Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery (20 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Michael Barnes was dead. Killed less than an hour after I had left him. Herman Bindagi had disappeared, and possibly the same for Billy Hunter. The common denominator was they all had something on Buck McConnell. All three had also spoken to me. It was enough to give me a complex.

“Let’s play a game,” I said.

I was sitting across from Liz at a table for four at a little Mexican restaurant in the West Village. Freddie was next to her. It was a low-key place, the dining room was full, and the noise of a dozen conversations gave us enough cover to talk.

“A game?” Liz asked.

“Yes.”

“I knew he was going to crack,” Freddie said. “Pressure is just too much for some people.”

“I just didn’t think it would be right before our eyes,” Liz said.

I was having a tough time getting rid of the images of this afternoon, of the fireball rising from the boat of Michael Barnes. A tough time getting rid of the thought that if Barnes had decided to take me out in that light blue boat, I wouldn’t be sitting here, or anywhere, for that matter. I needed to figure this out, and soon.

“I was twenty-two,” I said. “My first job. Back at the
Bangor Citizen
.”

“Thought you were a TV reporter in Bangor,” Freddie said.

“That’s what he told me, too,” Liz said.

“Might be some secret past,” Freddie said.

“No,” I said. “Same guy owned the TV station and the newspaper. I had to report for both. Actually had no choice.”

“A multitasker before there was multitasking,” Freddie said.

“Talented,” Liz said.

“A guy named Mel Henry was the city editor,” I said. “And old Mel pounded the five Ws and the H into me.”

“The five Ws and the H?” Freddie said.

“Who, what, when, where, why, and how,” I said. “It’s an old journalism rule. Answer all those, and you have your story.”

I grabbed one of the paper menus from the side of the table and started writing in the margin.

“Jack’s death,” I said. “Let’s start with who. Who did it?”

“Buck McConnell,” Freddie said.

“Or someone he hired,” Liz said.

I scribbled it in the white space at the margin.

“What,” I said. “What happened?”

“We’re not exactly positive,” Liz said.

“But he wound up in the East River,” Freddie said.

“Right,” I said, and circled the word what. “We’ll come back to that. When?”

“Sometime after midnight, or maybe one a.m.,” Freddie said.

“Close enough for now,” I said.

I continued writing as I talked.

“Where?” I asked.

“Thirty-fourth Street,” Liz said. “He gets in a cab and gets dropped off at Thirty-fourth and First, right?”

“Right,” I said. “The cops have a cabbie saying he picked him up outside his building, then took him down there, so we know that.”

I read through what we had so far.

“Okay, why?” I asked.

“Trying to prevent a story on IT&E equipment in Syria, or bribes overseas,” Freddie said.

“Or, he was afraid a story on the drug bust from forty years ago would kill his presidential hopes,” Liz said.

“Right, maybe both. It seems like we got enough of a motive,” I said. “But the one we really got to figure out is, how. How the hell did this happen to Jack?”

“All we know for sure is that he went out without his fully licensed and legal-to-carry handgun,” Liz said.

“Yes,” I said. “Which I’m going to interpret as meaning he was going to meet someone he didn’t think would pose a threat to him.”

“Guy like Steele going out in the middle of the night, unarmed, with no security, you got to believe he was going to meet someone he felt pretty safe with,” Freddie said.

We thought about it for a moment while the waitress paid us a visit and cleared the plates and took orders for coffee.

“There has to be some clues somewhere,” Liz said, when she left.

“But where?” Freddie asked. “All we know is the man was sitting at his desk then gets up and leaves his apartment to go meet someone, if you believe us.”

“Or goes jumps in the river, if you believe the police,” Liz said.

“And they got the note which makes their version look better than ours,” Freddie said.

I looked at Liz, then at Freddie.

“What?” Freddie said.

“The note,” I said.

“What about it?” he asked.

“There has to be something there,” I said.

“It is puzzling,” Liz said.

“When was it written? How’d it get on Jack’s desk? Where on Jack’s desk was it found?” I said.

“So many questions,” Liz said.

“He has no problem with questions,” Freddie said. “It’s the answer thing he struggles with.”

Chapter Fifty

“Where exactly was it?” I asked.

It was an hour later, and I was back in the cluttered home office of Jack Steele.

“Right here,” Robbie said, tapping the pile of folders and papers. “There was a bigger pile here that night, but this is where it was.”

“Jack had piles of papers and books everywhere,” I said. “Why right here?”

“It was just here, right in the top folder. The one with his research and background for upcoming shows and guests,” she said. “Does that mean anything?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I need to figure it out. And this note, you said you didn’t find it, right?”

She shook her head.

“No, it was one of the detectives. Think his name was Vickers,” she said. “I have his card if you need it.”

“How’d he wind up in this room? The cop.”

“I … don’t remember,” she said. “He just came in here.”

Her eyes were beginning to moisten, and she looked down at the desk.

“I was sitting out on the couch. He and his partner were asking about what Jack had been doing before he went out that night.” She paused and tried to gather herself.

“And what was he doing that night?” I asked.

“We’ve gone over this,” she said.

“We have. And we need to keep going over it until I figure it out.”

“He either got a call or made a call. I heard him talking to someone. I told them that,” she said.

“And that’s what the police report said.”

“But they didn’t believe me,” she said.

“And there’s no record of it?”

“No,” she said.

The police had checked Jack and Robbie’s cell phone account and the apartment phone, but there was no sign of a call during the time frame she specified, incoming or outgoing.

“He had made a few other calls earlier in the night,” she said.

“To?”

“I told you, he called Dr. Webber to cancel his session. And he called Manny and told him he was in for the night and to go home,” Robbie said.

“But you’re certain there was another call, later?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What time?”

“Between eleven and eleven thirty,” she said.

“Did you overhear anything at all? Anything specific?”

She shook her head. “No. We converted a room to a yoga studio on the other side of the apartment, and I was in there. There’s a long hallway that separates that side of the apartment from this side. But I heard his voice. I know I did.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t one of these other calls? The Webber or Manny call?”

“Positive. This was later, much later,” she said.

“What happened after the detective found the note?”

“The one guy came out and got his partner. They came back here, then they came out to talk to me and show me the note.” She stopped to pull her thoughts together. “I remember he hesitated in showing it to me, and I yelled at him to just give it to me.”

“You read it?” I asked.

“Yes, a couple of times,” she said.

“And?”

“I knew right away it was fake,” she said. “Even though the handwriting looked like Jack’s.”

“And you told them so?”

“Yes,” she said. “But they didn’t believe me about the note and didn’t believe me about the call.”

“They thought you were just the emotional, distraught widow.”

“Right,” she said.

“There’s something with the note, but I don’t know what,” I said. “At least just yet.”

“But you’ll figure it out,” Robbie said.

“I hope. In the meantime, what I need is every phone bill you have: yours, Jack’s, anything and everything. I know the police looked at them, but I want to see them.”

“I can get those,” she said.

“And I want a copy of all your credit card bills for the last three months,” I said.

“Okay, but why?” she asked.

“I have a hunch.”

Chapter Fifty-One

“You realize they’re going to come after you again,” Freddie said.

We were parked on Sixth Avenue out in front of Liberty. I had a stack of phone bills and credit card statements I was examining. It was just before eleven on Friday morning, and Freddie had WBGO on, listening to jazz.

“Must we focus on such unpleasantness?” I asked.

“If they had been watching Barnes up in SoundSafe, they saw you two talking,” he said.

“That boat had to have been rigged well before we got there.”

“Yeah, but someone was probably watching, just to follow through,” he said.

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, if you’re going to attract the same type of attention, I don’t want to be too close to you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t own a boat.”

Freddie shook his head. “Man, how you got this far in life is a mystery to me.”

I scanned the pages of credit card charges that Robbie had given me but was coming up empty.

“Nothing,” I said, looking at the pages of American Express charges. “Although Robbie does a fair amount of shopping in Madison Avenue boutiques.”

“Any lingerie purchases?”

“Easy.”

There was a tapping at the window by Freddie, and I looked over to see Susan.

“You know this gal?” he asked.

“I do,” I said, and motioned for her to get in the back.

Susan climbed in and shut the door and Freddie locked them.

“Freddie was worried you were a stalker,” I said.

“Well, I’d have two very attractive candidates for stalkees here, wouldn’t I?” she asked.

Freddie smiled and looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“We miss you up there, big guy,” Susan said.

“Talk to your boss, he’s the one who suspended me,” I said.

“He’s telling people that you needed to take some time off. Get yourself together. That type of thing,” she said.

“People buying it?” I asked.

Susan hesitated, and I turned and looked at her. She was attractive and feisty and not one to sugarcoat the truth.

“Yeah, I think they are, Sam. I mean, people are saying you’ve been acting pretty strange. Talk is that you’re involved with Jack’s wife.”

“I’m not. I mean, I am, but not involved in the way people think.”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “You do what you have to do.”

I knew she doubted me as well but was still holding out hope that I hadn’t taken up with Robbie Steele.

“I have the bills,” she said, waving a manila folder.

“Hand ’em over,” I said.

“No questions asked,” she said, “but it would be nice to know what you’re looking for.”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

I opened the folder and saw copies of Jack’s Liberty News corporate American Express card statements. Susan had gone back and printed out six months’ worth of transactions. She settled into the back while I started going over the paperwork.

“So, Mr. Freddie, what is it that you do?” she asked. “Besides sitting here listening to John Coltrane all day?”

It occurred to me that almost everything Susan said sounded flirty.

Freddie looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“Jazz fan?”

“Not my number one music, but I dabble.”

I scanned the transactions, starting with the latest statement, and saw plenty of lunches from the expense account restaurants right around this neighborhood. And there were a few charges from
Amazon.com
. But nothing that jumped out at me.

The previous month started with more of the same, until I got toward the end of the billing cycle.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Might have to be a little more specific,” Freddie said.

“Ohhh, and sarcastic, too,” Susan said. “A man after my heart.”

“This charge for something at Forty-sixth Street Electronics,” I said.

“That was me,” Susan said. “In one of my roles as executive assistant to big egos at Liberty. Jack asked me to pick up something for him. Karen was out, and he asked if I could run out to an electronics store and pick up a phone.”

“A phone?” I asked.

“Yes, you make calls with them,” she said.

“What kind?”

“Rotary,” Freddie said.

“Giving straight answers has become a lost art,” I said.

“Thank God,” Susan said.

I looked back at her. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a joy?” I asked.

“Yes, thank you,” she said.

“Tell me about this phone,” I said.

“Jack said he needed a phone for a story and wanted it right away. He said he didn’t want the hassle of setting up an account and all that crap,” she said.

“And curses like a sailor,” Freddie said. “What a find.”

“What’d you do?” I asked.

“I explained all of his options to him,” she said.

“And?”

“And he sent me on my way,” Susan said.

“What’d he buy, or rather, what’d you buy, on his credit card?”

“One of those prepaid types. No credit checks or paperwork or all that other stuff,” she said.

“He never said what story or anything specific about why he wanted it?” I asked.

“Sammy …” she said, “do you think I bought the, I-need-a-new-phone-for-a-story line? I mean, I nodded and smiled like I understood when he asked, but—”

“But you think it was for something else?”

Susan leaned forward in the direction of Freddie. “Is he always this naive, Mr. Freddie?”

Freddie chuckled, and she turned back to me.

“What’s the number one reason a guy would want a phone where there would be no record of his calls?” she asked.