Deadly Fall (27 page)

“I thought she had a pretty good handle on being a cop’s wife.”

“I told her being a real detective is nothing like being a TV detective. Most days, we spend our time at our desks racking up the phone bill, not engaging in hand-to-hand combat and dodging bullets.”

Nick looked away, hating the envy pricking him.

“How serious is it between you and Augusta?”

“Serious.”

“Am I going to need a tux any time soon?”

“If I have anything to say about it, yes,” Nick said without hesitation.

Ethan didn’t comment.

“Mystery woman’s leaving.” Nick paused the tape. “Still can’t get a good look at her face. Bad angle.” The woman’s mane of hair was noticeably tousled. “11:47 p.m. Three guesses as to what she was doing with Langan, and the first two don’t count.”

Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “I wish she’d look into the camera.”

Nick was thinking the same as he glared at the screen, as if he could make the woman turn her head to the right and up. “Maybe we’ll get a better view of her from the elevator cameras.”

Nick played stop-and-go with the VCR again. This time, it wasn’t a long wait. Seventeen minutes later, two men emerged from the elevator. Nick and Ethan straightened and leaned closer to the screen. Nick paused so they could study the image. This was what they had been waiting for. “Slick suits, tailored. Short dark hair on both. Can’t tell how tall they are, but they’re about equal height. One’s skinny and the other looks like skinny boy’s muscle. And I can’t see their faces.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ethan said. “We might not know
who
they are, but we know
what
they are.”

Nick nodded. Only mafia dress to kill to kill.

“Feels like they were waiting for mystery woman to leave. You think maybe they were following her?”

“Or maybe mystery woman gave them the order,” said Nick.

“And they had enough time to chat with our late friend Charlie.”

Nick un-paused the tape and watched as they stopped in front of Langan’s doors. They pulled on dark gloves, probably leather, and the bigger of the two slipped something dull on his fingers. Brass knuckles. They hastily looked from side to side before knocking on the door. The right door was opened shortly. Langan probably thought mystery woman was back. He didn’t have time to react before the muscle pulled back a fist and connected with his face hard enough to make him stagger out of sight of the camera. They hurried into the penthouse and shut the door.

Nick and Ethan silently watched the remaining footage on the surveillance tape, but the two men did not emerge from the penthouse. Recording was stopped just after the time of the murder. Nick thought grimly that Charlie had stopped the recordings and removed the relevant tapes after Nick had rushed into the high-rise and shouted that Andrew Langan had been thrown from his terrace.

“I vote we call in Terry and have him work his magic on this tape,” Ethan said. Terry Kehoe was the resident computer genius in the police laboratory. “If I call him now, he should arrive by the time we finish viewing the other three tapes.”

“We should make a house call.” Nick ejected the tape and inserted the one labeled “ELEVATOR ONE.” “I know where Terry lives and I’ve seen the inside of his place. There’s more computer equipment in his apartment than in the lab. Whatever we need done, he can do it in the comfort of his home.”

“When do we give the lieutenant the good news?”

“No news is good news unless we deliver the perps and enough evidence for a conviction to him and the DA on a silver platter.”

“But this might be enough to get the brass off our asses long enough for us to do our jobs properly. And we’re going to need back-up to track down those two clowns.”

Nick grimaced. “Fine. We can tell him tomorrow morning.”

Ethan grunted and settled back to watch more grainy footage.

* * * * *

For one of the few times in her life, Augusta followed instructions to a tee. She went directly back to her townhouse after she placed a call to Joe Doyle, who assured her he would be by within the hour. As she let herself into her home and reset the alarm, her last conversation with Nick kept replaying in her head like a broken record. It wasn’t, however, the words they had exchanged, but rather the tone of Nick’s voice that kept harping at her.

He had been so curt, so unlike the lover who had reluctantly left her that morning. What else had he uncovered of her past that would make him revert to the cop she had first met?

And Adam.

Augusta rubbed at the tense twin ridges between her brows that now seemed to be permanent fixtures.

How was Adam involved in all this? Was he like her, tainted by association? Or did he have a bigger role in all this?

Agitated by her less-than-loyal thoughts, Augusta shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the back of a chair in the kitchen nook. Her purse was haphazardly thrown across the tabletop. She yanked open the fridge, took out a bottle of water, twisted the cap off with more force than necessary and downed two-thirds of the contents. She slammed the plastic bottle on the counter but kept her fingers wrapped tightly around it as she shut her eyes and wondered why her life couldn’t be simple.

After allowing herself a brief, brief moment of self-pity, Augusta straightened and put away her things. If Adam was more involved in Drew’s murder than he was willing to admit, she couldn’t leave everything to Nick and Ethan. She needed to think, and think clearly.

When she was done putting away her coat and purse, she decided it was about time she re-shelved the books that were still in piles on the floor in the library. That mindless task would clear her mind of messy emotions.

Eyes deliberately skirting the sofa and rug where she and Nick had first taken each other, Augusta made her way to the mess of books across the room. Half way there, she noticed the red light blinking furiously on the answering machine sitting on the desk. She grimaced. She hadn’t bothered to answer her phone since stumbling home from the university last Wednesday when she first received the news of Drew’s murder. After the first call from a reporter, she had turned off her ringer. Even though her home number was unlisted, she knew ninety percent of the messages on her machine would be from the damned media. She took a deep breath. Although she wanted to erase all the messages without listening to them, she couldn’t in case there was a legit message among the barrage of vultures wanting interviews.

Augusta approached the machine as if she expected it to jump up and bite her. After sitting in the leather chair behind the desk, she pushed the play button on the machine and went through the messages. Sure enough, most of the calls were from reporters.

A message from Adam. “Oh, God, Augusta. Drew’s…Drew’s dead. I’ll be over later.”

Augusta paused after that. The man on her machine could not have had anything to do with Drew’s murder. The grief and shock were very real and made everything in her chest ache.

She went to the next message. Peter Donovan’s voice filled the room. “Augusta, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have to call me. We need to schedule a press conference to appease the media.”

She shuddered even as she jotted down a note for herself to call the lawyer sometime later in the week. She’d happily forgotten about the deal Peter had struck with the press.

The next slew of messages was from more reporters.

Then Phyllis Langan’s imperious tones marched out from the speaker. “Augusta, I expect to see you in the Hamptons within the week. As you are still Drew’s wife, there are things we need to discuss. Call my secretary and schedule an appointment.”

The summons made her grin wryly, as she could just picture Drew’s regal aunt demanding Augusta sign over all claims on Drew’s estate. While part of her greatly anticipated Phyllis’ reaction to Drew’s final will, another part wished she would be far, far away for that occasion.

A few more reporters. A book offer that made Augusta shake her head and, had she been desperate for money, might’ve considered.

Then a young, hesitant voice floated from the answering machine. “Augusta, it’s Rita.” Rita was the administrative assistant her department at the university shared. “I’m sorry about your husband. But when you have a moment to spare, can you come in and pick up your mail? Your mail slot’s crammed full. Thanks. Bye.”

After the final message, Augusta purged all the messages from her machine with great pleasure. She looked at the books and mentally rolled up her sleeves. Then the doorbell rang. She hurried downstairs, took note that she would need to go through the mail piled on the hallway table and peeked through the peephole. It was Joe Doyle. She let him in and greeted him with something less than enthusiasm. Joe wasn’t offended.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

“Not a problem, Doc. Nick’s a good guy. I would’ve been here sooner, but I had an emergency on the other side of Manhattan.”

“No worries. Where do you want to start?”

With a sense of déjà vu, Augusta followed Joe as he walked through her townhouse room by room. This time, however, instead of a notebook in his hand, he had a counter surveillance device that was roughly the size of a smartphone. He swept every square inch of her home with it, occasionally glancing down at the readout on the screen.

When he found the first bug inside the mouthpiece of the telephone in her kitchen, the sense of violation and accompanying anger that heated through her blood was as strong as when she first discovered her home had been broken into. Augusta had the nearly overwhelming impulse to snatch the tiny, innocuous-looking device from Joe’s hand, drop it on the floor and squash it beneath her heel like she would an insect.

Joe, however, wisely removed the power source and kept the listening device away from her. “I’m going to try to trace them back to the buyer,” he explained.

Augusta, hands tightly clasped and fingers twisted together, nodded. “Understandable. It’s a good thing you’re here.”

He slanted her a half-amused, half-sympathetic look. “You’re entitled to be irrational when you find out someone’s spying on you.”

Sardonic amusement curved Augusta’s lips. “I’m a little more than just irrational,” she admitted, as they moved into the dining room.

“I know this won’t make you feel better, but they’re small, so the batteries have a short life.”

Augusta’s mouth twisted, but she nodded, understanding.

“They were planted recently,” Joe continued. “Probably when they broke in Saturday night.”

She forcibly unclenched her teeth. Had she listened to Nick and not insisted upon staying in the house like a stubborn twit, the last couple of days of her life wouldn’t have been recorded on some device and in the hands of God-knows-who.

Remembering the last couple of days of her life, Augusta flushed hotly with equal parts anger and embarrassment. Whoever had been listening on the other end had heard her and Nick making love. She stopped in her tracks and shuddered, a white-knuckled fist pressed against her chest, as if that would help keep down the nausea that roiled in her stomach and was half-way up her esophagus.

And, dear God, the secrets she had kept inside for nearly two decades and had willingly spilled to Nick in a weak moment.

Joe turned around at the sound of troubled breathing. “Doc?” His concerned voice broke through the cloak of anger, humiliation and sickness that nearly smothered her.

Augusta willed back the wetness behind her eyelids before she opened her eyes and raised her head, one raised hand out to forestall Joe while she tried to get her breathing under control. “I’ll be fine in a second.”

“Do you need to sit down? I can sweep the house alone.”

She was shaking her head vehemently. “I want to go with you. I need to know.”

Joe didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? You look like you should be lying down and resting.”

Augusta straightened and channeled Phyllis Langan. “I’m not going to lie down.”

Joe looked like he wanted to argue with her, but thought better of it.

A seemingly long time and seven more listening devices—two more telephones, kitchen, living room, library, master bedroom and her studio—Joe pronounced her home and her vehicle bug-free and left with assurances that he would let her know if anything came up on the bugs. She was mildly surprised they had left the bathrooms alone. They had breached the sanctity of almost every other room, why not there as well?

As she stood before a canvas sitting on the easel in front of a wall of windows in her studio, all the curtains pulled back so she was not so alone, Augusta gripped the brush in her hand tightly, almost snapping it in two, and shuddered again in horror.

Unbidden, Jana Westenberg in that hospital bed, hooked up to too many tubes and wires, materialized in her mind.

The guilt churned in her stomach, making the little food there feel heavy. Once more, it tried to rise back up the way it went down. She’d dragged Jana into this mess by giving Nick her name and they had been listening. Her lashes swept down, but a tear still escaped and ran down her cheek.