You Don't Own Me Page 15
“Stop! Someone stop him! He mugged me! That’s my bag!”
The taxi driver was out of his car, asking if she was okay. A woman stopped to pick up her shoe from the street and return it to her. Other pedestrians simply continued on their way, pretending not to have noticed a scene that was none of their business. No one had tried to stop the man from running away from the lady wearing a ridiculous purple boa.
“Please, can we go follow him?” Laurie asked the driver.
He held up both palms and waved them. “That is a job for the police, ma’am,” he said in a lilting accent. “I have a wife and five children. I can’t go playing hero.”
She nodded her understanding and then watched as a man in a well-tailored suit got into the backseat of what was supposed to be her cab.
40
Laurie refused help from several passersby. Without her briefcase and purse, she stumbled back into the piano bar. Before she was able to tell Charlotte and the others what had happened, several members of the police came in. Someone must have called 911.
Laurie was never comfortable as the center of attention and now had a piano bar full of people watching her as she spoke from a bar stool to an ever-growing number of police officers.
“You’ve got injuries,” one of the officers noted. “Are you sure you don’t want an EMT to check that out?” He gestured toward the ice pack she was holding awkwardly against her scraped calf.
“Really, I’m fine. Just . . . rattled. That cabbie could have run right over me. Thank God he had quick reflexes.”
Another officer—this one the oldest so far—arrived on the scene. She could see from the insignia on his shoulder that he was a lieutenant. Her suspicions were now confirmed. Someone had connected the familial dots between the complainant and former First Deputy Commissioner Leo Farley.
The new arrival introduced himself as Lieutenant Patrick Flannigan. “I’m sorry this happened to you in our precinct.”
“No apology necessary . . . unless you’re living a double life as a mugger,” she added with a smile. “And trust me, I’ll tell my father that the NYPD was here within two minutes.”
“Unfortunately, my officers are telling me the response time wasn’t quick enough to find the man who did this. We found one woman who says a guy pushed past her with a large bag, but she didn’t get a good look at him. Seems he managed to blend into the theater district crowd and disappear. We’ll be pulling surveillance camera footage, though.”
She shook her head. “He was wearing a hoodie. I’m not sure what you’ll find.”
Flannigan waved the bartender over. “You have any customers here tonight who left the same time she did?”
The bartender squinted, searching his memory. “Maybe? There was one guy—same seat you’re in now, in fact,” he said to Laurie. “Johnnie Walker Black—a few of them. Don’t remember much more about him, though.”
“Do you have his credit card payment?” Flannigan asked.
“Paid cash. And I already told the other officer we don’t have cameras or anything like that. I feel terrible. This never happens around here. People just come here to have fun.”
Laurie heard Grace a few feet away crack a joke to Charlotte and Jerry about the male dancer establishment across the street, even as she was making phone calls to have Laurie’s credit card accounts frozen. A few of the police officers seemed to disapprove of the laughter, but it made Laurie feel safe. She wanted to believe that everything was normal, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the mugging was related to the Martin Bell investigation.
“Can I ask you, Lieutenant, whether it’s common to have a random mugging around here?”
He sighed. “I wish I could say it never happened, but this is New York City. Anything could go down at any time. But statistically? This area is pretty calm, especially this time of night. Two, three in the morning? That’s another story. But the bartender wasn’t lying when he said this was a rare occurrence. Why do I get the feeling you’re asking for a reason?”
“I’m a television producer. My show, Under Suspicion, reinvestigates—”
“I know your show well, Ms. Moran. You do good work.”
“Thank you, and please call me Laurie. We’re in the middle of a production right now. It’s the Martin Bell case,” she said, lowering her voice.
He let out a puff of air. “That’s a biggie. I don’t know the inside story, but seems like the case went stone cold.”
“Well, it did. And to be honest, we haven’t made as much progress as I’d like. But we have poked some bears and ruffled some feathers. And my briefcase with my laptop and notes was in that bag he just stole.”
“Any candidates come specifically to mind?”
She ran through all the possibilities. It definitely wasn’t Kendra. Even though she didn’t get a look at her assailant’s face, she could tell from his build and the way he moved that it was a man. Senator Longfellow was probably four inches taller than the man she saw running away, and was in the clear as a suspect anyway. George Naughten, on the other hand, was shorter and pudgier, but she didn’t believe he was physically fit enough to knock her down and sprint so quickly from the scene.
She briefly entertained the thought that Kendra’s boss, Steven Carter, might fit the bill. It was certainly possible, but how could he have known where she would be tonight? If this was something other than a random robbery, then her attacker must have been following her for hours.
No, of all the names waiting for her back on her office whiteboard, only one made sense—and it wasn’t even a name: Kendra’s mysterious drinking partner from the Beehive. She remembered how the woman at the dive bar had described him: rough-looking, with a shaved head and mean eyes.
She had never even seen the man’s face, yet somehow she could imagine those eyes—cold and steely—as he pushed her into the street.
41
She had just started to explain her theory to the lieutenant when the bar door opened again. It was her father, and he immediately ran to her and gave her a hug. When he finally let go, she could tell he was inspecting her for injuries.
“Dad, I’m fine. What are you doing here?”
After speaking to the police, Laurie had used Charlotte’s phone to ask Leo if he could meet Timmy back at the apartment. She had hated to interrupt whatever dinner obligation he had, but she didn’t want Timmy left to wait at a friend’s house with no explanation.
“Don’t worry. Timmy’s in excellent hands. His babysitter just texted that she made it to the apartment minutes before him and they’re now becoming fast friends.”
“Fast friends? Dad, I’m sorry I dragged you out of your dinner, but you can’t just hire a stranger on a second’s notice to watch Timmy.”
“It’s not a stranger,” he said, suddenly flustered. She had never seen her father be so clumsy about making a point. “She’s very trustworthy. In fact,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper only she could hear, “she’s the chief judge of the federal district court.”
Laurie didn’t think anything could make her smile, but that did the trick. She pictured her father at dinner—on a date—with Chief Judge Russell. He must have called her after they met at Alex’s induction last week. Then, forced to leave early, he would have explained the urgent circumstances. Now he was here, and she was keeping his grandson company.
“Well, if it all works out, you’ll certainly have an interesting first date story,” she teased.
“Sorry to have to make an executive decision on the fly, but Alex called me in a panic as Maureen and I were leaving the restaurant. He was going to miss the rest of his conference to fly back here tonight until I assured him I was on my way to the scene of the crime.”
After calling Leo, Laurie had phoned Alex in D.C. She had tried to mitigate the severity of the incident, but she should have known how worried he would be.
Lieutenant Flannigan interrupted to introduce himself. “It’s an honor to meet you, Commissioner.”
“I figured we’d send the detective to the witness tonight, under the circumstances. Laurie was just telling me about the man who might have been following her last week.”
“What man?” he asked, clearly alarmed. “Someone was following you?”
“I thought I was imagining things at the time,” she said, explaining her decision not to mention her fears earlier. “Now? I’m not so sure. It’s a stretch, but if Kendra hired someone to kill her husband, she certainly could have hired him to find out how close we’re getting to the truth. My notes and my laptop were in my bag, and now they’re gone.” In truth, her notes contained nothing but conjecture. If anything, the man from the Beehive would be comforted by the fact that she’d gotten no further than the police in determining his identity.
Leo shook his head. “It’s not just your notes, Laurie. Charlotte told me what happened. You were pushed in front of a car. You could’ve been killed.”
“That would certainly be one way of halting your investigation,” Flannigan said drily. She had been terrified when she saw that taxi headed toward her, but she hadn’t let herself think about the possibility that someone had actually been trying to kill her. “Or,” Flannigan added, “it was just a random mugging. No way to know unless we find him.”
She could tell that he was not optimistic.
42
Fifteen blocks from the piano bar, in a bathroom at a Starbucks, Laurie’s assailant was replaying the night’s events in his head.
I knew I shouldn’t have started with the Scotch, the man thought. It makes me mean, just like everyone always told me, back when I had people in my life who tried to make me better. Tonight, he’d been stupid and impulsive when he’d wanted to be smart and methodical. He acted without thinking; now here he was with a bag full of her belongings.
He had already rifled through what most people would call the “gag gifts” from the evening: an “I Do” workout shirt, an “I’m getting meow-ied” coffee mug (complete with a cartoon of a cat in a bridal veil), and a few barely R-rated stickers about marriage.
Her cell phone was useless, at least to him, since it asked for a password he didn’t have. The first thing he had done once he blended into the crowd in Times Square was to duck into a restroom stall in a McDonald’s. A quick search of the duffel bag revealed the phone. He had turned it off and dropped it in a trash bin. Rookie mistake to get caught with a trackable phone.
Fortunately, her computer wasn’t similarly protected.
He had gone through her calendar and recent emails, searching for information that might be relevant. Her inbox had several recent messages from a Realtor named Rhoda Carmichael, complete with photographs of luxury apartments and lavish descriptions of amenities in five-star co-ops. He remembered a time when he was able to afford a home not unlike those. He got the impression from the messages that Ms. Carmichael was eager for Laurie and her accomplished fiancé to select a property quickly.
He knew that once they moved in together, it would be even harder to get to Laurie. After all, she was marrying a federal judge. The Honorable Judge Buckley had enhanced security not only at work but also at home. For now, though, Laurie had a separate apartment, without all the bells and whistles.
He had moved on to reading the scribbles in her spiral binder. The most recent handwritten notes on paper were about Daniel and Leigh Ann Longfellow. He wondered briefly how much money he could make by selling these pages to a tabloid, but then realized he could be jeopardizing his anonymity by cutting that kind of deal. Instead, he took a small amount of satisfaction reading information to which only a few people would be privy.
From what he could tell, Laurie had plenty of theories about who might be guilty in her latest case, but could not yet prove who had murdered Dr. Martin Bell.
He closed both the laptop and the notebook and returned his attention to the crystal frame in the robin’s-egg-blue cardboard box. He yanked the frame from the box, flipped it upside down, and pulled the photograph from the crystal, tearing it up in pieces and throwing the scraps in the toilet. He watched the tatters of glossy paper swirl with the flush, just like his own fairy-tale romance—down the drain.
He stuffed the contents of the duffel bag into the garbage, covering up the top with wads of paper towels. The garbage bag might seem a bit heavy to whatever employee carried it out later tonight, but the man had schlepped fifteen blocks from the piano bar for a reason. He was well beyond any feasible radius for a police search. And no chain store coffee-shop employee was going to wade through the contents of a New York City trash can out of curiosity.
This leather duffel bag, however, was a problem. It was simply too large to fit into a garbage container. He flopped it over his shoulder, tucked his chin to his chest, and made his way to the street outside. When he passed a homeless man sleeping next to a cardboard box that appeared to contain his belongings, he slipped the bag from his shoulder and left it as a gift, checking all directions to make sure no one noticed his good deed.
Now what? he thought. He considered going back to 46th Street to pick up his SUV, but it was too risky. The police might be watching the block. He’d take the subway home tonight and come back for his car tomorrow morning. The police wouldn’t be scoping out the area by then.
As he took the stairs down to the Q train, he thought again about all those meandering notes Laurie had made about her latest investigation. She would be gone before she could solve the case; he was certain of that. He just needed to find the right opportunity. Next time, he wouldn’t make a stupid mistake.
43
The following afternoon, Laurie felt the fabric of her newest spring pants chafe against her scuffed leg. The saleswoman at Bloomingdale’s had described the cotton-nylon blend as “the closest thing you can get to jammies for your work wardrobe,” but right now the black trousers felt like sandpaper against an open wound. She could still feel the concrete of 46th Street scraping her skin. In retrospect, she should have worn a dress today, but she didn’t want Timmy to notice she was hurt. She had decided to downplay the incident by telling him that someone had stolen her briefcase while she was out with Charlotte. She believed in being honest with her son, but he had already lost one parent to violence. There was no point in scaring him unnecessarily.
She had spent the morning at the Apple store with Grace, replacing both her cell phone and laptop. Fortunately, Grace had kept everything backed up in the cloud, so the wizards at the store’s Genius Bar had gotten her up and running again before lunch. She wouldn’t have her replacement credit cards and driver’s license for a few days, but in the big scheme of things, she felt back to normal. The one thing she was still really missing was that beautiful crystal frame with the photograph of Alex and her.
She heard a light tap on her door, and then Jerry and Grace peeked in. She had scheduled a meeting to storyboard the production of their Martin Bell special. To her surprise, Ryan had suggested that she take the lead and call him only if he could be helpful.
“Ready for us?” Grace asked.
“Of course.”
They walked in side by side. With her four-inch heels, Grace was the exact height of Jerry. Each of them carried a single, familiar item. Jerry had a leather duffel bag from Ladyform, and Grace held a robin’s-egg-blue box, wrapped with a silky ribbon.
“You guys,” Laurie said. “This is too much.”
Taking the box from Grace, she slipped off the ribbon to find another crystal frame with the identical photograph that had been stolen from her the night before. “Really, I can’t accept these gifts again.”
Jerry set the duffel bag on one of her guest chairs and took a seat at her conference table. “You shouldn’t feel the least amount of guilt. The manager at Tiffany insisted we accept a replacement frame when I told her everything you went through last night,” Jerry said.
“An
d that bag?” Grace said. “I adore Charlotte’s company, Laurie, but do you know the markup on that stuff? Trust me: Girlfriend can spare a tote bag.”
Laurie gazed down at the photograph in her hands and smiled. The thought of some thief—or worse—looking at it last night after the robbery made her stomach feel sick. She imagined a rough-looking man with mean eyes cavalierly tossing it aside, rifling through the duffel bag for something more valuable.
This—more than her wallet or her phone or her laptop—was the item she had missed the most. She propped it beside her computer, between the photograph of the two of them with Timmy and Leo, and the one of her with Timmy and Greg. Somehow the three pictures felt right together.
• • •
Forty minutes later, they had mapped out their plan for the next entry in the Under Suspicion series. Ryan would narrate the early phases of Martin and Kendra’s relationship over B-roll footage of the medical school where they had met, the church where they had married, and the carriage house outside of which he was eventually murdered.
They had already obtained signed participation agreements from Kendra and from Martin’s parents. Predictably, the Bells would point the finger at Kendra, while Kendra would portray herself as a misunderstood wife and mother. But they had new information to reveal on camera. As host, Ryan would cross-examine Kendra, confronting her with evidence that Martin had been planning to divorce her and gain custody of the children.
“Don’t forget the information from the nanny,” Jerry noted.
Grace nearly leapt up from her seat at the mention of Caroline Radcliffe. “Where is Kendra spending all that cash, and what kind of woman says, ‘Am I finally free?’ when her husband is shot? Sorry, but it seems obvious to me. That lady hired a hit man to kill Martin Bell and now she’s still paying him to keep his mouth shut. Case solved.”