I opened the door.
“Can I help you?” I called out.
“I’m looking for Sergeant Clesnik. I’m supposed to pick up a package for Dr. Sakarov?”
No! He was here for the glasses. I was out of time.
Or was I? The kid stared at me as I debated. Finally, I took the Duane Reade glasses in the evidence bag from my pocket. I found an empty envelope on Bonnie’s desk. I dropped the glasses in, sealed it with a lick, and handed it over.
The kid put the envelope in his shoulder bag and stood there, staring at me. What now? Bonnie was going to be back any second.
“Anything else?” I said.
He rubbed the scruff on his chin.
“How about your number?” Shaggy said with a sly smile. “That’d be cool.”
As if. Like I hadn’t had enough of younger men. Now, what could I say that would make the kid disappear instantly?
“What’s your take on kids?” I said, looking into his eyes lovingly. “Because my four could really use a father figure.”
“Take it easy,” he said with a wave as he finally left.
Bonnie arrived back maybe three minutes later with Paul’s glasses in an evidence bag.
“You’re lucky you came early,” she said. “A messenger is about to pick them up.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Some guy just came in, and I sent him away. Let me run and catch up to him.”
I grabbed the glasses out of Bonnie’s hand as I jogged for the exit.
“Thanks for the joe, Bonnie. Call me with the first thing you hear,” I yelled over my shoulder.
Chapter 43
THE FIRST IMPORTANT THING I noticed as I stepped back into the Homicide bullpen was that my boss wasn’t alone in his office. I had just enough time to put my coat on my chair before his door opened.
“Lauren,” Keane called out. “Come in here, will you. I need to see you right now.”
I silenced a groan as I walked across the boss’s threshold.
Jeff Buslik looked up at me, his dark eyes clear and bright and vigilant.
“Afternoon, Detective,” he said.
For the past five years, the extremely handsome African American Jeff Buslik had been the Bronx DA’s office’s Homicide Bureau chief. Everybody said he was an actual genius. I’d worked with him three times before he’d become head of the bureau, and three times he’d gotten jury convictions. Bronx jury convictions, slam-dunked with maximum sentences, state prison, twenty-five years to life.
I rubbed my eyes as I sat down.
“What do you have so far?” the prosecutor said. “Let me hear it all, Lauren.”
“Give me a break, Jeff,” I said. “You have my report right there in front of you. Speed-read it again. It’ll be quicker.”
Jeff smiled. No wonder juries liked him. He looked like a freaking movie star. Jeff had the gift of glib, too.
“Humor me,” he said.
So I told him.
When I was done, he leaned back on his chair’s back legs. He laid his hands on the lapels of his spotless gray suit as he stared up at the water-stained drop ceiling. His half-lidded eyes moved back and forth as if he were reading something. How many homicides had crossed his desk? I wondered. A thousand? Two thousand?
Already he was analyzing and sorting, building up the strengths and weaknesses of the case.
Or maybe he was just reading my mind, I thought, stilling the tap-tap routine my shoe had started against the floor. Christ, he made me nervous.
“This elderly witness, Amelia Phelps, does she seem believable?” he said after a minute.
I nodded. “Very believable, Jeff.”
“Pathology report?”
“They’re rushing it,” my boss said. “But it’ll still take at least a week.”
“What’s your gut on these two dealers?” Jeff said. “The Ordonez brothers?”
“They’re looking damn good,” Keane said. “Only, we’re having trouble locating them.”
“You think maybe they could be heading back to the Dominican Republic? I think maybe.”
Wouldn’t that be lovely, I thought.
“Who knows?” I said.
“Do you think these gentlemen are dumb enough to have the murder weapon on them?” Jeff said, creaking the chair back and forth with a flexing wingtip. “My juries love murder weapons. Murder weapons and DNA. Have to give them a crossover episode of CSI and Law and Order these days. You know that. We find the gun, hopefully with a little blood on it, it’ll be over before it starts.”
A vivid picture of the gun and bloody bag in my toolshed flashed through my brain.
“I’ve worked in this borough for a while, Jeff,” I said nonchalantly. “Dumb is something I never underestimate.”
Jeff gave me some more red-carpet wattage as he smiled broadly again.
“You seem to have your end covered as usual, Detective,” he said. “I’ll head back to the office and get started on boiler-plating some search warrants. Soon as you get an address, we’ll be ready to go. Maybe shoot for the death sentence on this one.”
Chapter 44
I NEARLY IMPLODED in my desk chair after Jeff Buslik had left the building.
I thought I could handle this. Because I was in charge of the case, I thought I could get out in front of everything. Now I wasn’t sure. In fact, I doubted it.
I’d been lucky so far, but how much longer could that last? Not long with clear-eyed Jeff Buslik staring over my shoulder. He could sense guilt the way a shark can smell blood.
Twenty minutes later, Mike came in with a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts and a Box O’ Joe.
Wow, a keg of caffeine. I wasn’t high-strung enough yet?
“What’s the word?” I said.
Mike shook his head.
“Jelly?” he said, opening the box. “Nobody knows squat. It’s hurry-up-and-wait time. Boston cream?”
The rest of the day and into the night was spent “no commenting” the reporters, who called by the half hour, and flipping through Scott’s case files.
Scott had really been a terrific undercover, I soon discovered. He’d been loaned out on stings to the FBI and the ATF and had actually gotten to be the right-hand man of a high-level guy in the Cali cartel.
I found a picture of Scott, smiling along with the rest of his interagency task force, as they posed in front of a white sandbag wall of seized cocaine. Oh, Scott.
I shook my head as I slapped the file closed and opened another.
A born bullshit artist, I thought, and I actually had to go ahead and believe him.
The next time I looked up, the squad room windows were dark. What time was it?
Mike hung up his phone and growled like a bear awakened from hibernation two months early.
“Get this. These DEA geniuses have the Brothers Ordonez’s location, and I quote, ‘pinned down to this after-hours club they partially own in Mott Haven or to an apartment in the ass end of Brooklyn.’ ”
“That’s some or,” I said.
“My sentiments exactly. Bottom line, we’re looking at a long night,” Mike said. “It’s your turn to crash. Go home and see what that husband of yours is looking like these days. Keep your cell phone on. The second I get the word, you’ll get it. Go home.”
Chapter 45
I HEARD THE TV in the den when I came in. A lone voice followed by studio audience laughter. Letterman, probably. Great. He’d be doing a Top Ten about me and Paul soon enough.
I put my keys on the pub mirror and looked at the blue TV light spilling through the crack onto the runner of carpet in the hall. Of all the difficult things I’d done all day, this one felt like the hardest.
Nothing could quite top off a long day of covering up a murder like having to admit to your husband that you cheated on him.
I took a long lungful of oxygen, slowly let it out, and pushed the door open.
Paul was lying on the couch with a Yankees throw pulled up to his chin. He clicked off the set when he saw me standing there.
“Hey,” he said with a smile. He still had a nice smile, even at the most inappropriate times.
I stared at him. I don’t know what I was expecting, but a cheerful “hey” wasn’t it. “Hey, slut” maybe.
“Hey, yourself?” I said tentatively.
I didn’t know what the next dance step was supposed to be. Not even a wild guess. I’d never had Paul murder my lover before.
“How was work?” Paul asked me.
“Work was fine, Paul,” I said. “Um, don’t you think that maybe we should talk a little bit about last night?”
Paul lowered his eyes to the floor. Now maybe we were getting somewhere.
“I was pretty loaded, huh?” he said.
That’s what generally happens when you practically polish off a bottle of scotch by yourself, I wanted to say. But I guess I needed to be supportive. I definitely needed Paul to open up, unburden himself. Tell me exactly what happened. Hear his side of things.
It would make things so much easier. He could get it off his chest, and I could tell him that he didn’t have to worry, that I was already taking care of everything.
“What’s going on, Paul?” I whispered. “You can tell me.”
Paul glanced at me, his lower lip caught between his teeth.
“My God, Lauren,” he said. “My flight. It was a nightmare. There was this loud boom, and we started plum-meting. I was convinced it was another terrorist attack. That I was dead. Then it just stopped. The plane leveled out, but the pilot landed it in Groton. I never made it to Boston.
“It was like I’d been spared, you know? After we touched down, I rented a car and drove home. I guess I was still in shock when I got back in. I opened the bottle to have a drink to calm myself, and pretty soon, the bottle was my drink. Don’t ask me what happened to my clothes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
My face burned in the dark. Why was Paul lying to me now? Acting as if he wasn’t aware I knew what was going on? On the other hand, it wasn’t uncommon for murderers to enter a state of denial. Sometimes it was so impenetrable, it was like they themselves truly believed they didn’t commit the crime. Was that it? Was Paul in shock and so racked with guilt that he’d become delusional?
“Paul!” I finally said. “Please!”
Paul looked up at me, confused.
“Please what?” he said.
My God, I thought. As if this wasn’t hard enough. Was Paul playing some type of game with me? It was as if he didn’t know I’d been there, too. That he thought Scott had been alone and . . .
Holy shit! That was it! A hand went to my gaping mouth. I couldn’t believe it.
Paul didn’t know that I’d been there!
Paul hadn’t come to confront us, I realized. He must have seen an e-mail or two, suspected what was going on, and gone over to Scott’s to deliver an ass kicking in order to scare him away from me. That’s why he’d left without confronting me! And that was why he was acting oblivious now. He wasn’t acting. Paul was oblivious!
Paul didn’t know I’d cheated on him.
Chapter 46
NOW, THAT CHANGED THINGS, didn’t it? I stared across the room as Paul lifted up the throw.
“Get in here with me, Lauren,” he said. “You’ve been working too hard. Hell, we both have. C’mere.”
Seeing Paul lying there like that reminded me of the time when I’d thrown out my back, chasing a suspect down a Throgs Neck fire escape the year before. I was laid up for two weeks, and Paul had used his vacation to take care of me. Really take care of me. He’d cooked us three meals a day, and we’d eaten here together watching daytime TV, reading, Paul reading to me. The water heater gave up the ghost in the middle of the second week, and I’ll never forget how Paul had washed my hair in the kitchen sink with water heated from the stove.
Bottom line was, he’d been there for me.
Now he needed me to be there for him.
I took a breath and stepped over and lay down beside him. Paul switched off the light. I reached out in the dark until I found Paul’s hand, then I held it tight.
“Well, I’m glad you made it home to me,” I finally said. “Even if your clothes didn’t.”
Chapter 47
THE NEXT MORNING, I got dressed quickly after Paul left for work. I’d been waiting for him to leave, actually. More accurate: I couldn’t wait for Paul to go.
As I was about to dump my handbag into my Mini, I suddenly very distinctly remembered what ADA Jeff Buslik had said about the gun used to kill Scott. How it was absolutely critical to proving the case.
I moved away from the car and hurried toward the work shed, a single question racing through my brain.
Which river was I going to dump the gun in — the Hudson, the East, or the Harlem?
But I swallowed hard as soon as I unlocked the shed’s door. I hadn’t been expecting this. Not in my wildest dreams.
There was an empty space where the bag of evidence had been! There was just air.
I looked behind the rakes, the bags of fertilizer, the watering can. No gun. No bloody paper towels. No nothing.
What now?
I stared at the spot, wondering what Paul might have done with the murder gun. Had he dumped it when he went to return the car? If so, where?
That worried me. A lot. The murder weapon still around someplace, probably with Paul’s prints on it.
I was standing there, stomach churning, when I noticed the shovel. The tip of its blade was dark. I touched it. It was wet with mud. I took it out of the shed with me and jogged toward the backyard.
Where would I bury a murder weapon if I were Paul? I thought.
I’d want to hide it someplace close, I decided. Someplace where I could glance out my window and see if the area had been disturbed.
I scanned my backyard. It got only afternoon sun, so it was still shaded. I paced its entire length, staring at the cool, shadowed ground for twenty minutes, but there were no obvious disturbances. Not in the plant beds, not beneath the hedges or azaleas.
About ten minutes later, next to the grill, beside a stack of garden bricks we’d bought at Home Depot a year before, I noticed something a little curious. To the right of the pile, I could see faint indentations of bricks in the dirt.
The bricks had been moved slightly over to the left, I realized.
I began removing the top row of bricks and placing them back in their original formation. Under the last row, the earth was loose.
I dug with the shovel until it squished into something. My breath caught and my heart pumped with relief. It was a plastic Stop & Shop bag. I opened it and saw the .38 sitting on top of the bloody towels.
I put the gun in my purse and tied the shopping bag and put it in the trunk of my Impala, the cop car I usually drove to work in. Then I went back, filled the hole, and painstakingly put the bricks back the way I’d found them.
I was sweating, placing the last brick back down, when I heard something at the corner of the house.
I turned.
And my heart stopped.
It was my partner, Mike.
Mike? Here at my house? Now?
Behind him were Scott’s DETF group members Jeff Trahan and Roy Khuong. All three were wearing full ballistic armor.
I could feel my sweat glands open like a drain. This was it — endgame!
They’d been surveilling me, I thought. They knew exactly what had happened. Probably from the get-go.
Now it was over.
My mouth opened wordlessly as I stared at them from where I was, on my knees.
“What’s up, Lauren? Don’t you answer your phone?” Mike said, pulling me up. “We just got word from a confidential informant that the Ordonez boys are at their club right now. We decided to just come by and pick you up. Marut and Price are waiting in the van.”
He slapped the dirt from my hands as if I were a naughty child he’d caught playing in the mud.
“You can plant your perennials later, Martha Stewart,” my fi
red-up partner said with a grin. “It’s time for us to bag some cop killers.”
Chapter 48
RIDING IN THE BACK of a speeding van disguised as a plumbing company’s, which the Bronx Narcotics Drug Enforcement Task Force used for surveillance, I studied the black-and-white photographs of the Ordonez brothers that Mike had brought with him. The pilot, Mark, was a year older than his brother, Victor, but the hard-eyed, pock-marked tough guys could have been twins.
I handed the pictures back to Mike, who was crouched next to me. He was sheathed in Kevlar, a tactical shotgun held port arms across his chest. I was wearing a full vest, too, and it felt incredibly heavy across my back and shoulders.
Or maybe it was just my head-about-to-explode guilt and anxiety dragging on me.
“Couple of real lookers,” I managed to get out.
“Did you notice how light-skinned Victor is? Six foot. He matches Amelia Phelps’s description almost to a T. He did it, Lauren. He’s our guy. He just about killed a cop fifteen years ago, and he finally got his chance with Scott. The son of a bitch was Scott’s shooter. I can feel it.”
I stared at my partner. There was a far-off look in his eyes, a malevolent gaze. “These two are going to wish their mother strangled them at birth,” he whispered.
I raked my hair back with my fingers. I remembered again that Mike’s dad had been killed on The Job. Now we were going after cop killers. I wondered suddenly if this was such a good idea. Actually, I knew it wasn’t.
“We’re here,” Trahan called from the wheel as the van slowed. “Lock and load, ladies.”
There was a heady metallic smell in the van’s enclosed space. Adrenaline probably. Or maybe testosterone. Things were happening way too fast. The click of weapons echoed off the stark, steel walls.
We were parked on East 141st Street somewhere off Willis Avenue. I guessed the Manhattan real-estate bubble had yet to blow in this direction, looking out at the weed-filled lots and crumbling buildings.
Anything to keep my mind off what was happening now.
Across the desolate street, a wind-blown page of El Diario caught against the skeletal bumper of a stripped-to-the-bones Escalade. The only structures that looked semi-sound around here were the housing projects across the gun-metal strip of the Harlem River behind us.