The Last Dance (3 page)

“How about a suicide made to look like natural causes?”

“That'd be a good one,” the technician agreed.

“When will you have the test results?”

“Late this afternoon sometime?”

“I'll call you.”

“My card,” the technician said.

“Detective?” a man's voice said.

Carella turned toward the kitchen doorway where a burly man in a dark gray coat with a black velvet collar was standing. The shoulders of the coat were damp with rain, and his face was raw and red from the cold outside. He wore a little mustache under his nose, and he had puffy cheeks, and very dark brown eyes.

“I'm Robert Keating,” he said, walking toward Carella, but not extending his hand in greeting. His wife stood just behind him. They had obviously talked since he'd come into the apartment. There was an anticipatory look on her face, as if she expected her husband to punch one of the detectives. Carella certainly hoped he wouldn't.

“I understand you've been hassling my wife,” Keating said.

“I wasn't aware of that, sir,” Carella said.

“I'm here to tell you that better not be the case.”

Carella was thinking it better not be the case that your wife came in here and found her father hanging from the bathroom door and took him down and carried him to the bed. That had better not be the case here.

“I'm sorry if there was any misunderstanding, sir,” he said.

“There had better
not
be any misunderstanding,” Keating said.

“Just so there won't be,” Carella said, “let me make our intentions clear. If your father-in-law died of a heart attack, you can bury him in the morning, and you'll never see us again as long as you live. But if he died for some other reason, then we'll be trying to find out why, and you're liable to see us around for quite a while. Okay, sir?”

“This is a crime scene, sir,” the technician said. “Want to clear the premises, please?”

“What?” Keating said.

At four-thirty that afternoon, Carella called the lab downtown and asked to talk to Detective/Second Grade Anthony Moreno. Moreno got on the phone and told him the fibers they'd lifted from the hook on the bathroom door positively matched sample fibers from the robe's blue cashmere belt.

Not ten minutes later, Carl Blaney called Carella to tell him that the autopsy findings in the death of Andrew Henry Hale were consistent with postmortem appearances in asphyxial deaths.

Carella wondered if Cynthia Keating's husband would accompany her to the squadroom when they asked her to come in.

Robert Keating turned out to be a corporate lawyer who was wise enough to recognize that the police wouldn't be dragging his wife in unless they had reason to believe a crime had been committed. He'd called a friend of his who practiced criminal law, and the man was here now, demanding to know what his client was doing in a police station, even though he'd already been informed that Mrs. Keating had been
invited
here, and had arrived of her own volition, escorted only by her husband.

Todd Alexander was a stout little blond man wearing a navy blue sports jacket over a checkered vest and gray flannel trousers. He looked as if he might be more at home attending a yachting meet than standing here in one of the city's grubbier squadrooms, but his manner was that of a man who had dealt with countless bogus charges brought by hundreds of reckless police officers, and he seemed completely unruffled by the present venue or the circumstances that necessitated his being here.

“So tell me what this is all about,” he demanded. “In twenty-five words or less.”

Carella didn't even blink.

“We have a necropsy report indicating that Andrew Hale died of asphyxia,” he said. “Is that twenty-five words or less?”

“Twelve,” Meyer said. “But who's counting?”

“Evidence would seem to indicate that the belt from Mr. Hale's cashmere robe was knotted and looped around his neck,” Carella said, “and then dropped over the hook on the bathroom door in order to effect hanging, either suicidal or homicidal.”

“What's that got to do with my client?”

“Your client seems to think her father died in bed.”

“Is that what you told them?”

“I told them I found him in bed.”

“Dead?”

“Yes,” Cynthia said.

“Has Mrs. Keating been informed of her rights?” Alexander asked.

“We haven't asked her any questions yet,” Carella said.

“She just told me …”

“That was at the scene.”

“You haven't talked to her since she arrived here?”

“She got here literally three minutes before you did.”

“Has she been charged with anything?”

“No.”

“Why is she here?”

“We want to ask her some questions.”

“Then read her her rights.”

“Sure.”

“Don't sound so surprised, Detective. She's in custody, you're throwing around words like homicide, I want her to hear her rights. Then we'll decide whether she wants to answer any questions.”

“Sure,” Carella said again, and began the recitation he knew by heart. “In keeping with the Supreme Court decision in the case of Miranda versus Escobedo,” he intoned, and advised her that she had the right to remain silent, asking her every step along the way if she understood what he was saying, told her she had the right to consult a lawyer, which she already had done, told her they would obtain a lawyer for her if she didn't have one, which no longer applied, told her that if she decided to answer questions with or without her lawyer present, she could call off the questioning at any time, do you understand, and finally asked if she wished to answer questions at this time, to which she responded, “I have nothing to hide.”

“Does that mean yes?” Carella asked.

“Yes. I'll answer any questions you have.”

“Where's that autopsy report?” Alexander asked.

“Right there on my desk.”

Alexander picked it up, looked at it briefly …

“Who signed it?” he asked.

“Carl Blaney.”

… seemed abruptly bored by it, and tossed it back onto the desk again.

“Did you also speak to Blaney in person?” he asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“Did he have anything to add to his findings?”

“Only that because the ligature around the neck was soft and wide, there was only a faint impression of the loop on the skin. But the knot caused a typical abrasion under the chin.”

“All right, ask your questions,” Alexander said. “We haven't got all day here.”

“Mrs. Keating,” Carella said, “what time did you get to your father's apartment this morning?”

“A little after ten.”

“Did you call the Emergency Service number at ten-oh-seven
A.M.
?”

“I don't know the exact time.”

“Would this refresh your memory?” Carella asked, and started to hand her a computer printout.

“May I see that, please?” Alexander said, and took it from Carella's hand. Again, he looked at the document only perfunctorily, handed it to Cynthia, and asked, “Did you make this call?”

“Well, may I see it?” she said.

He handed her the printout. She read it silently and said, “Yes, I did.”

“Is the time correct?” Carella asked.

“Well, that's the time listed here, so I guess that's the time it was.”

“Ten-oh-seven.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell the operator that you'd just come into your father's apartment and found him dead in bed?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you ask her to send someone right away?”

“I did.”

“Here's the call sheet from Adam Two,” Carella said. “Their time of arrival …”

“Adam Two?” Alexander asked.

“From the precinct here. One of the cars patrolling Adam Sector from eight
A.M.
to four
P.M.
today. Mr. Hale's apartment is in Adam Sector. They list their time of arrival as ten-fifteen
A.M.
And this is my own Detective Division report, which lists the time of
our
arrival as ten-thirty-one. My partner and I. Detective Meyer and myself.”

“All of which is intended to prove
what,
Detective?”

“Nothing at all, sir, except the sequence of events.”

“Remarkable,” Alexander said. “Not twenty-four minutes after Mrs. Keating called 911, there were no fewer than four policemen at the scene! Wonderful! But before you ask any more questions, may I ask where all this is going?”

“I want Mrs. Keating to tell me what she did
before
she called 911.”

“She's already told you. She came into the apartment, found her father dead in his own bed, and immediately called the police.
That's
what she did, Detective.”

“I don't think so.”

“What do
you
think she did?”

“I don't know. But I
do
know she was in that apartment for almost forty minutes before she called the emergency number.”

“I see. And how do you know that?”

“The super told me he saw her going in at nine-thirty.”

“Is that true, Cynthia?”

“No, it's not.”

“In which case, I'd like to suggest that we call off the questioning and go about our more productive endeavors. Detective Carella, Detective Meyer, it's been a distinct …”

“He's down the hall,” Carella said. “In the lieutenant's office. Shall I ask him to come in?”

“
Who
is down the hall?”

“The super. Mr. Zabriski. He remembers it was nine-thirty because that's when he puts out the garbage cans each morning. The truck comes by at nine-forty-five.”

The room was silent for a moment.

“Assuming you
do
have this super …” Alexander said.

“Oh, I have him, all right.”

“And assuming he
did
see Mrs. Keating entering the building at nine-thirty …”

“That's what he told me.”

“What exactly do you think happened in that apartment between then and ten-oh-seven, when she called the emergency number?”

“Well,” Carella said, “assuming she herself didn't hang her father from that bathroom hook—”

“Goodbye, Mr. Carella,” Alexander said, and rose abruptly. “Cynthia,” he said, “leave us hie yonder. Bob,” he said to her husband, “it's a good thing you called me. Mr. Carella here is fishing for a murder charge.”

“Try Obstruction,” Carella said.

“What?”

“Or Tampering with Evidence.”

“What?”

“Or both. You want to know what I think happened, Mr. Alexander? I think Mrs. Keating found her father hanging from that hook …”

“Let's go, Cynthia.”

“… and took him down and carried him to the bed. I think she removed …”

“Time's up,” Alexander said cheerfully. “Goodbye, Detec …”

“… the belt from his neck, took off his shoes and socks, and pulled a blanket up over him.
Then
she called the police.”

“For what purpose?” Alexander asked.

“Ask
her,
why don't you? All I know is that Obstructing Governmental Administration is a violation of Section 195.05 of the Penal Law. And Tampering with Evidence is a violation of Section 215.40. Obstructing is a mere A-Mis, but …”

“You have no evidence of
either
crime!” Alexander said.

“I know that body was
moved!”
Carella said. “And that's Tampering! And for
that
one, she can get four years in jail!”

Cynthia Keating suddenly burst into tears.

The way she tells it …

“Cynthia, I think I should advise you,” her attorney keeps interrupting over and over again, but tell it she will, the way all of them—sooner or later—will tell it if they will.

“The way it happened,” she says, and now there are
three
detectives listening to her, Carella and Meyer who caught the squeal, joined by Lieutenant Byrnes, because all of a sudden this is interesting enough to drag him out of his corner office and into the interrogation room. Byrnes is wearing a brown suit, a wheat-colored button-down shirt, a darker brown tie with a neat Windsor knot. Even dressed as he is, he gives the impression of a flinty Irishman who's just come in off the bogs where he's been gathering peat. Maybe it's the haircut. His gray hair looks windblown, even though there isn't a breeze stirring in this windowless room. His eyes are a dangerous blue; he doesn't like anyone messing with the law, male
or
female.

“I stopped by to see him,” Cynthia says, “because he really hadn't been feeling too good these days, and I was worried about him. I'd spoken to him the night before …”

“What time was that?” Carella asks.

“Around nine o'clock.”

All three detectives are thinking he was still alive at nine last night.
Whatever
happened to him, it happened sometime after nine
P.M.

Her father's apartment is a forty-minute subway ride from where she lives across the river in Calm's Point. Her husband usually leaves for work at seven-thirty. Their habit is to have breakfast together in their apartment overlooking the river. After he's gone, she gets ready for her own day. They have no children, but neither does she work, perhaps because she never really trained for anything, and at thirty-seven there's nothing productive she can really do. Besides—

She has never mentioned this to a soul before but she tells it now in the cramped confines of the interrogation room, three detectives sitting attentively stone-faced on one side of the table, her husband and her attorney sitting equally detached on the other. She doesn't know why she admits this to these men now, here in this confessional chamber, at this moment in time, but she tells them without hesitation that she never thought of herself as being particularly bright, just an average girl (she uses the word “girl”) in every way, not too pretty, not too smart, just, well … Cynthia. And shrugs.