Second Honeymoon

Chapter 93

SARAH AND I hopped the next Delta shuttle to New York, hailed a cab from LaGuardia to the Ninth Precinct on the Lower East Side, and climbed the stairs two at a time to the second floor to meet Detective Harris. I was still shaking the guy’s hand when I cut to the chase.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Down the hall,” he said.

“Was she okay with waiting?” asked Sarah.

“No, but it’s not like she had much of a choice,” said Harris. “Once she told me what she told me…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence; it was simply understood. A given. When a potentially huge break in a case comes walking through the door, you basically lock that door behind her. God forbid she changes her mind.

We followed Harris, a compact man with a shuffling gait, down the hall to a small lounge area furnished with a couple of beat-up couches, a half-empty vending machine, and some old People magazines. Make that really old. The cover of one announced Lost as the new hit television series.

In contrast, Martha Cole, the woman sitting on one of the couches, looked even younger than her twenty-two years of age. Mousy hair, a lean figure, a few freckles dotting the bridge of her nose. It would be a while before she ever ordered a drink without being carded.

At that moment, though, it seemed as if she could really use one. Maybe even two. After Harris introduced us I went to shake her hand, only to see that it was already shaking on its own. The rest of her was, too.

Sarah sat down next to her. “It’s okay, Martha,” she said soothingly. “I know how hard this must be for you, so we’ll try to make it as easy as possible. We just need to ask you some questions.”

Fact was, all we knew at that point was what Harris had told Driesen over the phone. A young woman had walked in off the street clutching a copy of the Times. She asked to speak to a detective, any detective. When asked why, she said she thought she could identify the Honeymoon Murderer.

His name was Robert Macintyre, and he was a former staff sergeant in the U.S. Army. Robbie, she called him.

“I used to be engaged to him,” she explained.