Blood Count

CHAPTER 46

T he ashtray on Jimmy Wagner’s desk was heaped with butts when I got to him, around seven. He looked up.

“You have something?”

“I’ll have something for you soon.”

“How soon?” he said

“Before tomorrow. I think.”

“You shitting me?”

“No.”

“Thank fuck. Who is it, who do you make for Hutchison’s killer?”

“I’m looking at a woman who worked in the Armstrong. Let me work it a little more, OK? I just wanted to put you in the loop, see if you had anything for me.”

“I’m fucking grateful, man.”

Before I said anything else, Julius Dawes walked into Wagner’s office.

“I thought you were with your daughter,” said Wagner. “How’s she doing?”

“Good, good, left my wife there. I just forgot a few things in my locker,” he said.

“I need you,” said Wagner. “You know about Lionel Hutchison?”

“I heard,” said Dawes, sitting on the edge of a chair. “Bad news. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll just take the one night. You OK with that Captain? I’m only just up in Riverdale. I can be here in half an hour.”

“Thanks,” Wagner said.

“I should get going,” I said.

“I’ll walk you out,” said Dawes.

“That you over there, the red Caddy?”

He knew it was my car. He had mentioned it last time I’d met him at the station house. I waited.

“Listen, detective, if you have something on your mind, you want to spit it out?”

He shrugged. “I’ll let you know,” he said. “If I get to having anything on my mind.” He didn’t like me. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t really know the guy.

“It might be better if you tell me now,” I said.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” said Dawes. “I’ll be back to run the Hutchison case. I want you off it.”

I didn’t answer. Bit my tongue. Let him go on. I’d find out what was eating his liver later. For now all I wanted was to keep going. Pavel had given me enough to pick up Marie Louise.

“I didn’t mention it to the chief because you’re his pal,” said Dawes. “But we don’t need you freelancing on this,” He shifted to his other foot, pulling his coat tight against the wind that had come up.

“It’s Radcliff’s case.”

“You think that makes it better? He likes to work on the edge, he talks to people he shouldn’t include in cases, he’s a wise-ass.”

“He’s a good cop.”

“You would think so, I imagine,” said Dawes, and made for his own car, a battered green Ford Explorer.

Virgil was at Marie Louise’s apartment when I got there. She was standing on the other side of the room with her two boys, her arms around them. She didn’t look at me, just held on to her children.

I went over to Virgil, talked to him quiet as I could. “I have something,” I said. “The driver didn’t take her home. She didn’t go home. I think we have enough.”

He looked at me. “She didn’t do it, Artie. She didn’t do any of it. I found the people she said she was babysitting for, they confirmed it, but I also got the security tape off of Diaz. She never went into the building at all until we saw her heading for Carver Lennox’s place.”

“What did she say?”

“She’s barely talked to me.”

“Did you already call any of those friends at Homeland Security? Your Harvard houses?”

“I only talked to one guy, didn’t give him many specifics, told him it was hypothetical.”

“He believed you?”

“I don’t know. I almost made the biggest fucking mistake of my life,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Christ. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me on the ass.”

“You told him her name?”

Virgil didn’t answer, and I crossed the room to Marie Louise. She answered my questions briefly, her face blank, her eyes full of disappointment. She had trusted me. I tried to say I was sorry and ask if I could help, but she turned her back on me. Her boys stayed close to her, providing protection for their mother.

We left, Virgil and me, and closed the door behind us.

“You think you can fix it for her?” I said to Virgil. “You think you can warn off whoever you talked to?”

“God knows I hope so,” he said. “You get this stuff wrong, you can wreck a whole bunch of people. It’s like some kind of fucking infection. I hope I can fix it.”

In the dim, stinking hallway, Virgil added, “If Marie Louise didn’t kill Hutchison, it doesn’t say she didn’t murder the dog, does it?”

“Why don’t we concentrate on the people first? There’s those people who deal with dog forensics; they’ll come up with something.”

“Right. You have to believe whoever killed Lionel killed Simonova, don’t you?” said Virgil.

“It’s how I make it.”

“I’m going back to the Armstrong. I want to get the rest of those security tapes,” said Virgil.

“I’ll see you.” I wanted time to make some calls. Wanted to do a little thinking. Wanted to call Lily.

Who killed Simonova and Hutchison, and the dog, and who’s next? I wondered, thinking of poor Regina McGee. I wasn’t convinced yet she’d been taken to the hospital because of dehydration, not yet, not at all.