The Oxygen Murder (23 page)

“We need to see Buzz right away,” I said.

“Well, you’re half psychic, but not foolproof,” Matt said. “How did you know Buzz wanted to meet us? I didn’t tell you what that phone call was about. However, you got the time wrong. He’s not expecting us until four o’clock, and it’s not even three.”

I looked at Matt’s peaceful expression—no frown lines, and the hint of a crooked smile at the ready—and regretted that what I had to show him would transform it. “I have my own agenda,” I said.

“You think I don’t know that?”

I smiled. My eyes lingered a moment on a little boy approaching us on the sidewalk. I looked at him wistfully—skipping along, each mittened hand enfolded by an adult’s, his parents, I assumed. His pale blue down snowsuit was so thick his arms stuck out almost straight from his sides. His red nose and eyes, framed in a fur-lined hood, were dripping from the cold, but the icy weather didn’t affect his warm and uncomplicated laughter, making me long for a simpler stage of life. I considered turning as they passed and calling out a
Merry Christmas.

My nostalgic mood and desire to interact with the family passed quickly, however. They probably celebrated something other than Christmas and didn’t even speak English, I thought. The number of
international accents I’d heard the past few days rivaled the number of different holiday tunes.

I pulled Matt into the doorway of a shoe repair shop. I chose it figuring there would be much less traffic in and out than for the card and gift shops in the vicinity.

“I have to show you something,” I said, digging under my jacket, into my pants pocket.

A frown, and he hadn’t seen anything yet. “Am I going to like this?”

“I doubt it.”

“Buzz? Matt. Listen, we’re still on target to meet you at four, but I have a favor to ask.” The advantages of being a cop: immediate “service and protection” from your buddies.

I let out a long breath and felt marginally better. Buzz agreed to have a uniform, as I’d long ago learned to call regular police officers, go to Lori’s apartment on some pretext and check out the scene there. A car would also be assigned to her building.

The call to Lori would be more difficult. Matt needed to explain that he had to have the letter that accompanied the envelope I showed him, and he had to get it without alarming her unduly. I heard only snatches of his conversation with her, since I was off on another branch of my logic tree.

With a slightly clearer head, now that Lori was about to be surrounded by the NYPD, I put together my version of Billy’s true schedule: He came to New York City earlier than he claimed, probably a week ago, while his sister was still alive. He stayed at the hotel with the stick figures logo and mailed letters to everyone. Not to be prejudiced, but wasn’t that what a farm boy might do? I asked myself.

Matt’s voice came through a lull in my thinking. “Just hold on to it, honey, okay? We’ll come by and pick it up in a few minutes.”

Billy had means (anyone could have hit Amber with a surprise blow, then smothered her with a pillow) and opportunity (Amber would certainly let Billy into the loft, and I was convinced he was in town at the time).

I needed motive.

“Not a big deal. I’ll tell you when I get there, okay?” Matt was saying to Lori.

I considered having my shoes shined, both to breathe some warm indoor air and to repay the proprietor for not booting us (I smiled) from his doorway.

So, I asked myself, what was Billy’s motive? Probably a difference in taste between urban and rural lifestyles wouldn’t drive a brother to murder. At that moment, however, it seemed a possibility—gridlock at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and West Forty-sixth Street resulted in a crescendo of blaring horns. The cacophony was deafening, the situation compounded by a stretch limo that was double parked and an ambulance making its way north on Eighth. I wondered how Matt could carry on his cell phone conversation.

I ruled out lifestyle as motive for murder nevertheless and considered another: Billy might have been aware of Amber’s lucrative blackmail scheme and wanted in on it. According to Lori, Amber wasn’t the most discreet person, even about her nefarious behavior. Billy could have come to town to extort money from his sister.

The biggest problem with my theory of Billy as the killer was that the text of the letter, as I remembered it, didn’t jibe with Billy as the author. I hadn’t seen Lori’s letter, but what I recalled of the one sent to Amber didn’t fit a sibling. It was addressed to Ms. Keenan (too formal), at Lori’s apartment (Billy would know his sister’s address), and told Amber not to act on certain unnamed footage. If Billy wanted money, he wouldn’t care about footage. Unless the footage was of Billy himself?

No, not the farm boy, I decided.

I hadn’t been as close to solving the case as I thought. Still, there was no question in my mind that Billy Keenan had lied about when he arrived in New York.

“I think you should tell Buzz to pick up Billy for questioning,” I said to Matt when he’d hung up with Lori.

“What? A new theory?”

We’d started our walk back to West Forty-eighth, our shoes unpolished. “It didn’t rain after Sunday evening,” I said. “It’s been cold and cheer.”

“You mean cold and
clear?
”

“Didn’t I say clear?”

“You said cheer.”

“I guess all this merriment is getting to me,” I said. “Call me Scrooge.”

I’d seen a greater volume of ornaments in New York City since Friday than in all my Christmases put together, I thought. Especially if you counted the pyramid of red balls on Sixth Avenue, each one the size of a seven-kilowatt home generator. Every third child wore jingling bells, either on his shoes, his mittens, or his zipper pull. Velvety gowns in shimmering colors adorned mannequins up and down the avenues. Christmas music poured out of every doorway. Fir trees and wreaths crowded the sidewalks outside the grocery stores and florist shops. Stollen, Santa cookies, and cakes decorated with holly filled deli and pastry shop windows.

Christmas had taken over my senses. I wondered how the natives stood the holiday buzz week after week between the Thanksgiving Day parade and New Year’s Eve under the falling ball.

I supposed New Yorkers were used to a constant invasion of their home space. They lived with year-round tourism, tolerating
I LOVE NY
on key chains, pencils, mugs, plastic bags, shot glasses—too many items to list—in shops all over town. I realized also that this kind of merchandising was becoming more the norm in all cities. The number of items with Revere Beach as a logo had grown from zero when I was a child growing up there to a catalog full this year. The little known Revere, Massachusetts, offered various paraphernalia with images of the now-defunct Cyclone roller coaster and other relics of the once-thriving Boardwalk.

Matt put his arm around me as we trudged up Eighth. “You need a vacation,” he said. I gave him as warm a smile as thirty degrees would allow and felt bad that I’d required attention from him. It was
his
niece who might be in trouble. Who might, in fact, be entertaining Amber’s killer. I picked up my pace and Matt followed suit.

“About Billy,” I said. “He told us he got soaked waiting for a taxi. He couldn’t have been rained on if he didn’t arrive until Monday. It’s been cheery
and
clear since then.”

“I just don’t see Billy for this. So the kid was exaggerating, making it sound like he had a tougher time than he really did in the big bad city. Or, you know, he was giving us the old I-walked-two-miles-in-the-snow-to-school complaint.”

“But why say it was raining? If he wanted to exaggerate, he could have claimed he was farther downtown. If he wanted to make the people look bad, he could have claimed they were rude to him or someone stole his camera, any number of things. Other than rain, which would be the truth if he arrived over the weekend. And you always tell me people revert to the truth when they’re caught off guard or if you wait long enough.”

Matt smiled. “I love when you quote me to make your point.”

We had our arms linked now and were approaching Lori’s apartment. I was beginning to know this neighborhood as well as our own in Revere. I’d seen the same man leave a neighboring building with a tiny, flat-faced dog twice now, and I’d been tempted to drop in at a specialty cheese shop below street level. It seemed you couldn’t walk more than ten meters anywhere in the city without seeing or smelling something interesting.

“Well, can’t we at least get Buzz to think about it?”

Matt shrugged and blew a steamy breath. “Why not? But much as I’d like to pin this on someone this minute, we’ve got to keep our heads. Let’s see, first it was some anonymous ozone violator, then Dee Dee, now Billy. For a while you even suspected Karla. It seems like you’re flailing around in this case. Not like you. And it’s a case that isn’t yours to begin with, I might add.”

Matt was right, but his words stung. He must have forgotten momentarily that the worst insult I could hear was an affront to my sense of logic. Flailing was for the uncritical thinkers of the world.

“I know I have no contract,” I admitted. “Don’t worry. I’m aware that this is not Revere, where I can take a few liberties.”

Matt assumed an expression of mock horror. “Liberties? You take liberties in Revere?”

“One or two.”

“To be serious—we have to keep looking at what we have physically. We have letters from a hotel, and you have the smell of perfume and a candy wrapper.”

“And Billy’s lies,” I whispered. If I was going to flail, I wanted to do it right.

I felt Matt relax once Lori opened the door to us. Not that she looked in any way at ease, but she was alive and standing up—and holding a letter.

“Are Billy and Craig still here?” Matt asked.

“Nuh-uh. What’s up, Uncle Matt? Am I in some kind of danger?” Lori’s normally quick speech was faster yet, and higher in pitch, befitting someone holding a threatening letter. “I figured this mail was a mistake of some kind, maybe meant for Amber.”

“You’re probably right, honey. We want to be sure, that’s all.”

Matt took the letter by its corner.

“I threw it in the trash,” Lori said. “I didn’t think of preserving fingerprints.”

“No problem. We’re going to see Buzz this afternoon anyway, and I’ll pass it on.”

No problem,
I thought. Just a letter identical to the one received by a woman who’s been murdered.

“Where are Billy and Craig, Lori?” I asked.
Especially Billy
.

“Craig took Billy on the subway to South Street Seaport. It’s his favorite view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Craig’s playing goodwill ambassador for the city, but I don’t think Billy is about to become New York City’s number-one fan no matter how hard Craig tries.”

“Did Billy leave his stuff here?” Matt asked.

“Yeah. He just has a duffel bag. One of those enormous military-type pieces,” Lori said. “What’s up? What’s this all about? He’s not a suspect or anything, is he?” Lori held her arms high across her chest, each hand rubbing the opposite shoulder.

“For now, we’re just taking precautions. Billy might be in some kind of trouble, so make sure he doesn’t stay here, okay?”

“What shall I do with his bag?” Lori asked, understandably flustered.

“Keep it for now. We’ll make sure he’s not back tonight, anyway.”

“Please, Uncle Matt. I’m your niece, not some interviewee. Is Billy a suspect or not?”

Matt sighed and pulled her to him. He patted her back the way I imagined he did when she was little. “I’m sorry, honey. I guess I forgot you’re not ten anymore.”

We took seats around a small table in the kitchen, and Matt told Lori why we thought Billy had some explaining to do before we trusted him completely to be only the grieving brother.

“It could have been a little exaggeration, about the bad weather, but we need to check it out, and you need to be careful in the meantime. Okay?”

“Okay.” Lori nodded, seeming satisfied that she’d been briefed. “Do you want some tea? Or coffee?” She looked as though she needed warming up herself.

“Why don’t I put some water on to heat,” I said.

“Thanks, Gloria. And now that I have you alone . . .” Lori chuckled briefly, a nice sound after her nervous speech patterns. She cut it short when we didn’t respond. “That’s a kind of famous movie device,” she said.

“We don’t get out much,” Matt said, and then we all laughed.

“I thought of a couple of things, but I didn’t want to bring them up with the guys here. Well, first is that I have a follow-up meeting tomorrow afternoon with a company we’re profiling—Curry Industries—and I’m wondering if you’d come with me, Gloria. Even though I won’t be doing the CFC part right now, I don’t want to take a chance that they’ll still be so cooperative down the road. I could use some tech support. And since you’re making a career out of educating the Revere Police Department”—Lori grinned at Matt—“I thought you might be willing to help me out.”

Be still, my heart
.

“She’d love to,” Matt said, before I could gush.

“Great. Let me give you the first interviews, which are mostly about the ozone monitoring in the plant area, so you’ll be familiar with the company. I have them on a DVD.” Lori reached into her purse and came up with a thin case marked
CURRY I
. “I’ve been carrying this around with me and kept forgetting to give it to you.”

“We have no way to play this in the hotel room,” Matt said.

Lori and I looked at each other. We knew we were thinking the
same thing—the poor guy was not privy to the ubiquity of computers in cafés.

“Not to worry,” I told him.

Matt threw up his hands and laughed. “Sorry, I should have known better.” I was glad he was comfortable in his low-tech skin.

Lori pulled open a desk drawer and retrieved a stack of pamphlets. “I have some of Curry’s product brochures. You might as well take these, too, Gloria.”

“Good. I like to be prepared.”

“I’ll say,” Matt said, but neither Lori nor I acknowledged the remark.

“I’m hoping to get some interesting stuff, some angles that are news-worthy,” Lori said.