The convoy pulled up: two squad cars followed by a Ford van, then another two squad cars. The van stopped directly in front of us, and a uniform jumped out and slid the door open. I climbed into the back, and Cheryl sat in the center row next to Kylie. She’d been crying, and Cheryl put a comforting arm around her, although I wondered how much comfort was possible.
“It’s my fault,” Kylie said as soon as we started rolling. “I should never have kicked him out of the apartment.”
“You didn’t kick him out,” Cheryl said. “You checked him into rehab.”
Kylie shook her head. “It was a day program. I could have let him live at home.”
“Do you really think that would have made a difference?” Cheryl said, her voice consoling and without a trace of judgment. “Addicts put their lives at risk every day — it’s what they do. No one can stop them, and when it ends in tragedy, it’s never anybody’s fault but their own. I know you know that.”
Kylie nodded her head and whispered “Thank you.” Cheryl took a quick look over her shoulder and made eye contact with me just in case I still didn’t understand why she was along for the ride.
The traffic was thin, and the ribbon of strobe lights quickly scattered everyone in our path as we sped through Spanish Harlem and over the Madison Avenue Bridge into the southern tip of our city’s most ravaged borough.
Back in the seventies, the South Bronx was the epicenter of murder, rape, robbery, and arson in the U.S., and the cry “The Bronx is burning” was heard across America. Today, many of the burned-out buildings have been replaced, but with half the population living below the poverty line, the area is still a magnet for gangs, drug peddlers, and violent crime.
As we turned onto East 163rd Street, I thought about all the “safer places” in the city to cop drugs, and I wondered what drew a white-collar junkie to the dark, unwelcoming streets here in the shadow of Yankee Stadium.
And then Cheryl’s words echoed in my brain. “Addicts put their lives at risk every day — it’s what they do.” Spence Harrington had done it once too often.
The van pulled to a stop, the door opened, and a tall man in an NYPD windbreaker introduced himself to Kylie. “Detective Peter Varhol,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss, Detective MacDonald.”
He led the way to the crime scene. Kylie and I had seen it many times before: a fetid patch of ground in the bowels of the city, a drug buy gone bad, a body lying under a sheet. Some cops say they’re immune to it, but for me it’s always gut-wrenching. Only this time it was personal.
Cheryl and I stood back a respectful distance and let Kylie approach the body. A technician pulled back the sheet, and she fell to her knees. Within seconds she slumped over, and her body heaved with sobs.
Cheryl moved closer, knelt beside her, crossed herself, and then stood up abruptly. “Zach,” she said, her head motioning toward the corpse.
I stepped forward and dropped to my knees next to Kylie. The man on the ground had a blood-caked hole in the middle of his forehead. His eyes were wide-open, a look of utter disbelief frozen on his face.
He was dead. Murdered in cold blood. But he wasn’t Spence.
Chapter 42
“First body I ever called wrong,” Detective Varhol said to Kylie. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kylie said. “The first responder saw my name in Spence’s wallet. I got the call before you were even on the scene.”
“I know, but the cop who ID’d the body is a rookie,” Varhol said. “And the vic looks enough like the picture on your husband’s driver’s license that it’s an easy mistake to make, but damn, once I got here, I should have taken a closer look.”
It was a much bigger mea culpa than the situation called for. I was thinking what a stand-up guy Varhol was when he smoothly shifted gears. “You recognize him, don’t you?” he said.
Kylie hadn’t volunteered the victim’s name, but Varhol had good cop instincts, and he’d disarmed her just enough to catch her off guard.
Withholding information is one thing. Lying is another. Kylie owned up. “His first name is Marco. I don’t know his last name. My husband is a TV producer, and Marco worked for the catering company that services Spence’s productions.”
Varhol waited for more, but that was all she was going to give up.
“Detective MacDonald,” he said, “this was a drug deal gone south. If your husband is using, that’s your problem. My problem is that I have a homicide to solve, and I need all the help I can get.”
Kylie filled him in on what we found at Shelley’s apartment.
“And this kid Seth,” Varhol said. “Do you know his last name?”
“No.”
“Any idea how I can track him down?”
“He works at Silvercup Studios. Why don’t you swing by there first thing in the morning? They usually gear up by seven.”
“The morning,” Varhol repeated.
“Please,” Kylie said.
Varhol looked at his watch. “It’s ten thirty. I guess I could wait until morning.”
Anyone listening to their conversation would have taken them for two cops talking logistics, but I knew enough to read the subtext.
Seth might have information that could lead to the killer, and Varhol wanted to interview him immediately. Kylie also wanted to talk to Seth, because he might lead her to Spence. But she wasn’t connected to the case or the official investigation, so Varhol gave her until seven a.m. to do what she always does: bend the rules.
“Thanks,” she said.
“And when you find your husband,” he said, “give me a call. I have his wallet, and I’d like to know how it wound up in a dead man’s pocket.”
He walked off to talk with his crime scene tech, leaving me, Kylie, and Cheryl to talk in private.
“We have to find Seth and talk to him tonight,” Kylie said.
“We can start by calling Shelley Trager,” I said.
“No. He’s gone through enough hell with Spence. Let’s call Bob Reitzfeld. He can access the employee database, and he can keep a secret.”
“Who’s Bob Reitzfeld?” Cheryl asked.
“He was on the job thirty years,” I said. “Great cop, but he couldn’t handle retirement, so he got a job in security at Silvercup at fifteen bucks an hour. Now he’s running the department. Kylie is right. Reitzfeld can help us.”
Cheryl looked at Kylie. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I know why you’re here, Dr. Robinson,” Kylie said. “If that were Spence lying on the ground, you would take me out of the line of fire and chain me to a desk, and I wouldn’t argue with you. But it’s not Spence, so believe me when I tell you I’m okay — totally okay.”
Cheryl nodded. “In that case, I don’t want to slow you down.” She looked at me. “Either of you.”
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“Me?” she said, managing to look innocent and devilish at the same time. “This place is crawling with cops. I’m going to find the best-looking one and catch a ride into Manhattan.”
“So, then I’ll see you at home,” I said.
She gave me half a shrug. “If you’re lucky.”
Chapter 43
I called Bob Reitzfeld at home.
“Damn,” he said when I told him about Marco. “I liked him, but the son of a bitch was a toe tag waiting to happen. I’m glad it’s not Spence.”
“Do you know this kid Seth?”
“Seth Penzig,” he said. “Him I don’t like.”
“So far I haven’t met anyone who does. Why doesn’t the studio fire him?”