“I could drink Veuve Clicquot all night,” her bar companion singsonged as she ran a teasing finger under the small of the schoolgirl’s foot. “They call me Gretchen,” she added with a wry little smile that accented a Betty Boop face.
“Dance! Dance! Dance to the music! Grind! Grind! Grind to the beat!” The DJ’s rhythmic incantations exhorted the excitement seekers to heightened realms of rapture spurred now by Janet’s Jackson’s “Nasty.”
Circumnavigating the bar, waiters, costumed as mermaids, scurried in stiletto heels to deliver drinks.
“I just love ladies’ night. Don’t you?” Gretchen crooned.
“That I do,” said the schoolgirl. “But I’m inhaling enough noxious perfume to hatch a pulmonary tumor.”
“Oooooo, pulmonary! Sounds raunchy. Sure like the sound of that. You a nurse or an obstetrician?”
“Silly,” the girl giggled.
“Why don’t you lead me to your examination table? I just love stirrups.”
“All right, then. Hi-ho, Silver!”
Gretchen signaled the bar’s mermaid for the check.
The Catholic schoolgirl rummaged through her over-stuffed bra and produced a crisp $50 bill.
“The libations are on me,” she said, grabbing hold of Gretchen’s hand, before heading for the exit.
“You Kyle Ramsey?” The voice cropped up out of nowhere. It stopped the Catholic schoolgirl dead in her tracks. When she turned around, the glow of a woman’s face stared back at her.
“Sorry, honey. The name’s Celeste. And who might I ask are you?”
“We’ve got your bike,” Sergeant Aligante said flatly, producing her shield.
Gretchen quickly disappeared, swallowed up by the throng of gyrating dancers.
“Do I look like I’d be riding a bike in this getup, darling?”
“Your bike. The Brooklyn Bridge. Am I ringing any bells?”
The etchings of fear began to form on Ramsey’s face. He climbed back onto his barstool and invited Margaret to join him.
“It was just supposed to be an early-morning jaunt. That’s all. The guy’s dead. Right?”
“What guy is that?”
“The guy whose head was bleeding.”
“The man’s dead, all right. What can you tell me about him?”
“What’s to tell? He was lying there when I found him. I’m the one who called 911.”
“Been to Coney Island recently, Mr. Ramsey? Or to the Museum of Natural History?”
A look of panic seized Kyle Ramsey.
“Wait a minute. Does this have something to do with those two tourists who were killed?”
“This’ll go a lot easier if I ask the questions.”
“I’m sorry. But that’s gotta be it. Why else would you be here asking questions?”
“Which you haven’t answered.”
“I’ve never been to Coney Island. It’s a dreadful place. And the last time I was to a museum I was six years old. Honest!”
It appeared to Margaret that the man was about to cry.
“We think there may have been someone else on that bridge, Mr. Ramsey.”
“You’re damn right there was. There was this guy. At least I think it was a guy. Anyway, he darted out in front of me. I swerved the bike to avoid him and hit the goddamn bridge.” Ramsey leaned in conspiratorially. “I think I may have hit the bastard.”
“We do too.”
Margaret eyed the man dressed in Catholic schoolgirl attire. Could she have found her serial killer hiding behind lipstick, mascara, and a padded bra? Every instinct said no. His story too closely paralleled the evidence. And why would a killer leave a traceable ten-speed racer at the scene of a murder?
“Let me buy you a drink,” said Margaret. “What’ll it be?”
“I’ll have another mimosa.”
“Make that two,” said Margaret to the bar’s mermaid.
“You look more like the Cosmopolitan type, if you don’t mind me saying,” said Ramsey. “And don’t you feel just a tad out of place in this meat emporium?”
“What? You don’t like my Versace blouse?”
“On the contrary, I like it too much.”
Whoa! Was this guy a switch-hitter? Margaret couldn’t remember ever being hit on by a man dressed in drag. Oddly enough, she found it amusing. Life’s just full of surprises, she thought.
“Kyle, tell me about the guy you think you hit.”
“From the top?”
“From the top.”
“Okay. I’m racing across the bridge. I do it every morning. That particular morning I was trying to better my time from the day before. As I’m closing in on the second piling, I check my stopwatch. I’m doing okay. Then out of nowhere this guy…or girl. Whatever! Let’s call him a guy. This guy pops out in front of me. Smack! I hit him. At least I think I did. It all happened so fast. Anyway, the guy does a cartwheel and I hit the floorboards. Man, did that hurt! When I get to my feet the guy is bolting and my bike looks like an accordion. That’s when I spotted the man with the head wound. I checked for a heartbeat. There didn’t appear to be any. So I called 911.”
“Why didn’t you identify yourself?”
“I should have. I know. The whole thing was just too scary. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
“Why’d you leave the bike behind?”
“It was beyond repair. It wasn’t until I reached home that I remembered the bike’s serial number and that it might be traceable. I was gonna head back to retrieve it, but by that time the bridge was filled with police cars. I made a mistake in leaving it, huh?”
“Let’s get back to the guy you hit. Wha’d he look like?”
“I never saw his face.”
“He was a foot in front of you!”
“It all happened in a flash. I think he had a hood on. Maybe a baseball cap under that. But I didn’t see his face. That’s all I can tell ya. Honest.”
Margaret glanced around the crowded club. The music was still blaring and the crowd was still jostling to the beat. An odd smile creased her face. She turned her attention back to Kyle Ramsey.
“All guys, huh?”
Ramsey returned her gaze. “Like a little piece of heaven. Wouldn’t you say?”
Chapter 17
Driscoll pulled the rain-battered Chevy to a complete stop as the Long Island Railroad’s red and white crossing gates descended up ahead. He narrowed his eyes, focusing them on the rearview mirror, hoping to sidestep a haunting recollection from his past. But the thunderous sound of the passing commuter train catapulted the nightmarish memory to consciousness. On a sunny morning in August, when Driscoll was eight years old, he had been standing curbside, watching his mother climb the steps of the LIRR’s Jamaica station. Ten minutes later, as the Manhattan-bound 10:39 came rumbling in, the woman launched herself into its path, ending her life and indelibly scarring John Driscoll. He never forgave his mother for her selfish act and never forgave himself for that notion.
His heart was still racing when a car horn sounded. The train had passed, the gates were up, and a motorist behind him was politely asking Driscoll to proceed. Guilt ridden, he put the cruiser in drive and stepped on the gas.
Thirty minutes later, with the rain still playing havoc with the cruiser’s windshield wipers, Driscoll guided the Chevy past the limestone pillars that marked the entrance to Saint Charles Cemetery. Although his mother was interred there, it wasn’t her grave he had come to visit. After giving the security guard a nod, he followed the curves in the road until he came to within fifty feet of the section where his wife and daughter were buried. Pulling the Chevy to the curb, he turned off the engine and sat motionless, lost to reflection. Lightning filled the luminous sky, followed by a slow rumble of thunder that echoed through the graveyard. Driscoll thought it sounded like the drumroll that preceded an execution.
Silence filled the cruiser’s cabin as the rain subsided. Driscoll opened the car door and was engulfed by cold and damp air. Heading for the gravesite, he noticed green moss had begun to obscure the headstone’s carved lettering. He used his handkerchief to scrape away the uninvited decay.