Kylie finally broke the silence. “That poor, poor woman. Her daughter was murdered. She had to be overwhelmed with guilt, and then when they accused her, nobody believed in her. Nobody. Including me.”
She turned slowly in her seat and rested a hand on my knee. She had my undivided attention. “Zach…,” she said.
That was all. Just my name. A single syllable that she let hang in the air, wrapped up in a tangle of emotions—compassion, anger, and, above all, the trademark raw grit that makes Kylie MacDonald a woman you want at your side and a partner you want at your back.
I slowed down, caught a red light, and turned to face her. She lifted her hand from my knee. I couldn’t tell for sure in the dark, but it looked as if my partner’s eyes were a little on the watery side. My tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners partner.
“I know what you’re going to say, Kylie, and I’m there. Number one priority—we have to find her. Alive.”
“Whatever it takes,” she said. “I don’t care how many stupid-ass rules we have to break.”
But then I already knew that.
Mick Wilson’s assistant lived at 47th Street and Ninth Avenue. There was a Starbucks directly across the street, but at 4:15 a.m., it was as dark as the rest of the city. Maybe if I’d had a cup of coffee or a few more hours’ sleep, it might have dawned on me that the young lawyer we were going to interview had a familiar last name. But it’s a common enough name—especially in the New York City Police and Fire Departments.
We identified ourselves over the intercom, took the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on the door. She didn’t open it.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t just let total strangers in,” she said. “If you’re real cops, you’ll understand. I need an ID. Hold it up to the peephole.”
Kylie went first, then I held up my badge and ID. But that wasn’t enough.
“They look real,” she said from the other side of the door, “but just tell me why you’re here.”
I recognized the syndrome. Somewhere in her life she’d been a crime victim, and she’d never gotten past the trauma. I mouthed three words to Kylie. She’s been mugged.
Or worse, Kylie said silently. She waved me away from the door and centered herself in clear view of the peephole. “Meredith, we’re sorry to barge in on you in the middle of the night, but we can’t wait till the morning. You were part of the DA’s team in the Rachael O’Keefe case. She was kidnapped, and we need your help.”
A lock clicked. Then another. The door opened.
“Come in,” she said. “Sorry if I got all paranoid on you. Mick told me what you’d been asking about. I told him to tell you that when Rachael got released, I knew where she was going, but I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Mick neglected to pass on the message,” I said, “so as long as we’re here, we’d like to get it straight from you.”
“Sure,” she said, conjuring up a smile that did nothing to hide her frazzled nerves.
I was frazzled, too, but I knew I couldn’t come on like a storm trooper. “Meredith,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster, “you just said you knew where Rachael was going, and you wouldn’t tell anyone. We know your reputation, and we’re sure you wouldn’t.”
“I’m an officer of the court,” she said.
“And I’m sure if you’re working with Mick Wilson, you’re a damn good one. He’s a pretty demanding guy.”
She laughed. “That’s a very generous way to characterize an unrelenting, perfectionist taskmaster, but yes, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with someone of Mick’s caliber.”
“So let’s get back to that night,” I said. “What did you do after the verdict came down?”
“What do you think?” she said, forming her right hand into the letter C and tipping it toward her mouth three times.
Despite the hour and her state of mind, Meredith looked terrific without putting on makeup or brushing her thick red hair. It was a good bet that someone this pretty wasn’t drinking alone.
“That’s what I would do too,” I said. “Find a bar and drown my sorrows. Who’d you go out with?”
“Just insiders. Colleagues. Some who knew where Rachael would be hiding out, some who didn’t. It was a tough case to lose, so yeah, we all got pretty wasted, but we didn’t talk about where Rachael was going. Mostly we just bitched and moaned about the Warlock.”
“The what?”
“The Warlock—Dennis Woloch, the defense attorney. He totally worked his legal voodoo on the jury and convinced them that there was reasonable doubt. He did it pro bono. Rachael was lucky to get him.”
Real lucky. If she’d had any other attorney, she’d have been convicted, stayed safely in jail, and not been kidnapped two days before the real killer confessed. Hats off to Mr. Warlock.
“Excuse me,” Kylie said. She had been casually snooping around the small living room while I kept Meredith busy. “Who’s this?”
She picked up a framed black-and-white photo from an end table and brought it over to where I could see it. It was a cop in uniform. NYPD.
“That’s my dad,” Meredith said. “He was killed in the line of duty.”
“I’m sorry,” Kylie said. “What happened?”
“He was working undercover trying to bring down this gang of Russian gun runners. Somehow his cover got blown, and they killed him.” She paused. “But not before he took two of them out first. They gave him the Medal of Valor.”
I took the picture from Kylie. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties and a dead ringer for the cop I’d had drinks with last night. I no longer needed coffee. My adrenaline was going haywire.
“What was your dad’s name?” I said.
“David. David Casey.”
I mentally kicked myself. “I know a Detective Dave Casey. He works Anti-Crime.”
She smiled—clearly proud. “That’s my brother. How do you know him?”
“He helped us out. Good guy,” I said. “Do you think you might have possibly mentioned anything to him about Rachael?”
“No. I hardly talked to Dave that night. I went home with my boyfriend.”
“Did you say anything to him?” Kylie asked. She tried to sound casual, but Meredith immediately went back on the defense.
“No,” she said curtly. “I mean, I don’t know. I was miserable. I wound up drinking myself into a blackout.”
Kylie was on the attack now. “So you could have said something, but you don’t remember?”
“You sound more like a lawyer than a cop. I could have said something…but it’s highly unlikely.”
“But it is possible that under the influence, something could have slipped out.” Kylie smiled. “You know—unintentionally.”
Meredith grabbed on to the lifeline. Unintentionally.
“Who knows? Sure, it’s possible I might have said something to him unintentionally. But it’s okay—he’s a cop too. I’ve known him since we were kids. He’s my brother’s partner. If you know Dave, then you probably know him—Detective Bell. Gideon Bell.”
Chapter 74
It was the second sucker punch in less than an hour, only this time it was personal. As soon as we got back into the car, I exploded.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
“Don’t take all the credit,” Kylie said. “I bought their bullshit too. We’re both idiots.”
“We’ve been chasing the wrong two cops.”
“Zach, I know. I figured it out.”
“I’m thinking back to the carousel. They told me they spent the entire night working undercover in the park, and my first thought was, Lucky me. My partner isn’t here yet, so the homicide gods sent two smart cops to bail me out.”
“They are smart,” Kylie said. “Do you think Meredith is in on it?”
“I doubt it. She gave up too much. If she had any clue what was going on, she’d have clammed up tight. I think our new best friends played her the same way they played us. She told Gideon exactly how to find Rachael
O’Keefe, and she was too drunk to even remember that she did it.”
I still hadn’t started the car. I pounded the heel of my hand on the dashboard. “Goddamn Starbucks!” I yelled at the darkened windows across the street. “Don’t they know people need coffee at four thirty in the morning?”
“Get a grip,” Kylie said. “There’s a 7-Eleven on Forty-Second Street across from the post office. Calm down and drive.”
“You know what really kills me?” I said as I headed down Ninth, breezing through one red light after another.
“Yes. You got snookered. I’m not happy about it either, but men really fall apart when another guy gets the best of him.”
“I’m not falling apart. I just feel like such a fucking moron that I invited them into the inner circle and asked them to help us tail Donovan and Boyle. Talk about inviting the fox over to keep an eye on the henhouse.”
“Look on the bright side,” Kylie said.
“Point it out, will you?”
“We’ve been looking for the Hazmat Killer. I think we just figured out who it is.”
I pulled up to the NO PARKING ANYTIME sign in front of the 7-Eleven. “How do we prove it before they find out Rachael O’Keefe is expendable and kill her? We can’t arrest them. On what charges? That they might or might not have known where Rachael was hiding out?”
“What if we ask Matt Smith to trace the GPS on their cell phones? Wouldn’t that tell us they were somewhere close to Rachael’s house when she was kidnapped?”
“These guys are too smart to leave digital bread crumbs. Even if they did, the fact that they were in New Jersey that night wouldn’t be enough to nail them.”
“Maybe we could convince Alma Hooks to have Shawn look at some mug shots,” Kylie said.
“A thirteen-year-old black drug runner fingering two white cops. That ought to stand up nicely in court.”
“I have an idea that I know you can’t shoot down,” Kylie said. “Let me get you some coffee.”
“Good idea,” I said. “That’s one in a row.”
She got out, and I tried to focus.
Unlike a lot of cop cars, the Ford Interceptor has an adjustable driver’s seat, so I tilted it back and closed my eyes. All along, I had painted a picture in my head of Donovan and Boyle convincing Alex Kang, Antoine Tinsdale, and Evelyn Parker-Steele to get into their car. Now I had to go back and put Casey and Bell in their place.
Casey would have been the one driving down Second Avenue. Bell was better looking and would be the one in the backseat, calling out to Evelyn. She got in the car, they drove to Queens, and then…and then the picture went blank.
Strike one.
I tried the same scenario with Kang and Tinsdale. Bell’s approach would have been different with those two, but all he had to do was play the NYPD card, and in the car they’d go.
But it didn’t matter. Playing the situation in my mind’s eye with Casey and Bell instead of Donovan and Boyle didn’t help. Strike two. Strike three.
And then it hit me. I should be getting four strikes. I’d forgotten about Sebastian Catt.
The car door opened, and I sat up.
“Sleeping on the job?” Kylie said, getting into the front seat and handing me a cardboard cup.
“Mulling on the job.” I popped the lid and let the smell of fresh coffee work its way into my brain.
“Did you mull anything worth repeating?”
“Yeah, I think I’ve got something.” I took my first sip. “No, I know I’ve got something.”
I put the lid back on the coffee and started the car.
“Are you serious? You have hard evidence to connect Casey and Bell to any of these crimes?”
“I don’t,” I said. “But you and I know someone who does.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do, missy,” I said, making a U-turn on 42nd Street and heading east. “Yes, we do.”
Chapter 75
At five in the morning, we flew across town and made it to Horton LaFleur’s building on East 84th Street in ten minutes. I rang the doorbell to apartment 1A and stepped back.
“One ring won’t cut it with this old bastard,” Kylie said. “Lean on the bell till he answers.”
I did. LaFleur didn’t.
“Move over,” Kylie said, and began pushing every doorbell on the panel.
Someone buzzed us in, and she stormed down the hall to apartment 1A and pounded on the door.
“NYPD!” she yelled.
“You got a warrant?” LaFleur hollered back from inside.
“I don’t need a warrant. I have a foot. And unless you open this door, I’ll kick it open.”
It’s not the way I would have handled it, but it worked. LaFleur opened the front door and blocked it with his bony body and his rolling oxygen tank cylinder.
“What the fuck do you want now?” he screamed, jaw clenched, neck muscles straining. “You looking for a killer? You got him, missy. Here I am. I did it. I killed them all. Go ahead, arrest me. Come on—either arrest me or get the fuck out of my sight.”
Some cops might have backed off. Not Kylie. Especially not now.
“We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “We have questions, and you can either answer them here, or we’ll drag your sorry ass into the station.”
“I already told you I got nothing more to say. You ever hear of the right to remain silent? It’s one of the freedoms I took a bullet for, so get the hell out of here.”
“Cuff him, Zach. We’re taking him in.”
“All right, all right…,” LaFleur said, muttering some unintelligible profanity under his breath. “What do you want?”
“We want to hear the tape,” she said.
On the outside, LaFleur looked like someone you’d see doddering around the halls of a nursing home, but inside, his brain was quick, nimble, and ready for the face-off with Kylie.
“And what tape would that be?” he said innocently. “The one of Sebastian Catt admitting that he murdered my wife? I don’t have a copy. Why don’t you look for it on the YouTube.”
“I’m talking about the recording you made when you were bugging Catt’s apartment.”
LaFleur’s eyes opened wide. “Me?” he said. “Bugging?” He looked surprised, almost horrified, at the accusation. “There must be some mistake. I never made any recordings, so if you don’t have any more questions, I’m going back to bed. Have a nice life.”
“Look,” Kylie said, “we understand why you don’t want to help us catch the man who murdered Catt.”
“You understand?” he barked. “Then why the hell did you come back?”
Kylie squared herself off in front of LaFleur. “Because the man—no, make that the two men—who killed Sebastian Catt are about to kill an innocent woman. A woman as innocent as your wife. Hattie died doing the right thing. And if she knew you were standing in the way of our catching two murderers, she’d rip that oxygen line right out of your fucking nose.”
Horton started coughing and didn’t stop.
“Are you all right?” I said.
“No.” He moved away from the door and wheeled the cylinder back into the room. He sat down at his dining room table/desk. “Get me some water, will you?”
I went to the sink and got him a glass of water. He drank it slowly, then took a series of big drags on the oxygen. The coughing stopped.
“Mr. LaFleur,” Kylie said, “I know I pushed you hard, but the two men you’re protecting are about to kill an innocent woman. We’re racing against the clock to stop them, and right now, you’re the only one who can help us.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Rachael O’Keefe.”
“The bitch who killed her kid?” he wheezed.
“That bitch was found not guilty by a jury of her peers—another one of those freedoms you took a bullet for—and the real killer was caught last night and confessed everything.”
“The real killer? Nice try, missy, but I don’t buy it. How dumb do you t
hink I am? O’Keefe is big news, and I got nothing else to do but watch CNN all day. First they tell you O’Keefe is guilty, then they say she’s not guilty, and then they say she went and got herself kidnapped. I can’t keep up with this girl. And now you’re telling me the real killer confessed? What a crock.”
“It’s true,” Kylie said.
“Then it’d be all over the TV. I didn’t hear nothing last night. Maybe it’s on now.” He picked up the remote.
“It won’t be on TV,” I said. “We’re trying to keep it from leaking, because if it breaks, the two men who kidnapped her won’t try to bleed a confession out of her. They’ll cover their ass and kill her on the spot.”
He dropped the remote and shook his head. “Cops lie all the time. Why should I even trust you?”
“I don’t give a shit if you trust us,” Kylie said, shaking a finger at him like an angry schoolmarm. “You either tell us what you know and help us stop an innocent woman from being murdered, or you can clam up, turn on the TV tomorrow morning, and spend the rest of your life trying to live with the biggest mistake you ever made.”
The room was silent except for the sounds of a lonely old man sucking in bottled air. He needed time, and we gave it to him. The photo of him and Hattie on their wedding day was still on his desk. He picked it up and stared at it.
“I’d been bugging Catt for months,” he said, not looking up from the picture. “It was easy enough to set up. Even in my condition. I was hoping he’d say something that might incriminate him, but he lived alone, so he didn’t do much talking. Mostly phone calls, but nothing that would connect him to Hattie’s murder.”
He set the picture down. “But I didn’t give up. It became my life’s work. It’s all I did, all I thought about. How to make him pay. I thought about killing him, but I knew what Hattie would say. Don’t sink to his level. So I just kept at it. And then one night—it was around eleven o’clock—I heard someone ring Catt’s bell and walk down the hall to his door. I put my headset on. It was two cops. At least they said they were cops.”