The Girl in Times Square (19 page)

The next day, after the morning meeting, Spencer was in the evidence room sifting through Amy’s various empty shopping bags, receipts, papers, notebooks, textbooks, jackets, pockets of jeans, with a fourth cup of coffee in his hand, when Harkman stuck his head in and said, “Spence…”

Spencer decided to ignore him. He didn’t like the tone of the whisper.

Harkman slowly brought his sour-smelling bulk over. Spencer resisted the urge to ask him if he had taken his gout medicine. This was just too strong a smell for nine in the morning. Harkman rested his rump on the table and with his bypassed heart panting an ostensible and unacceptable 137 beats a minute, said, “Spence, I gotta tell you something.”

Spencer didn’t look up from Amy’s shopping bags. He was interested in their variety and their quality. “What?” He was studying a matchbook he had found in one of her jacket pockets. It was from the Four Seasons Hotel lounge bar, called Fifty Seven Fifty Seven. By itself it would have meant nothing, but the jacket was thrown into a Frederic Fekkai bag. Frederic Fekkai was also on 57th. Of course Amy also had matchbooks from the Caviar Bar on 58th and from Bombay Palace on 52nd. He was trying to put one and two together when Harkman said, “They want to see you upstairs.”

Spencer looked up from the Four Seasons matchbook. “Who’s
they
?”

Harkman didn’t speak for a moment and then leaned his head forward and said in a low voice, “I swear to God, Spencer, I have no idea what it’s about, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Spencer said, sharply getting up out of the chair, dropping the matchbook on the floor and coming toward him. “I was barely listening because I was trying to
work.
Who wants to see me upstairs?”

All Harkman could do was mutter an impotent, “IA.”

“IA?”

He nodded.

“And you’re sure whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with you? How do you know? Maybe it’s got something to do with you. Maybe they want to ask me about that bit of graft you receive from the drug dealers in Tompkins Park to look the other way, and not bring back the MPs that are strung out on the scag they’re selling, huh, maybe it’s got something to do with that?”

“Stop it, nothing to do with me, I’m telling you. Rumor has it that IA got an anonymous letter about…you…”

“What letter?”

“About Greenwich, Connecticut.” Harkman was whispering. His lips were shaking. “But I didn’t do it, I didn’t send it.”

Spencer grabbed Harkman by his jacket. “What the fuck do you know about Greenwich, Connecticut?”

“Let go of me, O’Malley.” His voice was thin. “You don’t want
more
trouble with IA, do you?”

Spencer shoved him hard. Harkman fell back against the rattling table, which slowed his tumble to the floor.

Upstairs, Spencer sat at the end of a long conference table across from three people whom he’d never met. One was an attractive woman in her early thirties, sharp, swift, efficient, in a dark blue business suit, with perfect make-up and without a mitochondrion
of a sense of humor. The other two were men. Spencer did not pay much attention to men and so didn’t notice what they looked like. They were older than the woman and in suits that were nowhere near as sharp or as ironed. Spencer was displeased with himself that he, breaking his own protocol, deliberately wore jeans instead of a suit today, preparing to go casual to the soup kitchen. Should have worn a suit.

Harkman was such a bastard.

The ironed-out woman introduced herself as Liz Monroe. “These are my colleagues.” She pointed to her colleagues and Spencer was grateful she didn’t tell him their names.

“Do you know why we’re here, detective?”

“No.”

She cleared her throat. Spencer thought she might have expected a follow-up “Why?” but he wouldn’t give her what she expected. Only the unexpected for her.

“We’re here because inquiries have been made regarding your possible involvement in the death of a Nathan Sinclair.”

Spencer said nothing. He had nothing to say.

“Do you know who Nathan Sinclair is?”

“Well, obviously.”

“Inquiries have been made—”

“What inquiries?”

Monroe started looking through her notes. “What do you know about the circumstances of his death?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“You already asked that. The answer is still yes.”

“Who was he?”

“One of the witnesses in a murder investigation.”

“This was in Hanover, New Hampshire?”

“Yes, this was in Hanover, New Hampshire.”

“You were the senior detective there for ten years?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you leave? Was it because of…Nathan Sinclair?”

“No, it was not because of…Nathan Sinclair.” Spencer tried hard not to be too obvious with his mimicking. “I left because of a difference of opinion with my superiors regarding the murder investigation you mention.”

“And then?”

“I came back home to Long Island and was rehired by the Suffolk County Police Department.”

“What did you do for them after you were rehired?”

“That’s not in my records? I was a traffic patrol officer.”

“And then?”

“Then I transferred to the NYPD. Four years ago.”

“Let’s just stick with Suffolk County PD for a moment. You went from being a detective-sergeant in Hanover to being a traffic cop?”.

“That’s right.”

Liz Monroe said nothing. “That’s quite a demotion.”

Spencer didn’t respond as no response seemed necessary, or even possible. “Not monetarily,” he finally said.

She looked down into her notes again. She was barely taking her head out of them. “It was brought to our attention—”

“By who?”

“That’s not the issue.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m afraid it
is
the issue.”

“We received an anonymous letter, if you must know. All admissible evidence, as you also must know. The letter stated that witnesses saw you having lunch with Nathan Sinclair, at a Cos Cob, Connecticut diner.”

“Ms. Monroe, surely you didn’t need an anonymous letter to tell you this? It’s in my file. Under O for O’Malley. Any time you wanted you could have found this information. And by the way, I’ve already dealt with the Suffolk County Internal Affairs on this issue in great detail. Four years ago.”

“Yes, yes, I found this information. I have your records in front of me. Is this why you left the Suffolk County Police Department?”

“This is not why I left the Suffolk County Police Department. I didn’t leave. I transferred to NYPD.”

“You must understand—”

“Who are you talking to, Ms. Monroe?”

She coughed, turning red. “Detective O’Malley, excuse me. You must understand that accusations of any kind are taken very seriously by our department and will be given weight and merit.”

“Is the letter accusing me of having lunch with Nathan Sinclair at a diner? I’m guilty as charged.”

“It’s only significant because that was the last time anyone saw him alive. He was found by his gardener weeks later, the TV still on. He was long dead. It was summer, his body was gravely decomposed.”

Spencer stared straight at Liz Monroe who stared straight back at him. “Perhaps you should speak to the gardener.”

“Yes, thank you, detective. Why did you meet with Mr. Sinclair? Was it a police visit or a personal visit?”

“It was a…” Spencer hesitated. “I guess both.”

“Were you on duty?”

“I was not.”

“And you were no longer the investigating officer on that case, having taken yourself off it by resigning?”

“There was no case anymore. There had been a conviction. The case was closed.”

“So really your seeing Nathan Sinclair was more in a personal capacity, wouldn’t you say?”

Perhaps Spencer did not answer in the first breath. “I suppose so.”

“That part is not in your file, detective,” said Liz Monroe, and this time she looked up from her notes.

“You’re obviously a thorough investigator, Ms. Monroe.”

“Thank you. Did you suspect that Mr. Sinclair was involved in the murder you had been investigating at Dartmouth College?”

“Not at all. I simply had questions that had not been answered.”

“And what questions were those?”

“We discussed several topics. Music. Cars. We commiserated with each other about our wives both lost in car accidents.”

Without a nod of sympathy, Monroe said, “You didn’t seek him out just to talk to him about music and wives, detective.”

“As I said, I wanted to catch up. Idle chitchat.”

“You were friendly then?”

“Glancingly friendly.”

“What did you do after you left him?”

“I drove to Hanover, New Hampshire.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason I sought Nathan Sinclair out. To catch up with old friends.”

“But you didn’t see anyone when you got to Hanover. At least that’s what it says in your case notes.”

“That’s right. By the time I got there it was well after working hours and there was no one around. My old partner was on vacation. I walked around, and then drove down to Brattleboro mall down in Vermont. I had some dinner and bought a carryon bag, as I was thinking of visiting my sister in California. The receipt for that purchase is in the case file.”

“Receipt’s in here. Paid for in cash. But where’s the bag, detective?”

“Long gone, Ms. Monroe. The handle ripped after much use and I had to throw it out. Is the bag of much interest to you?”

“Of some interest, yes. As in, why you would buy it, just then. Did the Suffolk IA ask to see the bag?”

“No, they did not.”

“You do much traveling, then? I see here from your employment record that in the last seven years at SCPD and NYPD, you’ve taken your twenty-seven vacation days a year in dribs and drabs, not a single time, not
once
in any extended chunk.”

“And your point?”

“After this frequently-used bag purchase, what did you do?”

“I drove home. As you know the ride is long, five hours, that
time of night. I was tired. I drove carefully. I stopped several times. I must have gotten back around two in the morning. I was living in an apartment above my brother’s garage at the time, and they heard me open the garage door; they said it was around two. It should all be in the file, Ms. Monroe.”

The woman fell quiet looking into her notes. “It is, it is. You know it is our responsibility to look into any misconduct by our officers who are sworn to uphold the law.”

“I know. You’re doing your job admirably. I upheld the law. And moreover, I was not an officer of the NYPD during that time. I was an officer of the Suffolk County Police Department, off duty, and they already investigated this matter and resolved it to their satisfaction.”

“Any misconduct?”

“No,” said Spencer.

“Nathan Sinclair was shot once by a Saturday night special .22 directly into his femoral artery, and bled to death.”

“So I understand.”

“The police, upon coming to the scene of the crime, discovered that the TV was on mute.” She paused. “As if Nathan Sinclair muted the TV because he wanted to talk to his assailant, plead for his life perhaps.”

Spencer said nothing, since a response was not requested of him.

She continued. “The gun was never found. The bullet from the gun had been removed. Scooped out of his thigh by a gloved hand leaving no fingerprints.”

Spencer felt something was required of him here. “I carried a Magnum in those days.”

“Did you confiscate the specials during drug busts?”

“I have confiscated them from time to time, yes.”

“There were boot-prints near him in his blood.”

“I can’t recall, were they police-issue boot-prints?”

“Um—no. But you weren’t having lunch with him as an officer of the law, detective.”

“The witness who saw us at a diner having lunch and so
helpfully wrote to you, did he remember if I was wearing boots? It was summertime, it’s a kind of a thing that might stick out.”

“There is no mention of the boots, no.”

Spencer tightened and relaxed his fists on the cherry wood table in full view of Ms. Monroe.

“What size shoe do you wear, Detective O’Malley?”

“Size eleven. Me and seventy percent of the men in the United States.”

“The boots were size twelve.”

“Really?” Spencer tried to keep his voice even, but perhaps he inflected too archly into the middle of that
really.

There was a pause. “You knew that already, didn’t you?”

“Questioned
thoroughly
on this issue, Ms. Monroe.”

“So you have no idea who killed him?”

“I have no idea who killed him.”

“His killer has not been brought to justice. So justice needs to be brought to his killer.”

Spencer shrugged. “I suppose.”

Liz Monroe lifted her serious eyes at Spencer. “Detective O’Malley, do you feel that bringing murderers to justice is not something we should waste our time on, or is it just Nathan Sinclair’s murderer that you feel we shouldn’t be spending our time on?”

“Oh, is IA responsible for murder investigations now?”

“No, but IA
is
responsible for you.”

Outside, Spencer, leaned against the wall for a moment to get his bearings. And then he slowly walked down three flights, resisting the impulse to hold on to the railing.

The First Presbyterian Shelter for the Homeless occupied the basement of an old church. Instead of bingo and church socials for newly divorced Protestants, the downstairs hall was used for alms—seventy beds, and a dining room. Spencer finally managed to get there on Friday at dawn. He had nearly lost his will to pursue the McFadden case. The fight had gone out of him, but that didn’t stop him from taking Harkman by his shirtfront when he came upon him in the empty hallway. Spencer brought him hard against the wall, and stifling an urge to hit him, said, “You’re such a fucking bastard. You better watch your back, Chris Harkman, because no one else will be watching it.”

“Are you threatening me?” Harkman said. “Get away from me.”

Spencer stepped back.

“I told you, it wasn’t me. I told you that, why can’t you believe me? But you know what, O’Malley, we all get what’s coming to us. We all get exactly what we deserve, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do, Harkman,” said Spencer, walking away and pointing an angry finger at the man’s face, “and be careful that you don’t get exactly what
you
deserve. What a sorry day that’ll be for you.”

Whittaker brought him into his office, Spencer thought to
chew him out over Harkman, but Whittaker said, “I don’t give a shit about your schoolgirl fights, work it out between you and leave me out of it, and no, you can’t be partnered with McGill, but O’Malley, lay off the congressman.”

And suddenly the fight went right back into Spencer.

“Did you just say lay off a capital case, chief?”

“No, just lay off Quinn, O’Malley.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got nothing to do with it, that’s why.” Whittaker was a good Irish cop, thirty years on the force, his no-shit-from-anybody character much improved in Spencer’s mind by the fact that he liked Spencer. “He was banging her, not killing her. Do you see the difference?”

“He was banging her and now she’s missing!”

“Oh, come on! He’s not a politician if he doesn’t have an affair. That’s how you recognize them, their pants are around their ankles. What are you going to do—prosecute each and every one?”

“Yes, if their lovers end up missing four months on my watch.”

“Look, O’Malley, I’ll be straight with you—the congressman has powerful friends in the city of New York, and they’ve been leaning on me to either provide proof or lay off.”

“He refused a polygraph!”

“O’Malley, what about you upstairs this morning? If that ball-buster Liz Monroe asked you to take a polygraph, would you?”

“Chief,” Spencer said evenly, “I’d refuse just to piss her off.”

“Exactly. People have all kinds of reasons for refusing polygraphs. Stay out of their heads. Their refusal is inadmissible as evidence, inadmissible period. Let it go.” He pointed upstairs. “And watch out for the cohone buster. She’s got a pair of her own and they’re made of steel. Sergeant Vicario, remember him? The Jesse Ventura of the NYPD? The woman made him cry. Cry, I tell you.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Spencer would make sure Liz Monroe did not make
him
cry.

So perhaps Harkman, that son of a bitch,
was
telling the truth. It was entirely possible that the congressman hired a dick to dig up old, new, any kind of dirt on Spencer. Perhaps they thought it would make Spencer back down; but they didn’t understand him, didn’t know he was perversely invigorated by Internal Affairs, and so zealously at five-thirty on a Friday morning, Spencer was at the soup kitchen.

He spoke to a man named Clive, a short heavy man in a suit with a bristly attitude. Spencer didn’t know soup kitchen administrators dressed so well. He was wearing a pair of busted up jeans he’d deemed appropriate to the occasion.

Clive told Spencer that indeed Amy McFadden had been showing up every Friday like clockwork for years, “until she wasn’t showin’ up no more.”

Spencer explained that Amy wasn’t showing up anywhere, she had been reported missing by her mother a couple of months ago and Clive’s help would be appreciated in tracing Amy’s movements in May. “So, Clive, do you recall if Amy was here on Friday, May 14?”

But Clive could not say. “Look, mornings swim together for me…”

Spencer pressed his palms together to keep his voice from lifting. “It is
extremely
important we find out if Amy came that day.”

“Well, I have no idea!”

“Not good enough, Clive.”

“All I got, I’m afraid.”

“Clive, Clive. Would you like to come back to the police station with me? Anything that will help you remember the last time you saw her.”

Clive was silent. “Wait. I remember the last time I saw her. She said she just finished her exams, and that she was graduating…” Clive’s eyes focused. “She said she was graduating in exactly two weeks. So when was that?”

“Her graduation was on May 28.”

“Bingo.”

Spencer stepped back.

Clive said, “I never did see her again after that.”

Spencer looked around the soup kitchen. It was a dark room full of cafeteria tables and folding chairs. Every available seat was filled with men in rags who were eating something that must have once been eggs. “She talk to anyone here?”

“Well, sure, she talked to everybody. She was a friendly gal. Everyone liked her.”

“Anybody in particular?”

Clive looked around the basement as if he were searching for someone.

“Hmm. He’s not here, though.”

Spencer perked up. “One guy she talked to in particular?”

“Yes. He hung around her. Wouldn’t sit down. Disturbed her serving.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. He’s not here, I tell you. He stopped coming some months back.”

Spencer’s shaved hair spiraled up.

“Clive, when?”

“I don’t know. Hundreds of men a day, everyday. I don’t keep track of them all in my head.”

“Try.”

“OK, let me think. I been here five years, started before Amy started. This guy used to come way back then, I remember. I paid no attention to him, but I did pay a little to Amy, because you know, I liked lookin’ at her. Then he didn’t come here anymore, not for a few years—suddenly bam! he was back again, loitering around Amy. I’d guess he had been a guest in a mental institution. Or jail. He reappeared sometime in the spring. Then when she stopped coming, I’m pretty sure he stopped coming, too.”

“What was his name?”

“Know nothing about him.”

“What did he look like?”

“Homeless. He wore rags on his body, skicaps to cover his head, cardboard on his feet. He smelled.”

Spencer looked across the breakfast tables. All the men in front of him fit that description.

“Young, though,” Clive added helpfully.

“How young?”

“I don’t know. In his twenties? Thirties, maybe? He didn’t shuffle, he had a bit of something in his step. A bit of youth. He didn’t walk like an addict. Come to think of it, he didn’t walk like someone who was mentally ill. You recognize them after a while by the way they shuffle, the way they tilt their heads.”

“And?”

“He was eerie. There was something wrong with him.”

“What?”

“How should I know? Something not quite right. He had freaky eyes, like he’d pop you if you said a wrong word to him. He was repulsive, too. Never took a shower, even when offered. We have showers here for the men. But he never took one, never shaved, never washed the dirt off his face. He was, I’d say, grimier than the others. He may have had tattoos on his face, I can’t remember now. It could’ve just been filth…”

“Tall, short?”

“Average. Shorter than you. You might want to try the Bowery Mission. Perhaps he started going there after Amy stopped coming here.”

“Why? Does the Bowery offer better eggs?”

“I really don’t know. Maybe because Amy stopped coming. He seemed pretty attached to her. He never
ever
spoke to nobody but her. Ever. Which is unusual—most of the people here have some connection to the others. Not him. Just to Amy.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

Clive thought about it. “She used to give him stuff,” he said at last. “I don’t know what, but she had shopping bags full of
things. Something extra from her to him. I once asked her, and she said donations. But the bags were from nice stores, Guess, maybe? The Gap. What did she give him, clothes? God knows what he did with them. Maybe bartered the stuff for H.”

Spencer gave Clive his card and told him if the man ever appeared again, to call him any time of day or night. Feeling hopeless, he walked over to the first table of diners in their uniforms of rags to find out how many of them remembered Amy and if any of them remembered her mysterious—freaky-eyed—admirer.

“Detective O’Malley!”

It was Clive, animated, pleased with himself.

“Milo!”

“Milo?”

“That’s what I heard her call him once. I don’t think it’s his real name.”

“You don’t say.”

Milo! was one word and a ray of light in an otherwise dark—and sober—Friday.

Lily was in her bed, pillows up when Spencer came to see her early Friday afternoon. She was in the middle of her third and last seven-day treatment, all the visitors now had to wear masks and were not allowed to touch her. Spencer didn’t know by the looks of her how she would finish
this
out, much less rear up for thirteen weeks of consolidation chemo. She looked as skeletal and gray as one could look and still remain upright. She didn’t smile at him; she eyed him warily, though not as warily as her grandmother, who, also in a mask, got up from her chair and said, “I thought I had made myself clear. You’re not welcome here.”

DiAngelo came in after Spencer. “Claudia, come with me,” he said. “You know the rules—only one at a time in here.”

“Yes—me. She doesn’t want to see
him.
”

Lily and Spencer stared at each other.

“Wait, Grandma,” said Lily, looking accusingly at Spencer, who had to avert his own gaze. “Give us a minute.”

Extremely unhappily, Claudia left the room with DiAngelo, who said quietly to Spencer, “Ten minutes, okay? She can’t take much more.”

They were left alone, and at first they didn’t speak. Then Lily said, “Here on police business again, Detective O’Malley?”

What could he say? He stood silently, wearing a mouth mask, wishing for a moment he were wearing an eye mask instead so he wouldn’t have to see her disintegration. Summoning what he could of inspiration, of energy, of optimism, Spencer took a deep breath under the hospital cotton and stepped up to the plate. “Both, personal and business.”

Lily stared into her blanket.

“How are you? Are you eating?” Two and a half courses of chemo and she was fading into the whites of her bed.

She shrugged. “Eating is overrated. If everyone could be fed through a hole in the chest, who wouldn’t do it? New York would go out of business, though. Eighty percent of its economy is restaurants.”

“Yes, but think how the medical-supplies business would boom.”

“Hmm. I wish I could get a vanilla shake through this Hickman. Marcie says vanilla shakes are too thick. She says she can bring me a thin vanilla shake. Marcie, I tell her, that’s not a vanilla shake, that’s milk.”

Under the mask Spencer smiled, while his eyes took in Lily’s sunken brows, her pale mouth, the translucent whiteness of her cheeks. “I brought you some Krispy Kremes. Do you want me to bring you a vanilla shake next time I come?”

“Nah. I’d only toss it. Don’t waste your money.” Lily leaned back on her pillows, while Spencer sat six feet away from her in the chair. “Thanks for the donuts. My grandmother loves them.” She paused. “So what do you want?”

“Nothing,” he said hastily. “I stopped by your building to pick up your mail.”

“You did?” Lily frowned. “But you don’t have a key to my mailbox.”

“Well, I know. I’m not saying I did, but I might’ve used my badge to convince the super the contents of your mailbox were a matter of grave police business.”

Why did that make her smile? “You’re not above that sort of thing then, using your badge to your advantage?”

“Not at all,” Spencer said, taking out a rectangular envelope. “But I thought you might want to see this.” It was a letter from New York State.

Lily actually laughed, though soundlessly. “It came! Did you open it?”

“Of course not. It’s a federal offense to open other people’s mail.”

Her eyes twinkled at him a little bit. “Oh, but not to go through their mailboxes? Could you open it now?”

Spencer opened it, handed it to her. Lily seemed happy to hold it, to look at it, to read aloud the amount. “$7,348,200! Look at these numbers, Spencer.”

“I see them clearly, even from here. But I can’t count that high.”

After sitting a while and chatting idly, Lily put the check on her lap and cleared her throat. “Spencer, I hate to ask. I don’t know if you can help me…”

“If I can, I will. What do you need?”

“I can’t leave here, Dr. D says, until I hire a 24/7 nurse for my apartment. He won’t let me leave. Can you believe him? He says neither my grandmother nor my sister will do. He seems wary of Anne, I can’t quite figure it out, but he keeps saying that she is not up to the job, and about Grandma he says that I’ll end up taking care of her instead of the other way around. Naturally Grandma has stopped speaking to him.”

“If she keeps that up, soon there won’t be anyone left.”

“Anne left her job, though, you see, so she could help me and in return I could pay her mortgage. How can I tell her no?”

Spencer breathed through the mask. “DiAngelo is right—you need a professional, not a sister. I’ll be glad to inform her of this.”

“If you speak one word to her she’ll get an injunction against you.”

“Yes, and I’m the one who’ll have to enforce that injunction. Oh, fine, I’ll have DiAngelo tell her that as per his strict instructions you already hired a professional.”

“You don’t think she’ll know I’m lying since I can’t even stand up on my own?”

Spencer was thinking about what she wanted from him, what she needed from him. “Do you need me to help you find someone?”

“Yes,” Lily said quietly. “God, yes, please.”