NYPD Red 3

Chapter 53

If you have to be anywhere at six o’clock on a cold Saturday morning, Gerri’s Diner is one of the better places to be. The food is always good, and at that hour the place is relatively empty, so Gerri has time to come to your table and shamelessly meddle in your life.

Sometimes I steer clear of her unsolicited advice, but after last night’s disaster with Cheryl and Kylie I was ripe for her take-no-prisoners brand of grandmotherly wisdom.

She brought two cups of coffee and a basket of muffins and sat down across from me.

“Sorry I ran out on the check yesterday,” I said.

“Yeah, I called the cops,” she said, pushing the muffins in my direction. “They’re looking all over for you.”

“What do I owe you?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends how long this therapy session lasts. You’ve got ‘needy’ and ‘confused’ written all over you.”

I told her what had happened the night before. She didn’t say a word until I got to the point where I bolted out the door.

“You left the scene of the crime? I hope you brought back a third woman, because you don’t have a chance in hell with the two you left in your apartment.”

She nailed it, and the look on my face let her know she was right.

“Anyway, I get back with the beer, thinking, ‘How do I do damage control?’ and as soon as I walk in the door, Cheryl says she’s exhausted from a long day, gives me a half-assed peck on the cheek, and leaves. Then Kylie, who’s clueless about what’s going on, says she better be going too, and she leaves.”

“And there you are with all those party supplies and no party.”

“I felt like a total asshole.”

“You want my take on it?”

I knew I wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but I needed to hear it. “Sure. Lay it on me.”

“You’re right about one thing,” she said. “You were a total asshole. Someone Cheryl loves is dying, she’s devastated, and all you can think about is your manly ego? She was married to Fred for more than ten years. It’s over. And you’re upset because she’s got compassion? My take on you—” She picked up a spoon and banged it on the tabletop like a gavel. “Guilty of bad behavior.

“Next case: Cheryl was right to chew you out after the way you behaved when she showed up with Fred. But then she walks in on you and Kylie, gets her own nose out of joint, sends you on a fool’s errand, then walks out when you come back? Classic passive-aggressive shit. Verdict on Dr. Robinson: guilty.” The gavel-spoon came down again.

“And finally, Kylie. Do you really think she was clueless about what was going on between you and Cheryl? Women are not remotely as clueless as men would like to think. As for coming up to your apartment for pizza so she could tell you how her marriage is going south, she knew exactly what she was doing. She wants to play out the old girlfriend-boyfriend scenario, only without the sex... for now. But that’s like Spence spending the night with a bottle of oxy on the dresser and promising himself he won’t even look at it.”

“So you think she wants to get back together with me?”

“I’m not saying she’s ready to jump into bed with you, but she definitely remembers the times when she did, and it’s not an option she’s ruled out. And you — you had the same thing on your mind. You weren’t just sitting on the sofa drinking beer so you could help save her marriage. Both of you: guilty.” She pounded the gavel-spoon two more times.

“Okay, but at least you’re saying we’re all equally at fault.”

“You’re not listening. Yes, you’re all at fault, but not equally. You started it, Zach. You’re the one who got upset with Cheryl because you let your ego take over for your brain. And you’re the one who invited Kylie up to your apartment for a six-pack and sympathy, only it wasn’t your ego that made that stupid decision. It was your — hey, do I have to spell it out for you? Court is adjourned.”

She gave one last hit with her gavel and stood up.

“You need protein,” she said. “How do you want your eggs?”

Chapter 54

Tripp woke up to the smell of fresh coffee. He’d slept in his parka and hugged it to his body. “Worst night’s sleep of my life,” he said, easing himself out of the top bunk.

“I’ll call the front desk and see if I can arrange for an upgrade,” Madison said. “Till then, suck it up, princess.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Tripp said. “That guy walked in out of nowhere and opened the cage. I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Madison said. “But what’s done is done.”

“I guess my father is pissed at me now that he knows I’m not really kidnapped.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but he didn’t seem to give a shit about you. Mostly he’s crapping in his pants that I know about Project Gutenberg.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “I’m going up top for a smoke. Help yourself to coffee. There are some power bars in the cabinet.”

Madison went up to the deck and lit a cigarette.

Tripp poured himself a cup of black coffee and followed him upstairs. “You think he’ll pay the hundred million?”

“Oh, he’ll come around,” Madison said. He took a drag on his cigarette, turned away from Tripp, and blew the smoke in the other direction.

Tripp braced himself. Now or never.

As Madison turned back to look at him, Tripp’s arm flew up and unleashed a full cup of scalding hot coffee at his face.

Madison screamed, dropped his cigarette and coffee cup, and threw his hands against his seared skin. Tripp dug into the pocket of his parka, produced the stun gun, wedged it under Madison’s jaw, and shot fifteen million volts into the teacher’s neck.

Madison crumpled to the deck. One hand still clutching his face, he struggled to get to his feet, but Tripp fell on him, jammed the stun gun against his ass, and squeezed the trigger.

All it took was three seconds and Madison was immobilized. Tripp rifled through his pockets. Money. Car keys. No phone — and no time to go back to the cabin and hunt for one. Shoving his arms under Madison’s torso, he dragged him across the deck and, with one adrenaline-charged motion, heaved him over the side into the icy Hudson.

Tripp ran for the starboard side and vaulted onto the dock. It would have been an easy jump if he hadn’t caught the toe of his boot on a cleat. He landed hard, and both ankles buckled on impact. The stun gun flew from his hand, skittered into a wooden pile, and bounced into the water.

He staggered to his feet. The parking lot was only a hundred yards away. He started to run, but it was like a dream where he willed himself to go faster, and his body refused. His ankles were on fire, his legs were leaden, and the best he could do was painstakingly limp his way up the icy path toward the Subaru.

He was almost there when he heard the scream. He turned. Madison was out of the river, slowly slogging toward him.

Tripp threw himself against the driver’s side door of the Subaru and, with two hands on one key, put it against the lock. It didn’t fit. He fumbled for the other key. That didn’t work either. Cursing, he tried the first one again. Still nothing.

Madison, waterlogged and weighed down, was halfway up the hill, screaming Tripp’s name, swearing that all was forgiven, promising that everything would be all right.

Tripp tried the second key one more time. He held it as steady as he could, put the tip against the lock, and pushed. It didn’t fit. By now Madison was fifty feet away, panting, his pace slower, but closing in.

Tripp had two options: try to outrun him or stay and fight. And then his eyes fell on the useless car keys, and his brain zeroed in on the Pentastar logo.

It wasn’t the Subaru key.

Madison was less than twenty feet away when Tripp unlocked the front door of the rusty old Dodge Caravan, shoved the second key in the ignition, turned the engine over, threw the van into reverse, and hit the accelerator.

The van lurched back into the empty lot. Ten feet, twenty, fifty.

He was crying now, overwhelmed by fear and the new reality. Peter was gone. Madison had betrayed him. His father despised him. For the first time in his privileged life, Tripp Alden was on his own.

He shifted the van into drive, and then, pointing toward freedom, careened out of the parking lot and headed north on Marin Boulevard toward the Holland Tunnel, into the city.

Chapter 55

After a memorable breakfast of eggs, bacon, and a side order of analysis, I walked to the office to face my second challenge of the morning. Matt Smith.

Matt is our resident technical virtuoso — an affable Brit who’s easy to like and easy to work with. He’s also annoyingly good-looking, which for me makes him harder to like and harder to work with.

A few months ago, I caught him being overly attentive to Cheryl, and I was sure he was hitting on her. But I was wrong. Matt was much more fascinated by Kylie. He never acted on his feelings because he knew she was married. But in my never-ending quest to drive myself crazy, I wondered what he’d do if he found out Kylie was thinking about becoming unmarried.

She was in Matt’s office when I got there. “Zach, Matt’s been working on Tripp’s computer all night, and he’s got something.”

“Correction,” he said, flashing a self-congratulatory smile. “Half the night. And two somethings.”

He tapped on the tracking pad, and an email popped up on one of the two thirty-inch monitors on his desk.

“It’s in Haitian Creole from Tripp to Peter Chevalier,” Matt said. “It says ‘I left the flash drive in your room. Did you get it?’ Here’s Peter’s response.”

“Translation: ‘Got it. Don’t worry. I’ll keep it close. Peter.’ There was nothing in the evidence report that indicates they found a flash drive on Peter’s body. Did you find one in his room?”

“No, and we released his personal effects to his brother,” I said. “None of it was crime scene evidence, but we’ll get the computer back if you want it.”

“Absolutely. In the meantime, you should talk to her,” Matt said, flashing a picture of a woman on the second screen. “Irene Gerrity, eighty-five years old. According to the file I found in Tripp’s computer, she’s the first employee ever hired by Alden Investments. She was Hutch’s personal secretary until Junior joined the family business. Then she was assigned to him — probably because in the beginning she knew more than he did. She worked for him till she retired seven years ago. Last November, Tripp shot an interview with her.”

“He’s putting together a movie for Hutch’s seventieth birthday,” I said.

“Tell me about it. I found the folder with twenty-three different interview subjects, each one more boring than the next.”

“How’d you happen to zero in on Irene?”

“It’s the only one shot by Peter Chevalier.”

“Roll it,” Kylie said.

“Trust me,” Matt said. “If you had to sit through the entire forty-seven minutes, you’d blow your brains out. I pulled out a few highlights. Here’s the first one.”

Irene was in a formal living room, sitting on a love seat, wearing a blue dress, minimal makeup, with her silver hair neatly done in a no-nonsense cut. Tripp Alden was adjusting her mic. “You look great, Irene,” he said.

“Bullshit. I look like the wreck of the Hesperus.”

“No, really, you look beautiful,” Tripp said, stepping off camera.

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you, Hunter? Still blowing smoke.”

“It’s Tripp, Irene.”

“Of course it’s Tripp. What did I say?”

“You called me Hunter.”

“I did? Peter, did I?”

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Irene,” the off-camera voice said. It was slightly nasal, with a distinct French lilt. “And for the record, you do look beautiful.”

Matt stopped the video. “She called the kid Hunter five more times. He finally gave up on correcting her. But apart from a spot of dementia, Irene’s quite the feisty old broad.”

“Zach doesn’t like ’em feisty,” Kylie said.

Matt laughed, but he knew enough to stay out of it. “Next clip,” he said.

Irene was now sitting at a piano, singing the last few notes of “Happy Birthday.” Applause came from behind the camera, and she responded with the classic lounge singer bow. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Thank you,” Tripp said. “Not only were you terrific, but this room will be the best-looking one on the video. Your house is incredible.”

“Couldn’t have afforded it without you, Hunter,” Irene said.

“You can thank Hutch for that,” Tripp said. “He’s always paid people well.”

She waved off the remark. “Hutch had nothing to do with it. I’m talking about...” Irene leaned forward and whispered toward the camera. “Project Gutenberg. Just you and me, Hunter. We both hit the jackpot on that one.”

She waited for an answer. Tripp didn’t have one. She put her hands to her mouth. “Oh shit. Cat’s out of the bag. Hunter, please don’t be mad.”

Tripp entered the frame and sat next to her on the piano bench. “It’s okay, Irene. Whatever it is, I could never be mad at you.”

“I kept all your secrets. Especially Gutenberg. But I had a little secret of my own. I always felt bad about hiding it from you.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Tripp said. “I’m fine. I don’t care what it is.”

“Screw it. I opened my big mouth. It’s time I got it off my chest.”

Matt stopped the tape again.

“Hey,” Kylie said. “Don’t stop now. It’s just getting interesting.”

“Oh, would you like to see the rest?” Matt said. He pushed play. The screen filled with white noise.

“What the hell?” Kylie said.

“It’s been redacted. Censored. Wiped clean. Whatever it was she confessed, Tripp didn’t want anyone else to hear, so he erased the tape.”

“But not right away,” I said.

“Meaning what?” Kylie said.

“Meaning that Irene thought Tripp was Hunter, and she dropped a bombshell on him,” I said. “How does an eighteen-year-old kid handle something like that? Does he quickly destroy the evidence? Or is he more likely to share the footage with the one person he trusts?”

“Son of a bitch,” Kylie said. “Before he erased it, Tripp showed it to Ryan Madison, the dedicated teacher who gives young filmmakers guidance on mise-en-scène.”

We still had no idea where Madison was, or what he was planning, but we finally knew one of the cards he was holding.

Chapter 56

Lonnie Martinez left his apartment, rang for the elevator, and then backed off when the doors opened. He’d spent enough time trapped inside a small box. He walked down the six flights of stairs.

There was a man sitting on the floor of the vestibule, his head buried between his knees. Lonnie tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, dude, you can’t park your ass here. Find a shelter.”

The man looked up. “Lonnie, I need help.” It was Tripp.

Lonnie exploded. “You need? You’ve got some balls. I took a couple of million volts trying to save your ass, spent three days locked in a cage, and when I finally get out, you put a stun gun in my face, and shove me back in. Get out, or I’ll call the cops. No, wait: your buddy still has my cell phone, so I can’t call anybody. But I can still beat the shit out of you.”

“The guy who took us isn’t my buddy.”

“I’m not an idiot, Tripp. I don’t know what your deal is, but you and that so-called kidnapper were in it together. It wasn’t even a real kidnapping. The whole thing was a scam. Three days, Tripp. Three days of my life. You want to know how crazy my abuela was when I finally got home?”

Tripp held up his hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was bullshit at first, but last night he changed the rules. He locked me up in his boat, but I got away.”

“I don’t give a shit. Now get up and—”

“He killed Peter!”

“Who?” Lonnie said.

Tripp struggled to his feet. “I banged up my ankles pretty bad,” he said.

Lonnie grabbed Tripp by the shoulders. “Who?” he said, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper. “Who killed—”

The outside door opened and two women walked in. Lonnie nodded and pulled Tripp out the door. “Start walking.”

“I’m freezing, and I can’t walk,” Tripp said. “I’ve got wheels. I’m parked around the corner.”

Lonnie recognized the Dodge Caravan as soon as they turned onto 120th Street. “If you think I’m getting back in there so you can pull that stun gun on me again, you’re crazy.”

“I don’t have it.” Tripp spread his arms and legs, and Lonnie patted him down.

“Open the back of the van,” Lonnie said.

“Empty,” Tripp said once the doors were open. “Get in. It’s smarter if we keep moving.”

“You try anything and I’ll punch your lights out,” Lonnie said, climbing into the passenger seat. Tripp put the van in gear and headed east.

“Now tell me who your partner is in all this rich-boy crazy kidnapping shit.”

“Mr. Madison.”

“Our Mr. Madison? From school?”

Tripp nodded. “I had a plan — to get money from my dad.”

“And you needed it so bad that you had to kill Peter?”

Tripp pulled the Dodge Caravan to the curb and jammed on the brakes. “I didn’t fucking kill Peter. I didn’t even know he was dead till last night,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “Madison did it, and I’m probably next.”

“So,” Lonnie said, “do you think Madison killed Blackstone too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The private eye who works for your dad. Somebody put a bullet through his head last night. He was in his car at the Silver Moon Diner — same place we went to after we finished shooting the carjacking scene.”

“Madison and I were at the Silver Moon last night,” Tripp said, “and trust me, I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Are you telling me that some preppy-ass, white-bread teacher from Barnaby did Peter and Blackstone?”

“I didn’t see him do it, but yeah.”

“Why?” Lonnie said. “Blackstone I can almost understand, especially if he tracked you down, but why would Madison kill Peter?”

Tripp shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t what? You put me through hell, you come back begging for help, and now you’re holding out on me?” Lonnie opened the van door.

Tripp grabbed onto his jacket. “Wait. I’m sorry. Please.”

“Hands off me, Alden. I’m not your bitch. I’m the best friend you ever had. So either answer the question or find another ghetto kid to kiss your ass.”

Tripp let go of Lonnie’s jacket. “Do you remember Irene Gerrity?”

“Never met her. I was sick that day, so Peter shot for me. What about her?”

“Near the end of the shoot she told me something about my father. Something that could put him in jail for the rest of his life.”

“Did you believe her? That old broad was crazy as a shithouse rat.”

“She had proof — real evidence — and she gave it to me. I didn’t know what to do. Peter said I should talk to Hutch, but I decided to show it to Madison, and he came up with this plan to get my father to pay back the people he hurt.”

“I watched the video. She never said anything bad about your father.”

“Madison erased it before you got the tape. But Peter heard every word of it, and I think that’s what got him killed.”

“So why don’t you just take this real evidence the old lady gave you and turn it over to the cops?”

“I would, but I don’t know where it is. I gave it to Peter for safekeeping.”

“Shit, man,” Lonnie said, still holding the van door open. “Being your cameraman is a dangerous job. I think I should resign while I still can.”

“Please, I know I screwed up bad, but you’re the only one I can turn to.”

Lonnie took a deep breath and let it out. “Damn your ass,” he said, pulling the door shut. “What do you need?”

Chapter 57

“I don’t know when Irene Gerrity started losing her marbles,” Matt said, “but she had them all when she was pulling off this Gutenberg deal. I’ve tapped into all her available bank records, but the money she made never saw the light of day in the U.S. It’s got to be squirreled away offshore.”

“What about her house?” I said.

“She bought it eight years ago, just before she hung up her hat at Alden Investments, but there’s no paper trail on how she paid for it,” Matt said.

“I’m sure it’s just one of the little skill sets she picked up working for Hunter,” I said. “I’ll ask her about it. Kylie and I are headed straight up to Fieldston as soon as she gets back from the dentist.”

Kylie had left five minutes earlier. “Dental emergency,” she had said to Matt as she bolted out the door.

It was, of course, pure fiction, but telling your coworkers you have a loose filling is much more discreet than saying “My marriage is on the skids.”

I went back to my desk, which is in the wide-open bull pen that Red occupies on the third floor of the 19th Precinct. I decided to use the time to catch up on a growing pile of paperwork that’s part of the glamour of being a cop.

Five minutes later, the elevator doors opened. I looked up, and there, heading my way, was the last person I ever expected to see. He stopped at my desk and grinned. “Happy New Year, Zach.”

It was Spence Harrington, Kylie’s husband.

I stood up and shook his hand. “Spence... Kylie didn’t tell me you were coming home.”

“That’s probably because I didn’t tell her. It’s kind of a surprise. Where is she?”

That’s kind of a surprise, too. “Dentist,” I said, sticking to the cover story. “If you’re back so soon, I’m guessing Oregon didn’t go so well.”

“Oregon? Zach, I’m an addict. You can say rehab. Actually, they have a damn good program out there, but I had a long talk with my counselor, and he figures it’ll take me six months to a year to get through it. Despite what Kylie thinks, that’s too long to be three thousand miles away from my wife. So, I found something in New York, and, like it or not, here I am.”

“Well, I’m sure Kylie will be...” I groped for the right words to finish the sentence.

Spence did it for me. “She’ll be pissed to the gills, but that’s her problem. This is my last chance to salvage my marriage, and I decided I’d have a better shot at it if I were closer to home. So, what have you and Kylie been up to?”

Up to? I’m sure he meant work, so I started making small talk about NYPD closing out last year with the fewest homicides in the city’s history, and staying away from any reference to the Aldens. As awkward as it was, it beat the alternative of sitting there like an idiot and not talking to him.

After ten minutes, the elevator doors opened, and Kylie stepped out. She took one look at Spence and shook her head in disgust. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hey, sweetheart, I’m happy to see you too,” he said.

“Let me rephrase the question,” Kylie said. “When did you lose your mind?”

“It’s not as crazy as you think,” Spence said. “I signed up for a program right here in the city. It’s called Better Choices.”

“And what makes Better Choices any better than the one in Oregon?”

“It’s not in Oregon,” he said with a boyish smile that fell flat. “Come on, Kylie, don’t judge it before you know anything about it. It’s in Tribeca. It goes from eight in the morning to five at night, six days a week, and it has one of the best success rates on the East Coast.”

“It’s a day program?” Kylie said. “And where are you spending your nights? Because I can tell you where you won’t be spending them.”

Spence looked at me. “I told you she’d be pissed.”

“Pissed doesn’t begin to describe it,” Kylie said. “We had a deal, and you are not moving back in at this stage of your recovery.”

“I know. I called Shelley. He’s letting me use the corporate apartment. For the record, he’s not happy I’m back either. He said he can put a roof over my head, but I don’t get my job back till I graduate.”

“Spence, this is your third rehab in less than two months. What makes you think this one is going to be any different?”

“It won’t be,” he said. “Unless I have you on my side. I’m just asking you to believe in me one more time. That’s it. I’ll let you guys get back to work. Nice to see you, Zach.”

Spence didn’t wait for the elevator. He hightailed it down the stairwell. Kylie stood there in silence, watching him go, her anger and frustration palpable.

I decided this would not be a good time to ask her how it went with the divorce lawyer.

Chapter 58

Kylie and I got in the car, and she drove across Central Park without saying a word. I knew she was stewing about Spence, so I decided to give her all the space she needed.

We were headed north on the Henry Hudson Parkway when she finally broke the silence. “It’s too bad Cheryl’s not around,” she said.

I couldn’t believe it. Why would she want to open that wound? But I couldn’t let it go either. “Why would you say that?” I asked.

“Irene Gerrity has serious comprehension and memory issues, and Cheryl could have given us some direction on the best way to handle her.”

I let out a long slow breath. I’d been so obsessed with Cheryl, my girlfriend, that I’d forgotten she was also Dr. Robinson, my go-to departmental psychologist.

“I could call Cheryl and ask,” I said, “but first I’d need some direction on the best way to handle her.”

“Trouble in paradise, Detective Jordan?”

“You know damn well there is, Detective MacDonald. You were in paradise chomping on pizza and knocking down brewskis last night when the trouble hit the fan.”

She gave me a wide-eyed smile that said “Look at me — I’m innocent.” She was anything but. Gerri Gomperts was right. Women are not remotely as clueless as men would like to think. Kylie had no interest in talking about her relationship issues, so she brought up mine.

And I, of course, couldn’t resist taking the bait. “As long as we’re on the subject of last night,” I said, “did Cheryl say anything about me when I went out to get more beer?”

“Not a lot. Just that you owed her a major apology for your childish behavior over Fred.”

“Damn. She said that?”

“No, Zach, she didn’t. But I’m having much more fun analyzing your relationship problems than I’d be having ruminating about my own.”

“Sounds like it all went swimmingly at the dentist’s office,” I said.

“Swimmingly is the perfect choice of terms. The man was a shark. All he cared about was how much Spence earned, how much I’d contributed to his income over the past ten years, how much is our apartment worth, and do we own any cars, boats, life insurance policies, or livestock. It was all about money, money, money.”

“Kylie, he’s a divorce attorney. What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was naive enough to think that there would be some compassion to go along with the legal advice.”

“Hey, if you want compassion, go to a diner, not a law firm.”

“I guess that means you woke up early this morning and poured your heart out to Gerri.”

“Don’t knock it. Not only did she give me excellent advice, but it came with eggs over easy, bacon, and a toasted blueberry muffin. See if your guy can top that.”

She laughed. “My guy gets five hundred an hour. Six hundred if I want breakfast with it. Can we get serious for a minute?”

“We can try.”

“I’ve handled more than my fair share of EDPs over the past ten years,” she said. “And my track record is less than stellar.”

NYPD responds to a couple of hundred thousand emotionally disturbed persons calls a year. Most are harmless, but some can be homicidal. It’s always a challenge dealing with the mentally ill, and the department is constantly evaluating how to improve our training. But the simple fact is that some cops are better at it than others. I wasn’t surprised to hear Kylie admit that she fell short.

“Irene is not exactly your typical threat-to-the-neighborhood EDP,” I said. “She’s a rich old lady who’s losing her mental faculties as part of the aging process.”

“Even so, I don’t think I can remember any of the training we had at the academy on how to interview someone who has dementia. How about you?”

“I remember the basics. Make eye contact, talk slowly, try to engage them in shared experiences, and no waterboarding unless they really have it coming to them.”

Kylie laughed. “You take the lead with Irene,” she said.

“You sure? I think she’d be more comfortable talking with a woman.”

“No, no... I caught part of your conversation with Spence,” Kylie said. “You seem to be very good at communicating with delusional people who are incapable of living in reality.”

We drove the rest of the way in blessed silence.

Chapter 59

Ask your average New Yorkers what they know about the Bronx, and they might recall their first Yankees game in The House That Ruth Built, or rave about the cannoli-to-die-for on Arthur Avenue, or dredge up the wave of arson that ravaged the South Bronx in the seventies.

None of them would mention Fieldston.

Less than twenty minutes from the precinct, Fieldston is one of the best-kept secrets in the Bronx: a privately owned community of tree-lined streets, landmark-status homes, and well-heeled white people.

“Miss Irene seems to have done pretty well for a secretary,” Kylie said as we turned onto Goodridge Avenue and parked in front of her imposing stucco-and-stone Tudor revival — style house.

We rang the bell and ID’d ourselves to a woman in a nurse’s uniform.

“Is this about the stolen pearls?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Did you report a robbery?”

“Miss Irene did last week. She hid her pearls so no one would steal them, then she forgot she hid them, so she called 911. Yesterday I was taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree, and guess what I found? A string of pearls. I called the precinct and unreported the crime.”

“This is about Peter Chevalier,” I said. “Is she aware of what happened?”

“She saw it in the newspaper, and she was very upset at the time. But aware? I can’t tell you what she’s aware of. It changes from minute to minute.”

She escorted us into the living room. It was the same one we’d seen in the video, and there on the settee was Irene Gerrity sipping a cocktail.

We introduced ourselves, and she raised her glass. “It’s a Perfect Manhattan,” she said. “My doctor lets me have two a week.”

The nurse, who had stepped off to the side, rolled her eyes, and I got the feeling that math was not Irene’s strong suit. Delusional and tipsy. I’d just have to wing it.

“Miss Gerrity,” I said, “we’re here to ask you about Peter Chevalier.”

“Beautiful man,” she said. “How do you know Peter?”

“I don’t, but I understand you saw him recently.”

She looked at me. She needed another prompt.

“He was here with...” I hated lying to her, but I had to work within the bounds of her reality. “He was here with Hunter Alden. They were shooting a video for Hutch’s birthday.”

“Oh yes. I remember. We had a few laughs. Told some war stories.”

“Hunter told us you’re quite a smart investor.”

“He’s the smart one. That boy kicked ass up and down the Street.”

“Looking at this beautiful home, I’d say you kicked a little ass yourself.”

She took a sip of her drink. “Are you here about the pearls? I can tell you who stole them.”

I didn’t know the rules, but I was determined to play the game. I took out a pad. “That would help us a lot,” I said. “Did you see who took your pearls?”

“Damn right. I saw him skulking around here a bunch of times. It was Truman.”

I rolled with it. “And what’s Truman’s last name?” I asked, pen poised.

Irene turned to Kylie. “Is he stupid? Truman is his last name. Harry S. Truman. He’s the goddamn president of the United States. All those Democrats are after my money, and he’s the ringleader.”

“That’s a big help, ma’am,” Kylie said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find your pearls. Thanks for your help. We’ll be going now.”

Kylie gestured at me with her head, and the two of us were starting to leave when she stopped and turned back to Irene. “I do have one last question,” Kylie said sweetly.

Irene smiled, determined to help us find the dead president who had made off with her pearls.

Kylie smiled back. “It’s about Project Gutenberg—”

Irene snapped. “Get out!” she screamed. “Both of you. Out!”

She tried to stand, but the nurse jumped in and grabbed her. “Get your hands off me, Lorna. Just throw their asses out of here now.”

Lorna calmly eased her back onto the settee. “I’ll see them out, Miss Irene. Why don’t you enjoy your drink? And when I get back we can play a little canasta.”

Irene didn’t go for the drink. She glared at Kylie, teeth gnashed, one fist clenched. “Fucking asshole bitch,” she said.

Sweet little old Irene Gerrity had just shown us her dark side.

Lorna ushered us to the front door. “And don’t come back!” she yelled loud enough for an octogenarian to hear in the next room.

Then she leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Wait in your car. I’ll be out in ten minutes.”

Chapter 60

“I’m not the keenest judge of human nature,” I said as Kylie and I walked to the car, “but I’m guessing you two feisty females are not going to be BFFs.”

“Hey, you were getting nowhere, so I threw a Hail Mary. It didn’t work. No apologies.”

“None expected, but it would be a nice gesture if you let me drive.”

She tossed me the keys, and we got in the car.

Ten minutes later, Lorna, bundled up in a heavy coat and with a scarf over her head, came out of the house, walked toward us, then kept going. When she got half a block away, she turned and gestured for us to catch up. We followed her around a hairpin turn onto Fieldston Road and pulled over.

“I couldn’t let her see us talking. She watches me out the window,” Lorna explained, getting into the backseat. “I told her we were low on bourbon, and I had to get to the liquor store before it starts to snow.”

“Where’s the store?” Kylie asked. “We can drive you.”

Lorna laughed. “Honey, don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of booze. I keep it hid. Reenie can drink like a sailor with a hollow leg. Sorry she cursed at you.”

“Thanks,” Kylie said, “but you didn’t go to all this trouble to apologize.”

“I’m with her twelve hours a day,” Lorna said. “So I hear a lot. But I don’t want Mr. Alden to fire me for speaking out of turn.”

“Hunter Alden pays you to take care of Irene?”

“Hell, no. That man ain’t called or come once since the day she retired. Mr. Hutch foots the bill. I wouldn’t do nothing if it would upset him.”

“Hutch wants us to find Peter’s killer as much as we do,” Kylie said. “If you help, I promise he won’t be upset.”

“My husband Findley’s been driving for him more than thirty years. Me and Findley, we both knew Peter since we were kids. What do you want to know?”

“Have you heard of Project Gutenberg?”

“Yes. That day when they made the video. Miss Irene said it by accident, then she got upset, because it’s a secret. It didn’t seem to bother Tripp, but then Irene says she wants to confess everything, and she pours it all out.”

“Can you tell us what she said?”

“It was all business talk. So when I got home I told it to Findley to see if he could make sense of it. You can talk to him if you want.”

“Give us the gist of what you remember.”

“Don’t hold me to the words, but the upshot is that Miss Irene was spying on Hunter. He’d invest a pot of money, like a million or something, and she could see what he was doing, so she’d do the same thing, but maybe like five thousand. He makes a lot, she makes a little, everybody’s happy — only he don’t know she’s copying all his moves.”

“That doesn’t sound illegal,” I said.

“That’s just what Findley said. But this Gutenberg is not like the others. It’s all hush-hush. Hunter doesn’t even tell Irene what’s going on, so she knows it’s big. And by now she’s getting used to the easy money, and she wants in.”

Lorna was sweating. She took off her head scarf and dabbed her face and neck with it. I killed the heater. I had a bottle of water on the front seat. I handed it to her, and she downed it.

“Thanks. Where was I?”

“Gutenberg,” Kylie said. “Irene wants in, but Hunter’s keeping her out of the loop.”

“Right. But she’s cagey. She’s already one step ahead of him. All along she’s been taping his phone calls and copying his email, and going over them at home every night. So when Hunter starts pumping a shitload of money into the Gutenberg deal, Irene decides this is her one big chance, and she bets the farm.”

“And what happened?” Kylie said.

“Sweet Jesus, you seen the damn house, didn’t you?” Lorna said, cackling. It took her a few seconds to regain her composure. “So she gets it all off her chest, and Tripp, he’s cool. It’s not like she stole anything. If Hunter would have lost money, so would she. Finally she says the one thing that’s been eating at her all these years: ‘It’s too bad we had to make all that money in the wake of all that suffering.’ Them’s her exact words. ‘The wake of all that suffering.’”

“What suffering?”

Lorna shrugged. “She didn’t say, but does it really matter? Honey, I’m from Haiti. We’ve had more than our fair share of suffering. It’s a story that’s old as time — rich people getting richer off poor people’s misery. The only difference with Irene’s story is that she feels bad for whoever got the shit end of the stick.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said. “Thank you for stepping forward.”

“This meeting is just between us, right?” she said.

“You have my word.” I gave her my card. “And if you think of anything else, call me anytime.”

Lorna opened the back door.

“One more question,” Kylie said. “Did Peter ever say anything to you or your husband about a flash drive he was holding on to for Tripp?”

“No.” She pondered for a beat. “You talking about the flash drive I gave Tripp that day they shot the video?”

I motioned for her to shut the door. “What flash drive?”

“I told you Irene was taping Hunter’s phone calls and copying his email so she could take them home and study them at night. She put it all on a flash drive. And when she told Tripp the story, he asked if she still had it.”

“And she did?”

“Kept it in a music box on her dresser. She sent me upstairs to get it, and I gave it to Tripp, but I don’t know anything about him giving it to Peter.”

We thanked her again, and she left.

Kylie and I sat there not saying a word. We didn’t know exactly what Project Gutenberg was, but it was pretty clear that whatever was on that flash drive could destroy Hunter Alden’s life.

I was looking forward to finding it.

Chapter 61

Hunter Alden pulled up Silas Blackstone’s name and contact information on his iPhone. “Idiot,” he said, staring at it. “What kind of a PI gets shot sitting in his own car in a parking lot?”

Sixteen hours after Silas’s death, Hunter was beginning to realize how much he had relied on the man. Too much. He’d never wanted to meet anyone else from SDB Investigative Services. Silas had been the go-between on everything.

He took one last look at the phone, tapped Delete Contact, and in an instant Silas Blackstone was gone. There was no time to find a replacement. Hunter Alden was on his own. He reached down and removed the .38 from his ankle holster.

His gun-loving friends enjoyed busting his balls. With a name like Hunter, how come you never hunt? Just because he had no desire to fly eight thousand miles to slaughter a rhinoceros didn’t mean he knew nothing about guns. He knew enough. Still, he kicked himself for never getting Wheeler’s phone number.

The intercom buzzed. He tucked the .38 back into the holster and looked at the closed-circuit monitor on his desk to see who was out there. “Son of a bitch!” he said.

Hunter jammed his finger on the button that released the gate, stormed to the front door, and yanked it open. “What the hell do you want?” he said.

Lonnie Martinez looked up at him with complete contempt. “I have a message from Tripp.”

Hunter returned the hateful look. “How are you even walking the streets? The cops should have locked you up.”

“For what?”

“You were part of it, and you still are,” Hunter said. “Have you seen my son since his so-called escape?”

“Yeah. We just grabbed some lunch together. He paid.” Lonnie sneered. “With your money.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is now, but I can tell you where he’s going to be.” He handed Hunter a single sheet of paper.

Hunter scanned it. “What the hell is this?”

“You just read what it is. It’s an access pass to Costco.”

“What do I need it for?”

“It’s the only way you can get into the store. They run it like a club. Members only.”

“I’m not interested in joining.”

“You don’t have to. Tripp joined, and he added you to his account. Congratulations. It’s a great store. My grandmother works there.”

“Tell Tripp if he wants to meet me, he can come here,” Hunter said.

“He said you’d say that, but for some reason he feels safer meeting you in public. Costco is in East Harlem. On 117th Street, just off the FDR. Meet him at the food court. Five o’clock.” Lonnie turned and headed down the steps.

“Tell your partner not to hold his breath,” Hunter yelled.

Lonnie stopped and turned back. “He said you might say that too, and if you did, I’m supposed to give you one more message. If you’re not there by 5:01, he’s calling the Wall Street Journal. Have a nice day, and don’t forget your access pass.”

He bounded down the steps, breezed through the gate, and headed east on 81st Street.

Hunter could feel the .38 on his left ankle. For a brief moment he wanted to grab the gun and open fire on the smug Puerto Rican bastard. But Lonnie Martinez wasn’t the problem. Tripp was.

He shut the door. Why shoot the messenger?

Chapter 62

The first few snowflakes hit the windshield as I pulled the car onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.

“Wipers,” Kylie said, running the show from the passenger seat.

“Gosh, thanks,” I said, turning them on. “I knew I should have taken driver’s ed in high school. Anything else?”

“Yeah, I know this is going to sound terrible,” Kylie said, “but I have to say it. I love this case.”

“Me too. I mean, two dead guys, serious sleep deprivation, the Alden family blocking us at every turn — what’s not to love?”

“Come on, Zach. We started out Thursday with a headless body in a million-dollar car. And then it spins out of control. A kidnapping, extortion, a second murder—”

“Stolen pearls,” I said.

“This is the kind of stuff we dreamed of when we were at the academy.”

“Remind me. Did we dream about how to solve it?”

“Oh, we’ll solve it,” she said. “I think we should start by visiting Irwin.”

Until New Year’s Day, Irwin Diamond was the smartest person in city government. He was the previous mayor’s right-hand man and a big supporter of Red. But then Muriel Sykes moved into Gracie Mansion, and Irwin went back to his first career: investment banking.

“Do you think Irwin can help us with Gutenberg?” I said.

“I don’t know, but every cop in the city is looking for Madison and Tripp. We’re the only ones who know about Gutenberg. We have to start somewhere.”

“Somewhere” was Irwin’s five-bedroom penthouse at 1 Morton Square, one of the city’s most exclusive addresses. The three of us sat down in a cozy little area in the middle of a thirty-foot expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows. On a clear day you could probably see across the Hudson, but now the horizon was nothing but a frenzy of swirling snow.

“They predict ten inches,” Irwin said, “which means no matter how Muriel Sykes handles the storm, by tomorrow at this time, four out of the five boroughs will be pissed at her. I’m so glad I’m out of politics. How can I help?”

We filled him in. He had never heard of Project Gutenberg.

“But it sounds dirty,” he said, “and the fact that the code name references the Bible makes me think it’s extra dirty. White-collar criminals love irony.”

“Is Hunter Alden a criminal?” I asked.

He peered at us over rimless glasses. “Alleged. Never convicted.”

“What can you tell us about him?”

“Do you know much about investing?”

“It’s easy,” I said. “You give your broker money, he puts it in something that doesn’t pan out the way he expected, and a year later you’re lucky if you get back a third.”

“You’re already smarter than most investors, but let me give you a little tutorial.” He stood up and went to the window. “You see these two drops of water? I’ll bet you a dollar the one on the left gets to the windowsill before the one on the right. You in?”

“Sure.”

We watched the droplets trickle down the glass. Ten seconds later, the one on the right hit the sill. Irwin reached into his wallet and gave me a dollar. “You ready for something a little riskier?”

“I’m playing with the house’s money, so go for it.”

He looked at his watch. “I’ll bet you fifty dollars that in the next ten minutes my neighbor’s cat will jump down onto my terrace, scratch at the door, wait for me to bring him a saucer of milk, drink it, and leave. You in?”

“Hell, no,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Irwin, I don’t know if you and the cat are running some kind of scam together, but I do know that you’re too smart to make a crazy bet like that unless you know something that I don’t.”

“Reliable information is how I make money,” he said, “but the difference between me and Alden is that my information comes from meticulous research. He taps phones, hacks email, plants bugs, bribes corporate executives, and gives kickbacks to government officials.”

“So he’s a crook. But what did Irene mean when she said they made money in the wake of all that suffering?”

“I don’t know, but I could give you a hypothetical. Let’s say there’s a new diet pill that lets you eat all you want and still lose weight. The FDA approves it, and the smart money says the drug company’s stock will go up. But Hunter Alden bets millions that it will go down.”

“Why?”

“Because he found out that the drug company rigged their clinical trials. But he doesn’t blow the whistle. The pill hits the market, hundreds of people who took it die, and the stock goes in the toilet.”

“And Hunter makes a lot of money in the wake of a lot of suffering,” I said.

“But wouldn’t the SEC check all the drug company’s stock transactions and realize he had insider information?” Kylie said.

“His name would never show up. He’d do it all through phone calls to a Swiss lawyer and wire transfers to an offshore bank,” Irwin said.

“I think now we know what’s on that missing flash drive,” Kylie said.

I stood up and walked to the window. “Maybe I should have taken your bet. It looks like that cat doesn’t want to come out in the snow.”

“Oh, my neighbor doesn’t have a cat,” Irwin said. “I just wanted to show you the power of information, even when it’s a lie.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know if any of this will help us crack the case, but it helps me understand why the 99 percent hate the 1 percent.”

Irwin laughed. “Don’t hate us too much. Just remember that without the 1 percent, NYPD Red would just be NYPD Blue.”

Chapter 63

The taxi skidded across Third Avenue, barely missing the M101 bus. Hunter banged on the partition. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

The driver laughed. “Sorry. Not so much snow in Bangladesh.”

“Well, maybe you should think about going back where you—” Hunter’s phone rang. “Hello,” he barked.

“Mr. Alden, this is Sergeant McGrath at the Nineteenth Precinct. Your car’s been released. You can send someone to pick it up anytime.”

“Send someone? No, Sergeant. You hauled it away, you bring it back. Just use the garage door opener in the car, then exit through the side door of the garage. Can you handle that, or do I have to call the police commissioner?”

“No, sir. I’ll find someone to drop it off at your house.”

“Just make sure they know what they’re driving. That car costs more money than ten cops make in a year. I don’t want to see any dings or dents.”

“Yes, sir,” McGrath said.

The cab stopped at the 117th Street entrance to the East River Plaza, and Hunter entered the massive retail complex for the first and, he hoped, only time in his life.

He followed the signs to Costco, and produced the official access document for a cheery greeter at the front entrance.

“Where’s the food court?” he said.

She pointed, and Hunter headed toward it. Tripp was sitting at a table off to the side, a slice of pizza and a soft drink in front of him.

“Stand up,” Hunter ordered.

“In case you forgot, I’m running this meeting,” Tripp said. “Sit down.”

“Not until I make sure you’re not wired. Stand up.”

“Wired? You must think everyone is as sick as you.” Tripp stood, and for the second time that day he let himself be frisked.

“What do you want?” Hunter said when they both sat down.

“You’re a negotiator. I thought we’d negotiate.”

“Okay, here’s my final offer,” Hunter said. “You’re not getting a penny, and I’m completely restructuring my estate so that when I die, you wind up with nothing.”

“When you die?” Tripp said. “You’re going to prison. Once the world knows what you did, I doubt if you’ll live through the first night. And even if they put you in solitary, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the guards kills you.”

“You don’t have the proof to send me to prison.”

“Don’t I? How about every single phone call you made to your Swiss lawyer, Mr. Joost? I listened to them. At first I thought you were making some crazy high-flying, high-risk investments, but you sounded so cocksure of yourself — it’s like you knew in advance what would happen. Turns out you did.”

“Overconfidence is not a crime,” Hunter said.

“There’s more. It took me weeks of searching through your archives, but I finally found the mother lode — the meeting in Turks and Caicos. You actually taped it. Dumb move, Leviticus. And then you kept the tape. Even dumber. But I understand why you did it. You hate to lose. Even more, you hate when somebody else wins. That tape was your insurance. You figured if you got caught, you could use it to bargain with. If Homeland could track down the guy who set up the Gutenberg deal, you might be able to avoid the death penalty.”

Hunter laughed. “I don’t know what you think you found,” Hunter said, “but I’ll be sure to look for this so-called mother lode myself as soon as I get home. This meeting is over.” He stood up.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Tripp said. “Do you think you can just run home and erase the evidence? I’ve got it all, Dad. The phone calls to the lawyer, the meeting in Turks and Caicos — they’re all on one flash drive.”

“Which you and your partner, Mr. Cain, intend to share with the world, whether I pay you or not.”

“There is no more Mr. Cain,” Tripp said. “He’s been out of the loop for a while. And I’ve changed my mind about going public.”

Hunter sat back down. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning that as much as I want to punish you, I love my grandfather too much to destroy his name, his legacy, and everything he ever worked for. I’m willing to keep the secret a secret. But it will cost you.”

“How much?”

Tripp pounded his fist on the table. “How much do you think, asshole? You knew exactly what was going to happen. But you didn’t warn anyone. You stood by and let it happen. How much?” he said, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “A billion fucking dollars. Every cent you made cashing in on everyone else’s misery.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Oh no, Dad. I’m damaged, but I’m not crazy. Monday morning I want you to create a foundation in Mom’s name. And then, in a magnanimous philanthropic gesture, you will fund the Marjorie Alden Foundation with a billion dollars in memory of your late wife, and you will appoint your son chairman of the board.”

“And what’s your grand plan, Mr. Chairman?”

“I’ll use the money to repair the damage you’ve done.”

“I bet you will. And what happens to me?”

“You? You’ll be a hero. Your picture will be on every front page in America. The benevolent Hunter Alden, a kind and generous global humanitarian. And only I will know what a vile and despicable scumbag you really are.”

Chapter 64

Tripp’s heart was racing as he left Costco and walked through the parking lot to his van. He’d had his father on the ropes, but then he blew it.

“Never let the other guy see your cards,” his grandfather had taught him years ago. But Tripp had played a card he didn’t even have in his hand. The flash drive.

And now that Hunter knew it existed he’d be scouring the house trying to find it. Sooner or later he’d get to Peter’s room, and that would be it.

Tripp got behind the wheel of the van and dialed Patrice.

“Tripp, I’m relieved to hear from you,” Patrice said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay, but I really need that flash drive I told you about. Did you find it yet?”

“I’ve looked, and it’s nowhere to be seen, but right now I’m more concerned about you than a flash drive.”

“Don’t worry about me. I just need you to keep looking. I’m sure it’s somewhere mixed in with all of Peter’s stuff.”

“Most of which is still at your house.”

“Patrice, you’re his brother. It’s all yours now. You don’t even have to ask anyone. Just go to the house and take it. I’ll give you the key code to the garage.”

“I think you and I should sit down and talk first,” Patrice said. “Can we meet somewhere?”

Tripp felt the cold steel of a gun barrel at the back of his neck. He lifted his head slowly and looked in the rearview mirror.

Madison.

“I can’t meet right now,” Tripp said. “I’ll get back to you soon.” He hung up the phone and focused on the man in the mirror.

The hot coffee had left Madison’s face red and blotchy. There were blisters on the right side below his ear and a welt on his neck from the stun gun.

“Dude,” Tripp said, “you really ought to see a dermatologist, or nobody’s going to want to go with you to the prom.”

Madison raised the gun and brought it down hard on Tripp’s shoulder blade. The pain radiated up to his brain, but Tripp bit down hard, determined not to scream.

“I heard your desperate phone call to Peter’s brother. It sounds like you lost your proof. I knew you could never pull this off on your own.”

“Maybe not, but after you killed Peter and Silas, and locked me up on that boat, I decided it was safer to go solo. How did you find me, anyway?”

“I never bothered looking for you. I knew you’d contact your father — all I had to do was follow him. I watched the two of you from behind a couple of pallets of paper towels. I couldn’t hear anything, but from the body language it looks to me like you cut a deal with him. How much did you ask for?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tripp said. “I’ll still give you your share.”

“You’ll give me?” Madison drove the gun down on the same shoulder blade.

This time Tripp let out a yelp. “What was that for? I told you you’ll get your money — all ten million.”

“And how much do you get?” Madison said, readying the gun to come down again.

“The whole billion,” Tripp said, grabbing on to his battered shoulder. “Every penny he made from Gutenberg.”

Madison laughed. “And why would he give you a billion if he turned me down for a fraction of that?”

“Because he’ll pay whatever it takes to keep me quiet!” Tripp yelled, spinning around to face Madison. “And he’s not giving it to me. I’m starting a foundation in my mother’s name. Once I do that, he knows I’ll never say a word about Gutenberg. It would disgrace her memory.”

“Was your mom an idealist, Tripp? Is that who you take after? Because clearly you didn’t inherit your father’s killer instincts for business. Ideals don’t mean jack shit to him when there’s money on the table. Let’s go for a ride.”

Tripp turned around and put the key in the ignition. “Where are we going?” he said.

Madison leaned forward. “East 81st Street. I’m going to make a deal with the devil.”

“Why? I told you — he agreed to pay. You’ll screw up the whole deal.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Tripp? Dealing is what Hunter Alden lives for. And do you know what he likes best?” Madison whispered, his warm breath in Tripp’s ear.

“What?” Tripp said, starting the engine.

“Getting what he wants from the lowest bidder.”

Chapter 65

The temperature was just on the cusp of freezing, so the roads were covered with what forecasters call a wintry mix, which is a euphemism for the unholy mess of snow, sleet, and icy rain that can cripple the city.

I inched the car along Third Avenue past the usual logjam in front of Bloomingdale’s, where half a dozen overly optimistic shoppers craned their necks, looking for cabs. I saw daylight at 60th Street and picked up speed.

“Do you think we have a shot at getting a search warrant?” Kylie asked.

“You already know the answer to that one, which is why you didn’t ask Irwin Diamond,” I said. “And don’t bother asking Cates again. She gave us a flat-out no yesterday.”

“That was different. We were talking about tossing Alden’s entire house, looking for a severed head. Now all we want is a tiny little peek inside the garage, where Peter’s room is. How long could it take us to find the flash drive?”

“It wouldn’t matter if we found Peter’s head on Alden’s dining room table,” I said. “We don’t have cause to search. All we have is a doddering old woman talking about what might be a white-collar crime.”

I made a left onto 67th Street. There’s a fire station next to the precinct, so parking on our block is at a premium, even for cops. But there in front of the One Nine was a familiar vehicle taking up twenty feet of NYPD’s valuable real estate.

“Looks like Hunter Alden is finally getting his car back,” I said.

“Perfect,” Kylie said.

I had no clue what she meant, but then I realized she wasn’t talking to me. She had that look in her eyes that cartoonists use when one of their characters has a really bad idea. And I knew my partner well enough to know what Kylie’s bad idea was.

“I’m going inside,” she said, getting out of the car. “Can you bring me back some coffee from Gerri’s?”

“No,” I said, following her up the stairs and through the precinct door. “They deliver.”

She headed straight for Sergeant McGrath at the front desk.

“And where have you been, Detective MacDonald?” he said.

“Fighting crime, and doing a damn fine job of it,” she said, shaking the snow out of her hair. “Why do you ask?”

He leaned forward and looked down at her. “Did you get a call this morning from the One Oh Five garage about a crime scene vehicle that was ready to be released to its owner, a Mr. Hunter Alden?”

Kylie looked at me and shrugged. “I did.”

“Then why didn’t you call Mr. Alden and tell him?” McGrath said.

“The truth?”

“That would be refreshing.”

“I didn’t call Alden because he’s a dick,” she said. “Also, I had a dentist’s appointment, but mainly because he’s done everything he can to obstruct a double homicide investigation, so I figured I’d let him stew.”

“The problem, Detective, is that instead of stewing, Alden got on my case. I have enough to do around here dealing with regular folks without having to play Country Club Cop like the two of you.”

“For the record,” Kylie said, “my partner, Detective Straight Arrow, didn’t know that the car was ready to be picked up.”

“Not picked up,” McGrath said. “Delivered. In my twenty-two years I’ve never released anything from the chain of evidence without the owner coming in and signing for it. But it seems your Mr. Alden is exempt from the rules. So now I have to send two of my officers to take it back.”

“No you don’t. It’s my fault this got dumped on you. I’ll take the car back.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m really, really sorry, Sergeant,” said the woman, who really, really never apologizes for anything.

McGrath bought it. “Apology accepted,” he said, handing her a packet of papers. “Put it in the garage. If Alden’s there, get him to sign for it. If he’s not, leave the paperwork on the front seat, and he’ll fax me back a signed copy.”

He held up a key ring. It had a small black fob and a gold crucifix dangling from it. “Your basic smart key,” McGrath said, tapping the Maybach logo on the fob. “Just put it in your pocket, and it does the rest. I don’t think Jesus on the cross is original factory equipment, but it couldn’t hurt.” He tossed her the key ring. “Go with God.”

“I’m driving,” Kylie said as soon as we were outside. “You can follow.” She got behind the wheel.

“One car,” I said, getting in the passenger side. “We have a few things to talk about.”

The electronic ignition picked up a signal from the key ring, and she started the car with the push of a button. “You sure you don’t want to ride in the back and pour yourself a drink? Because the last thing I need is a lecture.”

“‘You can’t search the garage without a warrant’ is not a lecture.”

“What am I — a rookie?” she said, turning on the wipers. “I know the law. But now that we have permission to enter the garage, anything we see in plain sight is fair game.”

“And what’s your definition of ‘in plain sight’?” I said.

“Anything that is left out in the open, or is unconcealed,” she said, pulling the million-dollar car out onto the slushy street. “Or in the case of assholes like Hunter Alden,” she added, grinning, “anything in a drawer that I can open without a crowbar.”

Chapter 66

Hunter Alden was used to being the most important person in the room. But sitting at a table in the food court at Costco, he was nobody. He wanted to stand up and shout, “Don’t you people know who I am? I have more money than all of you put together.”

He looked at his watch. Seven minutes had passed since Tripp left, ordering him to wait five minutes. It only proved how little his son understood him. Did Tripp actually think Hunter would try to follow him? Hunter had people for that. Had people. Blackstone was dead, and Wheeler was a ghost he’d never met.

So he’d gone with the only option he could. He had agreed to create the foundation in Marjorie’s name. He had promised to hold a press conference on Monday morning, which gave him less than forty-eight hours to find a cheaper way to silence Tripp.

He finally stood up, left the East River Plaza complex, and headed west on 117th Street. Walking through the swirling snow helped clear his head, but he hadn’t dressed for the weather, and when he reached Second Avenue, he knocked on the window of an off-duty cab that had stopped at a light.

For two hundred bucks the man was happy to go on duty and drive him to 81st Street.

The house was warm and welcoming, and since Janelle’s keys were not on the foyer table, he knew that he had it to himself. He went straight to his study.

He heard the intruder before he saw him.

“Mr. Alden, I’ve been waiting for you. I took the liberty of making myself at home.”

It was Tripp’s teacher. He was seated in an armchair, sipping a drink. His face had been burned, but Hunter had no interest in the details.

“How the hell did you get in my house?” he demanded. “Did my wife let you in?”

“I don’t believe she’s home,” Madison said. “Your son let me in.”

“Tripp is here? Where?”

“Downstairs in the garage,” Madison said.

“Don’t move,” Hunter said. He went to his desk and pushed the intercom button on his phone. “Tripp. Get your ass up here.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Madison said. “Tripp is...” A self-satisfied smile spread across his face. “Tripp is all tied up for the moment.”

Hunter sat down and crossed his left leg over the right so that his hand was inches from the .38 in his ankle holster. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you better start talking fast and explain what you’re doing here.”

“I’m here to let you know that you were right.”

“About what?”

“Everyone has his price, Mr. Alden.”

“And every generous offer has its expiration date, Mr. Madison. Yesterday I was willing to pay you twenty thousand dollars to let me know when you heard from my—”

“Shut up,” Madison snapped. “I’m not talking about the twenty thousand. I’m talking about the hundred million, Leviticus.”

Hunter froze. “You’re Cain?”

“I’m done being Cain. All I am now is your son’s teacher from Barnaby Prep, and I’m sorry to tell you that Tripp is doing poorly in economics. I understand he’s asking a billion dollars, and all he’s offering in return is a promise that he won’t blow the whistle on you. A promise? From a teenage kid who hates everything you stand for? Caveat emptor, Mr. Alden. I, on the other hand, can make you a guarantee for a lot less money.”

“I’ve heard your offer. A hundred million.”

“That was Tripp’s idea. We were going to split it fifty-fifty, but since he’s no longer my partner, I’ll happily take my fifty. But the sale ends tomorrow night at 9:01 — a minute after the Fed opens for wire transfers.”

Hunter rested his hand on the cuff of his pants. He could feel the gun on the other side of the fabric.

“Is that your plan?” Madison said. “Shoot me, run downstairs, shoot Tripp, then get rid of two bodies before your wife gets home for dinner? That’s not you, Hunter. You’re management, not labor.”

Hunter moved his hand to the arm of the chair.

“It would be arrogant of someone in my tax bracket to give business advice to someone in yours,” Madison said. “But the way I see it, you can give Tripp his billion and hope he doesn’t change his mind once he’s given it all away. Or pay me fifty million and get a lifetime guarantee. Tripp’s lifetime.”

Hunter reached over and picked up the picture of Marjorie and Tripp that had sat on his desk for fifteen years. He pondered it briefly, set it back down, and then looked up at Madison.

“I will give you twenty million dollars,” he said. “That’s my final offer. It expires in ten seconds.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Alden,” Madison said. “I accept your offer.” He stood up and reached out to shake Hunter’s hand.

“Fuck you,” Hunter said.

A smile — more like a smirk of victory — spread across Madison’s face. He withdrew his hand, took a step back, and exited the room.

Hunter sat in silence until he heard Madison leave through the front door. His eyes were still locked on the picture of Marjorie and Tripp. And then, without warning, it came. A flood of emotions that had been buried under years of cynicism and callousness welled up inside of him. Remorse. Regret. And, most of all, grief over the loss of his only child.

He stood, walked to the bar, grabbed the three-thousand-dollar bottle of Richard Hennessy, and returned to his chair.

Still staring at the picture, he tilted the bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. And another. And another, until he finally reached out to turn the photograph facedown on his desk.

But he couldn’t.

All he could do was drain the bottle dry... until the only thing he felt was numb.

Chapter 67

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Kylie said as she navigated the Maybach uptown.

“How about knocking off the comedy and focusing on your driving?” I said.

“For God’s sake, Zach, lighten up. And how about you focus on the fact that I am focusing on my driving?”

To her credit, she was. The snow, light and feathery a few hours ago, was now wet and nasty. Patches of black ice collected on the roadway like so many land mines, but for once Kylie was managing to keep her Smokey and the Bandit gene under control.

She stopped for a red light at 79th Street and Madison. “Taking one car was stupid,” she said. “Did you think about how we’re going to get back from Alden’s house?”

“I’m a policeman,” I said. “I’ll call 911. I’m riding with you because I had visions of you pulling into the garage, shutting the door, and ransacking the place while I’m outside in the chase car kicking myself for trusting you.”

“You really think I’d do that?”

“Not usually, but I know you, Kylie. Right now you’ve got this case between your teeth like a dog on a porterhouse, and you’re already on shaky ground with Cates. I’m just trying to protect you from yourself.”

The light turned green. She drove to 81st Street, turned left, and stopped a few doors away from Alden’s town house.

“Which one of these buttons do you think opens the garage door?” she said, looking up at a control panel above the rearview mirror.

Before I could say “I have no idea,” the garage door started to go up. “You got it,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘You got it’? I haven’t pushed anything yet.”

The garage door opened wide, and light flooded the interior.

“Holy shit,” Kylie said.

“Holy shit” was an understatement. There, sitting in the spot reserved for Alden’s dream car, was a beat-up old clunker, a blue van — the blue van. And standing behind it, lashing the rear doors together with a bungee cord, was our kidnapper-killer, Ryan Madison.

I bolted from the car, drew my gun, and started running toward him, yelling as loud as I could. “NYP—” Before I could get to the “D,” my left foot hit metal. Maybe a manhole, maybe a road plate — all I know is it was as slick as a brass fire pole, and half a second later I was on my ass in a pile of snow and road grime.

It may have been the luckiest accident of my life, because as soon as I hit the ground, Madison fired a shot directly at where I had been standing.

I crawled through the slush and got behind a parked car. My gun was in my hand, and I could see Madison standing in a pool of light, but I knew better than to fire. One mistake and the first question they’d ask at the inquiry would be, “Why would you discharge your weapon at a private home in a howling snowstorm?”

Kylie was out of the car and crouched behind the open door. She also had a gun in her hand that I knew she was too smart to use. “NYPD,” she yelled. “You’re surrounded. Don’t move.”

He moved. Fast.

He scrambled into the van, threw it in reverse, and skidded onto the street. He turned the wheel hard, hit the gas again, bounced off a parked car, and fishtailed toward Fifth Avenue.

“Get in,” Kylie screamed, diving behind the wheel. I slogged my way back into the Maybach.

“Hang on,” she said, giving it gas. The tires spun, then caught, and we pitched forward. The van turned left on Fifth Avenue just as the light went from yellow to red.

Kylie hit the horn, ran the light, skidded into the turn, and managed to get the car under control just before we hopped the curb and plowed into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“This is definitely not an all-weather car,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the hang of it.”

I grabbed my radio. “This is Detective Zach Jordan. My partner and I just took fire from a private residence at Two Eight East Eight One. Send units to secure the building. Shooter is on the run in a blue Dodge van heading south on Fifth Avenue at Eight Zero Street. Need all available units to cut him off south- and eastbound. Advise responders that officers in pursuit of shooter are in a civilian vehicle, a black limo.”

“Damn it, Zach,” Kylie said. “Why did you have to call it in so fast?”

“If we’re lucky, there’s a unit that can stop him before he gets to the transverse. Why wouldn’t I call it in?”

“Because the last thing we need is a bunch of cowboys in blue uniforms slipping and sliding all over the place like they’re chasing O.J. down the 405. We’ll be lucky if they don’t all pile up like a demolition derby at a county fair.”

“I’m soaking wet from my ass to my elbow, and the last thing I need is a partner who wants to do it all on her own and second-guesses every goddamn decision I make. So why don’t you back off and take out some of that pent-up hostility on the son of a bitch who just tried to kill me?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. And even though I could barely hear it, I was pretty sure she meant it.

She gunned the engine, and the custom-built limo lurched forward in hot pursuit of the junkyard van.

Smokey and the Bandit rides again.

Chapter 68

“This beast is like the world’s most expensive toboggan,” Kylie yelled as we went slip-sliding through one of the most expensive zip codes in the city. “For a million bucks you’d think they’d include four-wheel drive.”

We were less than a block behind the van, but I could barely make out the taillights through the snow. And then at 76th Street they disappeared.

“Son of a bitch killed his lights and pulled in front of that bus,” Kylie said.

“Get in front of him,” I said. “Cut him off.”

“This damn car doesn’t have lights or sirens either,” Kylie said. She sped up to pass the bus and leaned on the horn. Big mistake. New York City bus drivers don’t appreciate horn blowers — especially assholes driving limos.

The bus went faster, and the driver looked down and gave us the finger. We were side by side, and I rolled down my window to flash my badge. But it’s hard to imagine that the maniac in the rich-boy car is a cop, and the driver must have figured I was going to reciprocate with my own finger, so he steered the bus into our lane.

Kylie pulled to the left, and just as we sailed past the intersection of 72nd and Fifth, we heard the crash. It took only a second to process that it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t the bus. It was the van.

Madison had turned right, smashed through a sawhorse, and was heading west through Central Park.

Kylie hit the brakes, and the car did a complete 360. She threw it in reverse, backed up half a block, and barreled through the 72nd Street Inventor’s Gate entrance to the park, maneuvering around the chunks of sawhorse that were scattered across the roadway.

The van was still moving, but the bungee cord hadn’t survived the crash through the barrier. The rear doors were open.

With our high beams on, all we could see in front of us were the two doors swinging wildly in the swirling snow. Then Kylie dimmed the lights, and we had a clear view inside the van. Tripp Alden, arms and legs tied, was struggling to work his way to the open doors.

She moved into the left lane and pulled alongside the van.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I was going to ram him from behind,” she said, “but if the kid falls out, I’ll run right over him.”

We took the curve onto the East Drive, and we were only inches from the van when Madison pulled his wheel to the left and smashed into the Maybach’s right fender.

“Back off him,” I yelled as Kylie managed to steer through the impact. “I’m calling it in. We can have every exit to the park shut down in thirty seconds.”

“You can close off the vehicle exits,” she said, “but if we lose him, he’ll abandon the car and hop over any wall from here to 110th Street.”

She pulled alongside the van again, and this time Madison turned hard to the right, jumped the curb, and hopped onto the lawn, which in July is lush and green, but in the dead of January glistened like glass in the headlights.

The van spun out of control and went fishtailing down a rolling hill. The Maybach didn’t do any better. Kylie hit the brake, but there was nothing for the tires to grab on to, and we whizzed down the icy slope like a million-dollar hockey puck.

Our car was heavier than the van, and we were gaining ground as we moved downhill faster. We could see Tripp clearly now. He had twisted his body sideways and inched his way to the rear. The doors had stopped swinging. With gravity pulling them one way and the wind blowing them the other, they were sticking straight out like fins.

Tripp rolled to his right, then left, then right again trying to build up momentum.

“He’s coming out,” I yelled.

And out he came. With one final roll, he toppled out of the van directly into the path of his father’s car.

Kylie pulled the wheel to the left, missing him by inches. As far as I could tell he’d be all right. But the Maybach wouldn’t.

As a kid I’d been to this section of the park hundreds of times. It’s the best place in the city to sail model boats.

“We’re headed for the drink,” I yelled as we bore down on Conservatory Water, the landmark oval boat pond inspired by those that grace the parks of Paris.

“It’s January,” Kylie said. “They drain it for the winter. There is no water.”

The van, only twenty feet ahead of us, disappeared into the empty boat pond. Seconds later, the Maybach followed, and we nose-dived into the pitch-black concrete hole.

We hit hard. The front bumper took the impact, and in a nanosecond the air bags exploded.

On the plus side, the nylon bag that exploded from the dashboard kept my skull from crashing through the windshield. But I felt like I’d been kicked in the face by a mule. My ears were ringing from the blast, my lungs were filled with chemical dust, and my brain was still reeling.

But I was alive. And so was Kylie.

“Zach,” she said, her nose bloodied, her breathing labored. “Madison at eleven o’clock.”

Our headlights were still working, and I could make out the van on its side to our left. Madison was pulling himself up out of the passenger window.

“He’s getting away,” she said, fumbling to find her seat belt button release.

She was wrong. Madison wasn’t trying to escape. He jumped off the van and charged toward us, gun in hand.

He was enraged, his face bloodied as he staggered up to Kylie’s window, and pointed the gun directly at her head.

As a cop I can think of no greater failure than watching helplessly as someone murders your partner in cold blood. Neither of us was wearing a vest, but had I been on my feet I know I’d have thrown myself between Kylie and the bullet without giving it a second thought.

But I was still harnessed to my seat, unable to move. The deflated air bag clung to my chest, and I shoved my hand under it, desperately grabbing for my own gun. It was too little too late. Kylie was trapped.

She couldn’t move, and Madison couldn’t miss.

He took one step back, screamed something unintelligible into the wind, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 69

I braced myself for the explosion, knowing that there were only two possible outcomes. Either Madison would kill us both with a single shot, or he’d take Kylie down and use his next bullet on me.

But there was a third possibility I’d never even considered.

Madison fired, and the window blossomed into a giant spiderweb pattern. But the glass didn’t shatter. He fired two more times, but the bullets didn’t penetrate.

And then I remembered the casual remark Silas Blackstone had dropped when he was trying to impress us with how rich his client was. This was no run-of-the-mill four-hundred-thousand-dollar set of wheels. This one was tricked out with armor plate and bulletproof windows.

Hunter Alden’s Maybach had saved our lives.

Ryan Madison was as surprised as we were. Realizing he now had two very pissed off cops on his hands, he did the only thing he could do.

He ran.

There was a set of stairs on the east side of the pond, but it was at least two hundred feet away, and the pond floor was patched with ice. So he opted for the same spot where his van had gone airborne, firing over his shoulder as he ran.

I radioed for backup, and the two of us got out of the car and crouched behind our steel-plated doors.

“He needs both hands to get up and over the side of the pond,” I said. “As soon as he holsters his gun, I’m going after him. You cover me.”

Madison fired another shot in our direction.

“And if possible, I’m going to try to take him alive,” I said.

“Now,” she said.

Madison had reached the western edge of the concrete pond, tucked his gun into his jacket, and put his hands on the stone wall.

I darted out from behind the door and ran toward him.

I thought he’d have trouble getting over the wall, but he pushed up, threw one leg over the side, and within seconds he was standing on the edge of the pond, pointing his gun right at me.

I hit the ground, and a bullet splintered the concrete less than a foot from my head.

Kylie fired at him, and the shot went wide.

“You missed, bitch,” he screamed.

I knew better. Kylie was the best shot in our class at the academy. Her shot hadn’t missed. She was trying to draw his fire so I could get to him.

I could hear the sirens and see the flashing lights making their way into the park from East 72nd Street.

“Madison,” I yelled. “You’re surrounded. Throw down the gun.”

“I’ve seen too many movies, Jordan,” he yelled. “Throwing down the gun makes for a piss-poor ending.”

He fired at me. Once again the bullet missed by inches. I rolled.

“Zach?” Kylie yelled.

All she said was my name, but we’d been partners long enough for me to put it in context.

“Do it,” I screamed.

Kylie stood up and fired over the door of the Maybach. The bullet made a neat little hole directly under Madison’s jaw, and a much bigger, much messier one in the back of his skull.

A gurgling growl came from his throat, and for an instant he remained frozen, arms in the air. Then his body pitched forward over the side of the boat pond and landed facedown on the cold stone bottom.

It reminded me of the very first time I’d seen Ryan Madison. He’d been jumping up and down on a desk in his classroom, fighting off imaginary airplanes. Then, mortally wounded, the great King Kong had gently set his captive Barbie doll on the desk, and fallen to the floor.

I looked over at Kylie. She was walking toward me, the flashing strobes of an army of cop cars bouncing off her blonde hair. Once again it was beauty killed the beast.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Go? Kylie, you just killed a man. It was a clean shoot, but you can’t walk out and—”

“Zach, listen to me. I’m going to be doing paperwork on this mess for a week and a half, but I’ll be damned if I’m starting now. Tripp Alden is still on the run. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a fugitive, and we’re bringing him in.”

She headed for the edge of the pond. “You’re either with me, or you’re not,” she yelled over her shoulder. “You decide.”

I followed. “One question,” I yelled back. “How do you propose we find him?”

“First thing I’m going to need,” she said, hoisting herself over the side of the pond, “is a car.”

Chapter 70

“We’re not making the same mistake twice,” Kylie said, passing up three sedans until she spotted an empty SUV with the motor running. “Get in.”

We were moving before I had the door closed. Two cops were standing in the cold, waiting for orders. Kylie hit the brakes and rolled down the window. “Is this your vehicle?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” one said.

“Detective MacDonald. Find out who this belongs to and tell them I swapped cars with them. Mine’s at the bottom of the pond.”

She made a U-turn while I put out a BOLO on Tripp Alden and dispatched units to Hutch’s apartment and Lonnie’s.

“I don’t care how many politicians Hunter Alden has in his back pocket,” Kylie said. “He’s hid behind all that power and privilege long enough. I’m not taking his shit anymore.”

“Damn it, Kylie, who did you think you’d serve and protect when you signed on to Red? Boy Scouts? Kidney donors? Hunter Alden is a despicable human being, but he makes more money, pays more taxes, and generates more jobs than Joe Six-Pack. If you can’t handle him, you’re in the wrong outfit.”

She stopped at a light. Some people cry when they’re in pain. Kylie MacDonald breathes fire. “Ryan Madison put a gun six inches from my head and pulled the trigger. That wouldn’t have happened if Hunter Alden hadn’t lied to us. I’ll get him, Zach. I swear to God I’ll get him.”

“I want to nail him for something as much as you do, but coming on like a storm trooper and ‘not taking his shit’ is not an option.”

We drove the rest of the way in silence. There were two units from the One Nine parked outside Alden’s town house. The senior cop approached us.

“He’s in there, Zach. He says his kid’s not home, and I can’t search the place.”

I leaned on the intercom button until the gate opened. By the time Kylie and I got to the top of the stairs, Alden had stepped out and was sneering at us like we’d breached the perimeter and were planning to shove takeout menus under his door. “Where’s my son?” he demanded.

“We were about to ask you the same thing,” Kylie said.

“How the hell would I know?”

“He was in your garage a half hour ago,” she said.

“And I was upstairs with a goddamn murderer trying to keep Tripp from being his next victim. I was doing what I had to do to keep my son alive. If the two of you had done your job, I wouldn’t be in that situation.”

Kylie didn’t back off. “Our job? You mean like find your son’s kidnapper? We might have had better luck if you’d have bothered to report him kidnapped.”

“Don’t make me the heavy, Detective. ‘Call the cops, and we kill your kid.’ What was I supposed to do? I thought I might be dealing with the Russian Mafia, but it turns out to be his pissant teacher, Madison. When he finally showed up, I did what I do best. I closed a deal with him. The plan is for him to come back tomorrow, and I’ll wire him the money.”

“Mr. Madison’s plans have been changed,” Kylie said. “He won’t be coming back.”

“You have him in custody?”

“He’s on his way to the morgue. Your car was involved in the police action. It’s going to take a few more days before you get it back.”

“Screw my car. Where is Tripp?”

“I believe that question has been asked and answered,” Kylie said.

Clearly my attempt at sensitivity training with Kylie had failed. I decided to step in.

“Mr. Alden,” I said, “we did our best to apprehend Madison alive, but he opened fire on us. First from your garage, and again when we followed him to the park. In the middle of it all, Tripp managed to escape. He took off. We were hoping he came home.”

“He didn’t. Now you can stop hoping, get out, and take your friends with you,” he said, pointing at the two squad cars in front of the house. “They’re blocking my driveway.”

He took a step back and slammed the door.

My cell rang, and I checked the caller ID. “Cates,” I said.

Kylie threw her hands up, and I took the call. “Yes, boss.”

“I’m standing here with a dead prep school teacher, a private automobile that will probably cost the taxpayers half a million dollars to restore, and a hundred reporters behind the yellow tape all clamoring to know who gets credit for this mess.”

“Captain—”

“I’m not finished, Jordan. What if the PC shows up and asks me why two officers under my command shot a suspect and went AWOL?”

“Captain, you can tell the PC that we were in pursuit of two suspects. We caught one, but we couldn’t stop to file a report. We had to keep going.”

“You tell him. Because if he shows up and you’re not here, I’m telling him you left the scene so you could look for a better job with Traffic Enforcement.”

“We’re on the way, Captain.”

“One more thing, Jordan. Did you search the blue van after you ran it into the pond?”

No. We raced out of the park because my partner was still reeling from having a gun to her head, and she was hell-bent on confronting Hunter Alden.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “The first responders were almost on the scene, so we left the van to them. Can you tell me what was in there, or do I have to wait to read about it in tomorrow’s paper?”

“I’d rather wait till you and your partner get here,” Cates said. “I want to see the look on your faces when you find out what you missed.”

Chapter 71

Nothing attracts a crowd like a shoot-out, and by the time we got back to the park, it was lit up like a movie set and filled up with cop cars, fire engines, EMS wagons, news crews, and a mammoth Ford 4400 Jerr-Dan tow truck.

And Cates.

“IO 52,” she barked as soon as she saw us coming. “Or is that another departmental regulation you’d like to break?”

Interim Order 52 requires every officer who discharges a weapon resulting in injury or death to take a sobriety test. No cop has ever flunked it, and most cops find it demeaning, which is probably why Cates yelled it loud enough for at least a dozen cops to hear it.

“She’s more pissed at me than she is at you,” Kylie mumbled as we took NYPD’s version of a perp walk to a van, where someone from Internal Affairs was waiting to give us each a Breathalyzer test.

We were declared alcohol-free and reported back to Cates, who was with Chuck Dryden behind a screen he used as a paparazzi deterrent.

“This was in the van,” he said, pointing at a yellow polyethylene case that was crusted with frost. “It’s Tripp Alden’s camera case.”

As soon as he said it, I knew the box wouldn’t contain camera equipment. “Peter Chevalier,” I said, more statement than question.

Dryden snapped the latches and opened the top, and my eyes locked on the severed head.

“It’s been stored at below-zero temperatures for days and had only recently been removed from the deep freeze,” Dryden said.

“And I’ll bet Hunter Alden was the one who kept it on ice,” Kylie said. “Madison was pulling out of his garage when we spotted him.”

“I know where you’re going with this,” Cates said, “but unless you saw Alden hand him the head, there’s no way you can tie him to it.”

“Were there any prints on the box?” I asked.

“Wiped clean.”

“Doc, we’ve got the killer, and you’ve already autopsied Chevalier’s body,” Cates said. “How long until we can get this to the family so they can make funeral arrangements?”

“Not long. I can release it in a few hours.”

Dryden started to leave, then turned back and looked at Cates. “For what it’s worth, my team inspected the terrain,” he said, pointing at the area where Kylie had lost control of the Maybach. “It’s like a luge track. Once that car came over the hill, there was nothing the detectives could have done. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature.”

“And now they’re at the mercy of Mama Cates. This goes way beyond forensics, Dr. Dryden, but I’m sure the detectives appreciate the fact that you tried to cover their asses.”

Chuck gave us a shrug and left.

“Captain,” I said.

“Save the explanations for another day,” Cates said. “I’ve learned my lesson with you two. Let the infractions pile up until we close the case. Then I can waste my time trying to figure out how to get you two to play by the rules.”

Her cell phone rang, and she jumped into her car so she could be heard over the howling wind.

Kylie and I just stood there.

“I have no regrets,” she said.

“You never do.”

“What’s your problem?” she demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Zach, there’s only one person who can tell us what we need to know to charge Hunter Alden with a crime, and that’s Tripp. So, yeah, I made the call to chase after him instead of hanging around here until some asshole from IA could tell me that I haven’t been drinking. I didn’t twist your arm to go with me, so don’t give me the same old thou-shalt-not-break-the-rules crap I’ve heard a dozen times from Cates and every CO I ever worked for.”

“Kylie, I’m cold, I’m wet, and I feel like shit because I left the scene to chase a ghost instead of staying behind and finding that camera case. But seeing as you saved my life tonight, I’ll spare you the sermon, and just say thank you for shooting Madison before he shot me.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, and then a small smile crept across her face. “All that wind and snow... It was a hell of a shot,” she said. “Did I ever mention I was first in my class at the academy?”

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back. “Not since last night.”

The car door opened, and Cates leaned out. “Get in,” she said.

We did, and her driver headed out of the park.

“That was Patrice Chevalier,” Cates said. “I had left him a message that we found Peter, and he called back to thank me.”

“Where are we going now?” Kylie said.

“Back to the house.”

“Captain, with all due respect, we’re trying to find Tripp Alden. Sitting around the office isn’t the best way to get that done.”

“Tripp Alden is meeting us there,” Cates said. “Dr. Chevalier is bringing him in.”

In a rare moment of self-restraint, Kylie sat there and didn’t say another word for the rest of the ride.

Chapter 72

I read Tripp Alden his Miranda rights, and as soon as I got to “You have the right to consult an attorney,” he cut me off.

“Yeah, I want one. I called my grandfather before I turned myself in. He’s sending a guy.”

The guy turned out to be Dennis Woloch, known in legal circles as the Warlock because of his uncanny ability to cast a spell over juries. Woloch only took on two types of clients: the filthy rich, who could afford his astronomical fees, and the dirt poor, for whom he’d work pro bono just so he could dominate the six o’clock news with his litigating brilliance.

Grandpa Alden wasn’t taking any chances. He’d sent a flamethrower to a marshmallow roast.

“Detectives,” Woloch said, “are you charging my client with anything?”

“Your client was the victim of a crime,” I said. “One which we believe we’ve resolved. But we have a few questions about the kidnapping.”

Woloch nodded and allowed Tripp to recount what we’d already heard from Gittleman and Lonnie. When he got to the part where Augie showed up, I asked the obvious. “Why would you stun-gun your rescuer and then take off?”

“Don’t answer that,” Woloch said. “And you, Detective, should not be asking a boy who was traumatized by a madman to explain his reaction when a total stranger walked into his prison cell and supposedly rescued him. At that point my client trusted no one. Move along.”

“After you left the school, you didn’t call your family,” I said. “Instead you decided to call your kidnapper. Then you met him at a diner, where he killed Silas Blackstone.”

“That’s not a question,” Woloch said. “And even if it could ever lead to one, it’s irrelevant, because you have your facts wrong. My client did not call his kidnapper. The man who abducted him wore several disguises and only spoke through a voice modifier. That is not who Tripp called. No, in his fear and desperation he reached out to the one person he felt he could turn to: his mentor, Ryan Madison.”

“Do you know anything about the murder of Peter Chevalier?” Kylie asked.

Tripp shook his head.

“Tell us about the flash drive you gave him.”

Warlock slapped both palms on the table. “This interview is over.”

“Not if we charge him with assault on a school employee engaged in the performance of his duties,” Kylie said, lobbing her last marshmallow at the roaring flamethrower.

The Warlock laughed loud and hard. “I thought I was talking to the Red team — an elite unit trained to resolve issues for people of wealth and influence,” he said. “And you plan to slap the heir to the Alden fortune with a misdemeanor? That smells like the Brown team to me. Write the boy an appearance ticket, Detective, and we’ll be on our way.”

He stood up. Tripp didn’t move.

“Come on,” Woloch said. “I’ll drop you at your grandfather’s house.”

“Just a minute,” Tripp said. He looked at us. “You caught him, right? Madison — is he...?”

“We tried to take him alive,” I said. “But we couldn’t.”

“Thank you,” he said. “He killed Peter, and I know I was next. Thanks.”

He stood up and followed Woloch out of the room.

Cates had watched it all from behind the two-way. She walked in as soon as they left. “Dr. Chevalier asked me to thank you as well. He’s flying back to Haiti as soon as the snow lifts in the morning.”

“Did you hear the last thing Tripp said?” Kylie asked.

“He thanked you for saving his life,” Cates said.

“Hunter Alden told us that he agreed to pay Madison. The plan was to wire the money to him tomorrow.”

“So?”

“So why would Tripp think Madison was going to kill him if his father was a day away from paying the ransom?”

“I don’t know,” Cates said. “What I do know is that you wrecked a million-dollar car and you caught a murderer. On balance I’d say you had a good day.”

“Not good enough,” Kylie said. “Hunter Alden is dirty, and we’re trying to figure out at what.”

“Welcome to Red,” Cates said. “Some of our best customers are dirty, but your job is to be there for them when they’re victimized, not spend your time trying to figure out what felonious and immoral shit they’re doing under the radar.”

“Wow,” Kylie said. “That’s...”

“Cynical?” Cates said. “Yeah, that happens to a lot of cops. The system has a way of beating you down. But don’t worry, MacDonald. You’re immune.”

“Why’s that?”

“You can’t get frustrated by the rules if you refuse to play by them.”

Chapter 73

“I need food and alcohol, not necessarily in that order,” Kylie said as soon as Cates left. “You game?”

I’ve arrested a lot of smart people for doing stupid things, and sometimes I want to grab them and say, “What the hell were you thinking?” But I already know the answer. People don’t always think.

Which is why twenty-four hours after Cheryl walked out of my apartment, and fifteen hours after Gerri warned me that Kylie was playing fast and loose with her marriage and my libido, I decided that a third night of drinking with my ex-girlfriend was just what the doctor ordered.

“Hell yeah,” I said.

I took a hot shower, found some dry clothes in my locker, and we got a patrol car to run us over to T-Bar Steak and Lounge on Third Avenue.

“I’ve never worked a kidnapping case,” Kylie said once we had ordered our food and had drinks in our hands. “But I’ve seen a lot of kidnapping movies. You know the difference between cinema and the real thing?”

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say popcorn.”

“I’m serious, Zach. In a film, when the family gets their kid back, there’s always all this hugging and kissing and crying, but Hunter and Janelle Alden didn’t even show up at the station to say hello. Two people were murdered. Their son escaped alive. Where was the tearful reunion?”

“Janelle wasn’t home when we were there, so she might not even know yet. And Hunter’s version of a happy ending may be hugging and kissing the money he wound up not paying the kidnapper.”

“Or it’s not a happy ending for Hunter, because whether Tripp was part of Madison’s blackmail scheme or not, he still has plenty on his old man.”

“I thought we had a deal,” I said. “No cop talk at the dinner table.”

“No problem,” she said, taking a generous swallow of her Jack and Coke. “What else can we talk about? Have you heard from Cheryl today? How about that madcap husband of mine showing up unannounced? The divorce lawyer asked for a fifteen-thousand-dollar retainer. Do you think I should—”

“You win. Let’s talk about the case.”

“Cates thinks it’s closed,” Kylie said.

“She’s right. It was a double homicide, and we nailed it. In the process, we broke up the very kidnapping we were told to stay away from.”

“And Tripp Alden was damn lucky that we didn’t listen.”

“Unfortunately, they don’t give out medals for not listening, or you’d have a closet full. Kylie, I know you. You don’t want to talk about the case. You have a theory, and you’re trying to lead me down the path so I can get there on my own, but my brain is fried, so lay it on me before I add alcohol.”

“Okay. I think Tripp Alden was right. Madison was going to kill him, and I think his life is still at risk.”

I set my drink on the table. She had my undivided attention.

“Track with me,” she said. “Madison goes to the house, and Hunter agrees to pay the ransom. His son is tied up in the van. Why doesn’t he go downstairs and give the kid some peace of mind that he’s going to be set free?”

“Because he sucks as a dad.”

“Right, so here’s a different spin on the same question. He’s just coughed up millions to save Tripp’s life. The last thing he needs is for the kid to try something stupid and get himself killed. So why didn’t Hunter go downstairs to the garage and tell Tripp to chill for twenty-four hours? He’s a smart businessman. Wouldn’t that have been the smart way to protect his investment?”

She’d led me down the path, and I hated where it was headed. “Are you saying that the kid knows too much, and Hunter wanted him dead?”

“Not only wanted him dead, but was willing to pay Madison to do it. And he’d have gotten away with it. Desperate father pays ransom, only to have the kidnapper renege on the deal and murder his son.”

Before I could process her theory, my cell rang. It was Sergeant McGrath.

“Zach, it’s Bob.”

“If we’re on a first-name basis, you need a favor. What do you want?”

“The key to Alden’s car. They flatbedded it to the One Oh Five garage, but they can’t start it without that little fob I gave you.”

“Actually, you gave it to my partner.”

“That’s the favor. Make my life easy. You ask her for it.”

“It’s McGrath,” I said to Kylie. “Do you still have the key to the Maybach?”

She dug into her pocket and dropped it on the table.

“Got it,” I said. “And the good news is there’s not a scratch on it. Send a uniform to T-Bar at Seven Three and Three, and it’s all yours... Bob.”

I picked up the key ring. It still had Peter’s gold crucifix on it. “I think we should take this off and get it back to Patrice,” I said.

I grabbed the cross and started to slide it off the ring. It was tight, so I put a little pressure on it. Too much pressure, and it broke into two pieces.

“Klutz,” Kylie said.

“No, I think it’s supposed to come apart,” I said, holding it close to the flickering candlelight to get a better look.

The bottom leg of the cross had slid off like the sheath to a sword. Except that instead of there being a blade inside the sheath, there was a USB port.

“It’s not your average crucifix,” I said, handing it to Kylie. “This one’s also a flash drive.”

Chapter 74

“Hallelujah,” Kylie said, holding up the cross. “And I swear to God we’re going to do this one by the book.”

“Not a hundred percent,” I said. “The book says we have to clear it with the captain and an ADA before we chase down a judge to sign a search warrant.”

“I believe that rule is flexible,” Kylie said, looking at me with a straight face. “Especially if it’s a Saturday night, it’s snowing, and you know that Cates will tear you a new one if she thinks you’re making Alden the target of a witch hunt.”

We wolfed down our dinner, returned the fob to McGrath, and made our way to West End Avenue, where Leah LaBreche, the on-call judge, was waiting for us.

“Sober as a judge” does not always apply at ten o’clock on a Saturday night, but Judge LaBreche was a new mom, so she was awake, alert, and had a few questions before she’d sign.

“A flash drive?” she said. “At this hour? Why couldn’t this wait till morning?”

Kylie launched into a rapid-fire explanation, throwing around phrases like “double homicide,” “high-profile kidnapping,” and “close friends of the new mayor,” and ending with “Our commanding officer thought it was important enough to drive through a snowstorm to get your signature.”

If Judge LaBreche had any further questions, she didn’t get to them. A baby started crying, and her focus shifted immediately.

“It’s my son Landon. He’s teething,” she said, taking the pen from Kylie.

She signed, and we left.

Lying about Cates could get us disciplined, but the search was now legal. Nothing we found could be suppressed.

“My place or yours?” Kylie asked as soon as the judge closed her door.

We had no idea what we were looking for, and we didn’t know if we’d recognize it if we found it, but we knew we wanted someplace private if we did. We decided on my apartment.

I plugged the flash drive into my computer and double-clicked on it. None of the folders were locked. “God bless Irene Gerrity,” I said. “She doesn’t believe in passwords.”

“Or she did,” Kylie said, “but somewhere along the line she realized she’d never be able to remember them.”

Irene had it all perfectly organized. Eight folders, each one labeled. I clicked on the one marked Phone Calls, and dozens of MP3 file icons popped up.

I played one.

“Mr. Joost. This is Leviticus.”

I had no idea who Joost was, but Leviticus’s voice was unmistakable. Hunter Alden. We listened to the rest of the call.

“It seems like an everyday stock deal,” Kylie said, “but based on what Irwin Diamond taught us about insider trading, I’ll bet Mr. Joost is somewhere in Switzerland, and the SEC will have no record of Leviticus or the transaction.”

We played three more, but it was like looking at the ticker tape crawling along the bottom of the screen on CNBC. All the information is right there, but I didn’t have the chops to make sense of it.

“Refresh my memory,” I said. “Do you remember the difference between puts and calls, or do I have to get Warren Buffett on the phone?”

“If you buy a put option, you’re betting that the stock is going to go down,” Kylie said. “If it does, you make money. A call option is the opposite. You bet on a stock you think will go up.”

We listened to six more phone calls, but they only made things murkier. Alden wasn’t betting on one stock. He was buying puts on a dozen different companies, and calls on a bunch of others.

I opened the folder marked Puts and clicked on a spreadsheet. Irene had it all organized — dates, prices, profits.

“Talk about the rich getting richer,” Kylie said. “He made fifty-seven million dollars.”

“Look closer,” I said. “It’s five hundred and seventy million. Every single stock he said would go down tanked.”

“It has to be insider trading, but how did he know the inside dope about so many different companies?”

I opened the Calls spreadsheet. Sure enough, every stock Alden had bet on to go up had taken off, and he’d made another four hundred and forty-two million.

“It adds up to over a billion dollars profit,” Kylie said. “In what — a month?”

I went back to the Phone Calls folder and organized the icons by date. The first one was time-stamped September 4, 2001, at 8:11 a.m. The last was October 12 at 11:09 a.m.

“It took him all of five weeks,” I said. “Except...”

The words wouldn’t come out. In fact, I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would throw up.

I tapped the computer screen. “Look at the dates,” I managed to say.

Kylie followed my finger. “Oh God,” she said.

Alden had bought furiously from the fourth through the tenth and started selling everything off on the seventeenth.

And, of course, there were no transactions on September eleventh or the entire week that followed. America had been closed for business.

We went back and looked at all the stocks Hunter had bet against. American Airlines, United, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA — all the stocks that had plummeted after the towers came down. And then we looked at the list of stocks he had bet on. Raytheon, United Technologies, Northrop Grumman — and a list of other companies that America turns to when it gears up for war.

“Hunter Alden knew about 9/11 a week before it happened,” Kylie said.

I put my hand to my mouth and nodded.

“Zach, it’s beyond evil. He made a billion dollars exploiting what he knew, and then he was willing to let his son die to cover his tracks.”

I still couldn’t speak. I ran to the bathroom and managed to get there just in time to blow my T-Bar steak into the toilet.

Chapter 75

“Everyone wants to get rich,” Hutch Alden had told Hunter when the boy was only ten years old. “They start out poor, they reach for the moon, and if they fall on their asses, what the hell? They go back to being poor. You’re different. You’re starting out rich. Your job is to stay that way.”

“How do I do that?” Hunter had asked.

“I’ve got twenty-six rules. I’ll teach them to you.”

Three decades later, Hunter Alden was finally putting rule number eighteen to the test. Always have an exit strategy.

He first started planning an escape route on September 12, 2001. He knew there would be an attack on American soil, but even he had been shocked by the magnitude. He knew if the day ever came when his connection to 9/11 was at risk of being leaked, he’d have to leave the country.

Today was that day, and as soon as the storm lifted, he was flying to Cuba. Permanently. The U.S. and Cuba had an extradition treaty that was over a century old, but with no diplomatic relations, it was as intimidating as a jaywalking ticket.

Hunter filled two suitcases with bare essentials. It was wrenching, but the alternative was unthinkable. Robert Vesco and Marc Rich had been smart enough to get out while they could. Bernie Madoff stuck around and got 150 years in prison. Hunter knew he had only two choices: spend his days on the beach in Playa Varadero, or in a cell in Otisville.

The doorbell rang. It was Findley.

“Crazy night to be going to the airport,” he said.

“Did you tell my father I’m borrowing his car and driver?” Hunter said.

“Come on, sport,” Findley said. “How far do you and me go back? I been covering your ass since before you figured out how to wipe it. You said keep it on the down low, so that’s what I done. I didn’t tell Mr. Hutch, I didn’t tell Lorna, I didn’t tell nobody. Like usual, it’s just between us chickens.”

He picked up the two suitcases that were sitting at the front door and put them in the trunk of the Cadillac. Then he came back and walked Hunter to the car.

“And what’s with the hush-hush, anyway?” Findley asked once he got behind the wheel. “You know your father would give you the shirt off his back. He don’t care if I give you a ride to the airport.”

“Hutch and I don’t see eye to eye on this deal I’m going to close. It’s just going to upset him if I tell him I’m going.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, sport,” Findley said. “It’s going to take us a good hour to get to HPN. Even then, you’ll be lucky if they got a working runway. Why don’t you take a load off and pour yourself a drink? I got a fresh supply of your favorite.”

Hunter opened the bar and took out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. “It’s not as fresh as you think,” he said. “Somebody’s been at it.”

Findley laughed. “That somebody was me. All I had was one lousy shot, and that was two days ago, so I’m safe to drive. But if you run out of booze before we get to Westchester, I’ll find a liquor store and pick you up another one.”

Hunter unscrewed the cap and poured the Scotch into a crystal rocks glass. He leaned back in his seat and tipped the glass, letting the whiskey slide down his throat and warm him from the inside.

Findley watched him through the rearview mirror. “From the expression on your face, it looks like I have me another satisfied customer.”

Hunter took another swallow and felt the Blue magic working on his brain. “That’s what I always liked about you, Findley,” Hunter said. “You always took good care of me.”

“That I did, sport. And we had a lot of good times together,” Findley said, keeping one eye on the road and the other on the mirror. His mind flashed back to the six-year-old Hunter, laughing and singing as they drove off to kindergarten.

Hunter downed his drink, grabbed the bottle, and tried to refill his glass. His hand dropped to his side, and the bottle crashed to the floor.

Findley pulled the car over and turned around. Hunter Alden was unconscious on the backseat. The booze and the drugs had worked fast.

“I’m sorry, sport,” Findley said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “You been like family to me. Always have. But not anymore.”

Chapter 76

Hunter Alden opened his eyes and strained to sit up, but a dozen thick rubber tarp straps lashed him to the table.

“Findley,” he screamed.

No answer.

He stared straight up, turning his head left, and then right, as much as he could. The room was so big and the straps were so tight that he couldn’t twist far enough to see the walls. Just a few recessed lights, set on dim. He tilted his chin to the ceiling and rolled his eyes back so he could look behind him.

And there, fifteen feet over his head, was a disco ball. It wasn’t moving, but by shifting his gaze, he could watch the light reflect off the thousands of tiny mirrored facets. Where the hell was he?

“Findley,” he called out again.

“Findley is not here,” a voice said.

“Whoever you are, untie me,” Hunter bellowed. “Now.”

“I can’t do that, Mr. Alden,” the voice said.

“Show your goddamn face.”

A tall figure wearing scrubs and a surgical mask stepped up and leaned over the table just enough so Hunter could look straight up at him. The man lowered his mask.

“You’re Peter’s brother,” Hunter said.

“Patrice Chevalier. Doctor Patrice Chevalier.”

“I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know how I got here, but get me the hell out of here.”

“You’re in a hospital in Brooklyn.”

“A hospital?” Hunter said, jerking his eyes upward to the glitter ball.

“A makeshift hospital,” Chevalier said. “Most of the time it is Klib Zanmi Ayisyen, a Haitian friendship club.”

“Well, it’s not coming off very freaking friendly. Cut me loose, you son of a bitch. I don’t know what you want from me, but tying me down is not the smartest way to negotiate.”

“My brother spent so many joyful nights here,” Patrice said. “It’s one of the few places in the city where people of the Haitian diaspora can come together and connect with their roots, their traditions, their culture.”

“I was good to your brother,” Hunter said. “I put a roof over his head, food in his belly, money in his pocket, and every time he had his hand out because there was a flood, an earthquake, or a goddamn cholera epidemic, I wrote him a check.”

“Did you love him?” Patrice asked softly.

“What kind of a dumbass question is that?” Hunter said, pressing his body hard against the rubber bonds. “He was an employee. I treated him fair, paid him well — did he ever complain about me?”

“Tripp loved him.”

“Is that why you’re doing this? Madison is dead, so now Tripp recruited you to bleed money out of me?”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Limyè!” Patrice called out.

The room flooded with bright light, and two more people in full operating room attire entered. One man, one woman, both black.

“Oh Jesus, what are you doing?” Hunter said.

“I’m doing what I’m trained to do. Did you know that Peter paid for my medical school education?”

“Listen to me. I didn’t have anything to do with his death. I swear.”

“Of course you did. A single butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world might ultimately cause a hurricane in another part of the world. It’s called the butterfly effect. But you are not a butterfly, Mr. Alden. You are a bull. And the evil you do wreaks havoc and destroys lives around the globe.”

“You’re a goddamn doctor,” Hunter screamed. “You’re supposed to save lives, not kill people out of revenge.”

“I abhor revenge, Mr. Alden. I believe as Gandhi said, ‘An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.’ But you are right about one thing. I am a doctor. My mission is to save lives.”

“Now you’re talking,” Hunter said. “That’s where I can help you. I can give you enough money to build a hundred clinics, save a million lives. I’ll do whatever it takes to help.”

“No you won’t,” Patrice said, his jaw tightening, his lips taut. “The world is filled with humanitarians. You are not one of them. You’re a profiteer, Mr. Alden. Every disaster unleashed on humanity, natural or man-made, is just another opportunity for you to amass more money. You profited from New Orleans, Iraq, Indonesia, Fukushima, and, yes, Haiti. Project Gutenberg is not the only time you’ve capitalized on other people’s misery. It’s just the most horrific.”

“Tell me what you want. Just name your price.”

“I’m a physician, Mr. Alden, and when I see a cancer about to metastasize into vital, healthy organs, my job is to eradicate it.” He pulled the surgical mask back over his face.

The nurse stood ready with three syringes: sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride.

“As for your offer to subsidize our efforts in Haiti,” Chevalier said as he administered the first of the three injections, “thank you, but we already have a benefactor.”

Hunter’s eyes drooped as the barbiturate slowed his heart and shut down his central nervous system.

“His name is Hunter Hutchinson Alden III. His friends call him Tripp,” Patrice said, reaching for the second syringe, “but my brother was the only one who had any right to call him son.”

Chapter 77

I was jolted from my sleep by the nerve-jangling sound of my cell phone and the life-affirming smell of fresh-brewed coffee. I looked at the clock: 5:27. I’m used to predawn phone calls, so another one didn’t faze me, but the smell of coffee coming from my kitchen scared the crap out of me.

I answered the phone.

It was Cates. It took her less than fifteen seconds to tell me what I’d missed since I went to bed. I hung up and followed the aroma of dark roast. I desperately needed caffeine, but even more important, I needed to know who was in my kitchen.

“Good morning,” Kylie said, standing at the counter, cracking eggs into a bowl. “Coffee’s up.”

“Thanks. Not to sound ungrateful,” I said, pouring a cup, “but what are you doing here?”

“I spent the night here.”

My brain was stuck somewhere between REM sleep and the rude-awakening phone call from Cates, and it struggled to put together the pieces of the puzzle that equaled last night. At 2:00 a.m., after twenty straight hours of chasing bad guys, dodging bullets, and getting smashed in the face by an air bag, I had crashed from exhaustion. That’s all I remembered.

“I thought we had wrapped it up last night, and you were going home,” I said.

“I didn’t. I decided to spend the night here.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but...” I held back. My head wasn’t clear enough to ask the question or deal with the answer.

“But what?” Kylie demanded. “Spit it out.”

“Just wondering,” I said. “Where did you sleep?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Zach, get over yourself. I’m still married, and even if I weren’t, I’m not in the habit of crawling into bed with guys who smell of vomit. But if your girlfriend asks, you can tell her I slept on the couch for a couple of hours. The rest of the time I was on the Web, trying to figure out how we can hang Hunter Alden for what he did.”

“I hate to tell you this,” I said, “but we can’t hang him.”

“I know we can’t. We have to bring in the Feds. What I was trying to scope out is which agency would be the best one to talk to: the SEC, FBI, Homeland. But I’m starting to lean toward the NYPD JTTF.”

“Kylie, nobody can hang Hunter Alden. He’s dead.”

That stopped her in her tracks.

“Cates just called,” I said. “He was murdered. They found his body covered with snow under the statue of the charging bull near Wall Street.”

“Wall Street? Holy symbolism, Batman.”

“I need a quick shower,” I said. “Then we should head downtown.”

“Do we have time for breakfast?” she said. “I was just about to scramble some eggs.”

“I wouldn’t eat anything if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“Like I said, Alden’s body was dumped under the statue. But his head is nowhere to be seen.”

Kylie stared at me, wide-eyed. “Decapitated?”

“Cut off clean.”

“Wow,” she said. “Now we really can’t hang him.”

Chapter 78

On any given summer day, the bronze sculpture of the charging bull is a magnet for thousands of tourists, most of whom commemorate their visit by posing next to it for a photo to show the folks back home.

But on this frigid Sunday morning, NYPD had cordoned off the seven-thousand-pound symbol of capitalism, and the only one snapping pictures was Chuck Dryden.

“Four bodies in four days,” Kylie said when we got there.

“But only two heads,” Dr. Cut And Dryden said, clicking off a few more shots of what remained of Hunter Alden. “If this keeps up, we’re going to need a new category in the crime stats.”

We knew him well enough to know he wasn’t joking.

“TOD was between ten p.m. and two a.m.,” Dryden reported. “Like the previous victim, he was decapitated postmortem, but Chevalier was jumped in a parking lot, and his head was hacked off with a rope saw. Alden was taken someplace where the killer wouldn’t be rushed, and the head was removed with surgical precision.”

I made a mental list of people who had motive and surgical skills. One name was all I could come up with.

“Have you recovered the head?” Kylie asked.

“No. The victim’s wallet was still in his pocket, cash intact. I confirmed his ID with prints. But you located the last one. I’m sure you’ll do it again.”

I wasn’t so sure.

The snow had stopped, and because commerce is a priority in our city, the roads in the financial district were plowed and ready for the opening bell Monday morning. We walked down Broadway, found a Starbucks, and solved Alden’s murder before our coffee was ready.

“Patrice killed him,” Kylie said.

“Unless there was an eyewitness, or he left damning forensic evidence, we’ll never prove it,” I said. “Let’s bring him in and question him.”

“Or at least shake his hand,” Kylie said. “Although I doubt if he’s still in this country.”

“He’s not going anywhere till the airports open. Let’s find him.”

We couldn’t. Patrice didn’t answer his phone, and his hotel said he had checked out the day before. There was only one other way to track him down.

We went back to Hunter Alden’s house. Tripp answered the door.

“My mom and my grandfather are at the funeral home making arrangements,” he said.

“Then we’ll talk to you,” I said.

He shrugged. “Let’s go to my room,” he said.

We followed him up to the third floor. It was a typical rich teenager’s room. Just as unkempt and disorganized as you’d expect, only a hell of a lot bigger. We sat down in a cluster of director’s chairs.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” I said.

“I’m not,” Tripp said. “He was a really bad dude. Take my word for it.”

“We’re not here to judge the victim,” I said. “We’re here to catch his killer.”

“I hope you’re not going to ask me if he had any enemies.”

“The first thing we have to do is fill out our report on how you wound up at the precinct safe and sound last night. Dr. Chevalier brought you in, and we’d like to ask him a few questions. Do you know where we can find him?”

“He’s on his way back to Haiti.”

“The airports are closed,” I said. “All flights are grounded till noon.”

“Commercial flights, yeah, but private aircraft have been flying out of Westchester since dawn,” Tripp said. “I let Patrice use the family jet so he could take Peter’s body back home.”

So much for questioning anyone with surgical skills.

“Peter’s funeral is Thursday,” he said. “Patrice asked me to do the eulogy. I can go, can’t I? I mean my lawyer said not to worry about the stun gun thing.”

“Augie Hoffman isn’t pressing charges, and after all you’ve been through the DA’s office won’t pursue it either,” I said. “You can definitely go to Peter’s funeral. And we’re sorry for your loss — we know how much he meant to you.”

“Thanks. At least I still have Patrice. After graduation I’m going down to Haiti and live with him.”

“What about college?”

“You think any of the film schools I applied to are going to take me once they find out that my letter of recommendation came from a homicidal maniac?”

“Hell yeah,” Kylie said. “They might even want to make a movie out of it.”

“I’ve got a better movie idea,” he said. “Teenager suddenly inherits billions of dollars and starts giving it away.”

“Is that your plan?” I said.

“The only plan I have is to not be anything like my father. He dedicated his life to making money, and he didn’t care who got hurt along the way. Now that it’s mine, I’m going to try to use it to make up for the damage he did.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Kylie said.

She forced a smile, but I could see by the look in her eyes that Tripp Alden had completely ruined her day.

Chapter 79

“Now what do we do?” Kylie said as soon as we were back in the car.

“I don’t know, but the best I can come up with is we think long and hard about turning that flash drive over to the Feds.”

“Zach, do you have any idea how many cops I know who died on that day?”

“We all lost someone, Kylie, but crucifying Hunter Alden won’t bring any of them back.”

“So are we just supposed to keep our mouths shut? Not only did the man fail to prevent one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the world: he profited from it.”

“What do you want to do? Prosecute him from the neck down?”

“He made over a billion dollars in blood money.”

“You know that, I know that, and Tripp knows it. He’s ready to start making reparations. The only thing we can do is blow the whistle, and if we do, I guarantee you the government will freeze every nickel Hunter Alden ever made. Tripp Alden won’t have enough money to buy a cup of coffee.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Kylie, I am in uncharted waters. I don’t even know if what we found on the flash drive is admissible evidence. We got the warrant without authorization, and the search wasn’t connected to the case we were investigating. How long do you think it would take the Warlock to have it suppressed?”

“So we send it off to the Feds anonymously,” she said. “I don’t care if we get credit. Our job is to report a crime when we see it.”

“It sounds like you suddenly decided to go by the book. You must have read it sometime after you lied your ass off to Judge LaBreche.”

My phone rang. Cates.

“Mayor Sykes is looking for you,” she said. “Drop what you’re doing and meet her at Gracie Mansion.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“She didn’t say, but the son of her biggest contributor was murdered five days into her term, so I’m guessing it’s not a medal-pinning ceremony.”

Mayor Sykes was downstairs when we got there, surrounded by at least a dozen happy, hyper kids who were running around, having the time of their young lives.

“It’s not usually this crazy,” Sykes said, “but it’s my first Sunday in my new home, so I invited the whole family over for a mansion-warming party.”

We followed her upstairs to her office. She closed the door, but she didn’t sit down. It was going to be a short meeting.

“Thank you for solving a double homicide and for getting Tripp Alden out of it alive,” she said. “Now I need to know how to deal with this Hunter Alden fiasco.”

“Madam Mayor,” I said, “there are a lot of people better qualified to give you political advice than we are.”

“But you’re the only two people I trust to tell me if NYPD has a shot at catching Hunter’s killer. I have a press conference tomorrow, and I don’t want to stand up there promising something you don’t think we can deliver.”

For the past six years, Muriel Sykes had been U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same job Rudy Giuliani held before he was elected mayor. Nobody knew the realities and the limitations of the criminal justice system better than she did.

“We have an idea of what went down, but nothing we could take to the DA to charge anyone,” Kylie said. “Not now and probably not ever.”

“In that case, I’ll focus on the fact that we have tragically lost one of the giants who drive the financial engine of the city of New York, a pillar of the community, and a loving husband and father,” she said. “I’ll just leave out the fact that everyone hated the bastard’s guts.”

She opened the door. “Thank you for coming, Detectives. Grandma Muriel has to get back to her party.”

“Madam Mayor,” Kylie said. “One more question. In private.”

Sykes shut the door. “Go ahead.”

“We have a witness who says Hunter made a lot of money on some egregious insider trading,” Kylie said. “She’s suffering from Alzheimer’s, but she claims there’s a flash drive floating around somewhere that might have hard evidence.”

“What’s the question?” Sykes said.

“What if she’s right, and what would we do if we found it?”

“Why the hell would you look? Hunter was a scumbag. I’d be surprised if he weren’t involved in insider trading. But he’s dead. Anything you found would only hurt Hutch Alden, and while you may be unqualified to give political advice, you’re smart enough to know that politicians don’t bite the hand that feeds them. They kiss ass.”

There was a knock on the door, and Sykes opened it.

“I’m coming,” she said to the two boys who were standing outside.

She turned back to us. “Let’s just hope that if that flash drive really does exist, nobody ever gets their hands on it.”

She and the kids headed down the stairs and left Kylie and me standing in the doorway.

“I’m still not sure what to do,” Kylie said.

“We don’t have to do anything today,” I said. “Let’s both sleep on it.”

Kylie looked at me with a devilish grin.

I smiled back. “Separate apartments,” I said.

Chapter 80

I didn’t sleep well. As much as I would have liked to expose Hunter Alden to the world, I knew in my heart that Tripp could do more good with the family fortune if I kept quiet. But I wasn’t sure I could convince Kylie.

So when I walked into Gerri’s Diner on Monday morning, all I wanted was a cup of coffee, a bowl of oatmeal, and a quiet place to sit and think. But that doesn’t happen when everything you’ve been involved in over the past few days explodes across every media outlet in the city.

Prep school teacher kidnaps student, cop drives million-dollar car into the boat pond, decapitated billionaire’s body left under the icon of prosperity — it all makes for spellbinding journalism.

As soon as I stepped through the door, a dozen cops shouted my name, stood up and applauded, or came over to shake my hand.

Gerri handed me the Times, the News, and the Post, and escorted me to a booth in the rear. “You may be a jerk in your personal life,” she said, “but you are one hell of a good cop.”

I scanned the papers, and five minutes later Kylie walked into the same reception. But as soon as the applause died down, somebody with a sound effects app on his phone tapped a button, and we heard the screeching of brakes and a loud crash. Cop humor.

Kylie sat down across from me. “What’s new in the papers?” she said.

“Apparently, we’re not the only heroes,” I said. “Hutch Alden really knows how to spin the facts to the family’s advantage.”

I slid the Post across the table and pointed to a headline on page three. “‘Billionaire Gives Life to Save Son.’ Read all about it.”

She read the first paragraph and shoved it aside. “Why would you show me this? It only makes me want to crucify the bastard even more.”

“Because I know you. Your mind is already made up. Where did you net out?”

She dug into her pocket and put the flash drive on the table. “I’ll go with the majority. We can’t show this to anyone.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I was hoping that the mayor’s little ‘bite the hand that feeds them’ speech would change your mind.”

“Oh, I didn’t buy that crap,” Kylie said. “Spence is the one who changed my mind.”

“You discussed this with Spence?”

“Relax. I didn’t give him any of the details. Just the big picture. We had dinner last night. He may be an addict, but he’s clean right now, and I’ve always trusted his moral compass.”

“What did he say that convinced you?”

“He said, ‘If you’re going to turn Hunter Alden over to the Feds, then you may as well turn me in to NYPD. I was buying drugs illegally for months. You knew about it, and you were willing to look the other way. But a crime is a crime, Kylie. Arrest me.’ Then he held up his hands so I could cuff him.”

I laughed out loud. “What did you do?”

“I stuck him with my salad fork and called him an asshole.”

“But you didn’t arrest him.”

“No, I’m too busy trying to rehabilitate him.”

“Wow. You’re an even bigger hypocrite than I realized.”

“Zach, ever since we discovered what was on that flash drive, I wanted to bring Hunter Alden to justice. Even after he was dead, I was still obsessed with making him pay for what he did. But to quote my recovering addict husband, ‘Justice doesn’t necessarily make the world a better place. Compassion always does.’”

I picked up the flash drive. “We may not be showing this to anyone, but we still have to hold on to it, just to make sure Tripp holds up his end of the bargain.”

“I know the perfect hiding place,” Kylie said. “No one will ever find it, and we can get to it anytime we want.”

A half hour later we were at the property clerk’s office. I filled out the paperwork, he tagged and bagged the crucifix — flash drive, and the only evidence of Hunter Alden’s crime against humanity left our hands and made the first step in a chain of custody that would transport it to its final resting place, a sprawling warehouse in Long Island City, where it would be stored for decades.

“Any regrets?” I asked Kylie.

“Not about this, but I wish you had never showed me that article in the Post about Hunter Alden. It pisses me off that the son of a bitch is going to get a hero’s funeral.”

“Just his body,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure his head will rot in a pauper’s grave in Haiti for all eternity.”