Bodies in Winter hc-1 Read online

  When Adele joined me a moment later, I said, ‘You think it’d throw enough heat to keep Spott alive for a few days? It’s been cold as hell all week.’

  Adele let the beam of her flashlight play across the floor until it met the red eyes of a large rat. One paw resting on an open can of Vienna sausages, the rat had raised itself up and was sniffing the air, its head swiveling from side to side. Unfazed, Adele continued, systematically exploring the room until she came upon a series of semi-liquid puddles that had the unmistakable shape, color and texture of human vomit. ‘Look there, Corbin,’ she said. ‘That tells the whole story.’

  The sequence I imagined at that moment — of DuWayne carried to this building, of DuWayne’s cold-turkey withdrawal, of DuWayne begging for dope, of DuWayne vomiting in the corner — seemed flawless to me. When his captors finally offered him a taste, he hadn’t hesitated, not for a split second.

  I walked back toward the body, letting my eyes take in the little touches, the open glassine envelope, the guttered candle, the disposable red lighter, the tiny ball of cotton lying in the bowl of a blackened tablespoon. As I approached, I tried to summon up a trace of pity for DuWayne Spott but came away empty. He was a player who got played. It happens all the time.

  ‘I’m gonna call in the troops,’ I finally said.

  ‘Better come in here and take a look first.’

  When I complied, Adele, ever the impresario, yanked up a corner of the mattress to reveal the point of the charade, a TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine that had to be a foot long.

  Two uniforms by the Eight-Three’s arrived first, followed by the Eight-Five’s patrol sergeant, two detectives, a squad lieutenant named Burke and the Crime Scene Unit. This was all routine and I let Adele conduct the relevant briefings, only nodding agreement when absolutely necessary. But then Bill Sarney turned up in the company of the precinct commander, followed shortly by an inspector from borough command and a deputy chief from One PP. Sarney’s attitude as he approached the deputy chief was so deferential he might have been a house servant on a southern plantation.

  I remember watching the network vans rolling up, a pair of cops refusing to let them turn onto Ingraham Street, frantic reporters behind a web of crime-scene tape, the unblinking eyes of a dozen video cameras. I kept thinking that maybe Adele was right, maybe the bad guys had played their last card, but that card was a beauty. The bosses were about to bet the house on DuWayne Spott. Never mind the fact that neither Mr Spott, nor any of his associates, could possibly have acquired the number of my cell phone. And never mind the faint ligature marks encircling Spott’s wrists, either. Those were details that could easily be put to the side. The important thing was that whatever doubt the voting public might have had about DuWayne Spott’s guilt would be wiped away by the recovery of the TEC-9. The job could now bury David Lodge, once and for all, simply by going along with the script.

  It ended very nicely. A deputy inspector whose name I’ve long forgotten approached Adele and me, offering his hand for a quick, firm shake. He told us that we’d done a great job, but the case was going over to a special unit in the Chief of Detectives Office. We should return to our squad, write whatever fives were necessary to cover the day’s events, then copy the entire Lodge file and place the copy on Sarney’s desk. Forthwith.

  Sarney was waiting for us when we arrived and he was smiling. I told him about the second tip, the one that had carried us to Spott’s resting place. He listened carefully before also congratulating us.

  ‘You guys have a few days coming,’ he told us, ‘and I want you to take them. I don’t expect to see either one of you before Monday. Capisch?’

  When I began to write up my fives a few hours later, the interviews of Ellen Lodge and Dante Russo seemed part of some ancient history I’d discarded long before. I can’t say I hadn’t expected this sort of an ending, or that I didn’t feel relieved to have concluded the business without having to inform on my partner. But there was a bitterness as well and I couldn’t get the taste of it out of my mouth.

  Mike Blair had a drink waiting for me before I reached the bar. When I chugged it down, he refilled my glass without me having to ask. ‘It’s goin’ bad, right?’ he said. ‘The Lodge thing?’

  ‘I’m done with it,’ I explained. ‘The case’s gonna be run from the Puzzle Palace. What I think they’ll do — if they haven’t already done it — is put the murder on DuWayne Spott, then hunt for a second shooter among his associates.’

  ‘That’s good you’re getting clear of it. Because I’ve been hearing things.’ Blair’s eyes jumped to mine, a quick penetrating glance designed to catch me off-guard.

  ‘Like what?’

  He leaned out over the bar. ‘Nobody’s talkin’ against you, Harry. Everybody knows you’re a cop’s cop. But your partner? The word out there is that she has a hard-on for the job.’

  I might have debated the logic of the charge, given Adele’s gender, or I might have defended her, but I didn’t do either. Instead, halfway through a third scotch, I carried my drink to Linus Potter’s table and sat down without being invited.

  With Potter, you had to get past the gargantuan shoulders and the tiny head and the buzz cut before you could see what he really looked like. Far from raging, his blue eyes were slanted at the corners and a little sad, while his mouth, beneath a thick brown mustache, was free of tension. The impression I got was of a man who knew his life might have gone in a different direction if not for circumstances beyond his control.

  ‘Tell me about Lieutenant Justin Whitlock,’ I asked. ‘What happened to him?’

  Potter laughed, then let his eyes drop to the table. I think he was waiting for me to go away, but I simply held my ground, as I had at our first discussion. Gradually, his eyes came up. This time, they appeared amused.

  ‘Whitlock, one day he calls Dave into his office. He tells Dave that complaints are comin’ from all over the house and nobody wants to ride with him. So Dave, what he does is throw a tantrum, figuring he can intimidate Whitlock. He tosses his chair, kicks the waste basket, slams his hand on Whitlock’s desk.’ Potter laughed again, a deep chuckle that rumbled in his chest. ‘And it works. Would ya believe that? Instead of puttin’ the asshole on suspension, Whitlock teams Dave up with Dante Russo, one bad deed leading to another, if you take my meaning.’

  I pushed my chair back, started to get to my feet, then sat back down. ‘Lemme ask you somethin’ serious, Potter, if you don’t mind?’

  He looked at me for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘I got two things on my mind. First, my shoes are ruined from the snow and my feet are freezing. Second, the Broom, he didn’t commit suicide. And what I can’t figure out is which one is bothering me the most.’

  Potter was still laughing when I walked out of Sparkle’s a moment later.

  SEVENTEEN

  The highlight of my weekend was a pair of stories in Sunday’s New York Times. I lived in a middle-income housing development on the east side of Manhattan called Rensselaer Village. My two-bedroom apartment, for which I paid $950 per month, was an inadvertent legacy from my parents who’d resided in the complex for the better part of four decades. In line with New York’s complicated rent laws, after my father and mother split for a retirement community on Long Island, I simply inherited the 800 square feet, along with the extremely low rent. Nearly identical apartments in my building now went for three grand a month.

  When my parents announced that they were off to the burbs, I was living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and considering the possibility of relocating to Maplewood, New Jersey. Instead, I went to live in the heart of the great financial engine that drove Sheepshead Bay, Maplewood and everything else within a radius of fifty miles. I was pleased, to be sure, but still cautious. Before moving in, I had every stick of furniture removed, including the curtains on the windows, the artwork on the walls and the cabinets in the bathroom. Then I had the rooms painted, the windows washed and the floors refini
shed with two coats of clear polyurethane specially formulated for basketball courts.

  If I’d known a priest, I’d have had an exorcism performed as well.

  The two stories appeared in the Metro section. The first, and by far the larger, revealed the latest developments as related by Deputy Chief Simon Kramer in the course of a press conference. Kramer had begun the conference by announcing that the gun found by Detectives Bentibi and Corbin near the body of DuWayne Spott had been positively linked to the murder of David Lodge by the Ballistics Unit. Moreover, two prints left by Spott’s right index finger were found on the automatic’s receiver. Then he went on to confirm a pair of facts already leaked to the media: Spott died of an accidental heroin overdose and he was alone when his body was discovered.

  A twist of the knife, our names appearing in the paper. The integrity of the crime scene was now guaranteed by my and Adele’s personal integrity. It was no longer possible to suggest the gun had been planted without suggesting that Adele and I had planted it.

  But if the first story had the feel of a nail driven into a coffin, the second managed to at least crack the lid. It’s author, Albert Gruber, had somehow wangled a phone interview with Dr Vencel Nagy.

  David Lodge, Nagy told Gruber (as he’d told me) had not been fearful as his release date approached, nor had he spoken about the possibility of assassination. Instead, though Lodge still had no clear memory of his whereabouts when Spott was murdered, he was convinced of his innocence.

  The Gruber story had almost certainly been planted. At the very least, the reporter had been fed enough information about Nagy to inspire a phone call. My first thought was of Adele. They were already talking about her in the One-Sixteen. If she was blamed for the leak, the buzz would grow louder. Of course, there was also the possibility that Adele was guilty as charged. I’d left the precinct right after finishing the paperwork, my goal to avoid another lecture. Of Adele’s plans for the weekend, I knew nothing.

  Mike Blair’s voice sounded in my ear at that moment. Nobody’s talkin’ about you, Harry. Everybody knows you’re a cop’s cop.

  At six o’clock, too restless to stay inside, I headed over to the Y. There were people in the pool, swimming laps, and I had to share a lane with a teenage kid who kept sprinting forward as if trying to reach the end of a punishment. He splashed water in my face every time I went by.

  After a choppy half-hour, the kid took off, leaving me alone with thoughts I was unable to arrange in a sequence that reached any good end. Maybe the rumors would die away. Maybe Adele would back off. Maybe we’d resume our regular duties. But the bitterness would remain, of that I was certain. David Lodge would become the part of my career I avoided thinking about.

  And I knew I could take his killers down. I had no doubt whatever. The bad guys’ blitzkrieg strategy was driven by necessity. They needed DuWayne Spott in the ground and the Lodge murder closed before the various discrepancies Adele and I had uncovered were closely scrutinized. And the emergence of the wild card, Vencel Nagy, had compounded the pressure. If it wasn’t done quickly, they must have known, it wouldn’t be done at all.

  I stayed at it for another forty-five minutes, but I couldn’t settle into my stroke. For once, I was unable to separate the events from the emotions they aroused. And I didn’t even know who I was angrier with, Adele or Sarney. Because they were both right. Letting David Lodge’s killers off the hook went against every instinct. On one level, I was as outraged as Adele. But that didn’t make Sarney wrong. There were definitely times when you had to watch your own ass, when you had to acknowledge your place in the greater scheme of things. Otherwise, you paid the price.

  I carried that last thought through a shower and the short walk to Rensselaer Village, where I picked up the phone and called Adele. When she answered after several rings, I told her about Mike Blair’s warning, repeating it almost word for word. Her reaction was predictable.

  ‘What,’ she asked, her tone amused, ‘must I do to make amends?’

  ‘How about telling me that you didn’t plant that story in the Times.’

  The question was meant to surprise her and she didn’t respond immediately. Determined not to speak first, I listened to her breathe into the phone as she weighed her answer. Of one thing I was fairly certain: she wouldn’t lie to me.

  ‘Everybody loves you, Corbin,’ she finally said, ‘but you have the instincts of a shark.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘Look, what I do on my own time is my own business. I don’t have to account to you. After all, you’re a “cop’s cop”.’

  ‘Forget it, Adele. I’m not buying into the guilt trip. I didn’t start that rumor and I’m not spreading it around.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now, let me back up a little. You do know the story I’m talking about, right? Gruber’s story in the New York Times?’

  ‘I read it.’

  ‘Did you plant it?’

  ‘I don’t have to answer to you, Corbin. I’ve already said that.’

  ‘I’m your partner, Adele. You don’t hide something like this from your partner.’

  But Adele wasn’t buying into any guilt trips, either. ‘I won’t be in next week,’ she announced. ‘I’ve got eight vacation days coming and I’ve decided to take them right away.’

  ‘And what if Sarney doesn’t allow you to take them?’

  ‘Corbin, sometimes you’re very naive. Sarney can’t wait to be rid of me.’

  EIGHTEEN

  I was sitting behind my desk at nine-thirty the following morning when Jack Petro entered the squad room carrying a box of donuts from Acme Cake, a commercial bakery located in the Eight-Three. Jack set the donuts on a filing cabinet, opened the box and shouted, ‘Breakfast is served.’ Within seconds, he’d drawn a crowd.

  I paused long enough to fill a mug with coffee so thick it might have been used to caulk a boat, then joined Petro, Bill Sarney and two other detectives, Esteban Arroyo and Carl Stein. After a few minutes, Arroyo and Stein drifted off. Jack followed a moment later.

  ‘You guys wanna try teamin’ up?’ Sarney asked, his tone sincere as far as I could tell. ‘You and Jack?’

  ‘And after Adele’s vacation?’

  Sarney looked at me for a moment, his gaze speculative, as though I’d caught him by surprise. Then he leaned forward and dropped his voice. ‘Bentibi’s on her way to a desk job at Borough Command. In fact, the only reason I let her take her vacation days was because I wanted to be rid of her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Ya know somethin’, lou,’ I said. ‘It’s just not right, punishing someone for doing the job they were trained to do.’

  Again, Sarney’s look became quizzical. ‘What is it with you and this broad?’ he asked. ‘Because if you’re worried about leavin’ her to swing in the breeze, you should remember that she put the noose around her own neck.’ When I didn’t answer, he smiled and reached out to tap my shoulder. ‘Alright, she’s your partner, Harry, and I’m sorry I asked you to keep an eye on her. But Adele is history, and so is David Lodge. The way I count ’em up, those are blessings.’

  Jack Petro waved me over to his desk as the door closed behind our commander’s retreating back. ‘You see the paper today?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  Petro took a copy of the Times from his briefcase. The story he wanted me to read was in the Metro section and by the same Albert Gruber who’d interviewed Vencel Nagy. This time Gruber had gotten to Ivy Whittington and Kamia Thompson, Spott’s aunt and cousin. Gruber used their words to create a portrait of a born loser, then asked the same question Adele and I had asked. How could a junkie-pimp like DuWayne Spott know when David Lodge was due for release or where he was going?

  Gruber was an investigative reporter and could easily have found Ivy and Kamia on his own. But he could not have described the DuWayne Spott crime scene, as he proceeded to do, right down to the heater, the stolen electricity and the vomit, without help fro
m someone who’d been there.

  ‘Being as I’m an experienced detective,’ Jack said when I looked up, ‘I can tell from your pained expression that you’re an innocent man. Can I also assume that you’ve heard the talk? About your partner?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then what ya gotta figure is the further away you get, the better it’s gonna come out. This woman, she don’t know when to lay off. I’m tellin’ you this as a friend.’

  He was right, of course. Adele had never understood the job, had never tried to understand. Somehow, she’d come to believe she could use the job to further her own ends. I was troubled by no such delusion, but Adele had one advantage, nevertheless. She could walk away and suffer only economic consequences. For me, the job was as close to family as I’d managed to get in my life. The thought of giving it up was not, at that moment, something I was willing to entertain.

  Jack took off at that point, back to his own desk, leaving me to my thoughts. I sat there for a moment, annoyed with myself and with the situation, until my eye was attracted to a fax sitting on Adele’s desk. The fax was from Deputy Warden Beauchamp, the great white hunter, and listed David Lodge’s visitors during the four years of his incarceration at the Attica Correctional Facility. There were only two names on the list: Ellen Lodge and Linus Potter.

  Prison, a felon with long experience once told me, is a lonely place. As time goes on, the letters and the visitors stop coming and you get the feeling nobody even remembers your name. But Linus Potter had been faithful, showing up in early December and again in late May or early June every year. Ellen Lodge was another matter. She’d visited her husband exactly once, five months before his release.

  We had a good time that week, Jack and I, putting away a homicide on Tuesday and an armed robber a few days later. Both were gifts. The murderer was kind enough to slay his victim, a rival for his wife’s affections, in full view of three witnesses who knew him well. He surrendered peacefully when we knocked on his door an hour later. The stick-up man’s mistake was his target. The discount linen store he robbed was protected by three video cameras, each of which got a clear shot of his face.