“You were told?”
“Can I get these cuffs off, clean up, and get a blanket? And what, did you not pay your heating bill? It’s like forty degrees in here.”
“Sure. I can pay for your lawyer, too. And you’ll get a free car and a trip to Antigua if you’re acquitted of murder. What, you think this is Wheel of Fortune or something?”
“I’m Special Agent Atlee Pine of the FBI. Take a picture of me and email it to the Bureau. They’ll confirm I am who I say I am.”
“Where are your badge and creds? That would move things along a lot faster than a picture.”
“I was undercover. Highly inconvenient if they’d found them on me. I didn’t even bring my phone.”
“Uh-huh. Turned out to be dangerous anyway. For the dead lady. Your prints are all over the murder weapon, by the way.”
“Then somebody squeezed my hand around it while I was out. Maybe the guy who was going to cut my throat. They were obviously going to frame me for her murder.”
“Cops got a call about a fight in that building. Screams and stuff getting knocked around.”
“Right, that was me and the guy. I broke the jerk’s arm in about six places. I gave a description of him to NYPD. Try going around to the emergency rooms. The asshole’s probably in one crying like a baby.”
The man continued. “They go there and out you pop all covered in blood and your prints on the knife. What do you think I’m thinking? That you’re undercover FBI like you say, or you’re a killer. This ain’t TV, lady. This ain’t a plot twist, okay?”
“Just take the picture and send it to the Bureau.” She had a sudden thought. “To Special Agent Eddie Laredo, of the New York Field Office.”
“Okay, while we’re waiting, you can come with me.”
He had a uniformed cop unlock the door and her cuff and led Pine to an interrogation room. The cop then pushed her down into a chair set at a table, locked her leg into a bolt in the floor, and left. Barnes sat down across from her and put the file down on the table.
“We haven’t identified the vic yet.”
“I told you who she was.”
“Who you were told she was. What were you doing in that building?”
“I was knocked out and taken there. I woke up next to the body.”
“Where were you taken from?”
She gave him the address of the building on Fifty-Seventh Street.
“Ritzy neighborhood,” he said.
“You might want to pay attention to it. You might find a lot of international crooks live pretty well there.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. And they got twenty lawyers for every one we got, so who’s gonna win that battle? So keep talking. What happened next?”
“I confirmed that she was dead and then kicked the crap out of the guy who’d been sent there to finish me off. And then I broke out of the room. That’s when the cops showed up and almost shot me.”
“You’re covered in her blood, you know. They checked you for wounds and found none.”
“My arm has twin bruises about the size of Rhode Island. What do you call that?”
“So you beat this guy up and he just ran off? Doesn’t seem likely.”
“Why, because I’m a girl? Give me a two-by-four and I’ll show you how hard I can hit.”
“I’ll take your word for it. You know, we could have put all of you in a giant evidence bag. We’re going to need to take those clothes and run swabs all over you.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t done that yet.”
“We need the suits to paper it first. Don’t want you running around screaming about your Fourth Amendment rights being violated, do we, Ms. FBI Agent?”
She calmed and studied him, sensing an opportunity. “You have two exceptions to the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, at least with respect to my situation.”
Barnes watched her closely, suddenly looking intrigued. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Plain view, which the blood on me obviously is.”
“And the other?”
“Search incident to a lawful arrest with a condition being the preservation of evidence. Again, a condition my situation meets perfectly. I won’t charge you for either one of those. It’s on the house. Fed to local cop. Want to return the favor?”
Barnes sat up straighter and his confrontational look slowly dissipated. “So, what case you working, Agent Pine?”
“It’s a long story.”
“What was that name again at the FBI?”
“Eddie Laredo. So now you believe me?”
Barnes stood. “You said you were a cop and I gave you the chance to prove it. Plain view and incident to with all necessary criteria laid out just like it is on the detective’s exam? You passed with flying colors. Only a cop’s going to know that stuff.”
He left and was gone far longer than a minute. Pine had actually put her head down on the table and fallen asleep. Whatever they had used on her to knock her out had really kicked her ass.
She woke up when the door opened.
“Well, well, so we meet again.”
FBI Special Agent Eddie Laredo looked down at her, an incredulous grin on his face.
As Pine looked up at him, she was both extraordinarily happy to see him, but also wanted to strangle him just to wipe the smirk off his features.
It might have been a very good thing that she was bolted to the floor.
Chapter 32
This sounds like some serious crap you’re involved in,” said Laredo as he drove Pine back to Newark where her car was. It was late the following morning, and Pine had spent much of the ride filling Laredo in on what had happened.
Pine had given her statement to the NYPD, turned over her clothes for evidence, had photos taken of the blood spatter on her body, and then been released. They had given her blue hospital scrubs and flip-flops in place of her clothes, and she had left the precinct with Laredo.
“Story of my life, Eddie.”
“And this CID guy you’re working with?”
“John Puller, yeah.”
“You talked to him?”
“I haven’t talked to anyone, other than Carol Blum on your phone.”
“All this pushback you’ve been getting from the locals and the feds, that’s really troublesome, Atlee.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“And this lowlife Tony Vincenzo playing with the big boys in that penthouse? How does that make sense?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they like to keep the foot soldiers happy. Hell, it’s probably empty except when they let the riffraff come up to play. But it is bizarre.”
“Well, I wish you luck. Sounds like you’re going to need it.”
He dropped her at her car, where Blum was going to meet her.
As Laredo pulled away, Blum drove up in an Uber. She got out, walked over, and gave Pine a hug.
When Blum stepped back, Pine saw the other woman’s strained features. “I’m fine, Carol, I really am.”
“I know,” Blum said in a hushed voice. “But it was close, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” she conceded.
She held up a spare set of car keys for the rental. “Now, let’s get you back to the hotel and cleaned up.”
They drove back to the hotel and Pine did just as Blum had suggested. The hot water took off the blood and grime. She stood in the shower for at least thirty minutes, letting both the stink and another woman’s blood flow off her. As she watched the red swirl down the drain, she leaned her forehead against the tile of the shower wall and started to sob. She wasn’t sure why — no, maybe part of her did know.
Lindsey Axilrod played me like a fiddle. And Sheila Weathers is dead because of it.