Fare Play (3 page)

“All right, Ms Esterhaus, I want you to go along to the station with Detective O'Toole. I'll be there shortly. O'Toole, get hold of her boss and have him come in. We'll need statements from both.”

“You can't reach him now,” the other woman said. “He's flying back from London tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then. Call him first thing, O'Toole. But we'll get her statement first.”

“Do you want me to take the car?” he asked. “How will you get back?”

“Take the car,” Marian said. “Officer Jackson will give me a ride back, won't you, Officer?”

“Glad to, ma'am.”

A man from the Crime Scene Unit was getting off the bus, carrying a battery-powered hand vacuum cleaner. “Do you have any idea,” he said to the world at large, “how much
junk
is on the floor of a public bus?”

“Are you about finished?” Marian asked him.

“Yeah, we're done. Dr. Whittaker's still in there, though.”

Marian climbed on the bus. She could see only the gray head of the victim leaning against the bus window, about three-fourths of the way back on the left as she faced the rear. The man from the Medical Examiner's office was bending over the body.

“Dr. Whittaker,” Marian said, to let him know she was there.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, hello, Sergeant Larch. Kind of off your turf, aren't you?”

“New precinct. And a new rank. It's Lieutenant Larch now.”

“Congratulations,” he said absently as he stood up straight. “You know, this guy's been dead less than an hour. Rigor's just starting.”

Marian moved in and took a close look at Oliver Knowles's body. The dead man was wearing glasses and had a full iron-gray mustache. His overcoat looked expensive, and Marian could see the glint of a gold watch showing under the cuff of his left sleeve. His right hand was propping up a blood-soaked copy of
Newsweek
against his chest.

“Let's take a look at this,” Dr. Whittaker said, easing the magazine out from under the dead man's hand. He held it up where light was showing behind it.

“No bullet hole,” Marian said quickly. “Probably a contact shot?”

“Little hard to see powder burns under all that blood. The lab techs will have to look.”

Marian nodded. “Bet you a dollar they're there. The killer held the gun to his chest, fired, and then propped up the magazine to hide the wound. He was probably off the bus and gone by the time the blood began seeping into the paper. Is that how you read it?”

“Sounds good to me, Sergeant,” Dr. Whittaker said, having already forgotten her new title. “And I'll bet
you
a dollar that the bullet is so spread out in there we won't be able to identify the caliber.”

“No bet,” Marian said dryly. “But you'll let me know about the bullet right away? Before you go on with the autopsy?”

“First thing,” he promised. “Anything else?”

“Pockets,” she prompted.

With latex-gloved hands, Dr. Whittaker opened Knowles's blood-covered overcoat and went through his pockets, removing billfold, keys, coins, a wadded-up receipt slip from a drugstore, cigarettes, lighter, and an old-fashioned pearl-handled penknife. Marian bagged and tagged it all, including the dead man's eyeglasses and wristwatch.

“Gloves?”

He checked the overcoat pockets. “No gloves.”

Odd. “Call me at Midtown South,” she reminded Dr. Whittaker and made her way back up the aisle.

Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees during the short time she'd been on the bus. Marian pulled her coat tighter and headed toward where the Crime Scene Unit van was waiting; the CSU was not permitted to remove anything from the body. Marian handed over her bags of evidence and said, “When Dr. Whittaker sends you the clothing, be sure to look for powder burns on the overcoat.”

The CSU man looked annoyed. “We always do, Lieutenant.”

Marian grinned and said, “And I want the victim's keys back first thing tomorrow morning. We'll need to get into his apartment.”

“You got it.”

She watched the body being removed from the bus. “What's your procedure when you have a movable crime scene? Do you take it with you?”

He shrugged and said, “We got no place to put a bus.”

“I could tell the driver to take it back to the garage, if you need to go over it some more. Your call.”

The CSU man shook his head. “It's a public bus. Six million fingerprints. We got everything in the immediate vicinity of the killing. You might as well let it go.”

“Right.” She stepped over to the bus driver and told him he could leave.

“About time,” he grumbled and climbed aboard. The engine started up with a roar that made Marian flinch. The bus pulled away, followed by the CSU van and Dr. Whittaker's car.

A gust of wind made Marian shiver. She looked around for Officer Jackson.

“Ready to go, Lieutenant?” he said from behind her.

“Ready,” she replied.

4

Zoe Esterhaus sat on a folding chair on the other side of a table from Marian in a Midtown South interview room, staring disconsolately at the slowly winding-and-unwinding double spool in the tape recorder. “I wish I could tell you more, Lieutenant Larch. I really do.”

“So do I.” The operative had had very little to add to what Marian already knew. “How many days had you been following him?”

“This is the fourth.”

“What did he do with his time?”

“Stayed home, mostly. Too cold out for old bones, I guess. He went out to restaurants twice—alone. Like I said.”

According to the woman who'd been hired to follow him, Oliver Knowles had taken a cab from his Central Park South apartment down to Lionel Madison Trains on East Twenty-third, where he'd stayed for thirty-five minutes. Then he'd taken another cab uptown eleven blocks to a store called Hobby World that had a
GRAND OPENING
sign in its window, along with an elaborate miniature train set. Knowles had stayed there for almost an hour. If he'd bought anything, he was having it delivered; he'd left both stores carrying nothing.

On the street immediately outside Hobby World, Knowles had searched through his overcoat pockets and then gone right back into the store again. When he came out the second time, he was still bare-handed.

But on Thirty-fourth Street, Knowles had not been able to get his third cab of the day. After ten minutes of trying, he'd given up and instead boarded the crosstown bus at Second Avenue. Zoe Esterhaus had boarded right behind him.

“Anyone else get on with you?” Marian asked.

“Four others. The bus was packed. The only reason Knowles got a seat was that two people got off at the next stop and he just happened to be standing nearest where they were sitting.”

“
Two
people got off. Who sat down next to Knowles?”

“I couldn't see. I was standing in the aisle, a little farther back. Other people were between me and where Knowles sat down.”

“And you didn't hear the shot?”

She shook her head. “The bus was noisy. I mean, the
bus
was noisy. It was one of those old ones that make so much noise your ears ring. The passengers weren't exactly quiet either. They were all pushing and snapping at one another. Bad scene.”

“When did you learn he was dead?”

Esterhaus looked embarrassed. “Not until the police got there. The driver stopped the bus and most of the passengers got off. I didn't know what was going on, but I couldn't leave while Knowles was still there. He looked as if he was just resting his head against the window. I saw him only from the back, remember. I didn't know about the blood.”

But enough others had known about it to get out of there as fast as they could. “And you never noticed anyone else following Knowles?”

This time she looked more than embarrassed; she looked distraught. “No. I wasn't looking for anyone, but whoever was following Knowles was also following me. I should have caught that.”

Marian stared at her in disbelief. Every private detective and operative she'd ever dealt with had always had a hundred excuses for everything he or she did or failed to do. It was like some honor code peculiar to the profession: Never admit to a mistake. Marian felt some urge to comfort Zoe Esterhaus. “You weren't hired to protect him. Only to watch.”

“And a fine job I did of that. I didn't even see who shot him.” She gave Marian a faint smile in acknowledgement of the latter's friendly gesture. “Not your problem.”

Marian smiled back and turned off the tape recorder. “I'll get this typed up for you to sign. Can you think of anything else that might help us?”

Zoe Esterhaus slumped a little. “I wish to god I could.”

Marian stepped out of the interview room and into the adjoining room where Captain Murtaugh stood looking through the one-way glass. “Anything?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I think you got everything. Let her go as soon as she signs her statement. I'll be in my office.”

Marian went in search of a typist. The captain had come back to the station after leaving for the day, but at least he'd had some dinner. Marian's stomach growled.

A half hour later, Zoe Esterhaus had signed her statement and gone home. Marian got a cup of ersatz coffee out of the hall machine and took it with her to Captain Murtaugh's office.

“Dr. Whittaker just called,” she told the captain after sitting down and taking a swallow of the let's-pretend coffee. “The slug mushroomed on impact and is not identifiable. Ballistics' guess is that it was a hand-load. And the lab found powder burns on the victim's overcoat.”

Murtaugh nodded, a sour expression on his face; they both knew what they were dealing with here. “Spell it out,” he ordered.

“A professional hit,” she said, “obviously. Done in a crowded public place right under the nose of a trained observer. The killer follows Knowles without being spotted until the conditions are right. They get right, fast, on the bus. He slides into the seat next to Knowles with his gun concealed inside the copy of
Newsweek
. He's loaded his gun with dumdums or backward loads, and he's put a suppressor on the barrel. He presses the nozzle right up against Knowles's chest, muting the sound even more. One shot, and it's done. He slips the gun into his coat pocket, props up the magazine over the wound, and gets off the bus. Fast, neat, and anonymous. A paid-for murder.”

Murtaugh stared at his hands glumly for a moment, and then said quietly, “A public bus. How coldly self-assured these killers are.” He shifted his weight and asked, “Are you running this one yourself?”

“Yes.” Marian gave up on the coffee and put the paper cup on the corner of Murtaugh's desk. “O'Toole caught the squeal, but he's too green to put in charge. I'll keep him on the case, though, and … oh, Perlmutter too, I suppose. To start.”

“This may turn into a two-pronged investigation,” Murtaugh cautioned. “Depending on whether the killer is a solo or not.”

Marian nodded agreement. “Could be imported talent.”

“Possibly.”

Neither one of them wanted to think that Oliver Knowles's murderer was anything other than an independent killer for hire. Find out who hired him and they'd most likely get the guy who pulled the trigger as well. Case closed. But if there was a middleman, someone who kept a stable of talent available … this would be no simple murder investigation.

As if murder was ever simple.

Marian stood up tiredly. “We don't even know if Knowles had any family. I sent O'Toole to the apartment on Central Park South, but no one was there. That's the first order of business tomorrow. But right now, I'm going home.”

“Larch.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don't forget your coffee.”

In the car on the way home, Marian couldn't stop yawning. She thought about stopping for something to eat but decided to make do with whatever was in her refrigerator. She parked in her favorite place, the loading zone of a printing company that didn't open for business until after she'd left in the mornings. Upstairs in her apartment, the message light on her answering machine was blinking.

It was Kelly Ingram, who had no need to identify herself. “Hey, Marian, how about having a late supper with me? Puh-leeze? I'm so tired of hanging with these the
ay
ter types I could scream! Come on by after the performance.”

Marian's closest friend, Kelly was a former television actor now starring in her first Broadway play. In the beginning it had been exciting, challenging, glamorous—all the things starring on Broadway was supposed to be. But gradually the sameness of what Kelly was doing began to pall … the same words every night, the same gestures, the same costumes. The same people. Kelly Ingram had a bad case of the fidgets.

Marian tapped out a number from memory. In a dressing room at the Broadhurst Theatre on Forty-fourth Street, a light on a telephone would start flashing in lieu of a ringing bell. Kelly's answering machine said: “Right now I'm out on the stage acting up a storm. Leave me a loving message, whoever you are.”

After the beep, Marian said, “Hi, it's me. Forgive me, Kel, but I can't make it. I'm really bushed. It's ten-thirty and I just now got home from work.” Six and a half hours late. “I'm going to take a long hot shower and make myself a sandwich and go to bed. You'll just have to put up with those the
ay
ter types a while longer, I suppose. Sorry, toots.”

The shower felt good. Marian let the needle spray work on her neck and shoulders until the tension began to drain away. Looking at old men with bullet holes tended to wipe out whatever sense of well-being one might have built up during the day. No matter how many homicides Manhattan racked up, the newest one was always just as draining as the last.