The Red Queen Dies (28 page)

Angus looked up from his ORB and said, “I don't have to remind you that 2010 was the year that Faulkner retired as police chief and the mayor and the Common Council hired that hotshot from Connecticut to replace him.”

McCabe grimaced. “No, you don't have to remind me of that. Community relations in Arbor Hill and the South End were already shaky when Faulkner left. And in less than a year, our hotshot new chief had even managed to alienate the middle-class folks in neighborhoods like Pine Hills and the campus district.”

“And it still took another year to get rid of him.”

“By then, the cops were ready to join the marches on City Hall. It wasn't any safer for us than for anyone else.” She shook her head. “But he sure did look good on paper. And he sounded good at first.”

“Fascists can be as charming as hell when they want to be,” her father said. “Make all kinds of sense unless you're listening close.”

McCabe smiled. “You said that in your editorials when you were demanding he be fired.”

Angus scowled at her. “Didn't mean to make life hard for you with those editorials, daughter. Guess I never told you that.”

“It was all right. By then, he had other things to worry about. Going after me wouldn't have helped his cause.”

Angus nodded. “I knew you could handle yourself.” He turned his attention back to his ORB. “Aside from the ruckus the police chief caused that year, let's see what else we've got.”

“Not just crime, Pop. Anything that looks interesting.”

“Understood.”

“What was the mayor doing in 2010?”

“Living out in the suburbs. I don't have it here, but she and her husband didn't move into Albany until around late 2011 or early '12, when they bought that house and started renovating it. Then she decided to run for the Common Council.”

McCabe said, “She rose up through city government pretty fast, didn't she?”

“Had the right connections. Having a husband who's a banker don't hurt.”

“A banker. I hadn't thought about that. I wonder how that plays out with Ted Thornton.”

“Money men always play together.” Angus eyed her. “The mayor and her husband on your list of suspects now?”

“No, of course not. Or at least I don't think so. But Ted Thornton keeps turning up all over this. And he and the mayor do seem to be cozy.”

“Maybe that's something for her husband to worry about, not you.”

McCabe smiled. “She and Thornton did go on that canoe ride together. You think?”

“Never know.”

“The mayor's an attractive woman. But I don't think she can compete with Ted Thornton's fiancée.”

“That fiancée,” Angus said. “Thornton better watch himself with her.”

“Why do you say that, Pop?”

“Because if this were a forties movie, she'd be dangerous.”

Because of Pop and his noir movies, that was exactly where McCabe's mind had gone when she met Lisa Nichols. “Yes, she does have that look, doesn't she?”

Angus's attention was back on his notes. McCabe took a sip of her mango juice and waited. She was hoping he would produce magic from his notes the way he used to pluck a quarter from behind her ear when she wanted a gum ball.

“Have you ever thought of taking up your magic again?” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Like when I was a kid. You used to go to the hospital and entertain the kids in the children's ward.”

“Kids don't believe in magic anymore. They got three-D and holograms. They know how everything works.”

“Maybe. But you ought to think about it.”

“You trying to get me out of the house? Give me some way to occupy my time?”

“Yes.”

“I'll find something better than magic tricks. When I'm good and ready.”

“As long as you're thinking about it. And giving some thought to writing your book.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about Albany in 2010.”

“I do.”

“Then be quiet and listen.”

“What do you have?”

“I have an entry in my notes about careless doctors and risking our lives. Turns out it was related to a story we did featuring one of your players.”

“Who?”

“Clarence Redfield. He'd filed a lawsuit the year before, alleging the doctor who treated his father had engaged in malpractice. After he filed his suit, several other patients or their families came forward.”

“Did they have a case?”

“Hell of a case. The doctor was incompetent. His insurance company settled and the doctor turned in his license before it was taken away.”

“What happened to Clarence Redfield's father?”

“Still alive when we did the story, but in bad shape. He had only a few months left.”

“Do you have anything else on Clarence Redfield for that year?”

“Nothing else showing up. Other than his lawsuit, no one was paying attention to him at the time.”

“And then he left town in 2011 and didn't come back until four years ago, when his mother was ill.”

Angus said, “And no one was paying much attention to him then, either, until he started writing his crime thread.”

“And by then his mother had died and he'd gotten married. And then his wife and baby died.”

“What'd they die of?”

McCabe paused with her glass halfway to her mouth. “In childbirth.”

“I know they died in childbirth. But what happened?”

“I'm not sure what happened.”

“Guess if it was anything that Redfield thought the doctor did wrong, he would have filed another lawsuit.”

McCabe put her glass down on the table. “As far as we know, he didn't file a lawsuit. But mothers and babies don't normally just die during childbirth, do they?”

“Tell that to mothers and babies in—”

“I mean here in the United States, Pop. Middle-class mothers and babies under a doctor's care. And after Redfield's experience with his father's doctor, you would think he would have been especially careful to make sure his wife's doctor was competent.”

“Then I guess you probably want to find out why Redfield's wife and baby died anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess I do want to find that out.” McCabe got up from the table. “Thanks.”

“Always here to provide you with information.”

She kissed the top of his head. “And I don't know what I'd do without you, Pop.”

“Don't go getting mushy on me. Any food left?”

“On the stove,” McCabe said. “I made enough for dinner and your lunch tomorrow. I've got to go send a tag to Research.”

*   *   *

Angus was sitting on the sofa in the living room, watching a movie, when she came downstairs. This time, it was John Wayne in
Rio Bravo
.

“The Duke?” McCabe said. “Did you take your antacid?”

“Angie Dickinson's in this one. I'm ignoring his politics.”

“I'm going out for a while, Pop.”

“Bring back some ice cream. Rocky Road.”

“You might be in bed before I get back.”

“Bring it anyway. If I don't get it tonight, I'll have it for breakfast in the morning.”

“Okay. See you later.”

The drive across town took less than twenty minutes.

McCabe glanced at the clock on her console. It was 8:57. She got out and locked her car door.

She let herself in through the terrace doors with her key.

As she stepped into the dimly lit room, strong arms snuggled around her from behind. “Glad you could make it.”

She turned and smiled, hands going to his shoulders. “So am I. I've missed you.”

“Good, because I've missed you, too.”

“But we need to talk. Someone may know that we've been meeting. There was a tracker on my car.”

He was silent for a moment. “Who do you think put it there?”

“It could have something to do with the serial killer case. Maybe Clarence Redfield.”

“Or someone else.” He touched her face. “I worry about you.”

“I'm not the one who thinks midnight confabs with gang members is a good idea.”

“I go where I have to. Sooner or later, I'm going to get them to the table.”

McCabe shook her head. “If someone's been monitoring my movements, they may know about us.”

“It's been almost three weeks since the last time we saw each other. Between your caseload and my trip out of town—”

“But we don't know how long I was being tracked.”

“McCabe, this … the two of us … isn't actually illegal, you know. Only a few saintly souls would even consider our rendezvous immoral.”

“I know. But we agreed that before we went public, we'd be sure—”

“That we aren't just having a fling.”

“Because once people begin to realize we're involved—”

“If and when that information comes out, we'll both survive.”

“We'll survive, but it would be better if we could decide if and how—”

“We may not have that option. Hey, could we continue this conversation later?”

“What would you like to do right now?”

“Well, let's see. I have a bottle of wine chilling, and I've started your bubble bath running upstairs.…”

“That sounds like bliss.”

“Then come with me, Detective McCabe.”

 

26

 

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Driving into work, McCabe treated herself to the sound stream from Elvis's 2000 farewell concert in Central Park.

She had been fifteen, watching the monumental event on television.

In her car, fingertips keeping beat on the steering wheel, McCabe belted out “Suspicious Minds,” singing along with the King.

She knew it was a temporary lull. But she intended to enjoy her good mood until she walked through the door of the station house.

And if they were lucky, today they would find the piece that would make sense of three murders.

She was parking her car when she gave in and checked the news.

Perfect timing. The announcer was saying, “This afternoon at four, a memorial service will be held for Margaret Givens, the seventy-eight-year-old victim of a gang homicide that Albany police are currently investigating.…”

McCabe sighed. She would have to leave early enough to attend the memorial.

Would Clarence Redfield turn up, too, so that he could thread about it?

Even if he did, it wouldn't be the place to question him about his knowledge of the serial murders. Mrs. Givens deserved respect.

She wondered in passing if the mayor would put in an appearance. The mayor had lost no time getting to Ted Thornton's house to express her sympathy to Greer St. John. Would Mrs. Givens's family receive the same attention? If the mayor was on her political game, she'd be there. The chief would probably turn up, too.

“Morning, partner,” Baxter said.

“I thought I was early. You beat me in.”

“Wanted to see if Research had sent anything on the names we gave them.”

“I added another query about Clarence Redfield last night,” McCabe said. She dropped her jacket on her chair back and reached for her coffee mug. “I got my dad to look through his notes from 2010. It turns out Clarence Redfield made the newspaper that year.”

“What'd he do?”

McCabe told him about the lawsuit. “So the question is, what happened to Redfield's wife and baby? Was it another incompetent doctor, or something else?”

“And you think that might be related to our case?”

“No idea,” McCabe said. “But we won't know until we look.”

The report that they received on Redfield later that morning contained all of the information that Research had been able to generate from an array of sources.

“Here's the answer to your query,” Baxter said, highlighting that section on the wall. “‘Wife suffered traumatic brain injury as the result of a fall. Emergency surgery left her brain-dead.'”

“‘Twenty-one-week fetus in distress,'” McCabe read. “‘Delivered by C-section. Did not survive.'”

“And Redfield made the decision to remove his wife from life support and allow her organs to be harvested,” Baxter said. “That must have been tough.”

“Yeah,” McCabe said. “But I wonder how she came to fall.”

“Read farther down. Says here that she fell from a stepladder in the nursery and struck her head. Redfield said she was hanging a mobile. He was asleep, heard the crash. Found her on the floor.”

“Looks like it happened at around ten-thirty in the morning. Why was he still in bed? Oh, wait, here it is. He said he'd been working late at the office the night before.”

“And she tried to put up the mobile by herself while he was asleep.”

McCabe said, “It sounds like a tragic accident.”

“But you're wondering if it wasn't?”

“Redfield makes me wonder about a lot of things. He's an odd duck, as my dad would say. Let's go through the rest of the report from Research and see if we can find justification for an interview.”

“And if we do and drop by his place rather than bringing him in here—”

“We might be able to get a foot in the door and see what we can see.”

*   *   *

“Now, this is interesting,” Baxter said.

“You've found something?” McCabe asked, turning from the display of documents that she had been searching.

“Another connection to Teddy.”

McCabe ducked behind her desk and sat down. “Okay, I'm ready. What connection does Clarence Redfield have to Ted Thornton?”

“Indirect and almost buried in the fine print, but someone in Research must have remembered that we'd also asked about Ted Thornton.”

“What's the connection?” McCabe asked.

“After he moved back to Albany in 2015, Redfield worked as an independent consultant for a company that was a subcontractor for one of Thornton's companies.”