He pressed the button again.
I got up from my desk and made it all the way to the front before he troubled the buzzer a fourth time.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” I said upon opening the door.
“LT.”
“You comin’ in or am I under arrest?”
“Somebody heard something,” he said. “They thought that it might have been a shot.”
“Yeah,” I said speculatively, “I heard something myself about an hour or so ago.”
“Can I come in?”
“Why? I already implied that I have no firsthand knowledge of a firearm being discharged.”
“Business.”
I shrugged and stepped to the side.
Kit walked in and we took that long familiar walk.
“Smells a little like gunpowder in here,” he said when he was seated in the chair next to the one Ira Lamont had inhabited.
“I don’t smell anything.”
The good policeman was looking around the floor, for blood spatter no doubt. Then he raised his gaze.
“Is that painting new?”
“Mardi made me put it up. Said that my office was too austere, something like that.”
Lieutenant Kitteridge could smell a lie better than a discharged weapon but he had other business to transact — lucky for me.
He sat back and crossed his right gray leg over his left.
“There was a body found buried in the compost heap in the People’s Garden behind St. Matthew’s Church,” he said, looking into my eyes.
“Down in the East Village?”
“Alphabet City.”
“So?”
“It was Shawna Chambers-Campbell,” he said, “the sister-in-law of Cyril Tyler, the man who sent the police after you on that extortion charge.”
“Whatever happened to that investigation?”
“I’m it.”
As a rule I don’t share information with the police. Cops have an unerring tendency to turn whatever you say against you. Silence is always the best defense. Kit was a good cop and therefore my enemy despite any comfort we had with each other. No matter how much I helped him, no matter what he might have owed me, Carson Kitteridge would see me in prison if he could.
Regardless of this, I had a case to solve and did not believe I could do it on my own.
“Do you have a picture of the deceased?” I asked.
He took a morgue photo from his pocket and handed it across the desk.
I noted once again how much more natural she looked in death.
“Someone looking very much like this woman came to my office a few days ago and said that she was Chrystal Chambers-Tyler. She wanted to hire me.”
“For what?”
“She said that her husband wanted to kill her, that he’d probably murdered his previous wives.”
“Her or her sister?”
“If this is who you say it is she was using her sister’s name.”
“Did she have proof?”
“No.”
“Why did she think he wanted to kill her... or her sister?”
“I don’t know. Believing her story, or at least the money she paid me to believe her story, I went to her husband and asked why she’d be afraid of him.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wanted to hire me to find her for him.”
“Did you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me where she was staying, and I wouldn’t have done that anyway. So instead I agreed to tell her that he said he loved her and would never hurt her.”
“Did you deliver that message?”
“No. I never saw her again.”
“Where’s the real Chrystal Tyler?” the cop asked.
“Obviously she left Cyril. That’s why he wanted me to find her.”
“You think she’s dead?”
“Possibly somebody wants her that way. Maybe they’ve succeeded. I don’t know.”
“So what do you know?”
“I just told you. The woman you call Shawna most likely came to me saying that she was Cyril’s wife. She said that somebody wanted her dead. And now you tell me that she is.”
“I want this motherfucker, LT.”
“Yeah,” I said, standing up from my chair. “Good luck with that.”
“Aren’t you gonna help me?”
“You just informed me that my client is dead. What else can I do?”
“You can come down to the station for a debriefing.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Now.”
“I have to do something right now, Lieutenant.”
“I could arrest you.”
“Go right ahead.”
Kitteridge stood up.
“Are you making this hard just ’cause I’m a cop?”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “But the other thing is that I have things to do. You want to question me, and I’m telling you that I’ll come down tomorrow.”
Kitteridge shook his head and turned away from me.
I followed him toward the exit.
47
I wasn’t really surprised to find Mardi working at her desk. She was devoted to me, but not particularly obedient. She smiled, and I did, too.
“Mardi,” Carson Kitteridge said. “You weren’t here when I came in.”
“Mr. McGill sent me out for something.”
“You’re working late.”
“He pays overtime.” That was true.
“You know, if you ever want an honest job I could probably get you an assistant’s position in my office. I’m due for a promotion.”
“Since that last job you did with Mr. McGill,” she said, oh so innocently. “Right?”
“This isn’t the kind of place for you,” the eternal cop said.
“It’s a thousand times better than where I came from.”
With a little help from me, Kitteridge had broken the case of her child-molester guardian. He knew what she was talking about. He had a whole file on the indictment, replete with home movies and firsthand journal accounts penned by Leslie Bitterman himself.
“I don’t know how you dazzle them, LT,” he said.
“Cult of personality,” I admitted.
He shook his head and walked out of the suite. He was leaving, but as with all cops he’d be back for more.
When Kit was gone I pulled a chair up to Mardi’s desk and stared at her. For maybe half a minute she concentrated on the keyboard, though we both knew that she was a touch-typist.
“Can I do something for you, Mr. McGill?”
“Carson’s right.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You shouldn’t be working for me. The city gives benefits, and they’re able to protect their employees.”
“I don’t need protection,” she said. “I have you.”
“You don’t understand what I’m sayin’, girl. The kind of people who come here, around me, they’re dangerous. Killers, some of ’em.”
“A killer isn’t the worst thing out there.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed, “but if you got hurt on my account it would break my heart. That’s a fact.”
Her response was a beatific smile.
“What if I put you in a different office on another floor?” I asked.
“You need me here,” she stated as an indisputable fact. “I file your papers, get your coffee.”
“In a few years you could run a whole office if you went somewhere else.”
“But I don’t want that life. I like it here. I like it a lot.”
“That guy,” I said, “the one who called himself Peters. He came in here with the intention of beating me until I gave him what he wanted.”
“But you didn’t let him.”
“What if he overpowered me?”
“Then I’d call the police.”
“What if he came after you?”
“Get me a gun and teach me how to shoot.”
The first time I had ever been aware of Mardi Bitterman she’d asked Twill for a gun so that she could kill the man masquerading as her father.
“Remember the woman who came in here a few days ago?” I asked.