Full Frontal Murder (12 page)

Marian was disgusted. “Mr. Fairchild, look where you are. There's a dead woman lying on the other side of that glass.”

He made a face of regret. “Yes, my timing is not the best, is it? I'll try later. And please—call me Alex.”

She just looked at him. “Thank you for helping us out. You're free to go now.”

He smiled a slow, easy smile. “I'm dismissed?” But he left without saying anything more. Marian watched him go, remembering that Holland had said this would happen.

Krantor left too. Marian asked the morgue attendant to wait; there'd be one more coming to see the body. Then she and Murtaugh went to look at the personal effects belonging to Consuela Palmero a.k.a. somebody else.

“No purse,” Murtaugh said when they'd emptied the storage bin onto a table.

Clothing that was a better quality than what Nick Atlay had been wearing. Nothing in the pockets of the jacket. Some costume jewelry. And that was all. “The killer ditched the purse,” Marian said.

The captain growled. “Sometimes I think we should all be tattooed with an ID number at birth. There's nothing here—let's go.” They went back to the viewing room and waited.

Hugh Galloway was much calmer this time when he showed up a few minutes later. And Captain Murtaugh had been right: he had a lawyer in tow. Perlmutter stuck his head in the room long enough to say he and O'Toole were leaving unless the lieutenant had something for them? Marian waved him away, barely hearing. She couldn't take her eyes off the lawyer.

Bradford Ushton was surprised to see Murtaugh there. “Jim? You're investigating?”

“Hello, Brad.” The captain indicated Marian. “Lieutenant Larch is in charge of the case. This is a formality, you understand. We're not charging your client. The lieutenant wants his help.”

“And she'll get it.” Ushton turned to Marian. “Please understand, Lieutenant, that Mr. Galloway is here voluntarily. He
wants
to help. A phone call would have brought him here. It's not necessary to send two detectives into his office to take him away whenever you have a new body for him to look at.”

“I'm hoping this is the last body, Mr. Ushton,” Marian said, keeping her face impassive.”

“It's standard procedure, Brad,” Murtaugh interposed. Ushton nodded.

Without being prompted, Hugh Galloway stepped up to the viewing window; Ushton must have pounded it into him that yelling at the police and making threats was not the way to help his case. But all the time Hugh was looking at the body, Marian kept watching Ushton out of the corner of her eye. That silver hair, that face she'd seen only the night before in one of Alex Fairchild's photographs …

Hugh Galloway spread his hands. “I don't know this woman. I don't remember ever seeing her before.”

Marian asked, “You didn't hire her to infiltrate your wife's household?”

With an effort, he kept his reaction mild. “No. I've had no contact with her whatsoever.”

“And that should settle that,” Bradford Ushton said emphatically. “Lieutenant? Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes, I am.” She signaled to the morgue attendant that they were through. “Thank you both for coming in.”

They all went out into the hallway, where Ushton and the captain chatted about other matters. Marian took Hugh Galloway aside.

“For what it's worth,” she told him, “I don't think you're behind any of this.”

His eyes widened, and then narrowed again in suspicion. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because you've got it in your head that Rita has persuaded us you are a monster. I don't want you doing anything rash.”

He grinned wryly. “Ushton has pretty much taken care of that. Then you believe me about Rita?”

“I don't think either one of you is responsible. Mr. Galloway, there's a third person involved here, someone who knows you and Rita would go for each other's throats at the first sign of trouble.”

He licked his lips. “Detective Perlmutter asked me to make up a list of possible suspects.”

“Everyone who knows about your marital situation.”

He nodded. “I'll do it.”

After another moment lawyer and client left together. Marian waited until she and the captain were in the car to bring up her discovery.

This could be tricky
. “Jim, how long have you known Bradford Ushton?

“Brad? Oh, a good twenty years, I'd say. Why?”

“Is he a close friend?”

He smiled. “Cops and lawyers are never
close
friends. But Brad doesn't practice criminal law, so we've never been in an adversarial relationship. I'd say we were friendly rather than friends. Again … why?” She was silent so long he had to prompt her. “Marian? What is it? Spit it out.”

She took a deep breath. “He's a pederast,” she said. “Fairchild has an exhibition of photographs in a gallery on Fifty-seventh Street, and one of those photographs shows Ushton propositioning a young boy in a men's room.”

This time Murtaugh was the one to let the silence grow. When he did speak, it was to say: “You're certain it's Brad.”

“Let's go take a look at the photograph. You can see for yourself.” She looked at her watch; almost eleven. “The gallery should be open by now.”

“All right.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “Brad Ushton. Married and with grown children.”

“And he's a new player.”

“What?”

She sighed. “Right when I'm so hungry for a suspect I'm ready to grab someone off the street, along comes a man who fills the bill exactly. Isn't that convenient? Ushton certainly is in a position to know how the battling Galloways would react if Bobby were kidnapped. Oh, I know, I know—the fact that he's a dirty old man doesn't make him a kidnapper. But I shudder to think of Bobby alone in a room with that man.”

Murtaugh was thinking along another line. “It seems to me that anyone in possession of a photograph like that would be in a good position to go in for a little blackmail. Yet Fairchild hung the picture on a wall for all the world to see. Surely he must know Ushton is Hugh Galloway's lawyer?”

“I don't know. He might not. We can find out from Rita.”

Murtaugh found a fireplug on East Fifty-seventh to park by and they hurried into the Albian Gallery. No one was there except a fashionable young woman who backed off when they showed her their badges.

The captain looked at the photograph once and turned away in revulsion. “That's Ushton, all right,” apparently not noticing that his old acquaintance had stopped being the more friendly
Brad
. “No question. Open a new case file the minute we get back and put someone on it.” He glanced back at the fashionable young woman and said, “I suppose we'll have to get a warrant before she'll let us take that picture.”

“That may not be necessary.” Marian asked the young woman who had the negatives for the photographs on display, and was told Mr. Fairchild retained all the negatives. “I'll call him before I leave,” she said to Murtaugh on their way back to the car. “He can make up prints for us.”

“Before you leave?”

“I still have to get over to Hoboken today.”

The drive back to the Midtown South stationhouse was silent and brief. Once back in her office, Marian called in Sergeant Campos and told him she had a new case for him. She explained about Bradford Ushton and said, “Put your best men on this one, Campos.”

His jaw was clenched and his mouth a thin line. “I'll put myself on it,” he said tightly. “These smug old men … I know what they do to young boys. I'll get him.”

Marian wondered the obvious, but didn't ask. Himself? Someone he knew? God, how common this form of abuse had become! No, not true; it had always been common. It was just that everyone avoided talking about it.

And she was doing the same thing
. She changed her mind and said, “Campos? How do you know what they do to young boys?”

He radiated an anger that made her flinch. “My brother. It was a teacher at the school. My brother, he was ashamed to tell anyone.
He
felt guilty. Then another boy talked, but the school just hushed the whole thing up. They didn't do nothing but ask the teacher to resign. That's when I first thought about becoming a cop. I was fourteen years old and I couldn't protect my kid brother. Nobody would
do
anything.”

Oh lord, what a thing to live with
. “I'm sorry, Campos. What about your brother? Was he all right afterward?”

“No. He has never been all right.”

This was bad. She hesitated, and said, “Look, I didn't know about this. If it's going to be too—”

“Lieutenant, don't take this case away from me. I couldn't get the teacher, but I can get this lawyer. And I can do it without beating the truth out of him, if that's what you're afraid of. Don't take it away.”

She considered, evaluating him. And decided. “All right. It's yours.” He nodded once, abruptly. She decided to let Campos call Alex Fairchild for prints of the damning picture; she'd had enough of the photographer for a while. “We can get Ushton for solicitation of a minor on the evidence of that photograph alone,” she said, “but it would be better if you can catch him in the act. That's going to be tricky. You mustn't let a child be put in danger.”

“Don't you worry about
that,”
he said positively. “Do I show him the photograph?”

“Up to you. Do what the situation calls for. Even if we get him only for solicitation, his picture in the paper might prompt some earlier victims to come forward. God, I hate putting kids on the stand!”

“Yeah. But it's the only way to get a conviction.”

“Unfortunately. Use as many men as you need, but don't lose him, even for a minute. And Campos—proceed with caution. There's a slight chance Ushton could be a killer. Very slight, but keep your guard up just the same.”

His eyes glistened. “Which case?”

“The Galloway kidnapping.” She told him about the two bodies that had been fished out of the East River. “There's not a shred of evidence linking Ushton to the killings. But he's Hugh Galloway's attorney, so he had certain inside knowledge. I'm not sure if that means anything or not. Probably not. But don't take any chances.”

He said he wouldn't and left, eager to get started. Marian called Holland to tell him she'd be getting home late.

Then she left for Hoboken, New Jersey, to find out what Ms Annie Plaxton could tell her.

12

Marian didn't know her way around Hoboken, so she had to ask directions twice before she found Meegat Street. She was surprised at the size of Annie Plaxton's new laundromat; she counted six rows of ten washing machines each. Dryers lined the wall, along with five of the huge washer/dryers for large jobs like drapes and bedspreads. There was a waiting area with tables and chairs and vending machines. And the place was packed; almost all the machines were in use.

A young man was mopping up suds from the floor and explaining to an embarrassed woman that she mustn't overload the washer. When Marian asked where Annie Plaxton was, he pointed with his head toward a door in the rear.

Annie's office was a small square partitioned off in one corner of the main room. Marian knocked on the door and held up her badge when it opened. “Lieutenant Larch, NYPD. I need to talk to you.”

The other woman tried to shut the door, but Marian already had her foot in place. “What do you want?” the woman demanded.

“Information. You know something I need to know. Open the door, Annie.”

Reluctantly, she did. Annie Plaxton was a wiry-stringy little woman with some gray in her hair and a chip on her shoulder. “You got no jurisdiction here. This is New Jersey.”

Marian smiled. “Do you really think police don't help each other across jurisdictions? I didn't go to the Hoboken police because I saw no reason to bring your name to their attention. You have nothing to worry about.”

She was still suspicious. “A New York police lieutenant comes all the way here to find me and I'm not supposed to worry about it? Now tell me another. I spent thirty years cleaning other people's houses and now I got a business of my own and nobody's gonna take it away from me!”

Marian put on a look of surprise. “Well, of course not! Is that what you think I'm going to do? I'm not here about your business or even about
you
. Just answer a few questions and I'll be gone. May I sit down?” She sat down.

Annie slowly took her own seat behind her desk, still not convinced. “What kind of questions?”

“Where did the money come from to open this laundromat?”

She flared. “You said this wasn't about me!”

“And it's not. It's about the source of your money. We want the man who financed your laundromat, but we don't want him
for
financing you. What we want him for is murder.”

“Murder?” Her face changed. “Holy Mother of God.” She thought that over but then shook her head. “I can't help you.”

“You don't have to testify. Your name won't even come into it.”

“That's not it. I don't
know
who sent me the money.”

Marian sat back in her chair. “What?!”

“I'm tellin' you true. Some man called and said he'd set me up with my own laundromat on two conditions. First, I had to quit my job with Maids-in-a-Row right away, like, the next day. And second, I had to get out of town, open the laundromat somewheres except New York. He didn't say how
far
out of town, so I just crossed the river and set up here.”

“Did you ask his name?”

“Course I did. He said I didn't need to know that.”

“And you didn't smell anything fishy?”

“I smelled a lot fishy. But I figured it was none of my business.”