We started with the woman who discovered the body. Leslie Stern had just pulled into the parking lot when she spotted the open window of Silas’s car. She took a peek inside, called 911, told the dispatcher what she’d seen, then ran to the diner to tell everyone else.
By the time the cops arrived, a throng of people had gathered, cell phones in hand, and #DeadGuyInAnAudi was trending on Twitter.
Next we talked to the manager of the diner, who was irate because it was Friday night and his parking lot was packed with looky-loos, but he couldn’t convert their curiosity into cash. NYPD had closed him down. There was no sense explaining to him that crime scene investigations trump commerce, so we showed him a picture of Silas Blackstone that we had pulled up from the DMV.
“Never saw him,” the sullen manager said.
“How about him?” I asked, showing him a photo of Tripp Alden.
He grumbled a “Yeah,” and I pressed him for details.
“He came in about four thirty. Said he was meeting someone and asked for a booth. It was early, so I gave him one by a window.”
“We’d like to talk to whoever waited on him.”
Her name was Denise, and she had the look of a veteran diner waitress who was always there to top off your coffee before you asked. But clearly Denise was more shaken than her boss. She practically cried when I showed her Tripp’s picture. “Oh God, is he the one that got shot?”
“No,” Kylie said. “What can you tell us about him?”
“He ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a Pepsi. Nice kid. Said ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’ But that’s it. Teenage boys don’t talk it up when the waitress is old enough to be their mother.”
“Was he alone?”
“At first. Then this guy sits down. He was white, maybe thirty-five. I gave him a menu, but he said he’s not staying, so I didn’t pay much attention to him. At one point he went out. When he came back, I could see he was pissed at the kid for something. He tossed a twenty on the table, and the two of them left.”
The uniforms canvassed the crowd, and while the speculation ran from gang shooting to jealous husband, there was none of what Chuck Dryden had called empirical evidence.
He was waiting for us when we got back to the Audi. “This was under the front passenger seat,” Dryden said, holding up a laptop. “It belongs to Tripp Alden. I dusted it, but instead of tying it up in the lab, I’ll get it over to Matt Smith. I have a feeling he’ll find more on the inside than I will on the outside.”
A cell phone rang. It was Blackstone’s. I answered.
“Damn it, Silas,” Hunter Alden bellowed. “Where the hell are you?”
“Mr. Alden, this is Detective Zach Jordan. I have some bad news. Mr. Blackstone has been shot. He died instantly. I’m sorry for your loss.” I told him what had happened.
“A diner in Queens? What was he doing there?”
“It looks like he tracked down your son. Tripp had dinner here earlier.”
“Do you have him now? I’ll pick him up.”
“No, sir. A lot has happened since we spoke to you this morning.” I filled him in on Tripp’s escape from PS 114.
“So this guy had Tripp locked up,” Alden said. “The kid gets away, and instead of coming home, he takes off?”
“Yes, sir. We’re still looking for him, but he’s no longer considered a hostage. It appears he was in collusion with whoever was trying to shake you down, and your son is now a suspect in two homicides. So this time we expect a lot more cooperation. If you hear from him, I need you to contact us immediately, or you’ll be aiding and abetting—”
He hung up before I could finish.
Chapter 48
I stood there with the dead PI’s dead phone in my hand. “Son of a bitch cares even less about Blackstone than he did about Peter.”
“Some people are better than others at coping with having their valued employees murdered in parking lots,” Kylie said. “But let’s try to do something more productive than vent about Hunter Alden.”
“If you’re thinking ‘late lunch,’ it’s not going to happen. The diner’s closed.”
“No. I’m thinking ‘find Augie Hoffman’s phone.’ I just got a text from Matt. The signal he picked up before is holding. The phone is on, and it’s nearby.”
We pulled together a dozen uniforms and gave them all latex gloves. “Listen up, everybody,” Kylie said. “We’re looking for a cell phone. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a ringtone. If it’s on vibrate, it’s a lot harder to pick up, but not impossible. Half of you start along the Hillside Avenue perimeter, and the other half position yourselves in those weeds.”
The cops spread out, and Kylie and I joined the group lined up in a patch of frost-covered vegetation at the far end of the lot. “Okay,” she yelled, holding up her cell, “I’m activating my high-tech phone finder.”
She dialed Augie’s number. Five seconds passed. Then I heard music. I hear the train a-comin’. It’s rollin’ round the bend. Johnny Cash. “Folsom Prison Blues.” I knew I liked Augie Hoffman.
A cop fifteen feet away yelled out, “Got it.” He bent down, picked up the phone, and walked it over to me.
Kylie and I got back in the car, and she turned up the heater.
Augie had an ancient flip phone with no password protection. I pulled up the Recent Calls screen. “There’s a slew of incoming from Florida,” I said, “but the last four are outgoing. The first is to 911 at 2:09 p.m., which matches the time 911 dispatched units to the school. A minute later he dialed 411—information.”
“Makes sense,” Kylie said. “It’s not his phone. He wouldn’t have his usual contacts. Who’d he call after information?”
“It’s a two-one-two number, so it’s Manhattan. He talked for two minutes, then the phone went silent for about three hours. The final call was at 5:17. I recognize the number. It’s the one he made to Patrice.”
“Hit redial on the two-one-two number,” Kylie said.
“No. It’s fifteen digits, which means Tripp dialed the ten-digit number first, got a recording, then responded to the voice prompts. You can’t duplicate that with auto redial. You have to punch it in the same way he did. Take out your phone, put it on speaker, and dial this number.”
I read off ten digits, and she dialed her iPhone. A machine answered.
“Thank you for calling Barnaby Prep. If you know your party’s extension, please dial it now. To access the school directory, dial nine.”
“Nine is the next number Tripp dialed,” I said. “Do it.”
She did, and another prompt came on. “Please enter the first four letters of your party’s last name.”
“Six, two, three, four,” I said.
She entered the numbers.
The extension rang, and voice mail answered. “Hello, this is Ryan Madison. I’m not in my office right now, but leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.”
Kylie hung up. “Madison? For a guy who says he doesn’t want to get involved…”
“He didn’t call Tripp,” I said. “Tripp called him.”
“Why?”
Before I could come up with an intelligent answer, she hit the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. “I’m an idiot,” she said. She lowered her head and began hitting the keys on her iPhone.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“If I were standing up, I’d be kicking myself.” She tapped away furiously, then she stopped and held the screen up for me to see.
“The waitress,” she said.
She bolted from the car, ran back to the diner, and pushed open the front door. I was right behind her.
“Denise,” she yelled.
Four waitresses were sitting at a table having coffee, most likely wondering if they’d get back to work that night.
Denise looked up. “Yes?”
Kylie shoved her phone in front of her. “Do you recognize this man?”
Denise took a quick look. “That’s him,” sh
e said, giving Kylie back the phone. “That’s the one who left the diner with the kid.”
“Are you sure?” Kylie said, trying to give the waitress the phone back. “Look again. Take your time.”
“Honey, I don’t have to take my time. I know faces.”
“Please. It’s important.”
It wasn’t important to Denise. Whatever good will we might have established with her was long gone. She stood up and took the phone back reluctantly.
Kylie had gone to the Barnaby Prep website, drilled down to the faculty bios, and pulled up a picture of Ryan Madison. Denise stared at it.
“Okay, one more time,” she said, exasperated. “This is the guy I told you about before. He sat down with the kid. He didn’t want to order. Then he went outside for a cig—oh my God. He didn’t go for a smoke. He killed that man in the parking lot. No wonder you’re making such a big—oh my God.” She took another look at Madison. “That’s definitely him. That’s the guy you’re looking for.”
“You’re sure,” Kylie said.
“Honey,” Denise said, not able to take her eyes off the prep school teacher’s smiling face, “I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”
Chapter 49
Tripp was curled up in the front seat of the Subaru, pretending to sleep.
Peter was dead. Murdered. Wednesday night after they had staged the kidnapping. He wanted to scream at Madison, “Why did you kill him? What happened to ‘Nobody gets hurt’? What happened to ‘Your father deserves this, so it’s a victimless crime’?”
But he couldn’t say anything. He’d made enough mistakes. Trusting Madison was the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life. The best thing to do now was to act normal until he could figure out how to get away.
It took them an hour to get into the city, and then they crept down Park Avenue in Friday night traffic, heading for the Holland Tunnel.
Tripp decided it was time to open his eyes. “Where are we?” he said.
“Somewhere in the middle of the rat race,” Madison said. “I can’t believe people do this every day.”
“I’ll turn on 1010 WINS and get a traffic report,” Tripp said, reaching for the radio dial.
Madison smacked his hand away. “Don’t,” he said. “They’re just going to tell me that traffic sucks, which I already know. I drive better without the radio.”
“Okay, man,” Tripp said. “No traffic report.” And no news stations.
It was another forty-five minutes before Madison drove into the parking lot of the Liberty Harbor Marina in Jersey City.
“Recognize that beast?” he said as he pulled the Subaru alongside a blue 1998 Dodge Caravan.
“Is that the piece of shit you had us in?” Tripp said.
“Don’t knock it,” Madison said. “I got it on Craigslist. Eight hundred bucks—as is. Plus the guy threw in a bungee cord to keep the back doors from flying open.”
“It would have helped if he threw in some shocks. It rides like a tank. Especially when you’re lying on the cold floor.”
“Oh, you poor spoiled rich kid. Next time I’ll kidnap you in a Maybach.”
Just the mention of the Maybach conjured up Peter. The cheeseburger roiled in Tripp’s stomach, and he felt like puking.
They walked down to the slip where Madison’s aging twenty-two-foot cabin cruiser was docked. “Too many people are looking for you,” he said as they boarded, “so until I tell you otherwise, this is your new home sweet home. A few ground rules: no contact with the outside world.”
“How could I? You took my cell phone. Can I at least have it back so I can play some games?”
“I took out the SIM card so they can’t track it. So no games, no email, no texts, no phone.”
“Can I have my wallet back?”
“You don’t need it,” Madison said. “You’re not going shopping. You’re not going anywhere.”
“So it sounds like now I really am a hostage,” Tripp said, faking a smile.
Madison didn’t smile back. “Don’t be cute. We’re in this together. But you’re running scared, and I’m trying to keep you from blowing this up in our faces. Here’s the deal. There’s no TV, no radio—”
“And no heat,” Tripp yelled, folding his arms and hugging his parka to his body. “Can’t we go to a hotel? It’s freezing on this tub, and I’m not exactly dressed for yachting.”
“Tough shit, Richie Rich. You try checking into a hotel, and you’ll be on a dozen security cameras before you get to your room. This boat was plan B. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t screwed up plan A, so stop bitching and get to bed. We’ve got three more lousy days, then the partnership is dissolved, and you can take your ninety million and spread it around like Johnny Fucking Appleseed.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll tell you what I won’t be doing,” Madison said. “I won’t be at Barnaby Prep kissing fat rich asses for a lousy forty-eight thousand a year. You got the top bunk. Lights out in five.”
Chapter 50
When you work high-profile cases, getting a search warrant is easy, even on a Friday night, and by eight thirty Kylie and I were heading downtown to see what we could dig up on Ryan Madison.
He lived in a four-story prewar building on the corner of East 4th Street and Avenue D in Alphabet City, about a half mile from where Tripp and Lonnie had been locked up.
The apartment fit the single-guy-living-alone pattern we’d seen before. Cluttered, but habitable. There were the predictable movie posters on the walls, shelves full of film books, and DVDs scattered everywhere. Adding to the ambiance, the entire place smelled like the bottom of an ashtray.
There was nothing in the living room to connect Madison to the crimes, but the bathroom was much more promising. There on the sink was a can of Bactine antiseptic spray, a roll of gauze, and another of adhesive tape. The wastebasket contained half a dozen long strips of bloodied gauze bandages.
“He was either shaving drunk,” Kylie said, “or some kid came at him with a box cutter.”
We headed straight for the kitchen trash can. Kylie popped the top, and we didn’t have to look too hard to find what we were searching for. A gray Yankees hoodie with blue trim. The left sleeve was slashed and thick with dried blood.
“Note to self,” I said. “Send lovely thank-you card to Fannie Gittleman at 530 West 136th Street.”
We checked the bedroom. There was a pile of clothes on the floor.
“Head to toe all black,” I said, “which matches the outfit Lonnie told us the kidnapper wore.”
Kylie laughed. “Zach, this is New York. All black isn’t exactly damning evidence. It’s a fashion statement.”
I opened the closet door. “Okay, then, how fashionable is a couple of boxes of surveillance and security equipment from Cheaters Spy Shop? What does Vogue say about that?”
“Let’s find this creep,” Kylie said.
Thirty-five thousand cops have a better chance than two, so we called the precinct and had them issue a BOLO. Then we called the lab and sent for some techs to tag and bag everything we thought we’d need in court.
The only thing we couldn’t figure out was Tripp Alden’s role in the murders.
“Is he a victim, an accomplice, or did he mastermind the whole operation?” Kylie said.
“Scratch that last one,” I said. “Whatever this kid did wrong, I can’t believe he planned or had anything to do with Peter’s murder. And based on what we heard at the Silver Moon, he might not even know about Silas getting killed.”
“He’s guilty of something.”
“We’re all guilty of something,” I said. “But I still can’t wrap my head around his motive. There’s got to be an easier way to get money from your billionaire father than to stage a kidnapping and ask for ransom.”
“At this point, I’m not sure I can wrap my head around anything,” Kylie said. “It’s ten p.m., and I haven’t eaten all day. Detectives shouldn’t try detecting when they’re r
unning on fumes.”
“In that case, can I buy you some lunch?”
“Sure. Someplace quiet.”
“It’s Friday night in New York. Anyplace worth going to will be jammed with supercool people dressed in black.” And then, without thinking about it, I said, “How about my place? That’s quiet.”
She was as surprised to hear me say it as I was.
“Where have I heard that line before? The first time I ever went up to your place, all you had was half a bottle of cheap vodka, leftover pizza, and the new Radiohead album. Real class.”
“Hey, give me a little credit here. I’ve come a long way since the academy. I’ve got some chilled Stoli, we can order a fresh pizza, and I’m sure I can download whatever hip sounds you kids are into these days.”
“You’re on,” she said. “But same ground rules as last night. We’ve put in a fifteen-hour day, and the weekend is going to be even more intense. I have to give my brain a rest. No shop talk. Let’s just keep it personal.”
I shrugged. “Okay with me.”
It was better than okay. For the past ten hours I’d been dying to know if Kylie was going to dump Spence and jump back into the dating pool. It doesn’t get more personal than that.
Chapter 51
By 11:00 p.m., Kylie was sitting barefoot on my sofa, legs tucked under her, slice of pizza in one hand, tilting a bottle of Blue Moon to her lips with the other.
Discussing the case was off the table, so we slid comfortably into rehashing our days at the academy, laughing about the pranks we had played, and carefully avoiding any reference to our emotional baggage.
But for me, it was in the air, and the old feelings crept back quickly. Probably because I’d never totally been able to shake them.
Kylie was on her second beer when I got around to the subject that had been gnawing at me all day.