Murder 101 (14 page)

“Did Vince say anything to you?” he asked.

“The only thing I remember is him screaming at me about ‘papers.’ I don’t know what that means. John didn’t say anything.” I closed my eyes. “Vince kept trying to grab at me, but I kicked him in the head.”

“Vince is dead,” he said.

Thank God it wasn’t because I kicked him in the head. “I know,” I replied. “Is Costigan all right?”

His face turned cold and angry. “He’s fine. Until he gets to lockup in Rikers.”

“He didn’t hurt me, Crawford.”

“You could have been killed,” he protested. “And that’s
before
you got into the car.” He looked away.

The activity outside was starting to subside. Costigan left in a state trooper’s car, and the ME’s car drove away, presumably with Vince’s body. I peered outside and saw flares on the highway, a cop directing traffic around the wreckage. The rain was falling steadily and hitting the already slick roadway. The rubberneckers were out in force.

The fact that I still had my life hit me like a ton of bricks; I closed my eyes, and a faint image of my mother’s beautiful face was imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.

Eighteen

The medical technician pronounced me fit to leave. I had escaped the examination without a tracheotomy. And I still had my pants on. Remarkably, I had a contusion on my forehead but no concussion. He told me that I would probably have some neck pain and asked if I wanted a neck brace, but I declined. Although my status as queen of the nerds was never really in question, wearing a neck brace would certainly cement my reign. While I was being examined, Wyatt had arrived on the scene and taken copious notes on the incident, based on what Crawford and I told him. He was much nicer to me than normal. Maybe it had finally dawned on him that I had nothing to do with the murder. Or maybe he had just played basketball with an orphan and was feeling magnanimous.

He and Crawford conferred outside while I stayed inside the ambulance. When they were done, Wyatt poked his head inside the ambulance, his hands supporting him on either side of the opening. His glasses were covered with a thin sheen of rain, and he took them off and wiped them on his shirt. “I may need to talk with you again,” he said.

I nodded that I understood. “Can I go home?”

“Detective Crawford will take you home,” he said. “Get some rest, Professor,” he said, respectfully and without any condescension.

I stood and went to the back of the ambulance. Crawford offered me a hand, and I took it as I went down the slick metal steps. The Navigator was on the flatbed portion of the tow truck; it was remarkably intact. The shattered windshield, splattered with blood, and the inflated air bags were the only evidence of what had happened. I thanked God that if Vince was going to try to kill all of us, he did so in an SUV the size of a tank and not a Hyundai.

Crawford’s Passat wagon was parked north of the scene, facing in the right direction. We went to the car and he opened the passenger-side door for me, helping me in. He got in on his side, and satisfied that I was strapped in, he started the car, took the first exit, and got us onto the northbound side in moments. We went through the toll plaza. The southbound tolls were closed; the damaged one was already being repaired. We went across the Hudson River, through Riverdale, and merged onto the Saw Mill, in silence.

We passed the Cross County Parkway merge and went under the underpass. “Don’t say anything about Ray,” I said, thinking back to the phone call.

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, shaking his head. “You were almost killed, but the only thing you’re worried about is that I’ll say something about Ray.” He turned and looked at me. “Sometimes, you’re priceless,” he said, with a bit of wonder in his voice. He pulled up at the red light at Executive Boulevard.

“He’s an asshole . . .”

“. . . but he’s harmless. So I’ve heard.”

Actually, I was going to stop at “he’s an asshole.” I was no longer sure about the rest. I swallowed and looked out the window. Although I would have been justified in falling apart, I didn’t want to do it in front of him. Again.

We continued in silence. We arrived at the house in fifteen minutes, and he pulled up the driveway, parking as close to the front door as possible. All of the lights were still on, but he had closed and locked the front door. As we approached the door on the slick bluestone pavers, he reached into his jeans pocket and produced my house keys. “You’re good,” I said. “Not only did you remember to lock the front door, but you remembered to bring the keys.”

We went in and he closed the door. I started up the stairs to the bedroom, but he remained rooted to the floor in the hallway. I turned, halfway up the stairs. “Come with me.”

He hesitated for a short moment and then started up behind me. Once in the bedroom, we stood looking at each other. He stared down at me. “What now?” he asked.

I looked back at him. “Surveillance.” I kicked off my clogs and found a pair of pajama pants and a tank top in one of my drawers. I went into the bathroom and changed. I looked at my head and whistled to myself. The bruise on my head was large, blue, and veiny-looking. No clever hairstyle was going to cover that up unless I got bangs. I washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth; the taste of vomit was a lingering reminder of the evening’s events. I rinsed and held on to the sink, letting a few tears fall into the porcelain basin. I ran the hand towel that was hanging on a hook next to the sink over my face, careful of the lump on my head.

When I emerged, he was coming back up the stairs, having washed up in the powder room downstairs. He waited until I climbed into the king-size bed and sat down on the edge next to me, taking off his Tevas. He reached under his pant leg and pulled off the small gun, placing it on my nightstand. “Are you sure?”

“We’ve been through a lot tonight. Just stay and don’t make it hard.” I turned crimson from head to toe. “No pun intended.” I pulled the comforter up and let him in. He sat up and stripped off his shirt, leaving his pants on. I nearly lost consciousness again as I took in nice pecs, a sprinkling of chest hair, and a flat, hard stomach. I reached over him and turned off the light next to the bed.

“What’s six times eight?” he whispered in the dark, thinking I had another concussion.

“Twelve,” I said.

“Good. Seven times four?” he whispered again.

“Six,” I said, and giggled. “Shut up.”

We moved closer. His hand rested lightly on my hip. “Who was the first president?”

“George Clooney.”

“Excellent. Who’s our current president?”

I thought for a moment. “Leopold Bloom.”

“Who?” he asked, his hand reaching around and slipping under the back of my tank top.

“Never mind,” I said, and leaned in to find his face in the dark. A steady rain fell outside the window as we lay in the pitch-black, our lips touching. His hands became entwined in my hair, and he pulled me closer.

I stretched out along the length of his body and buried my head into his neck. He wrapped his arms around me, and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“In what sense? Like ‘I’m glad you were born,’ or ‘I’m glad you survived tonight’?” I asked, always literal.

He laughed in the darkness, the deep chortle with the snort. “Do you ever shut up?” he asked, and kissed me again. His hands traveled up my back and then back down. They found their way to the waistband of my pajamas. I wasn’t sure if it was the head injury or just being with him, but I felt like I was leaving my body. I felt flushed and overly hot. Those old familiar feelings—longing, desire, a tingling deep in my gut—were replaced by something else: fear. Understandable? Maybe. Well timed? Probably not. I pulled away.

“I need a minute,” I said, and lay on my back. He took my hand and laced his fingers into mine.

He leaned over and kissed me lightly on the forehead. “You need more than a minute.”

I put my back to him and nestled in close, his arms around me. In minutes, we were both asleep.

I don’t know how long I slept, but a nightmare in which I was crashing into the wall again and again made me wake with a start. I looked around the room, my heart racing, not exactly sure of where I was. I put my hand to my chest and felt my heart thumping erratically inside. I put my other hand down on the bed next to me, and while it was warm, it was also empty. I went back to sleep.

Nineteen

I woke up at ten, bruised, sore, and alone in bed. The smell of frying bacon hit my nose, and I sat up, a little woozy, still tired, and starving. I gingerly put my legs over the side of the bed and my feet on the floor, sitting for a minute while the cobwebs cleared. I stood up and tested my legs; everything seemed to work.

I pulled on a St. Thomas sweatshirt that had a few paint stains on it but was fairly clean. I didn’t think the sight of my naked breasts behind the thin material of the tank top was any way to greet Crawford first thing in the morning. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. There was too much damage and not enough time to fix it before I greeted him. I left on my flannel pajama pants and padded down the stairs, barefoot, to the kitchen.

I passed the living room and looked in; I could tell that Crawford had spent the night on the couch. The indentation from his body was evident in the soft cushions, and a pillow and blanket from the guest bedroom had been neatly folded and placed at the end of the couch.

He was standing at the stove, frying a pound of bacon and reading the directions on the back of a muffin box intently. He held the box far enough away for me to tell that he needed glasses. He was wearing the big T-shirt from the Fred Wyatt collection and on his thin frame it was huge. He had the phone in the crook of his neck and was listening as the person on the other end spoke.

“Will she do the ID?” he asked. He waited a second. “Thanks for handling this, Fred.” He hung up.

“You need bifocals,” I said. I stood in the doorway, a vision in an old sweatshirt, pajama pants, and with hair that made Albert Einstein look well-groomed.

He turned around, surprised. “Good morning!” he said. “You had a pound of bacon in the freezer, and I found this muffin mix. I hope it’s all right that I started cooking.”

“You cook?” I asked.

“Well, I can cook bacon and follow directions.”

He had made coffee. He poured a cup and handed it to me. “How do you feel?”

“I’m sore.”

He looked at me with the sad face. “Anything else?”

I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “Sad?” I offered.

He shook his head; that wasn’t what he meant. “Do you have any pain?”

“Nothing that a few Advil won’t take care of.” I took a sip of the coffee. It was horrible. He must have learned how to make coffee at cop school. “Mmmm . . . delicious,” I lied. Bad as it was, it cleared the dust bunnies in my head, and I started to think. “Was that Fred?” I asked.

“Yeah. He’s taking the mother down to the morgue to ID the body.”

The mother. Vince’s mother. I remember seeing her at the funeral. “So, is this whole thing done now that Vince is dead?”

He had his own cup of coffee next to the stove; he picked it up and took a drink. He shook his head. “We never had anything to link Vince to the murder. A lot of other things, but not this.”

“Other things?”

“Vince had his hand in a few things, drugs and cars specifically.” The bacon crackled and popped behind him, and he turned around to lower the flame under the pan. “Vince liked to sell cars that he didn’t actually own. He was also the Joliet Ecstasy connection. He was a hood, but probably not a murderer.” He paused. “Not yet, anyway.”

I wrapped my hands around my mug. “Do you think he broke into my office?”

“Seems likely. There’s not a new print anywhere. And your office lock was picked. But I’m sure Vince would know how to do a break-in and would know to wear gloves.”

“Did Fred say anything about Costigan? Did he say anything about why they kidnapped me?” I asked.

Crawford frowned. “He lawyered up. They got nowhere with him. The minute they got him to the station house, the lawyer was there. An uncle.”

I chewed on that for a moment until my silent encounter with Vince and Fiona popped into my head, and I exclaimed. Crawford jumped slightly. “I forgot to tell you!” I said. “I saw Vince and Fiona together yesterday after I taught my last class. They looked kind of cozy.”

Crawford narrowed his eyes. “Cozy how?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I just got the feeling that Vince was back to normal pretty quickly after Kathy’s death.”

He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll file that away. Maybe we need to chat with Fiona again.”

I continued drinking my coffee, and we stared across the kitchen at each other. “What now?”

He looked at me sadly. “I’m thinking it’s Ray, Alison. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged, casual and nonchalant. “No skin off my nose.” But it was skin off my nose. And the nine years that I had spent with him.

He turned back to the bacon.

“Are you working today?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “No. You?”

“I have some correcting to do. As a matter of fact, I always have correcting to do,” I said, “but I was thinking of something else.”

He cocked an eyebrow suggestively. I guess celibacy
would
have been a huge stumbling block for Father Crawford.

“Not that,” I said. “I want to get to the bottom of this. Would you take me to school and go through my office with me?”

He focused intently on the bacon, using a spatula to flip it in the pan, ignoring my question.

“Well?”

He turned around to face me, more than a little perturbed. “What do you think we’re going to find that I didn’t already bag?” He got a plate out of the cabinet and put two paper towels on it to soak up some of the grease. He loaded some bacon onto the plate and walked over to hand it to me. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“This is not an indictment of your investigative skills,” I said, pushing a greasy bite of bacon into my mouth. “But Vince kept screaming about ‘papers.’ What was he talking about?” I took a slug of awful coffee, resisting the urge to gag. He seemed to be enjoying his just fine. “If I think long enough, I might be able to come up with something.”

He picked up a piece of bacon and chewed it thoughtfully. “I’ll take you to school,” he said finally, but held up his hand. “But we do it my way.”

“What? Naked?” I asked.

He blushed. “No,” he said slowly. “We do it so that we don’t compromise any possible additional evidence. We wear gloves, we take more pictures, and you follow my lead. I don’t want you going in there willy-nilly.”

I burst out laughing, a piece of bacon flying from my mouth. “ ‘Willy-nilly’? Is that the technical term?”

He was embarrassed. “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”

I covered my mouth. “I’m sorry.” I ate a few more slices of bacon. I stood. “Give me your clothes, and I’ll wash them before we go. I don’t have anything clean, so I have to do laundry anyway. And you’ve been in those jeans longer than hygienically acceptable.”

He turned off the burner and put the rest of the cooked bacon onto the plate. “And what am I going to wear while you’re doing laundry?” he asked.

“I’ll find you something. You could spend an hour or so in my sweatpants, right?” I laughed when I thought about what I had said. “What I meant was you could spend an hour wearing a pair of my sweatpants. That didn’t come out right.”

He thought it over but I knew what the answer would be. “I don’t think so. Is there a store in town where I could buy some pants?”

“Crawford, that’s just stupid. Give me your freaking clothes and let me wash them.” I stood up. “Come with me, and I’ll get you those sweatpants.”

He continued to lean against the counter, his arms crossed.

“Crawford,” I said, cajoling. “Come on.”

We went up to my room and I took my wicker laundry basket from the closet and put a couple of pairs of underpants, a bra, a few T-shirts, and two pairs of jeans into it. Crawford stood in the middle of the floor, watching me.

I went into the guest room and opened the closet in there. I knew that Ray had left a couple of items of clothing, and I found them on the top shelf. There was a pair of St. Thomas sweatpants and a couple of T-shirts. I pulled down the sweatpants and went down the short hallway and back into my bedroom.

Crawford was still standing there in uncomfortable silence. I handed him the sweatpants. “These are Ray’s, so they should fit better than mine would.”

He went into the bathroom and closed the door. He emerged a few seconds later in the sweatpants, which were loose but a little short, and Fred’s shirt, his jeans, NYPD T-shirt, and boxer shorts in hand. The boxers were a blue-and-white check. He threw them into the wicker basket. “I’ll do the laundry,” he said.

“I’ve seen men’s underwear before,” I reminded him. “I’ve even touched a few pairs.”

“I’ll do the laundry,” he repeated, and picked up the basket. “I’ll be right back.”

I lay back down on the bed. Fine. Do the laundry, you big baby. “The washer is in the basement!” I called after him.

My house is small—twelve hundred square feet—and old enough that wherever water is running, it can be heard throughout the house. The water rushing through the pipes told me that he found the washer and even figured out how to turn it on. That was more than Ray had accomplished in seven years of marriage. It was nice to be involved with a grown-up bachelor; he could take care of himself, and most of his daily functions wouldn’t involve me. How refreshing.

He came back up and sat at the bottom of the bed, one leg dangling over the side. I asked him why he slept on the couch, and he shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

If you’ve just gotten out of the seminary, I thought. “You look tired.”

“So do you.” He yawned. “I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep in the past few weeks. Not enough surveillance, I guess.” He grinned sheepishly.

I patted the pillow beside me. “Come on up here.” He rearranged himself and came up beside me, putting his head on the pillow. I faced him and brushed his hair off his forehead. “You smell like bacon.”

“So do you.”

I kissed him, and he kissed me back. “I love bacon,” I said. He wrapped his long arms around me, and I threw a leg over his body. “Where’s your gun?” I asked.

He pulled back. “Why?”

“I’m still a little nervous after last night. I like for you to have it handy.”

He reached around to his back and pulled it out of the waistband of the sweatpants. He held it a safe distance from me, on display, and then put it on the nightstand behind his head. “Better?” he asked.

“Better,” I confirmed. I drifted off to sleep in his arms and didn’t wake up until I heard the water drain through the pipes, signaling that the wash was done. I looked at him; he was in a deep sleep, his mouth open slightly. I didn’t know too many men who would choose sleep over the more romantic alternative; he must have been exhausted. I took myself gently out of his arms and got off the bed.

I went down to the basement and opened the lid of the washing machine, pulling out the wet and twisted clothes. Crawford’s jeans took up most of the washing machine, and were heavy when wet; I shook them out before throwing them in the dryer. I thought about the night before. The kidnapping, the ride in Vince’s car, his screaming about the papers, and the crash. Crawford was right: I could have been killed. I shuddered, thinking about waking up in the back of the SUV, surrounded by deployed air bags, and said a silent prayer of thanks for being able to do a simple thing like laundry.

What did I have that could possibly make Vince, and his seemingly innocent sidekick, John, risk life and limb to get? It didn’t make any sense. I turned the dial on the dryer to the timed setting—one hour—and went back upstairs.

Crawford was still asleep on the bed, but had turned onto his back and was emitting loud snores. His hands were folded over his stomach. I gently pushed him onto his side, and he stopped snoring but didn’t awaken. I went into the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and turned on the shower. While I waited for it to get hot, I looked at myself in the mirror. The bruise was a little deeper in color today, and my eyes were bloodshot. What the hell did he see in me? I was a mess. I puked all the time and cried a lot. I am sure that he had gleaned that I wasn’t easy, so it couldn’t be that. It had to be pity. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind and got into the shower.

I showered quickly, wrapping both my hair and body in towels when I was done. I opened the bathroom door and let the steam flood the room. I looked over at Crawford and almost became concerned that he had slipped into a coma, but he groaned and changed positions, and I felt relief. I thought about our trip to campus; I didn’t want to do it his way. I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to empty folders, go through my books, search my desk, and think. If I had him there, we’d be wearing rubber gloves, cataloging everything, and sniping at each other. “Go without him” flashed in front of my eyes, and I breathed in sharply. The plot germinated in my brain and while I was a little nervous at how mad he would be, I pushed that thought aside and promised myself I would do everything as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be that inconvenienced.

I ran as quickly and as quietly as I could down to the basement and put all of the almost-dry clothes into the wicker hamper, including Crawford’s jeans and boxer shorts. I grabbed a pair of underpants, a bra, a shirt, and my jeans and hastily threw them on, realizing that I didn’t have shoes. I looked around the basement, which was packed with detritus—rakes, hoes, a lawn mower that hadn’t worked since the midnineties, and assorted half-filled paint cans—my eyes finally landing on a pair of rubber gardening clogs. I wasn’t a big gardener, but I thought the clogs were cute and had ordered them from L.L.Bean. I grabbed them and dusted them off, sliding them onto my feet. They were roomy and comfortable. I put the basket on my hip and made my way up the stairs. I looked around the kitchen and spied Crawford’s car keys on the counter, along with his badge, phone, beeper, and wallet.

Laundry basket in hand, I quietly exited the house and tiptoed down the walk to the Passat, which was next to the house. I pushed the keypad like I had seen him do and the car chirped, scaring the hell out of me. I looked up at the bedroom window, but he didn’t appear. I opened the hatchback door to the trunk, threw the laundry basket into it, and went to the driver’s side. I climbed in and backed the car down the driveway.