?”
“So I’d like to know where you were that afternoon.”
“Are you suggesting I had something to do with his death?”
“I’m just asking a question.”
“I went several places. I was out and about.”
“Out and about is a vague and therefore suspicious answer, Mr. Dressler.”
The preboarding announcement blared as Dressler debated what to say next. Finally, the voice on the other end said, “Good. You’re considering your next words carefully. That’s very wise of you under the circumstances.”
Dressler sighed. Picking up the call had been a huge mistake. He should have let it go, and there was only one reason a detective could be phoning from Margery’s office. “She told you, didn’t she?”
“Where are you right now?”
“About to board a plane at LaGuardia.”
“You’ll regret it if you do. Right now, I just want answers to my questions. But I’m becoming a pretty impatient detective, and I won’t be as forgiving if you make me chase you. I suggest you get yourself to Margery Barton’s office as soon as possible. I’ll give you half an hour.”
She hung up on him. He heard the boarding call for first class, and he stood for several seconds debating his next move. His bag was on that plane. He’d told Charlene he was coming. But there was no choice here. He left the terminal and headed toward the taxi stand.
Chapter 47
Margery Barton felt her throat constricting as Codella hung up and turned back to her. She tried without success to swallow. She realized she wasn’t breathing, that she hadn’t inhaled during Codella’s entire phone call with Chip. Her ears felt ultrasensitive, and she almost jumped when the detective turned back to her and said, “Okay, Superintendent, tell me how it went down, and you better hope he gives me the same story when he gets here. Where did the two of you meet?”
“The Mandarin in the Time Warner building.”
“What floor?”
“Fifteen.”
“Room number?”
“I don’t remember. Wait. 1520, I think.”
“Did you eat anything?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“Champagne. In the room.”
“What kind?”
“Veuve Clicquot rosé.”
“Did you receive any phone calls while you were there?”
“My phone was off.”
“What about him?”
“No.”
“Did he make any calls?”
“No.”
“When did you leave his room?”
“Around five twenty.”
“Is that the last time you’ve seen or spoken to him?”
Margery paused. Another lie would only compound her problems. “No,” she admitted.
“Go on.”
“We met yesterday as well.”
“For the same purposes?”
“Yes.”
“What time was that?”
“Around two.”
“Did you discuss Hector Sanchez at all?”
She paused again. The answer was obviously yes, and she didn’t want to confess it because she would have to go into details and then she would look guilty.
Codella leaned across the desk so that the arms of her leather jacket were only inches from Margery’s face. “I’m this close,” the detective held up her thumb and index finger less than half an inch apart, “to demanding a formal statement from you.”
“I panicked,” Margery said. “I told Chip I’d lied to you on Monday. I was afraid you’d find out. So we made up the scarf alibi—no, I made it up myself—and there’s nothing more to it. I swear. Hector and I didn’t always see eye to eye. It’s true I wasn’t very happy with his performance as a principal, and if I could take back his appointment, I probably would, but I didn’t have anything to do with his death. I only lied to keep you from finding out about my . . .” She trailed off.
Chapter 48
Chip Dressler got to the district office twenty minutes later. Codella had expected to conduct a standard verification of alibis, Dressler in a separate room from Barton telling his version of the Monday afternoon events so that Codella could judge the veracity of their separate claims. But as soon as Dressler appeared in Barton’s doorway, everything became instantly more complicated. Dressler, she observed, was African American, a fact she had not detected from his voice, and he stood before her in a dark cashmere coat that at once made her think of the figure in the blurry street cam footage she had replayed for the room full of reporters at One Police Plaza that morning.
Dressler traded quick glances with Barton, and he didn’t look pleased. Codella asked Barton to leave them, which she did without speaking.
“Sit down, Mr. Dressler,” Codella instructed as soon as they were alone.
“This is really embarrassing,” said Dressler.
“You better hope that’s all it is,” she said. “Give me the facts. Times. Places. You can skip the gritty details.”
The stories aligned, as Codella had suspected they would, and when he confirmed that Barton had left his room around five twenty, she said, “All right, Mr. Dressler. I’m convinced you were in each other’s company.”
“Is that it?” he asked hopefully. “Can I go now?”
“Not quite yet. You haven’t told me what happened after Dr. Barton left your room. I know where she was all evening, but where were you?” She watched him carefully now.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I mean, where were you? Where did you go?”
“Who said I went anywhere?”
“Don’t be coy with me,” she snapped. “Did you leave your hotel room or didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“To do what?”
He shrugged. “To go eat. Have some dinner. Get some air.”
She stared into his clear, green eyes that seemed untroubled by the fact that two bodies were lying in cold storage on the east side of Manhattan. She was getting tired of patiently asking questions that people could dance around. “Cut the shit, Mr. Dressler,” she commanded, “and tell me exactly where the fuck you went or I swear to God, everyone in New York City is going to know about your extracurricular activities. I’ve got a guy on video near Sanchez’s apartment, and he looks a hell of a lot like you. Did you go to Sanchez’s apartment that night?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Now answer the goddamn question.”
Dressler swallowed. “All right. All right. I went to his apartment, but I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even see him.”
“Keep talking.”
“He was pretty negative during the meeting that morning. Margery told me not to worry about him, but I did. I’ve been working on this sale for a year. It’s worth six million. Sealing this deal for the company would be a huge coup for me. I didn’t want to see it fall apart. I thought I could talk to him.”
“Did Barton know you were going there?”
“No.”
“Did anyone at McFlieger-Walsh know you were going there?”
“No, it was entirely my own idea.”
“Did you te
ll Sanchez you were coming?”
“No.”
“What time did you get to his apartment?”
“Around six.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I rang his bell, but there was no answer. It was stupid, I know, going all that way without being sure he was home. But I figured he would be there on a Monday night and that we could have a chat, man to man, educator to educator.”
“Did you go inside the building?”
He shook his head.
“Did you see anyone enter or leave?”
“No. I stood there and rang the bell three times, and then I gave up and walked back to my hotel feeling like a jerk.”
“What route did you take back?”
“Morningside Drive to Columbus. Then I cut over to Broadway in the Eighties.”
Codella watched him closely. “Did you ever take photographs of Sanchez with a woman?”
“Photos?”
“Compromising photos.”
“Of course not! Why would I do a thing like that?”
“Did you know such photographs existed?”
“No. I had no idea!”
“Margery Barton never mentioned them to you?”
“I don’t know anything about any photographs. Look, I wanted the sale, I admit, but I’d never do anything illegal to get it.”
Codella considered all the lies she had been told in the last two days. Why should she believe him? “You’re going to sit right here until a detective comes to pick you up. You’re going to accompany that detective to a precinct and give him a statement. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
She speed-dialed Haggerty before he could answer.
Chapter 49
Miguel Espina slumped into the chair on the other side of Marva Thomas’s desk. “Sit up, Miguel,” she said and watched him straighten his posture slightly. Every time she looked at Miguel, she remembered the chaos of Monday. She thought of Hector dragging her into his office and screaming, You’re not here to post sign-up sheets. You’re here to keep the heads out of the toilets. How the hell did this happen? In Hector Sanchez’s eyes, Espina was her failure, not his, so she supposed there was poetic justice in the fact that she now had to administer his in-school suspension.