Icarus

FORTY-NINE

Patience McCoy decided that she was, in fact, an idiot. How much simpler could this have been? The answer: no simpler. This was Basic Police Investigation 101. They would have done this on Law and Order before the first commercial. So why the hell hadn't she thought of it earlier?

Lewis, the records nerd, hadn't just called her back, he'd actually come to her desk. He'd left his beloved records to give her the news.

"What you got for me, File Boy?" she said.

"Absolutely nothing on Jack Keller except for a liquor license application for his restaurant, which was granted. Long time ago."

"Shit," McCoy said.

"But," Lewis said, "there is something on Caroline Keller."

"What?"

"She called in a complaint. Over ten years ago. She was being harassed."

"Don't drag it out, I don't got the time. Just give it to me."

"Her husband was in England and she was being harassed by a woman. Emma Rhowam. English. She was here visiting." He tapped his file. "It says Ms. Rhowam repeatedly made threatening and obscene phone calls to Mrs. Keller, once assaulted her on the street. Keller got a restraining order, which seems to have worked. Calls stopped, no more assaults. Anything else?"

But McCoy had stopped listening. This didn't have to mean anything, she told herself. Ten or more years was a long time. And there didn't have to be a connection. Could be something simple. The Kellers made fun of this lady's dog. The Kellers served her a bad steak in the restaurant. The Kellers It hit her like a lightning bolt.

Don't think Kellers, she told herself. Think Kid.

What was it Jack had told her about the Destination? Kid's romantic description? Topeka's a town, Cleveland's a city, but Rome is a destination.

Rome is a destination.

But how about Rhowam?

You bet your fucking ass she's a destination. She's the Destination. Gotta be. And nine years ago Emma Rhowam attacked Caroline Keller. McCoy had no idea why but right now, the whys were unimportant. All that mattered was finding her.

If she were involved with Kid, that meant she was probably in New York. McCoy reached for the Manhattan phone book. Could it possibly be this easy? Yes, it damn well could. Emma Rhowam, 627 West Ninth Street.

Son of a bitch.

She called the listed phone number and had to admit she was surprised as hell when a woman's voice said, "Hello?"

"Is this Emma Rhowam?"

"Yes. Yes, it is. Who's calling?"

"Sergeant Patience McCoy, NYPD. Do you know a Kid Demeter, Ms. Rhowam?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I did."

"How about Jack and Caroline Keller. Do you know them, too?"

A pause. "What is this about, may I ask?"

"I'd like to discuss that in person. I can be there in twenty minutes."

"I'm afraid I'm on my way to the airport, Sergeant. I'm off to London. I was on my way out the door when the phone rang."

"Well, I'll tell you what, Ms. Rhowam. How about you change your flight?"

"I'm sorry, but-"

"You'll be sorrier if you don't. Because what I'm gonna do is find out what flight you're on. I can do that with a couple of phone calls; it's easy for us big-shot police types, takes a lot less time than it'll take you to get to the airport. And what'll happen is that if you don't talk to me in person now, you'll get out there to that airport, you'll go to get on board, and two big, scary security guards are gonna grab you, arrest you, put your hands behind your back and cuff you. Then they're gonna bring you here to me. And I'll be angry by that time. So what I suggest is you reschedule your flight and go to England another time. And right now, you wait there in your apartment and I'll be there just as soon as I can. Okay?"

There was a long pause and she heard the woman on the other end of the phone mumble "Okay" and Sergeant McCoy slammed the phone down. She stood up from her desk and almost collided with Lewis, who was standing over her, hanging on her every word.

"Can you really do that?" he asked breathlessly. "Can you really find out what flight she's on just like that and get those security guards to arrest her?"

"Lewis," she said, "I'm lucky if I can get the damn elevator to stop on this floor. But she don't know that, does she?" And when his eyes widened in appreciative awe, she said, "Now check that file one more time and tell me what lawyer Caroline used when she got her restraining order."

"It was Herb Bloomfield," Lewis said. "I already checked."

"Good boy," she said. "You just might make a policeman yet."

She then arranged for two policemen to get to 627 West Ninth Street as fast as they could and make damn sure that Emma Rhowam, suspected in the murder of at least four people, was waiting for her when she arrived.

– "-"-"MCCOY RECOGNIZED BLOOMFIELD from the Entertainer's apartment. But she also knew him by reputation. He was a rich man's lawyer and everything about his Park Avenue office looked the part. All the furniture, except for the glass coffee table, was brown leather. The blotter on the partner's desk was sheathed in brown leather. Most of the books on his bookshelves were bound in brown leather. His pen-and-pencil set was brown leather. She felt blessed that Herb Bloomfield was fifty pounds overweight or she was fairly sure that he'd be wearing a brown leather suit instead of his conservative pinstripe with white shirt and red tie.

"Sergeant, as I told you, I-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," McCoy said. "I know, we did all this on the phone. But let me lay this on you one more time, Herb. Your first client, Caroline, is dead. Your second client, Jack, is missing in action and I am worried as hell about him. You want me to start counting up again how many people have been killed so far? If you don't, why don't you just tell me what I want to know so I can try to stop anybody else from dying."

The lawyer tapped his brown leather cigar case on the desk. The taps started out quick and rhythmic and ended with one decisive slam.

"He was having an affair with her."

"What?"

"Jack. With this Emma Rhowam. About ten years ago. Well, no, I'm sorry, he wasn't having an affair with her. He'd had an affair with her. And he'd ended it."

"So how did-"

"She was kind of a nut. What else can I tell you? Obsessive, I guess. Jack was a catch. Still is. Apparently, for him it was a fling, for her it wasn't. And she didn't like being dumped. So while he was still in London, she came over here, started harassing Caroline. Called her, told her about the affair, tried to give her intimate details. I suppose trying to break up the marriage."

"And what did Caroline do?"

"She didn't want any part of it. At first she didn't believe it. But this Emma gave her enough information so Caroline knew it was true. She was devastated, of course. Furious. But then she calmed down and just wanted the whole thing to go away. So she came to me and I made it go away."

"And what did Jack do when he found out?"

"He never did."

"Come again?"

"She never told him. And swore me to secrecy. To this day I've never told Jack what happened."

"Why would she do that?"

"I can't say for sure. Humiliation, maybe. Strength, just as likely. I think that Caroline wanted to handle it in her own way. And it's fairly safe to say that she was right. Their marriage certainly survived and flourished. And maybe it wouldn't have if this had all come out in the open."

"And what about Kid Demeter?"

"What about him?"

"Do you know anything about the connection between Emma Rhowam and Kid?"

Now the lawyer looked surprised. "I didn't know there was a connection."

"Oh, yeah. There was quite a connection."

McCoy didn't say anything for quite a while.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant?"

"Yeah," she said. "Can you explain to me why it is that people do what they do to other people?"

"I'm afraid you're on your own with that one," Herb said. "That's out of my league."

"Mine, too," McCoy said. Then she headed downtown.

– "-"-"SHE DIDN'T EVEN have to talk to the cops on the street to know what had happened. She'd had too much experience and knew the moment she stepped out of her car.

She went up the three flights of stairs two steps at a time. When she got to Emma's apartment, the door was ajar and McCoy said, "Shit."

She stepped inside and saw the ME, already hard at work. When she saw the woman on the floor, the first thing she noticed was that she was extremely attractive. Short dark hair. Superb body. Early thirties.

Her damn throat spoiled her looks, though.

It was cut right in two.

Ruins the whole effect, McCoy thought.

And that's when her cell phone rang. She answered it, listened as the cop on the other end told her what had happened at Dominick Bertolini's Meat Mart on Gansevoort and Greenwich streets.

"Nobody saw anything?" she asked.

"Not a soul. And the old guy sure can't tell us what happened."

"Can we get any prints?"

"They're probably all over the weapon," the cop said. "Only problem is it ain't here."

"Do what you can," she said, then immediately called Jack Keller's apartment and left her third message on his phone machine. "This is McCoy," she announced. "We got a full-fledged lunatic on a rampage now, Jack. Don't let anybody into your apartment without checking with me first. Anybody. Particularly Grace Childress. She ain't the Destination, Jack. The Destination's dead. She's the Murderess and my guess is she's doin' her best to live up to her nickname. I don't know where the hell you are but call me as soon as you get this. Bad has gotten worse and you need to know about it."

She didn't hang up immediately, felt she should say more, but didn't know what else to leave on the tape. So she tapped the phone against her arm, realized she was still recording, and pressed the "End Call" button.

And when she hung up the phone it was the first time in her professional life she'd ever felt a sense of pure and utter panic.

– "-"-"SURPRISES CAME IN threes.

Somebody said that, too, but there was no time to remember who. Whoever it was had definitely been right, though. First was the angry guy at the Morticians – the paper said he was her husband – barging in through the bedroom door. Then there was the way the old guy, Dom, had fought back at the meat market. Damn, he was ferocious. It was still impossible to believe. How could somebody that old be so strong? Then the Destination, she was expecting a cop, opened the door without even needing to hear a story. None of the surprises mattered, of course, not in the end. Everything had happened the way it was supposed to happen.

Everything was turning out beautifully…

– "-"-"BACK OUT ON West Ninth Street, McCoy sucked in some fresh air, hot and humid and not very refreshing. She decided she had to do something. She needed to move. She took the unmarked car – not a bad one this time; a little rust on the passenger door but, all in all, perfectly acceptable – and drove all the way up to East Seventy-seventh Street. To make everything seem a little more urgent, but mostly just to give herself a little needed pleasure, she put the rotating light on the roof and turned the siren on.

When she arrived at Jack's apartment building, McCoy flashed her badge at the doorman, but he'd had a lot of experience working the ritzy part of town. He couldn't just let her up, he said. A lot of tenants would have him fired if he let anyone into their apartments, even a cop. Mr. Keller wasn't like that, the doorman said, he was a nice guy, but still…

McCoy didn't argue. She just told him that it was a matter of life or death and that if he didn't let her go up, she'd make sure he was fired. Guaranteed, today would be his last day on the job. When he still wavered, she said, steely as she could be, which was pretty damn steely, "Congratulations, you're outta here." Then she started back out to the street, but he grabbed her by the arm and said, "Okay, look, you gotta make it clear that you said it was life or death." McCoy didn't bother to respond, just headed for the elevator as he called after her, "Press 'Penthouse.' I'll release it."

She made a quick search of the apartment. When she was done, she realized she'd been holding her breath in. She had thought she might find another body and when she didn't, she felt herself able to breathe again.

McCoy knew that she should just sit quietly and wait. If she got impatient, she could leave. But as she'd discovered, by the age of three, she was not the patient type, so what the hell, as long as she was here, she decided, she might as well poke around. She wasn't really violating any laws. Jack Keller wasn't a suspect and she wasn't looking for anything incriminating. She was just hoping that something might jar a thought. An action. Any kind of clue as to what was happening… and how to stop it.

She was there maybe forty-five minutes, sifting through papers, opening drawers, finding nothing of any import and feeling kind of silly, actually, knowing she was being a snoop, not a cop, when she heard the elevator.

It's about time, McCoy thought. Then she steeled herself to deliver the bad news.

– "-"-"SO MUCH FOR surprises coming in threes.

Here was surprise number four. Unbelievable. But not a real problem, not yet anyway.

Surprise number four would be dealt with, too.

This had to be the cop, the woman sergeant. That's the only thing that made sense. But what was she doing here? By the way she looked so startled, she was probably alone. That was good. But she also looked suspicious, and that was bad. She wouldn't have her guard down long. She would know what was happening before too long. So better to move now. Better to strike immediately and ask questions later. That way, maybe there wouldn't be any more surprises.

She was smart, this cop, that was obvious. The way her eyes narrowed, she sensed something was wrong. And she was quick, because as soon as their eyes met, she didn't even ask any questions, she just reached for her gun. Oh, yes, she was smart and quick.

But not smart and quick enough.

– "-"-"MCCOY KNEW SHE'D make it.

"Can I help you?" she asked. And when the answer came and all it was was "No," she knew. She'd been trained to know and to act simultaneously and that's what she did. So she wasn't even particularly worried because it all seemed so right: her coming to the apartment, sticking around on little more than a whim, being there now with the opportunity to end it all. So when she moved, she was nothing but confident.

But going for her gun, she missed. Not a big miss, but she didn't grab it cleanly; her fingers grazed the handle and she had to fumble for it. She understood immediately that those extra few seconds were fatal but she didn't stop trying.

She leaped back, hoping that would give her the time she needed, but like everything else in this goddamn case, nothing went as planned.

She realized that the knife that was slashing at her was the one that had been taken from Dominick Bertolini's market. She realized she was looking at the Entertainer's murderer. And Samsonite's and the Mortician's and the Destination's. And hers. She realized that, too, now.

Her final realization was that she could forget about retiring in Bucks County with her beloved Elmore. She was going to die right here in New York City.

– "-"-"THE COP WAS moving. Couldn't let her move.

No more surprises. That was even a better motto than better safe than sorry.

The blade ripped through the air one more time and once was all it took.

The red blood rushed out and spread thickly down chocolate-brown skin. She grabbed for her throat, dropping her gun, and for the first time there was someone who didn't look as if she couldn't believe she was going to die. She looked like she expected to die. But she sure was angry about it.

Even after the cop was dead, she looked really, really angry.

Hard to blame her, really. But not much to be done about it.

Except clean up.

Why did death have to be so messy?