Red Cat

22

“All in all, it’s good he gave up the acting,” I said.

Mike Metz chuckled. Over the phone I heard him pouring something, and I heard NPR in the background: Weekend Edition. It was Sunday morning, and drops of snowmelt fell glittering past my window.

“He was that bad?” Mike asked.

“Worse. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t improvise. That stuff about his relationship with Holly being no big deal, and that he broke things off with her- it was utter crap.”

“What about the business with Jamie Coyle?”

“About Holly being afraid of him? I guess it’s possible- Jamie is a scary guy- but I take what Werner says with lots of salt. About the only thing I’m sure of about him is that he’s scared himself.”

“Scared of whom- Coyle?”

“Him, certainly. Werner nearly wet his pants when I told him that Coyle had had his place staked out. But it’s not just Coyle; he was nervous from the start. He clearly didn’t want to talk to me, and he could’ve thrown me out anytime, but he didn’t. He was worried enough about something- what I knew, maybe, or what I wanted to know, or who I was working for- that he let me keep talking.”

“You think he knows Holly’s dead?” Mike said around a mouthful of something.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? If he saw the pictures in the newspaper, he would’ve recognized the tattoo, but it’s possible he didn’t see them. The weather’s pushed that and every other story to the back of the paper for the past few days, and it never got much TV time. Of course, it’s possible that he knows without having seen the papers.”

“Because he killed her.”

“That would also explain the worry, though just seeing the pictures in the paper, knowing Holly is dead, might explain it too. If what Krug told me about him is true- the hitting, the stalking, the whole obsessive-lover-spurned thing- then Werner has to know he’d look very good to the cops.”

“He looks pretty good to me too,” Metz said. “And so does Coylemaybe good enough to make an ADA think twice about going after your brother.”

“I’ll try Coyle’s PO on Monday, and we’ll see how he looks then. And who knows- maybe lawyer Vickers will call back.”

“Don’t hold your breath. But work fast on Coyle; I want to move on this next week.”

“I’ll be quick as I can, but David still needs convincing. Last time we talked, he thought the idea of going to the cops was crazy, and maybe you were too. And he wasn’t listening too well to reason.”

Mike snorted. “Well, something you said sank in. He called me last night, and he was a model of cooperation.”

“He called you?”

“He ran down his whereabouts for me on that Tuesday, and answered all my questions about times and places and people. Almost all, anyway.”

“What’s the ‘almost’ part?”

“He’s still reluctant to talk about Stephanie, or to let me talk to her.”

I sighed deeply. “Can he account for his time?”

“Some of it. His day’s a little patchy, but with some legwork we can probably fill the gaps. It’s the nighttime that’s a problem.”

“He told me he was home.”

“That’s what he told me, too. But apparently Stephanie is the only person who can substantiate that.”

“And he won’t let you talk to her. Great. Does he say why?”

“He says she’s out of town and that he’ll talk to her when she gets back, though he doesn’t say when that will be.”

I took another deep breath. Shit. “What does he say about going to the cops?”

“He seems to understand it’s the best course.”

“Which is not quite the same as agreeing to do it.”

“No,” Mike said. “But it’s getting there.”

“Does he understand that we can’t talk to the cops until we talk to Stephanie?”

“Yes, though it doesn’t seem to translate into actually letting us talk to her. And he’s developed a theory that the timing of Holly’s death actually works to his advantage.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“His reasoning is, How could he have killed her when, on that Tuesday, he didn’t even know who she was. He’d hired you only twenty-four hours before, and you didn’t even tell him her name until the following day.”

I almost laughed. “Sounds watertight to me- we might as well pack up and call it a day, Mike. Except, maybe, for the fact that she’s the one who was calling him-and visiting his house and probably following him around. It won’t take the Einstein of cops to work out a scenario where she calls him, they arrange a meeting, and things go wrong. Hell, maybe she didn’t even call; maybe she just waylaid him on the street somewhere.”

“I explained all that, though without the sarcasm. I’m not sure how much got through.”

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

Mike cleared his throat. “With you and him having another talk, I’m afraid.”

I managed not to throw the phone through the window, but hung it up instead. Clare came yawning and stretching from the bedroom, her gray eyes puffy from sleep. She poured a glass of cranberry juice and sat at the end of the sofa and put her feet in my lap. They were cold and white and I rubbed her toes. She picked up the TV remote.

The news had gone from plowing and digging to melting and flooding, and there was footage of water, water everywhere- on roads, in basements, and coursing through storm drains and subway tunnels. Images of JFK came on the screen, where the runways were clear, and long lines of planes were landing and taking off, and the stranded, rumpled, bleary, and unwashed were more or less on their ways. I looked at Clare, who drank her juice and watched in silence. When the images shifted again- to scenes of plows pushing mountains of snow into the river- she looked at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but Clare beat me to it.

“He’s not flying in from anywhere, if that’s what you’re wondering.” I had been, and now I was wondering why not. A tiny smile flickered on Clare’s lips. “He’s not snowbound anywhere, except at home.”

I sat up. “No?” I said. My voice was tight.

Clare shook her head. “No.”

“Then where does…” There was a little rushing sound in my ears. “What did you-”

“I left him.”

“You…”

“I left him. I walked out.”

I nodded, more out of habit than because I understood anything. “You…what are you-”

“Don’t worry; I’m not planning on moving in. But the storm made it impossible to get a hotel room.” She drank some more juice and looked at me over the top of her glass. “I was going to give it a couple of days, but I can start calling the hotels now if you like.”

“No…I…You don’t have to do that,” I said.

Clare nodded. She went to the kitchen and put her glass in the sink and stood by the windows. Her back was straight and stiff.

“What happened?” I asked. She shook her head but didn’t turn around. “You can stay as long as you need to,” I said, “as long as you want.”

“Which is it,” she asked softly, “ ‘need’ or ‘want’?”

“Whichever,” I said.

She nodded, and watched a wing of snow slide from a rooftop across the street and break into diamonds on the way down. “It’s all coming loose,” she said.

Clare went for a walk in the afternoon, and didn’t ask for company, and I went for a messy run. My shoes were heavy with water when I got back, and my eyes ached from squinting. Clare was still gone, and still gone when I got out of the shower. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and opened my laptop and my notebook.

I found Phil Losanto’s telephone number on-line, and found him at home, in Yorktown Heights. He had just gotten back from forty-eight hours of skidding across northern Westchester County, covering the county’s response to the storm and, according to him, freezing his freaking nuts off. His voice was permanently tired and permanently amused.

“Plus the wife’s on my ass now ’cause our drive’s the only one on the block that isn’t shoveled. Christ, let me get a Pepsi first.” There was a lot of noise on his end- a television playing loud cartoons, the piercing trills and beeps of a video game, small children fighting, or playing, or both, and a shrill, exasperated woman yelling at them. My heart went out to Phil.

“You wrote a couple of articles a few years ago about Jamie Coyle.”

Phil thought for a while amidst the noise. “Yeah, in Peekskill, right. The kid who beat the crap out of that video store guy. He got sent away for a while.”

“And got out about a year ago. You recall much about him?”

“Enough. Why?”

“Your article talked about him being a star athlete, local-hero type. Was that for real, or was it just good copy?”

Losanto snorted. “What, you don’t trust the press? No, that was mostly for real. Until the knee thing, the kid was a phenomenal defensive tackle- made all-county in his sophomore year- and he was Golden Gloves champ in his class since he was fourteen. As far as the hero part goes…that’s a different story.”

“Don’t leave me hanging, Phil.”

He laughed. Behind him something glass shattered, the woman yelled, and one of the children shrieked. “Even before he got into the collection business, Coyle was no altar boy. He was a hell-raiser in high school, with a bad temper. He got in a few fights, boosted a few cars, and was generally one of the kids the local cops knew by name.”

“Doesn’t sound like a criminal mastermind, though.”

“No, not a mastermind.”

“What happened with the video store guy?”

“Ray Vessic? The usual thing that happens when a guy gets behind and doesn’t listen: somebody like Coyle comes around.”

“Yeah, but when they do, they usually leave the guy in good enough shape to pay- that’s the point of collection, after all. But that guy took a hell of a beating. I was surprised they let Coyle cop to Assault II.”

“He had a good lawyer- Jerry Lavin, rest his soul- and there were maybe some other things going on.”

“What other things?”

Losanto sighed wearily. “I heard it came up in Coyle’s plea negotiations. Apparently Vessic had a sideline going in the back of his store, something a little less mainstream than the latest teen screamer flick.”

“Porn?”

“The kid variety. He was selling the shit, ran chat rooms for the fans, and even made some films himself- all in all, a real prince. Coyle tipped the prosecutors to it, and Jerry even managed to sell them on the idea that finding out about the porn was the reason Coyle went off on Vessic. At the end of the day, it bought the kid the D felony deal.”

“Good lawyer and good luck for Coyle. You have much faith in the outrage story?”

Losanto snorted again. “Who knows? It makes a good tale, and Jerry, God bless him, was a creative guy, but I don’t know.” There was another crash at Losanto’s end, and more yelling. “And now I better get my ass in there, before I got outrage of my own to deal with.”

I put down the phone, pulled my laptop over, and transcribed my notes about Coyle. I read them over, and reread what I already had on him from Arrua, Krug, J.T., Lia, and Werner, and tried to square it all. And couldn’t quite do it. Scary, bad-tempered, and violent- I’d seen those qualities in Coyle firsthand, and they didn’t jibe with the gentle giant, protector of the weak whom Lia had described. And then there was Coyle’s relationship with Holly. According to Krug, Holly was happier than he’d ever seen her, while Werner’s spin was that she was scared and wanted out. I knew who I was inclined to believe, but still…Losanto’s story was interesting but ultimately inconclusive. And of course I still had no idea of where Coyle might be or what he wanted with Werner. I shook my head. Maybe Coyle’s PO…maybe tomorrow.

I pushed the laptop away and looked at my dim windows and wondered where Clare had gone. I got up and stretched and looked outside. The sky was drained of color and darkening at its eastern edge, and the cityscape was gray. I saw cars on the street, and more people, though none who looked like Clare returning. Lights were coming on in windows across the street and across town, scattered yellow pinpoints that only made the dusk seem colder.