C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
H
e decided to walk home and struck out across the icy tundra of Battery Park. The storm had sculpted a thick layer of frozen snow and ice over the benches and fence posts. It reminded him of the white frosting his mother used to spread over angel food cake, his father’s favorite. He shook off the memory—he hated thinking about his father.
Walking north toward the Winter Garden, Lee was surprised that he didn’t feel overwhelming sadness. Emptiness, yes, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Part of him longed to wash his hands of everything he had known—to make a break and sail away into an unknown future. He had read of people who left their lives behind and invented new identities, and had always wondered what that would be like. Of course, most of them were con artists in search of another mark, but there was something enticing about walking away from responsibilities and expectations and the exhausting rituals of human interaction. Then it occurred to him: that was exactly what his father had done—at great cost to the people he’d left behind.
Such thoughts like could be a precursor to a major depressive episode, so he tried to steer his mind elsewhere. He couldn’t afford illness right now; there was too much riding on his ability to help solve the Alleyway Strangler case. But everyone and everything in his life felt like a burden. He loved his mother and his niece—and Kathy, he supposed—but he felt hemmed in and longed for some air.
He found solace walking alone through the city on nights like this, when few people ventured out onto the icy streets. He loved wandering the nearly empty blocks of one of the world’s most populous cities. New York became his own private park, a landscape both charming and gritty but always interesting.
At the front entrance to the Winter Garden, an elderly couple in matching red parkas picked their way carefully across a patch of ice. The man held the woman’s elbow protectively, steadying her. He wondered if he and Kathy would ever be that couple, or if it was finished between them forever.
He turned east on Vesey Street. With each step he felt lighter. What was wrong with him? He cared about Kathy—loved her, even—and yet he was relieved.
She
had made the decision, not him, and that lightened his burden. He felt guilty that he didn’t feel worse, as he waited for the light at West Street.
The traffic wasn’t as thick as usual, but a steady stream of cars crept along the four lanes of highway. Chunks of ice and snow rattled beneath their tires, picked up and then spit out a few yards later. The city’s snowplows couldn’t keep up, even though sanitation workers had pulled double shifts to work through the night. He always thought it would be kind of fun to be on snow patrol during a storm—but then, Lee supposed most jobs looked better from the outside.
People at parties were sometimes impressed with what he did for a living, but they didn’t realize it came with a grinding sense of responsibility and pressure to solve a case. He was often called in as a last resort, when ordinary crime-solving techniques failed. There was little glamour in police work. Mountains of paperwork, sore feet, and long hours, but not much glamour.
He headed north through Tribeca, once an area of dilapidated warehouses and deserted factories, now one of the swankiest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Sturdy redbrick Beaux Arts buildings presided over boutiques, upscale restaurants and specialty food palaces like the Gourmet Garage. The rents here rivaled those of the penthouse suites of the Upper East Side. Glancing at the menu of a pricey Italian joint, he was glad he lived in the East Village, where the NYU student population kept the prices down.
He felt his cell phone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He dug it out and saw that it was Chuck Morton calling. He flipped it open.
“Hiya, Chuck.”
“Hi.” His friend didn’t sound good at all. His voice was flat, dead.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mind if I stay with you for a few days?”
That was Chuck, always getting right to the point.
“Is everything okay?”
“I’d rather not go into it right now.”
“Sure,” he said, stepping over a snowdrift. “When did you want to come?”
“Can I come tonight?”
“Okay. Where are you?”
“I’m at the Port Authority.”
“Wow. I’m headed home now—can you give me about thirty minutes?”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“No problem—see you soon.”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and continued to trudge east through snowbanks and ice. He welcomed the extreme weather; somehow it put the emotional pain on hold, took his focus off it.
The bleakness of the landscape was a comfort as he plowed his way from one river toward the other. At times like this he was reminded that Manhattan was an island—and not a very big one. The borough was so rich and fascinating that it was easy to forget it was less than thirty-four square miles.
But now his mind was on the imminent arrival of his old college roommate and best friend. Susan Beaumont Morton was trouble; he had known it almost from the day he’d met her in college and certainly by the time Chuck married her. She was a piranha in pink, a carnivore in Chanel, a velociraptor in Versace. Her expensive taste in clothing and jewelry was matched only by her voracious appetite for adulation. It wasn’t men she liked—it was the attention they gave her. Once she had a man’s devotion, she quickly tired of him.
Lee had done her the indignity of tiring of her first, and she’d never forgiven him for it. It hadn’t taken him long to see that beneath the Southern manners and fluttering eyelashes lurked the hungry soul of a predator. She’d quickly moved on to his roommate, Chuck, who was so stunned by her beauty and charm that he toppled hard and fast—and never got up.
Until now, at any rate. Marriage and kids in the suburbs was a far cry from privately staffed eating clubs, rugby parties, and classes in the hallowed ivy halls of Princeton. Maybe the bloom was off the rose, and Chuck had finally seen past her act. But what had made him snap? Lee would soon find out.
Ahead of him, a plow rumbled up the Bowery, throwing a thick sheet of snow onto the curb, its engine whirring and howling like a wild beast as it continued relentlessly northward. Susan was like the plow—inexorable, unstoppable. Or maybe she was more like the storm itself, a force of Nature.
On the sidewalk, a couple of small boys dug into the drift made by the plow and hurled snowballs at each other, laughing and tumbling into the soft mounds of snow. Children knew how to enjoy the cold weather. He had an impulse to grab a fistful of snow and fling it at someone—anyone. But the urge passed, and he continued home. Chuck would be waiting for him.
C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN
L
ee had been in his apartment for about ten minutes when there was a knock on the front door. He opened it to see Chuck Morton standing there, suitcase in hand, a hangdog expression on his face. Stiff spokes of blond hair protruded from the blue stocking cap on his head; his cheeks were flushed, and he sported a day-old beard growth.
“Your neighbor let me in downstairs,” he said. “It’s just for a few days, I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lee replied, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”
Chuck stepped inside and looked around. “I can’t believe it’s been so long since I was here.”
“Life has a way of intervening.” He decided not to add a comment about Chuck’s being married with kids. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
He took Chuck to the study on the other side of the living room.
“This is your bed,” he said, pointing to the pullout sofa. “It’s pretty comfortable, actually. And you even have a closet. Sorry it’s not very big.”
“No, this is great, really. I could have stayed with friends in Jersey, but they’re all married, and—well, I’m trying to keep it low-key right now. I’ll try not to be in your way.”
“We managed to get along in college with a lot less space.”
“We were just kids then.”
“How do young people do it?”
“I guess they don’t need as much privacy.”
“You hungry?” Lee asked.
“I could use a drink.”
“Scotch?”
“Red or black?” said Chuck.
“Black. Unless you want a single malt.”
“That would be a waste—I’m drinking for the effect, not the taste.”
“Black it is, then. Ice?”
“Sure, thanks.”
He poured Chuck a double shot of Johnnie Walker and made an orange juice for himself. They sat in the living room, Chuck on the sofa and Lee in the leather armchair opposite.
“I like the piano there next to the window,” Chuck said. “You still play?”
“Yeah. It keeps me sane—relatively speaking.”
Chuck gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“So you want to talk about it?”
Chuck took a swallow of Scotch. “Not really. But I guess I have to, right?”
“Something happen?”
He clenched his fist. “Of all the goddamn people—a goddamn dentist.”
“Dentist?”
“Yip Whitely. What kind of a goddamn name is that, ‘Yip’? Sounds like a fucking dog.”
Lee waited. He had a good idea of where this was going but wasn’t about to jump in.
“I’d been hearing stray remarks, you know, but I’d been hearing rumors about Susan ever since we got together at Princeton. You know how people could be about her.”
“Yeah, I know.” What he didn’t say was that those rumors weren’t always false.
“So I ignored it, and then I happen to see her cell phone bill one day. She does all the paperwork, the bills, that kind of thing, but it was just kind of lying around, so I happened to glance at it, you know?”
“Right.” Maybe it was more than that—maybe he’d dug it out because he was suspicious, but if so, Lee had to grant him that little white lie, to protect his pride.
“So I see this phone number, a lot, and I ask her who it is, and she says it’s her friend Julie. Something about it didn’t sit right, so I called the number, and a man answered. I hung up and did a reverse directory search, and it was Yip Whitely—her goddamn dentist.” He ran a hand through his short blond hair. “I mean, Christ, I’m a cop—does she really think she can keep secrets from me?”
“You’re not just a cop—hell, you’re a damn commander.” Chuck Morton was Captain of the Major Case Squad in the Bronx, a position he had worked like a dog to get—and hold on to.
Chuck looked shell-shocked. He had the kind of vacant stare Lee had seen on crime victims. Marital infidelity wasn’t an easy thing for the two of them to talk about. They might be best friends, but they were still men, more comfortable wielding a hammer than talking about their feelings.
But, not for the first time, Chuck Morton was full of surprises. Gulping down the last of his drink, he set the tumbler on the coffee table and leaned forward.
“You used to be a therapist. What do you think I should do?”
Lee gave a nervous laugh. “Hell,
that’s
not a loaded question, is it?”
It was even more loaded than his friend knew. Chuck was only aware of some of the history between Lee and his wife. Of course he knew that the two of them had dated at Princeton. But there were other things he had managed to ignore—Susan’s flirtations with Lee over the years, her rapacious need for the attention of other men, her unpopularity among women.
People were fooled by her blond beauty and Southern charm, but it was a mask. She could flatter her way into any situation, and usually by the time people wised up to her, the damage was done.
Lee did what any other coward would do under the circumstances—he stalled for time. He pointed to Chuck’s empty glass.
“You look like you could use a refill.”
“Thanks.”
In the kitchen, Lee poured his friend a generous shot. He grabbed some ice from the freezer, plunked a few cubes into Chuck’s glass, and went back to the living room. He realized he couldn’t stall forever, but he couldn’t help hoping the phone would ring.
He handed Chuck his drink and eased himself back into the armchair. Cold weather aggravated an old rugby injury in his right knee.
“Leg bothering you?” said Chuck.
“It’s not too bad.”
Safe territory, sports injuries
. He decided to stall some more. “How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s okay.” Chuck did his best to smile and almost pulled it off. “It was worth it, scoring that try against Yale.” A
try
was the term in rugby for scoring, like a goal in soccer.
“Only try of the whole season scored by a fullback,” Lee said.
“Yeah.”
“You were a damn good fullback.”
“That’s nice, coming from the team captain.”
“And now you’re a captain, and I’m just a team player.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Mind if I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Does she know where you are?”
“I had to tell her. The kids, you know. Hope she doesn’t bug you with phone calls.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, but he was thinking,
I hope so too.
Lee knew that Susan, entrenched in the lifestyle of a police captain’s wife, wasn’t going to give up easily. The question was, how hard was Chuck prepared to fight to break away?
“So what do you think I should do?” Chuck said again.
“I can’t tell you what to do, but you can stay here as long as you need to.”
“Thanks,” Chuck said, giving another painful smile.
The smile slid away, and he took a shallow, ragged breath. A strangling sound came from his throat and turned into deep, heaving sobs.
Lee watched with empathy and embarrassment as his best friend cried like a baby. A third emotion bubbled up inside him: anger. The woman who had caused so much pain wasn’t worth the price of one piece of expensive jewelry on her elegantly manicured hands.
“Christ, Lee, tell me
something
,” Chuck said. “Tell me I’m an idiot to be with her.”
“You know that’s not for me to say.”
“I know, I know. I just—I can’t seem to stop loving her, even when I think she’s no good. Am I just a damn fool?”
“You wouldn’t be the first one.”
Chuck leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his hands tightly clasped. Lee noticed he was still wearing his gold wedding ring.
“Has she come to you?” Chuck asked quietly.
“I haven’t spoken to her in quite a while.”
“So she hasn’t called you?”
“No.”
“You’d tell me if she told you anything, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t see why she’d come to me.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Susan Morton enjoyed flirting with him, just to see if she could get a rise out of him. She did that with every man she met, but especially with Lee. She didn’t like rejection, and he had rejected her. Even though it was years ago, it still rankled her, and she was punishing him for it.
He looked out at the snowflakes flinging themselves against the windowpanes. It was going to be a long night.