Peter Pan Must Die (17 page)

It was closer to nine-thirty than nine when they got Kay Spalter’s call on Gurney’s landline. He put it on speakerphone in the den.

“Hey, Kay,” said Hardwick. “How are things in beautiful Bedford Hills?”

“Fabulous.” Her voice was rough, dry, impatient. “You there, Dave?”

“I’m here.”

“You said you were going to have more questions for me?”

He wondered if her abruptness was a way of feeling in control or just a symptom of prison tension. “I’ve got half a dozen of them.”

“Go ahead.”

“Last time we spoke, you mentioned a mob guy, Donny Angel, as someone we should look at for Carl’s murder. The problem is, the hit on Carl seems too complicated for that.”

“What do you mean?” She sounded curious rather than challenging.

“Angel knew him, knew a lot about him. He could have put together an easier hit than a sniper shot at a cemetery service five hundred yards away. So let’s assume for a minute that Angel wasn’t the bad guy. If you had to come up with a second choice, who would it be?”

“Jonah.” She said it without emotion and without hesitation.

“The motive being control of the family company?”

“Control would allow him to mortgage enough properties to expand the Cyberspace Cathedral into the biggest religious rip-off project in the world.”

“How much do you know about this goal of his?”

“Nothing. I’m guessing. My point is, Jonah’s a much bigger
sleazeball than anyone realizes, and company control means big money for him.
Big
. I do know he asked Carl about mortgaging some buildings and Carl told him to go fuck himself.”

“Nice brotherly relationship. Any other candidates for killer?”

“Maybe a hundred other people whose toes Carl stomped on.”

“When I asked you the other day why you stayed with him, you gave me sort of a joke answer. At least, I think it was a joke. I need to know the real reason.”

“Truth is, I don’t know the real reason. I used to search for that mystery glue that attached me to him, but I could never identify it. So maybe I really am a cheap gold digger.”

“Are you sorry he’s dead?”

“Maybe a little.”

“What was your day-to-day relationship like?”

“Generous, patronizing, and controlling on his part.”

“And on yours?”

“Loving, admiring, and submissive. Except when he went too far.”

“And then?”

“Then all hell would break loose.”

“Did you ever threaten him?”

“Yes.”

“In front of witnesses?”

“Yes.”

“Give me an example.”

“There were quite a few.”

“Give me the worst.”

“On our tenth wedding anniversary, Carl invited a few other couples to have dinner with us. He drank too much and got on his favorite drunk theme: ‘You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the girl.’ And that night it escalated into some grandiose bullshit about how he was going to run for president after he became governor of New York, and how I was going to be his link to the common man. He said he was going to be like Juan Peron in Argentina, and I would be his Evita. My job would be to make all the blue-collar workers love him. He added a few sexual suggestions as to how I might go about that. And then he said this really stupid thing. He said I could buy a thousand pairs of shoes, just like Evita.”

“And?”

“For some reason, that was too much. Why was it too much? No idea. But it was too much. Too stupid.”

“And?”

“And I screamed at him that the lady with the thousand pairs of shoes wasn’t Evita Peron, it was Imelda Marcos.”

“That’s it?”

“Not completely. I also said if he ever talked about me like that again, I’d cut off his dick and shove it up his ass.”

Hardwick, who hadn’t uttered a syllable since his question about beautiful Bedford Hills, broke out into a braying laugh, which she ignored.

Gurney switched direction. “How much do you know about silencers for guns?”

“I know that cops call them suppressors, not silencers.”

“What else?”

“They’re illegal in this state. They’re more effective with subsonic ammunition. Cheap ones are okay—expensive ones are a lot better.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I asked at the firing range where I took lessons.”

“Why?”

“Same reason I was there to begin with.”

“Because you thought you might have to shoot someone to protect Carl?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever buy or borrow a silencer?”

“No. They got Carl before I got around to it.”

“ ‘They’ being the mob?”

“Yes. I heard what you said about the sniper route being an odd way for them to go about it. But I still think it was them. More likely them than Jonah.”

He didn’t see any advantage in debating the point. He decided to go down another path. “Apart from Angel, were there any other mob figures he was close to?”

For the first time in their exchange, she hesitated.

After a few seconds Gurney thought they’d been disconnected. “Kay?”

“There was someone he used to talk about, someone who was part of a poker group he played with.”

Gurney noted an uneasiness in her voice. “Did he mention a name?”

“No. He just mentioned what the guy did for a living.”

“Which was?”

“He arranged murders. Sort of like a broker, a go-between. If you wanted someone killed, you’d go to him and he’d get someone to do it.”

“You sound upset talking about him.”

“It bothered me that Carl wanted to play in a high-stakes game with someone who did that for a living. I said to him one day, ‘You really want to play poker against a guy who sets up mob hits? A guy who doesn’t think twice about having someone murdered? Isn’t that a little nuts?’ He told me that I didn’t understand. He said gambling was all about the risk and the rush. And the risk and the rush were a lot bigger when you were sitting across the table from Death.” She paused. “Look, I don’t have much more time. Are we done?”

“Just one more thing. How come there was such a long delay between Mary Spalter’s death and her burial?”

“What delay?”

“She was buried on a Friday. But it appears that she must have died a week before that—or at least before the previous Sunday.”

“What are you talking about? She died on a Wednesday and was buried two days later.”

“Two days? Only
two?
You’re sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure. Look up the obituary. What’s this all about?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out myself.” Gurney glanced over at Hardwick. “Jack, you have anything you need to cover with Kay while we have her on the phone?”

Hardwick shook his head, then spoke with exaggerated heartiness. “Kay, we’ll be in touch with you again soon, okay? And don’t worry. We’re on the right track for the outcome we all want. Everything we’re discovering here is a plus for our side.”

He sounded a hell of a lot surer than he looked.

After the Kay Spalter call ended, Hardwick maintained an uncharacteristically long silence. He stood staring out the den window, seemingly lost in a series of what-if calculations.

Gurney was sitting at his desk watching him. “Spit it out, Jack. It’ll make you feel better.”

“We need to talk to Lex Bincher. I mean soon. Like now. We’ve got some shit here we need to sort out. I’m thinking that’s Priority Fucking One.”

Gurney smiled. “And I’m thinking Priority One is a visit to the assisted living place where Mary Spalter died.”

Hardwick turned from the window to face Gurney directly. “See? That’s my point. We need to get together with Lex, sit down, have a meeting of the minds before we bust our humps chasing every wild goose that flies by.”

“This one may be more than a wild goose.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“Whoever was casing that apartment on a Sunday—three days before Mary Spalter died—must have known she was going to be dead very soon. Meaning her accidental death was no accident.”

“Whoa, Sherlock, slow down! All of that depends on the dumbest leap of faith I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Faith in Estavio Bolocco’s story?”

“Right. Faith that some car-wash jockey, squatting in a half-gutted building, high on God knows what, can remember the exact day of the week he saw someone walk through an apartment door nine months ago.”

“I’ll grant you there’s a witness reliability issue. But I still think—”

“You call that a
‘witness reliability issue’
? I call it fucking nuts!”

Gurney spoke softly. “I hear you. I don’t disagree with you. However, if—and I know it’s a big if—
if
Mr. Bolocco is right about the day of the week, then the nature of the crime was completely different from the narrative proposed by the prosecutor at Kay’s trial. Jesus, Jack, think about it. Why would Carl’s mother have been killed?”

“This is a waste of time.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that her death wasn’t an accident. I can think of two ways to approach the question of why she was murdered. One, that she and Carl were both primary targets—equally in the way of the murderer’s goal, whatever that might have been. Or, two, that she was only a stepping-stone—a way to ensure that Carl, the primary target, would be standing out in the open, in that cemetery, at a predictable time.”

The tic was back in full force at the corner of Hardwick’s mouth. Twice he started to speak and stopped. On the third try he said, “This is what you wanted from the start, right? To toss the whole fucking thing up in the air and see what happened when it hit the ground? To take a straight-ahead examination of police misconduct—something as simple as Mick the Dick, CIO, screwing potential suspect Alyssa Spalter—and turn it into the reinvention of the fucking wheel? Already you want to turn one murder into two! Tomorrow it’ll be half a dozen! What the fuck are you trying to do?”

Gurney’s voice grew even softer. “I’m just following the string, Jack.”

“Fuck the string! Jesus! Look, I’m sure that I speak for Lex as well as myself. The point is, we need to focus, focus, focus. Let me make this clear, once and for all. There are only a handful of questions that need to be answered about the investigation of Carl Spalter’s murder and the trial of Kay Spalter. One: What should Mick Klemper have done that he did not do? Two: What should Klemper
not
have done that he
did
do? Three: What did Klemper keep from the prosecutor? Four: What did the prosecutor keep from the defense attorney? Five: What should the defense attorney have done that he did
not
do? Five fucking questions. Get the right answers to those questions, and Kay Spalter’s conviction gets reversed. That’s it, pure and simple. So tell me, are we
on the same page here?” Hardwick’s high-blood-pressure complexion was deepening.

“Calm down, my friend. I’m pretty sure we can
end up
on the same page. Just don’t make it impossible for me to get there.”

Hardwick stared hard and long at Gurney, then shook his head in frustration. “Lex Bincher is fronting the bucks for the investigatory out-of-pockets. If you’re going to spend money on anything beyond getting the answers to those five questions, he’s going to need to approve it in advance.”

“No problem.”

“No problem,” Hardwick echoed vaguely, looking back out the window. “Wish I could believe that, ace.”

Gurney said nothing.

After a while Hardwick sighed wearily. “I’ll fill Bincher in on everything you told me.”

“Good.”

“For Christ’s sake, just don’t … don’t let this …” He didn’t finish the sentence, just shook his head again.

Gurney could sense the strain inherent in Hardwick’s position: desperate to get to a desired destination, horrified by the uncertainties of the proposed route.

Among the various addenda to the case file was the address for the final residence of Mary Spalter—an assisted-living complex on Twin Lakes Road in Indian Valley, not far from Cooperstown, about halfway between Walnut Crossing and Long Falls. Gurney entered the address in his GPS, and an hour later it announced that he was arriving at his destination.

He turned on to a neat macadam driveway that led through a tall drystone wall, then separated at a fork with arrows indicating
KEY HOLDERS
one way and
VISITORS AND DELIVERIES
the other way.

The latter direction brought him to a parking area in front of a cedar-shake bungalow. An elegantly understated sign next to a small rose garden bore the inscription
EMMERLING OAKS. SECURE SENIOR LIFE COMMUNITY. INQUIRE WITHIN
.

He parked and knocked on the door.

A pleasant female voice responded immediately. “Come in.”

He entered a bright, uncluttered office. An attractive woman somewhere in her forties with a tanning-bed complexion was sitting at a polished desk with several comfortable-looking chairs arrayed around it. On the walls were pictures of bungalows in various color and size variations.

After giving him an assessing once-over, the woman smiled. “How can I help you?”

He returned the smile. “I’m not sure. I drove up here on an impulse. Probably just a wild goose chase.”

“Oh?” She looked interested. “What wild goose are you chasing?”

“I’m not even sure about that.”

“Well, then …” she said with an uncertain frown. “What do you want? And who are you?”

“Oh, sorry about that. My name is Dave Gurney.” He took out his wallet, a little awkwardly, and stepped forward to show her his gold shield. “I’m a detective.”

She studied the shield. “It says ‘Retired.’ ”

“I
was
retired. And now, because of this murder case, it seems that I’ve become un-retired.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you referring to the Spalter murder case?”

“You’re familiar with that?”

“Familiar?” She appeared surprised. “Of course.”

“Because of the news coverage?”

“That, and the personal element.”

“Because the victim’s mother lived here?”

“To some extent, but … Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”