Full Frontal Murder (11 page)

Marian introduced Holland and Alex Fairchild to each other. “It's the man's face that dominates that picture,” she said. “Not the boy's.”

Fairchild nodded. “The boy's face is still amorphous—no character showing yet. But the man's face—ah, just look at the depravity there! Marvelous.”

“How did you get that picture?” Holland asked. “Did the pederast pose for you?”

“Hardly. He didn't even know I was there until the flash went off. Then he tried to take my camera away from me.” Fairchild smiled a slow smile. “The kid skedaddled. I undoubtedly saved him from a Fate Worse Than Death.”

Holland smiled; he liked the picture of Fairchild sneaking shots in men's rooms better than the picture hanging on the wall. “You were hiding in one of the booths?”

“I was coming
out
of one of the booths. You take your opportunities where you find them.” Then Fairchild shifted his position slightly so he was facing Marian and effectively cutting Holland out of the conversation. “Rita said the kidnapper is dead.”

“We have an ID for him now,” Marian replied. “Does the name Nick Atlay mean anything to you?”

He looked blank, then shook his head. “Who is he? Or
was
he, rather.”

“Small-time crook.
Very
small-time. But without the brains to plan a kidnapping.”

“So you haven't closed the case?”

“Not by a long shot. It's the one who hired Atlay that we're looking for.”

“You know who that is.”

“I know who you think it is,” Marian said mildly. “But we still need evidence.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Yes, now we do. One of them I plan on following up myself tomorrow morning.”

“Which is?”

She just smiled. “Sorry.”

He smiled back. “No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to ask you to give away police secrets … Mary Ann? Isn't that what Bobby called you?”

“It's Marian, actually. And there are no secrets as such. But I can't disclose details of an ongoing investigation.”

“Of course not. And that reminds me—I'd love to get pictures of you on the job. But your Captain Murtaugh won't let me come in until the investigation is finished. I'd like to photograph you in a variety of settings.”

Holland stepped in closer.
Is this guy hitting on her?

“We can talk about that after the case is closed,” Marian said noncommittally.

Fairchild was working at being charming, his moist eyes holding hers in contact. “I can be very discreet, Marian. After the first hour, you'll forget I'm there. It's how I get my best pictures—by becoming invisible myself. I think you'll enjoy the experience.”

Holland felt himself scowling. There was an ingratiating sort of intimacy in the photographer's manner that bothered him. Slowly and deliberately, Holland put one arm around Marian, resting his hand on her shoulder. He'd catch holy hell later for
claiming
her like that, but Fairchild needed to be warned off. “You don't take any posed pictures at all?”

“Oh, sometimes I still do celebrity heads. When I can find an interesting face.” His eyes flickered toward Holland and away again; he'd gotten the message. “But almost no showbiz people. And never, ever professional models.”

“No showbiz people?” Marian repeated. “What about Kelly Ingram?”

He thought a moment. “Yes, I think I would like to photograph Kelly Ingram. There's some real personality in that face. But most of them in her profession look as if they all came from the same plastic mold. Models are even worse.”

Holland thought of the model in the bar the night before and had to agree.

The chat continued in a neutral vein for another few minutes until one of the other invited visitors came up and drew Fairchild away. Holland and Marian inspected the rest of the photographs on the walls and then slipped out.

“You got a little possessive in there, didn't you?” Marian asked on the way back to the car.

“Only a little,” he answered, and waited. But she said no more about it, surprising him.

They went to her place. Marian headed straight for the bathroom, and Holland wandered into the kitchen. He found the refrigerator filled almost to capacity; when Marian stocked up, she really stocked up. He fixed them a plate of cheeses and white grapes and took it into the living room.

Her apartment seemed smaller than the last time he'd been there. A cop's salary apartment. The place had been his haven, once. Back when he barely knew Marian, he'd gone to her for help and she'd taken him in. The apartment had looked magnificent to him then.

She came back from the bathroom and sat beside him on the sofa. “That looks good,” she said, taking a piece of cheese.

“You have enough food in there to feed an Olympic Village,” he said. “I take it you're planning to stay here for a while?”

She swallowed a bite of the cheese. “When I stay at your place too long, I begin to feel like a kept woman. Why don't you stay here for a while and feel like a kept man?”

“Very well,” he agreed. “And you may pamper me as much as you like.”

“Ha.”

Then he did something he'd never done before. He asked her to tell him about the case she was working on.

She told him without hesitation. Marian frequently talked over her cases with Holland, not so much because he'd once been an FBI agent but because explaining sometimes helped her think things through. It was also a sign of trust, and Holland appreciated that.

Now she explained about the vicious custody battle being waged by Rita and Hugh Galloway over young Bobby, about the spying cleaning woman with the false name, the attempted kidnapping, the firebombing that did minimal damage, and the murder of Nick Atlay.

“So you're proceeding on the assumption that whoever hired Atlay to snatch Bobby … killed him to shut him up?” he asked.

“Right. He's covered his tracks every step of the way, even to the point of crossing the line to murder.”

“And this lead you mentioned you were following up tomorrow morning—that's in connection with the phony cleaning woman?”

“More specifically, the legitimate cleaning woman she replaced. A woman named Annie Plaxton who now suddenly has enough money to open a laundromat in Hoboken, New Jersey.”

“Ah. I see. Follow the money. Good lead.” He thought a moment. “Where does Alex Fairchild fit in? Innocent bystander?”

“Well, he's definitely on Rita's side in the Galloway fight. He even bought her a gun to protect herself from Hugh. But I don't think Hugh's behind the kidnapping. And Hugh says Rita arranged a fake kidnapping to discredit him and I don't think that's true either.”

“So?”

“So, what if I'm wrong? The duel is between Hugh and Rita, and each of them has a second, so to speak. Hugh is backed up by his father, and Rita by her brother. But if Hugh is behind what's happened, he's on his own with no help from dear old dad. Walter Galloway is an old man—and, I think, infirm. I can't be sure because he never got out of his chair the time I talked to him. He looked frail to me. But if it's Rita doing these things, I can see Alex Fairchild helping her.”

“And that's the only way Fairchild might be involved?” He mulled that over. “It's a bit of a reach.”

“Granted. I think someone else is just exploiting a volatile situation. Rita and Hugh were bound to suspect each other. Rita is so sure Hugh is guilty that she won't even give me a list of friends and associates we could investigate. Those two really hate each other.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then Holland stretched both arms along the back of the sofa and asked casually, “Do you find him attractive?”

“Hugh?”

“Alex Fairchild.”

“Oh, he's okay, I guess.”

“He's interested in you, you know.”

“He wants another face for his collection.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps he wants more than that.”

“Oh, don't be silly.”

“I am never silly. He's after you, Marian. And he'll come after you again, some time when I'm not there.”

She sat up straight, astonishment written all over her. “You're serious, aren't you?”

“Dead serious.
Are
you attracted to him?”

Her face said
I don't believe this
. “Why would I be attracted to Alex Fairchild?”

“Why? Well, let's see. He's good-looking, in an offbeat sort of way. He can turn on the charm when he wants to. You can tell from the way he moves that he's a sensual man. He—
What?”

She was laughing so hard she almost fell off the sofa. “You just described yourself!”

He thought back over what he'd just said … and decided he was not displeased. He watched Marian hungrily as her laughter died down. Then: “You're overdressed.”

“Huh. You're oversexed.”

“Incompatible opposites. One of those two will have to go. Which shall it be?”

She stood up and started taking off her clothes.

11

Friday started the same way Thursday had. With a homicide.

“I wish your killer would stop dumping his victims in
my
precinct,” Detective Krantor complained on the phone.

Marian grunted. “I'll speak to him about it as soon as we catch him,” she replied, simultaneously resenting and understanding the need to treat violent death flippantly. “Are you sure it's Consuela Palmero?” The phony cleaning woman's body had been found in the East River at daybreak.

“Sure looks like her to me. Spitting image of the computer picture. Same M.O. as yesterday—two shots to the chest.”

“‘Palmero' isn't her real name.”

“Yeah, I know. And before you ask, yes, we're running the prints. I'll get back to you if there's anything on her.”

“Okay. Thanks, Krantor.”

After she'd hung up, she just sat there a few moments, letting it sink in. She'd been wrong. The spying cleaning woman was not an episode separate from the kidnapping, as she'd suspected. The Palmero woman was more than just an agent for Hugh Galloway in his fight against his wife, more than simply one more piece of nastiness in that nasty quarrel. She'd been hired by the same person who'd hired Nick Atlay to kidnap Bobby, and that person was eliminating everyone who could identify him.

Was there anyone else? Had Nick Atlay been the one to heave the gasoline bomb through Rita Galloway's dragon window—or would there be another body in the river tomorrow morning?

Someone who knew that Rita and Hugh would blame each other was behind this. Someone who'd seen both attempts to grab Bobby Galloway fail and was now desperately trying to cover all trails that could lead to him. Desperately, because he'd had to resort to murder to assure his continuing anonymity.

This time Marian called Alex Fairchild to come identify the body. Yesterday the sister, today the brother.

She went out into the squadroom where Perlmutter and O'Toole were waiting. “First,” she told them, “pick up Hugh Galloway and take him to the morgue to see the body. Then tell him we want a list of everyone he knows who needs money, or bears a grudge against the Galloways, or in any way is capable of planning and executing a kidnapping. Then find a judge and get a search warrant naming only Rita Galloway's address book, nothing else. Give her a choice of turning the address book over or of making out a list of possibles. If she chooses to make out the list, stay with her until she finishes.”

Perlmutter raised an eyebrow. “Long shot.”

“Yes, it is. But somebody who knows the Galloways planned the kidnapping and killed two people. And we don't have a suspect.”

“No suspect except Hugh Galloway,” Perlmutter stated.

“Naw,” O'Toole said. “Not Hugh. Rita.”

“You two are a big help. Go on, get going.”

She hurried over to Captain Murtaugh's office to tell him of the new homicide and that she was headed toward the morgue. To her surprise, he said he'd go with her.

“You bring in Hugh Galloway two days in a row,” he pointed out, “you can bet your bottom dollar he's going to have a legal cannon with him the second time.”

Marian was annoyed. “And I can't handle that?”

“I know the Galloways' lawyer—man named Bradford Ushton,” Murtaugh replied. “He's the one who gave my name to Walter Galloway, that time Galloway called to say the attempt to kidnap Bobby was for ransom. Perhaps I can ease things a little.”

Well, maybe he can at that
, she thought. Murtaugh wanted to drive, so they took his car.

Detective Krantor from the Thirteenth Precinct and Alex Fairchild were already at the morgue by the time they got there. The glassed-off room held the body of a slightly plump Latina in early middle age. She'd been a pretty woman, Marian noted sadly.

“He's identified her,” Krantor greeted them. “That makes it official. This one's yours.”

Marian introduced Murtaugh to the other two. To Fairchild she said, “This is the woman you caught going through Rita's checkbook? The one you threw out of the house?”

“She's the one,” he said positively. “I'd know her anywhere.”

Marian turned to the detective. “All right, Krantor, that lets you off the hook. Our case. Did you look through her personal effects?”

“Naw, I left that for you.”

Murtaugh spoke up. “She was found the same place in the river as the one yesterday?”

“Pretty close.” Krantor went on to describe the exact location, and then the captain wanted to know who'd found the bodies. Dockworkers, in both cases.

While they were talking, Alex Fairchild eased over to Marian and murmured in her ear, “I'm sorry we meet again under such unpleasant circumstances.”

“I'm sorry the circumstances exist at all.”

“I'd like to see you in a different setting. Le Vert-Galant, for instance. Are you free for lunch?”