Cover-up (30 page)

“It can wait. You look upset.”

She shook her head, at a loss for words. Upset? Melanie felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. She felt like somebody had taken the world and tilted it sideways until she didn’t know where she was. Not to be the only woman in Dan’s life? Then she didn’t recognize herself.

“That was my ex-wife,” Dan said.

“I figured. I thought you said you never talked to her.” Her voice came out lower than normal, quiet, unlike herself.

“I just…well, I hadn’t, not for a long time. But come to find out, her dad was dying of cancer. She just called, uh, just now, actually, to tell me he passed. I think I told you once, Seamus was like a father to me growing up because my old man didn’t give two shits. Seamus really stepped up and did right by me. So I been going by the last couple of nights, to pay my respects.”

“The sick friend you were visiting in the hospital was your ex-wife’s father?”
When I couldn’t get you on the phone? When you didn’t return my calls? When I didn’t know where you were?

Dan was watching Melanie’s face intently. “Yeah. Uh-huh.”

“When you visited,
she
was there, too?”

“Sure. Yeah, of course. Not only Diane, but her whole family.”

“You never mentioned any of that. You never told me.”

“I meant to. But you know, we’ve been so busy with the case and all.”

Melanie looked down at her hands dumbly. Dan’s last remark had been her cue to shrug the incident off. To say she understood and that this wasn’t a big deal. But she didn’t, and it was. Early in their relationship, Dan had been so jealous of Steve that Melanie had taken to reporting on all her contacts with her ex-husband, just to make Dan feel secure. She thought of this as their “full-disclosure policy” and she’d always assumed Dan was following it, too. But obviously, he hadn’t felt obliged to. How could she have been so trusting?

“So you
do
talk to your ex-wife?” Melanie asked. Her words were coming out slow and strangled, like she was underwater.

“Only in the past couple of days. But don’t worry, sweetheart, nothing’s going on. We just hung out at the hospital a little bit. I bought her dinner the other night, but that was only—”

“You bought her dinner?” she repeated, trying to comprehend the enormity of that revelation to her own heart. She couldn’t remember the last time Dan had bought her dinner. Her last birthday—many months ago now? Their dates generally consisted of Dan coming over after Maya was asleep. Which wasn’t his fault, really. Maybe if she didn’t have Maya he would take her out to restaurants more. Not that she would ever wish not to have Maya. But as things stood, they tended to order in Chinese or pizza and take turns paying.

“Just in this diner across the street from the hospital,” Dan was saying. “I felt sorry for her, with her dad dying right after her husband left. But it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Her husband left her?” This kept getting worse. Diane was avail
able, and hurting, and Dan was comforting her. Suddenly all the food and wine Melanie had consumed weren’t sitting well in her stomach.

“Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that part. He left her for some chick who works in a tattoo parlor. Not that Diane doesn’t deserve it, seeing how she left me for him and all, but still, it’s hard not to feel for her. You know, you should meet Diane. I think you would like her. I mean, she’s an untrustworthy bitch, but otherwise, she’s a lot of fun.” He forced a laugh.

Melanie stared at him, dumbstruck. Then, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she stood up and grabbed her handbag.

“Where you going?” he asked, concerned.

“I don’t feel very well. I think I’ll go home now.”

“Okay, I’ll drive you.”

“No. No, you stay. I think I’d rather just take a cab.”

“A cab? You can’t do that.”

Melanie took a few steps backward. Dan stood up and clutched at her arm, but she yanked it away. She was trying not to cry.

“Sweetheart, you’re overreacting,” he said gently.

“Dan,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm, “I inform you every time Steve calls, every time he e-mails, for God’s sake. And you don’t mention this? Not one word?”

“I just did. I told you about it.”

“Because she called you right in front of me!”

“I told you that I bought her dinner,” he said. Dan’s voice was getting shaky, and he was starting to look upset. “I didn’t have to say anything about that.”

“Right, you could have deliberately concealed it from me. Let’s award you ten points for honesty,” she said bitterly.

“You’re taking this the wrong way.”

“Your ex-wife just separated from her husband. She’s crying on your shoulder, and you don’t mention a word about it until you’re caught in the act. What’s the
right
way to take that?”

“What I’m trying to say is, nothing was going on. Nothing physical. She wasn’t crying on my shoulder physically. She was just doing it, like, metaphorically.”

“Metaphorically? You sure about that? That’s a big word for you.”

His eyes widened with hurt. As Dan hesitated, Melanie turned and ran for the exit.

“Get back here!” Dan called after her. “We’re not done!”

Despite his longer stride, she was smaller and lighter and maneuvered through the dense crowd more nimbly than he did. She beat him to the street and hailed a passing taxi, but the driver didn’t see her, thank God. Because the next second she had the sense to stop and reflect on what she was doing. The sickest killer she’d encountered in her entire career was out there somewhere, lurking in the dark night. And as much as she wanted to get him, it seemed he wanted to get her more. Dan was right. She shouldn’t take a cab.

She spotted the unmarked car parked across the street and ran for it, banging on the passenger-side glass. Agent Tim Crockett rolled down the window.

“Everything okay?” he asked, concerned.

“I need a ride home. Now.”

Melanie jumped in and slammed the door. Dan plunged through the catering hall door just in time to see them speed away.

40

I
n front of her building,
Melanie told Agent Crockett that it wasn’t necessary for him to come inside as long as he watched to make sure she made it to the lobby safely. She’d managed to hold herself together on the ride home, but the strain of her fight with Dan was beginning to tell. She needed to be alone. If she broke down and cried, she didn’t want some guy she barely knew from Dan’s squad witnessing her pathetic scene.

“I live in a doorman building,” she explained. “It’s pretty secure. I’ll take down your cell number and call if anything seems out of place.”

“I’ll remain stationed here until U.S. Marshal’s Service relieves me.”

“Thank you. Just so you know, my protection detail isn’t showing up until morning.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

Melanie dashed from the door of the unmarked car into her building. In the lobby, she was greeted by Hector, her portly, fatherly Puerto Rican doorman. The sight of him made her think twice about
having Agent Crockett come in. Melanie loved Hector to death, but the most vigilant guy on the planet he was not. He was too fond of his newspaper and of chatting with delivery people to keep an unrelenting watch. He made her building feel like a home, but a clever intruder would get past him with little trouble.

“Hey, Melanie, a man was here looking for you,” Hector said.

“Did he give a name?” Melanie asked, anxiety clutching at her chest. Had the Butcher figured out where she lived? She wouldn’t be able to stay in her apartment.

“No, he didn’t say.”

“What did he want?”

“To see you,
chica
. He asked was you home, but he gave me a bad vibe. So I sent him away and didn’t tell him nothing about you.”

“What kind of bad vibe?”

“Pushy. Mean.”

“What did he look like?”

Hector, who was short, held a hand up over his head. “Big, tall guy with blond hair.”

“You told him I live here?”

“I didn’t have to tell him. He already knew.”

“Right, of course. I’m sorry.”

“Something wrong,
mi’ja
?” Hector asked.

“Maybe. How long ago was this?”

“Over an hour, and he hasn’t come back. Listen, I know from the papers that you’re working on that Central Park Butcher case. I read your name in the
Daily News
. I want to say on behalf of Puerto Rican people everywhere, you make us proud. And you can count on me to keep the door secure.”

“You’re the best, Hector. I
do
count on you,” Melanie said. She gave him a peck on the cheek, but she pulled out her phone and dialed Agent Crockett all the same.

Agent Crockett came into the lobby immediately, and together
he and Melanie debriefed Hector about the visitor. The fact was, if the Butcher had paid a call on Melanie at home, not only was that a security issue, it was also a potential break in the case. They decided to show Hector the photos of the men standing in line at the post office on the day the threatening package was mailed. Agent Crockett had the photos in his car, and he fetched them and lined them up on Hector’s bellman stand. The doorman studied the photos diligently.

“These pictures. So blurry,” Hector said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize nobody. I don’t think it’s that the pictures is bad, either. I think the guy isn’t in here.”

“You’re sure?” Melanie asked.

Hector looked over the row of photos one more time.

“Yeah, I’m sure of it. He’s not here,” Hector said, nodding more decisively.

Melanie patted him on the shoulder. “Good work. That tells us a lot.”

She and Agent Crockett got in the elevator.

“What exactly does it tell us that your doorman can’t pick anybody out of the photo lineup?” Crockett asked.

“Hector might seem goofy, but he remembers faces,” Melanie said. “So either it wasn’t the Butcher who visited me or we don’t actually have the Butcher’s picture among those surveillance shots from the post office. I don’t know about you, but I’m pulling for the former.”

When they got to her floor, Agent Crockett unholstered his gun and did a security sweep. He checked the back stairwell where the trash chute was located. Then he put his ear against the door to Melanie’s apartment for a long moment and just listened. Hearing only silence, he nodded to her, and she turned her key in the lock. He flipped the light switch in the foyer, setting the place ablaze with light.

“Stay here,” he whispered.

He came back after a few minutes and reported that everything looked normal.

“What should I do?” Melanie asked. “Should I sleep here tonight? Should we call in forensics guys to dust the lobby door for prints?”

“Your call, ma’am. You’re the prosecutor.”

Crockett wasn’t much help in the ideas department. Melanie caught herself on the verge of calling Dan for advice, but then the memory of their argument hit her with the force of a punch.

“Give me a minute to think,” she said.

Melanie settled Agent Crockett in the living room and went to get her gun. She’d had the foresight to purchase one—or really, the hindsight—after surviving a harrowing episode on another case. Every once in a while, she’d catch a ride to the range upstate with some DEA or FBI guy and practice firing. Melanie was actually a decent shot, though of course there was a world of difference between hitting a paper target and going to the mat with somebody in a gunfight. Still, having the gun made her feel better at moments like this.

The metal gun safe was hidden at the back of a high shelf in her bedroom closet. She felt around for it blindly, dislodging several unopened packages of panty hose and sending them raining down on her head. She pulled out the matte-black pistol. The Beretta seemed to exude a brilliant light—trust the Italians to make even an instrument of death look sexy. Melanie kept the gun unloaded and stored her ammunition at the top of a cabinet in the kitchen in another locked metal box. All the manuals on gun safety said to do this if you had children in the house. Well, Maya wasn’t home tonight, thankfully. She was safe with Melanie’s mother. Besides, the gun wouldn’t be much help against an intruder if its bullets were on the other side of the apartment.

She had to go to the kitchen to get the bullets. The light was blinking on the answering machine on the counter. Melanie played the message as she loaded the gun.

“Melanie Vargas, Duncan Gilmartin of Target News. I’ve now obtained your home address and telephone number, so you can’t hide from me. As you may have heard, I paid you a visit tonight. I will not rest until I get the real story. What is your reaction to Mr. Sonschein revealing at the press conference that Clyde Williams was
trysting
with Emily King at the time of the Shepard murder? Did you tell him to go public with Clyde’s alibi? What do you say to the speculation that the Emily King affair is being used as a
smoke screen
to distract the public from Williams’s involvement in the murder? And what’s your comment on Clyde’s decision to drop out of the mayoral race? You might as well call back, because I won’t give up.”

So
that
was why Joe had been so upset at the wedding.

And, more urgently, that’s who had paid her a visit. Duncan Gilmartin was a tall, blond male. It was Gilmartin who’d been here, not the Butcher. At least, she hoped it was him. One way to find out. Melanie went over to the intercom and buzzed down to the doorman’s station.

“Front desk,” Hector answered.

“Hector, it’s Melanie in 8-B.”

“He ain’t showed his face again,
m’ija,
and I didn’t leave my post, not even to use the lav.”

“Let me ask you something. This man, did he have an accent?”

“Yeah, he did. English or something.”

“Could it have been Australian?”

“Australian?”

“Like Crocodile Dundee.”

“Oh yeah. It was just like that.”

“Thanks, Hector.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. I got your back.”