Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes (16 page)

Homer began to boo-hoo into his hands.

“Take your time. Look around,” Rogenstein's voice said. “Let me get some of these papers off the bed. I was getting ready for a session tomorrow and I've got notes strewn everywhere. I'm a presenter at the conference downstairs, you know.” He chuckled. “That's what happens when you become a respected professional, boys. Everybody wants to hear what you've got to say.”

Officer McShane's deeper voice said, “If you don't mind, sir, I'll just take a quick look in the bathroom. I mean, it
was
a nine-one-one call, so we should check.”

Silence passed.

“So, what did you find?” Rogenstein's voice said a minute later.

“You're right, sir. All clear.”

“Fuck!” Debbie Sue whispered. “He couldn't possibly have searched the bathroom that well. He was only in there a few seconds.”

“Maybe it's a small bathroom,” Celina said with a look of innocence.

Debbie Sue and Edwina stared at her.

“I was just thinking of our own bathroom,” she said meekly.

“Find anything in the closet?” Rogenstein's voice said.

“No sir,” the voice that belonged to Fitzpatrick said. “It's easy to see there ain't nobody here but you, sir.”

“Don't forget to look under the bed,” Rogenstein prompted.

“Yeah,” Edwina agreed.

“That's a good place to hide a body in a motel,” Rogen
stein added. “That'll probably be on your exams, Pat. Don't forget where you learned the answer.”

“But there ain't no under the bed,” Fitzpatrick's voice said. “This mattress is laying on a solid base and it's nailed to the floor.

“I said in a
motel
, boys.
Motel.
Don't forget.”

McShane's deep laugh was easily recognizable. “That's right, sir, you did. Problem is, we don't get to motels. We never get out of the city. But thank you, sir. I'll be looking for that on the exam.”

A few more seconds passed.

“Well, looks like we're finished here,” McShane said.

“Sorry to have bothered you, but it was a pleasure to meet you in person, sir.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Pat.”

The door opened and Debbie Sue and Edwina almost fell through the doorway.

Fitzpatrick attempted to steady Edwina to keep her from falling, but her flat chest smashed into his face. “Ma'am,” he said, turning his face to the side to speak, “I guess you know we're finished here. I don't know what you heard that prompted you to call nine-one-one. I'm thinking it must have been a TV show or the radio. There's no dead body here.”

“Just let me look for myself,” Edwina said, untangling herself from the cop, who was at least a foot shorter than she.

But the vertically challenged cop already had her by the upper arm and was guiding her toward her own room. “We've already done that,” he said. “We've assessed the situ
ation and determined there ain't no foul play. Any further attempts to disturb Detective Rogenstein will result in a harassment charge against you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but—” Debbie Sue started.

“That goes for all three of you,” McShane said, grasping Debbie Sue and Celina's arms and herding them along behind his partner and Edwina. “We don't want to come back here. If we do, we'll be taking all of you to the station house. Got it?”

The tall cop looked at each woman individually. Debbie Sue glared back with defiant eyes.

“Ladies, don't test us on this.” He spoke more firmly than Fitzpatrick. “If you don't think you can leave Frank, uh, Detective Rogenstein, alone, we can go to the station right now, and you can tell your story to the detectives there.”

“No, no, that's okay,” Debbie Sue said. “We'll cooperate. You go on. We won't be bothering you any longer, Officer. And we won't bother Detective Rogenstein. Thank you for coming. We're going to bed now.” Debbie Sue gripped Edwina's arm and continued dragging her backward. Celina followed.

Once the two cops had disappeared and the three of them were behind the closed door of their room, Edwina confronted Debbie Sue. “Why didn't we go to the squad house with them? We could tell our story to the detectives, and maybe someone would do something.”

“Yeah, and while we're doing that,
Rogenstink
has all the time he needs to move the body. Ed, we can't let him out of our sight.”

“You're right. Do you think you should go ahead and call Buddy? He'd know what to do.”

“Hell, Ed. He'd probably have a U.S. marshal pick me up and put me on a plane home. What about you? You calling Vic?”

“I already said what I think about doing that.” She shook her head. “This is all too crazy.”

“Who's taking the first watch at the door?”

“I will,” Edwina volunteered eagerly. “I won't sleep for years. I might as well make some use of all this insomnia.”

“Hey,” Debbie Sue said. “I lost track of Homer. Where'd he go?”

“Don't know,” Edwina said. “He said something about getting a resume together and calming a monster. Don't know what that means in hotel lingo, but he seemed hell-bent on doing it.”

 

Frank Rogenstein hadn't felt this alive in years. His life had become stagnant. Predictable. Artery clogging, in his opinion. The close call this evening had him giddy and euphoric.

Pressing his right foot against the edge of the mattress, he put his considerable bulk behind the effort and gave a push. The base of the bed had appeared to be solid but the frame was a housing for a foam base. Using his pocketknife, he had cut away a crude outline and placed the woman inside. He had barely had time to stuff the foam into his suitcases when the beat cops knocked at the door.

He looked down at the woman who lay just as he had left
her. No outcry, no signaling for help, just bulging, dead eyes staring into space.

He chuckled. “Well, doll face, we've had quite a night, haven't we? I'll figure out what to do with you tomorrow. Right now I'm going to catch a couple of winks. Hope my snoring doesn't bother you.”

He chuckled again. He would have to remember this when he supervised the next crime-scene investigation.

 

In the next room, earpiece still in place, Debbie Sue dashed from the wall into the bathroom and retched.

D
etective Matt McDermott sat on the edge of one of the beds in Room 618, looking into the faces of the three distraught women. Edwina was openly crying and her face had black eye makeup smeared from her eyes to her chin.

All three of them were still recovering from Edwina's having gotten her long, red fingernails tangled up with the listening device and earpieces, and accidentally erasing the tape they had recorded. Unfortunately, he had heard no more than three words on the tape, but both Debbie Sue and Edwina had given him an animated explanation of what they had heard.

It was almost 2
A.M
. They all looked weary-worn, but Celi
na's eyes were sharp. She leaned toward him and took his hand possessively. “You believe us, don't you, Matt? There's no reason Debbie Sue and Edwina would make any of this up.”

It wasn't that he didn't believe their story. Training and experience had taught him that aberrant behavior by even someone like Rogenstein was possible. But Frank Rogenstein, a serial killer? Nah, couldn't be. “The first thing I want to do is relocate all of you to another room. If there's really a killer on the loose in the hotel and he knows this is your room, you're not safe here.”

Debbie Sue perked up. “That's all taken care of. I spoke to the manager when he was here. He's more than happy to move us, but it won't be 'til morning.”

Edwina wiped her nose. “But we can't—”

A jab from Debbie Sue's elbow cut Edwina's words short.
What was that about
? Matt wondered.

“Don't worry, Matt,” Debbie Sue said. “It's all taken care of.”

Somehow Matt didn't feel reassured, but he moved on. “Second, I need to pull some information together. You said she identified herself as a cop and tried to arrest him? To be honest, I'm unfamiliar with an officer in our precinct named Cheryl Angelo, but I'm not acquainted with a lot of them who work undercover.”

He didn't see the necessity of saying that if the word was out that an undercover cop was really missing, wheels were already turning and a search had already begun.

He glanced down at his watch, buying time and organiz
ing his thoughts. Rogenstein and he had checked into the hotel together. The guy had brought a shaving kit and a suitcase. If he had really done what these women said, as far as Matt could see, he couldn't have disposed of the body yet. Today he would have to keep up normal appearances so as not to draw attention to himself, but if he had a corpse to get rid of, he would have to act, and act quickly. By evening at the latest.

“You ladies try to get some sleep,” he told them. “I'll be back here at six o'clock.”

The three women nodded, agreeing. Matt wasn't worried that Celina wouldn't do as he asked, but he gave Debbie Sue and Edwina a second look. Anyone could see that these two were accustomed to following their own paths. “You're to stay in the room until I get back. Don't open the door to anyone. I don't want to be distracted by worrying about you.”

He felt a touch of uneasiness that he got no argument from them, but at the same time, he had no doubt they were discouraged and exhausted. Hopefully, they realized they had stumbled into something over their heads. He made a mental note to thank them later for their cooperation.

Rising from his seat he took Celina's hand and drew her to her feet. Putting his hand at the back of her neck, he pulled her closer to him. “You've got my cell number. Please call me if anything, and I mean
anything
, happens. And please, please don't let anything happen to you.”

Celina smiled up at him. “I promise,” she said softly. She walked to the door with him. “See you at six.”

Matt stood in the hallway outside their door until he heard
the
snick
of the lock and the
click
of the deadbolt sliding into place.

He had a lot to accomplish in four hours. The most difficult thing would be convincing a judge to sign a search warrant for Room 620. He had gotten a judge's signature on a warrant application with less cause than what he currently had, but the subject wasn't the most highly decorated detective in the history of the city. Frank Rogenstein had connections and friends in extremely high places. He was capable of destroying the career of any cop involved if this turned out to be a witch hunt.

 

Edwina watched Matt's departure through the door's peephole. As soon as he was out of sight, she turned back to Debbie Sue. “Are you nuts? We can't move to another room. We have to watch Rogenstein's room. We have to make sure he doesn't leave with the—”

“I know, Ed, I know. I lied. I was too tired to argue. Matt had that Buddy Overstreet set to his jaw. Buddy would have said the exact same thing, and knowing me better than Matt does, he wouldn't have left here 'til I had been planted in another room in another part of the hotel and locked in from the outside.”

“Oh, well,” Edwina said. “I guess that's worth me losing a rib over. But next time you feel the need to get my attention, lighten up with the elbow. I'm skinny. I'm gonna be going home black and blue from all the elbow jabs. Then I'll have to explain to Vic where I got 'em.”

“Sorry, Ed,” Debbie Sue said. “Look, I'm gong to bed
now and see if I can catch forty winks before Matt comes back.”

“Good idea. You sleep and I'll watch.” Edwina returned to her post as lookout and opened the door a crack.

Debbie Sue pulled back the bedcovers and slid between the sheets. Celina was already in her bed and looking up at the ceiling, a dreamy expression on her face. “Celina, I couldn't help but feel there's something different between you and Matt tonight. Did y'all have a good time at Madison Square Garden?”

“It was the best evening of my life,” Celina replied, snuggling further down into the covers. “Can you fall in love with someone this quickly? I mean, we haven't been around each other that much, but I feel, I feel—”

“Like someone should who's falling in love? Just don't confuse falling in love with
being
in love. There's a world of difference and a lot of hours getting to really know each other in between. The falling is magic, but take it from me, it's worth the plunge.”

“Amen,” Edwina said from the doorway. “Now, y'all get some sleep. Somebody's got to relieve me in a couple of hours.”

 

Edwina shifted in her chair for the umpteenth time. At the last look at the digital clock on the bedside table, it was 3:50. She'd been nervously browsing through the most recent mammoth edition of
Vogue
magazine. She had scratched and sniffed every perfume ad, taken a test on her fashion sense and was reading the photography credits, when she heard the bolt slip out of its slot in Room 620. She pushed her
chair back, stood and closed her own door to a mere crack, watching and waiting.

She dared not draw a breath. If Rogenstein made for their room, she intended to bolt the door and start squawking like a mad hen faced with a fox in the chicken house. She had decided early in life that if she was ever in dire peril, she wouldn't go out easy, and she sure wouldn't go out quietly.

But no one approached. She grabbed her hand mirror, stuck it through the door opening and looked up and down the hall. Frank was walking away all right, and he was empty-handed.

She looked back into the room at Debbie Sue and Celina sleeping. Her mind was tumbling and turning. She didn't have a clue what she should do. The same remedy kept coming to her repeatedly:
Follow him. Follow him
.

Didn't she owe that much to Cher?

She tiptoed to the dresser, picked up a room key and her cell phone, sneaked out the door and headed up the hall toward the elevators. Frank was nowhere in sight and the elevator was descending, so she assumed he was its passenger. She ran to the stairs, threw the door open and started down the steel steps, her wooden platform shoes clomping like horses' hooves, the hollow echo reverberating off the walls.

She heard a sound and stopped. She couldn't tell if she had heard something real or if her sleep-deprived mind was playing tricks on her, but the hairs on the back of her neck told her the door leading to the stairwell from the sixth floor had just opened and closed. Had Frank opened the door? Was he plotting to trap her here, where no one could see or
hear them? Had he been hiding in the recesses of the hallway waiting for her to make a fatal error?

Edwina didn't know where the speed and agility came from, but she remembered her childhood. In that memory she was strolling home from school and for some reason she became convinced a monster was set to pounce on her from behind. If she dared look back she would be devoured. So she broke into a run and by the time she reached her home, she practically charged through the screen door, with her mother standing there looking on in bewilderment.

The next thing she knew, she was entering the hotel lobby in a dead run, legs and arms pumping. Before now, she hadn't known she was capable of what she had just done—descending the stairs four steps at a time, gripping the hand-rail and swinging her body to the next level like a trapeze artist. She had been magnificent. Olympics material, for sure.

The best part was that no one was behind her, and fifteen steps ahead of her was Frank Rogenstein. He pushed through the revolving doors and stood outside on the sidewalk, made bright as day by the lights of Times Square.

“Humph. I'll just see where that sucker's going,” she mumbled to the air.

She trailed him at a distance, safe from detection, but never letting him out of her sight and paying no attention to her surroundings or the direction in which she walked. Her dogged determination paid off. Rogenstein entered a brightly lit corner store that proudly advertised
WE SELL EVERYTHING
! on a sign in the plate-glass window.

Pretty ballsy of the owners to make that claim
, she thought. She didn't think even Wal-Mart could say as much.

She didn't dare go in and get trapped. She stood outside a few feet from the door and stared through the tall display windows. What wasn't sitting on the shelves hung from the ceiling and she didn't doubt that merchandise was crammed into every nook and cranny.

Only a few minutes passed and Detective Rogenstein came outside lugging a large trunk. It didn't take a genius to know how he intended to use the trunk. Picturing it stuffed with Cher's body, a shiver skittered up her spine and she caught a quick breath.

Frank hailed a cab and Edwina watched helplessly as he and the cab driver loaded the trunk into the cab's trunk and sped away.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” she chanted, dancing in circles. All she could think was that she had to call Debbie Sue before Frank returned to the hotel and left the room with poor Cher's body.

She dug the phone from her back pocket and pressed the
ON
switch. The screen remained blank. Her stomach rose to the back of her throat. She couldn't remember the last time she had charged the phone. Then she realized she didn't have any money—or her purse. She couldn't even use a pay phone.
Shit
!

We Sell Everything might do just that, but she doubted they did it for free, and cabs didn't operate that way either. As to her exact location? She was standing at the intersection of God Knows Where and Boy Are You Screwed.

Dammit, girl. Think!
And while she was thinking, she starting walking in the direction from which she had come. She had to get back to the hotel before Rogenstein, and definitely before six o'clock.

At an intersection she noticed that every other person had a cell phone stuck to his ear. A couple of people even had two. She remembered the admonishments from her friends in Salt Lick not to mix with New Yorkers, but hell, she had to do something. Figuring she had nothing to lose, she drew a deep breath and yelled, “Does anybody have a cell phone I can borrow to make one teeny-weeny call?”

To her astonishment phones magically appeared from everywhere. “Wow, this is really nice. I only need one. Here, I'll take this one. Thanks, everybody. Thanks so much.”

When the light changed everyone moved except her and the cell phone owner, a young black man in baggy jeans and an oversize basketball jersey. A bill cap was perched sideways on his head.

He cocked his chin. “W' sup, tornado bait?”

Tornado bait? Is he talking about me
? “Uh, I'm trying to stay one step ahead of trouble, but I think I'm losing the race.”

She wasn't sure why she explained her situation to him except that he had been nice enough to offer his phone, and from the looks of him he might appreciate the circumstances.

“Oh, snap! Pass me an oar, you know what I'm saying? I mean, that's some whacked shit.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I—”

Keying in Debbie Sue's cell number, she smiled at him as
the phone started ringing. A voice came on the phone. “Detective McDermott here.”

“Oh, snap,” Edwina muttered. She was no longer losing the race. The race was over and she was sucking everybody's dust.

“Edwina? Edwina, is that you?”

Edwina's heart dropped to her feet. Dammit, Matt wasn't supposed to be there yet. “Yeah, it's me.”

“Where are you? I'm sending a unit to pick you up.”

“Let's see, I'm catty-cornered from a cute little church. It looks really old. It's called St. Paul's Chapel. Do you know where that is?”

“Wow. You walked quite a distance.”

Nobody had to tell Edwina she had walked quite a distance. Her feet were killing her.

“But luckily, you're not that far away,” he added. He sounded serious. “You're at Ground Zero.”

“No kidding? Oh, sweet Jesus. I was so afraid I wasn't going to get to come here before we left. Where were the buildings? Were they at this construction site that's all lit up? They were, weren't they? It seems so small. I just want to sit down and cry. This is so sad.”