Hell Gate

THIRTY-FOUR

“What’s your impression of Ethan Leighton?” I asked.

We let Lem and his client walk out ahead of us before we started to make our way to Mike’s car on East End Avenue. The mayor’s sedan was no longer parked at the rear gate of Gracie Mansion, and the pedestrian traffic was still light.

“That’s a hinky guy,” Mike said. “He’s all buttoned up and stiff, but keeps flashing that ridiculous smile, hoping you’ll like him. Not the first one I’d think of to be jumping in bed with a hot Latin lover.”

“His emotional disconnect between his affair and Salma’s death is unbelievable. It kills me that I voted for him.”

“You’ll get over it with a cup of hot chocolate. C’mon.”

We wound our way back along the path, past the guardhouse where the security officer was dozing, out to the quiet street. We turned right and walked north a couple of blocks, across from the entrance to Salma’s building.

Just as I opened the car door and got in, I saw a young man who appeared to be in his late teens. He was emerging from the alley behind Salma’s condo, wheeling a grocery-store shopping cart, only half filled with its cargo of white plastic bags.

“That’s it, Mike,” I said, standing again and pointing at the cart.

“That’s what?”

“Remember when we went into Salma’s building through the back door on Wednesday night? The large wooden garbage pails that were lined up and the row of empty shopping carts left behind by deliverymen?”

“Yeah. There are always a few of them around.”

“That’s how the killer got her body out of the building and over here to the well at Gracie Mansion.”

“Maybe so.”

“See the metal grid on the cart?” I asked. “I’ll bet it’s what formed the marks on Salma.”

“What?”

“The parts of her body that weren’t covered by the blanket-underneath her back-or when it shifted with the movement of the cart over the curb and potholes,” I said. “Get one of those shopping carts down to the ME’s office for measurements. I’ll bet that’s what formed the pattern we saw on her skin.”