Joes own surging anger receded at the look in the cops eyes. I told you that already, he said quietly. If you want, Ill tell you something different, but it wont bring your friend back.
Goddamn! I ought to arrest you, Cole.
If you think that would help.
Underhills hands rose and fell uselessly. He looked around him, and Joe followed his eyes: rotating red and white lights, the ordered chaos of people with jobs to do, the impersonal rain. I dont know, the cop muttered, what would fucking help.
Talking to Glybenhall, Joe said.
Based on what?
Blowfish was planting that chain
Oh, Christ! You tell Edgar Westermann a story, Blowfish shows up in Fords garden, and you want me to talk to Glybenhall? Do you even have any proof that chain wasnt there when Blowfish got there? That he actually brought it with him?
You know he did.
Can you prove it?
No, Joe admitted. But
Shut up! Just shut the fuck up. Underhill wiped rain from his face. I never thought Id hear myself say this, but I hope Blowfish didnt die. He dialed his precinct, asked them to reach the officer at the hospital and have him call. They waited, watching the EMTs zip Lowrys body into a rubber bag. When Underhills phone finally rang he spoke briefly, then thumbed it off. They think hell pull through, but hes not conscious yet, he told Joe, his grudging tone a sort of apology. Montgomerys not there, by the way.
Shes not? When did she leave?
She was never there.
She went in the ambulance.
Not according to the EMT. Montgomery told him shed take her own car. But she never showed.
Looking at Underhill, Joe saw not the detective but Anns shining eyes as she left the garden. Shit! He pulled his phone out, pressed the only number in it.
What?
She went to Glybenhalls!
Dont say that.
She doesnt answer. Thats where she is. Im sure of it. Shed have wanted to hold him until law enforcement came. Im going up there.
The hell you are.
Im a private citizen. You cant stop me.
I can arrest you.
Or you can come with me.
To Walter Glybenhalls? Are you crazy?
Then get out of my way.
Damn! muttered Underhill.
The rain had stopped by the time they pulled up to Glybenhalls Park Avenue building. They were in Underhills unmarked car, but any Crown Victoria in New York that wasnt a taxi was NYPD and everyone knew it. The doormans dismay was all over his face.
Police. Underhill showed his badge. Were looking for a woman who came to see Walter Glybenhall last night.
I just came on.
You, too?
The concierge nodded.
We need to talk to Mr. Glybenhall.
The concierge eyed him, then phoned upstairs. Mr. Glybenhall is out, he reported.
Its early to be out.
Im sorry, sir.
Who did you talk to?
The housekeeper.
Let me speak to her. Whats her name?
The concierge pursed his lips, but he handed Underhill the phone. Mrs. Apfel, he said. Gerda.
This is the police, Mrs. Apfel, Underhill said. I need to speak to Mr. Glybenhall. Where did he go? Then Ill need to see you. Yes, now. He handed the phone back to the concierge and waited pointedly.
Penthouse, the man said.
Stocky and red-faced, the housekeeper was waiting at the door. She ran a glance over their wet clothes and muddy shoes and unenthusiastically let them in.
Underhill said, Wheres Mr. Glybenhall?
I dont know. She spoke with a hard German accent.
Were looking for a young woman who might have come here last night.
I saw no one.
It was very late. You might have gone to bed.
That is possible.
You saw no one, Joe said. Did you hear anything?
She threw him a resentful look as though hed caught her at something, but didnt answer.
Mrs. Apfel, said Underhill, Mr. Glybenhall may be in danger from this woman. If you know anything, I think you should tell us.
Glybenhall in danger from Ann? But Joe kept his face blank.
The housekeepers eyes widened. Is it that crazy woman? Who arrested Mr. Glybenhall?
Yes, maam.
After a brief silence, she said, The concierges buzzer woke me, but Mr. Glybenhall answered it himself. If he let anyone in, I dont know. The doorbell didnt ring, but he might have been waiting. As I was for you.
When was that?
Not quite five. But before that
Yes?
She paused, clearly uncertain whether to go on.
Mrs. Apfel, your loyalty is commendable, Underhill said. But
Yes, of course. Someone came up in the service elevator. That is next to the kitchen and I hear it from my room. I thought it must be one of Mr. Glybenhalls young ladies. He often brings them up that way. She flushed. Its private, you see. But this was a man. I heard his voice because they argued. Mr. Glybenhall was very angry. He called him Greg.
Joes adrenaline surged. Was he here, this Greg, when the doorbell rang? Underhill could have silenced him, but he just nodded to the housekeeper: answer the question.
Yes, sir.
Did you see him?
No, sir. But later I heard his voice again. They went down that way. The service elevator.
All of them? The woman, too?
I dont know if a woman was with them. But theres no one here now.
A quick pass through the penthouses over furnished rooms: all empty. Gerda Apfel opened Glybenhalls service elevator for them, took them down to the service yard, where they saw nothing; to the garage, where Glybenhalls Mercedes was parked but his town car gone. Underhill called Glybenhalls chauffeur to ask if hed taken his boss somewhere during the night, then made other phone calls, looking for the night doorman, launching a hunt for Anns car. Through all of it, Joe was beside him but felt as though he were drifting a long way off. The sights and sounds around him drowned in the roar of the creek in his head.
Until through the rush of water, a strange electronic beep.
Suddenly the creek was gone, everything clear and sharp. He yanked the new phone from his pocket.
No one but Ann had this number.
Joe? Hed never heard her voice so small, so still. Joe? Can you come home?
City Hall
The mayor let his gaze rest on each person, one by one. Mark Shapiro, from DOI, here alone; the Police Commissioner, John Finn; Tom Underhill and Luis Perez, the detectives on the case; Underhills captain, a guy named Freeman, and Perezs captain, Epstein or Einstein or something, here only because their men were here and it would have been hierarchically infeasible to exclude them. Hierarchically infeasible Jesus, what a phrase. Charlie looked at Don, fidgeting at the end of the table, and at Lena, poised beside him with her pad. They were all waiting for something. Oh, right, it must be him: mayoral permission to get this meeting started.
Did they have to have this meeting? Couldnt they go straight to recess?
Don shifted in his chair. Yes, yes, all right. Charlie stifled a sigh and turned to Finn. Whatve you got?
Finn looked at Epstein, who nodded to Perez. Christ! said the mayor, but only to himself.
We spent the last two days interviewing, reinterviewing witnesses, Perez began. Picked up the gangbanger who attacked Montgomery. He confirmed it was Lowry that hired him. He also swears, by the way, he was only gonna scare her, he wasnt gonna hurt her.
Glad to hear it, Charlie said. What else?
Long story short: Montgomery seems to have been right.
Charlie could swear he saw Perez smile when he said that, but if so the smile vanished right away and the detective went on.
Looks like Glybenhall, with Lowrys help, cooked up this scheme to get arrested, so he could turn right around and sue. The money was a draw, but the real point seems to have been to make Glybenhall pretty much unstoppable in New York.
He was close to unstoppable already! What the hell did he need to do this for?
Seems he thought you were planning all along to double-cross him, hand the Block A site over to Corrington.
He thought that? Why would he think that?
I dont know, sir. Thats what his architect said.
But we had a deal, Charlie thought. A fair-and-square under-the-table dirty deal. He thought Id do that?
You can prove this?
With Glybenhall and Lowry both dead, Perez answered, no, not a hundred percent. But when you put everything together, thats the picture that emerges.
Charlies mind flashed to a picture emerging: a long-ago Polaroid of Louise on the deck of a cruise ship. Maybe thats where she was now, a cruise ship. Her note had only said she needed some time alone, and she was sure he felt the same. He didnt feel the same, and he was sure she knew it.
All right, Charlie said, take me over it. What do we have on Lowry?
Hed wanted my job, Shapiro said. Im sure you knew that, Mayor. His face was flushed as though he were confessing something. He slipped an envelope from his jacket. I have my resignation here.
What are you talking about?
He was my man. He did this on my watch.
Oh, knock off the theatrics, Mark. That cant be anyones motivation for shit like this: that he didnt get a damn job.
Shapiros face darkened; his hand hovered over the envelope hed pushed along the tabletop.
Take it back? Push it farther? Come on, Mark, make up your mind, Im getting fed up with this meeting.
Shapiro lifted his hand, leaving the envelope lying there. It wasnt, he said, tight-jawed.
What wasnt what?
Lowrys whole motivation. His anger probably made him vulnerable to Glybenhalls proposition. But his motivation was money. He was a shareholder in Three Star.
No kidding? On an IGs salary? Wait, dont tell me he didnt buy the shares, Walter gave them to him.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir? Come on, that was worth a Bingo. He appears to have done that. The shares are worth a fair amount already, and theyd have soared once the Block A development started.
Walter, Walter, Walter. The mayor shook his head.
Shapiro eyed him oddly, then went on. It was Lowrys gun that killed Kong.
Whats our theory?
That they were prepared to go on having those gangbangers, Kong and Tilden, create accidents at Mott Haven until Montgomery started looking at Glybenhall like they wanted her to. But the Winston womans death upped the stakes. Lowry and Glybenhall were afraid theyd get ratted out now that it was homicide. They had Kong kill Tilden, and then Lowry killed Kong.
But Montgomery caught on?
They set her up to catch on. What they hadnt counted on was her catching on to being set up.
And her story checks out? The kidnapping? How Walter died?
Perez looked at his boss again, who nodded. Come on, knock off the bobblehead stuff! Charlie wanted to shout. But that would have been hierarchically infeasible.
Yes, sir, Perez said. Bullets from his gun in the woods at Coles place, forensic evidence that she was in the back seat and never in front, the crack on her head, Glybenhalls housekeepers story. The night doorman and concierge, once they got over the b.s. they started with.
Great. Charlie sighed. Just great. And we think Glybenhall killed the Eliot woman, the way Montgomery says?
Don sat up, sat back, said nothing. Charlie frowned. Usually he could read Don; was it a sign of how sick he was of all this, that he had no idea what Don meant?
Well, Perez said, we do, but its a good thing we dont have to prove it.
Because?
Because its all circumstantial. No one ever saw them together or heard them talk about each other. And the gangbanger, Blowfish.
What about him?
Well, Underhill said, Lowry shot Blowfish. Meant to kill him, obviously, but his bad luck, Blowfish was still breathing when Montgomery, Cole, and Corrington got to them. So Lowry had to get clear, in case Blowfish lived. He faked the nine-one-one call to give himself time. And to give Blowfish time to die. But Blowfish didnt. He admits to breaking into the garden to plant Jen Eliots chain to frame Corrington, he says Lowry shot him, but he also swears he got the chain from Edgar Westermann. He wont budge on that.
And Edgar denies that, of course.
Yes, sir, he does.
Whats our theory? the mayor said, aware that he was repeating himself.
Well, it could be true, Underhill said. Westermann could have gone to Glybenhall with the cock-and-bull story Cole told him. About you giving the Block A site to Corringtons group, and about Corrington having an affair with Jen Eliot.
Was that true, by the way?
No.
I didnt think so. Go on.
So maybe Glybenhall gave Westermann the chain to pass on to someone whod actually do the dirty work.
I dont see Walter admitting to Edgar hed killed anyone.
To make the frame work, he wouldnt have to. Just that hed slept with her.
Don was fidgeting again. Maybe he just needed a cigarette; after all, they were discussing the murder of a woman he used to date. Open the window and light up if you want, Charlie said.
Don shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Suit yourself, Charlie told him. To Underhill: What does Edgar say?
That Blowfishs story is complete bushwah. That he was insulted by what Joe Cole was suggesting and hed have thrown him out of his office except he thought the man was so unstable hed better just hear him out. That he forgot the whole thing as soon as Cole left.
He says he didnt call Walter about Coles suggestion?
Thats what he says.
Do we believe him?
Its possible, the Police Commissioner said. It certainly would be better if it were true.