You Have the Right to Remain Silent (7 page)

“Had he been in Washington recently?” Marian asked.

“They all four had—they were our liaison with the Defense Department. They got back last Wednesday.”

“You mean like a committee?” Foley asked. “Those four represented you regularly?”

“Yes, that was their job with the company. Conrad was in charge. Sherman Bigelow was along as legal counsel, and Herb Vickers was the technical adviser.”

“What about Jason O'Neill?”

“Jason was a sort of trainee.” Quinn sighed. “Conrad was getting on in years—he couldn't last forever. When he retired, Sherman Bigelow would have taken over as head of liaison. But we needed someone to replace Conrad's
charm
, I guess you could call it. Jason O'Neill was one of those loose, relaxed people that everybody likes. I've seen him walk into a room full of government dignitaries he'd never met and make himself right at home. He'd go up to someone, anyone, and introduce himself—and five minutes later they'd be laughing and talking like old buddies who hadn't seen each other in years. Conrad could do that too, in a more subtle way. But Jason had the gift of making people like him. We hired him for his personality.”

Marian consulted her notebook. “Herb Vickers's specialty was inertial confinement fusion, right? What project was he working on? Why were they in Washington?”

“Sorry, I can't tell you that—it's classified information. The military has innumerable uses for the technology of ultrahigh-power laser and particle beams, and the Defense Department has clamped a lid on most of the research going on. Including ours.”

“But it was a military matter that took all four men to Washington?”

“That's right. More than that, I can't tell you.”

Marian and her partner exchanged a look. Top Secret stuff—that meant the FBI would be horning in.

Edgar Quinn had no idea what the four murder victims had been doing on Saturday. He wouldn't even speculate as to why they'd ended up dead in East River Park. He knew of no murderous personal enemies any of them might have; in fact, he insisted that it was Conrad Webb's and Jason O'Neill's stock-in-trade not to have any enemies at all.

Marian was openly incredulous. “Conrad Webb was in business for over forty years and never made an enemy? Come on, Mr. Quinn.”

Quinn shrugged. “Maybe in his youth, before he developed his polish? But I doubt even that. He instinctively knew how to make people feel comfortable. And he wasn't a double-dealer or a back-stabber—he didn't have to be. Conrad just didn't make enemies.”

“Well, what about the other two—Herb Vickers and Sherman Bigelow?”

Possible, Quinn admitted. Sherman Bigelow had been in private practice before joining the company; he was bound to have made some enemies there—some grudge-holder whose case Bigelow had defeated in court, perhaps? Sherman was a by-the-book person, Quinn said, rather literal-minded, but with a phenomenal memory; he never forgot anything. And he was scrupulously honest. Quinn trusted his judgment implicitly.

Never forgot anything
, Marian wrote in her notebook.

As to Herb Vickers, Quinn went on, he didn't really want to be in the liaison group; he'd much rather spend his time in the laboratory. But Herb knew how to explain technological matters so that laymen could understand, and that made him invaluable in Washington. “He would have made a great teacher,” Quinn added. “But he could never have lived on a teacher's salary.” Herb was careless; he was careless with money, careless with his clothing, careless with people. He could get so preoccupied with his work that he'd forget everything else. He'd once spent four straight days in the lab without remembering to call his wife and tell her he wouldn't be home.

“That his first wife?” Foley asked.

Quinn nodded. “Candy seems much more tolerant of Herb's eccentric ways.”

Marian had to smile. “Candy?”

Quinn smiled back. “She's well named.”

Marian tried to find out if there were any sort of internal problem at Universal Laser that one of the four victims might have been involved in, but the company's owner insisted there was none. The business was notably free of office politics, Quinn told them; that was because they chose their personnel
very
carefully, all the way from Head of Research down to the mail room boy. There were no power plays going on, or incidents of jealous rivals trying to undercut each other.

“We just don't work that way, Sergeant,” Quinn said. “Anything like that starts to surface, the parties involved are dismissed immediately. That's been our policy since the day my father started the company. We just don't have time for nonsense like that. Only one thing is important at Universal Laser, and that's getting the job done.”

Marian sat back and listened as Foley took Edgar Quinn over the same ground again, looking for contradictions, omissions, hesitations. There were none. Finally Quinn himself put an end to it, saying there were things he needed to do now that he'd lost four of his men. Marian agreed immediately; in her judgment he'd just reached his irritation threshold. She thanked him for his help and gestured to her partner that it was time to leave.

Down on the street, Foley asked: “You don't believe that lily-white picture he painted, do you?”

“Not for one minute,” Marian replied. “I can't tell if he's hiding something, or if he's just instinctively presenting his company in the best light possible.”

“Shit,” Foley said in disgust. “Couldn't you tell? Well, I know a snow job when I hear one. The guy was lying in his teeth.”

Marian sighed dispiritedly. That probably meant Edgar Quinn had been telling the truth.

6

Marian breakfasted on coffee and danish at her desk and read a newspaper the desk sergeant had brought in. The headline screamed:
HANDCUFFED CORPSES IN RITUAL SLAYING
. She'd sent Foley home to get some shut-eye; now she was the only one in the Precinct Detective Unit room. Staying up all night got a little harder every year, but at least the shadows under her eyes made the shiner Juanita Alvarez had given her a little less noticeable. Marian was going to have to grab some sleep soon, but there was paperwork to take care of first. With an effort Marian shifted mental gears back to Mrs. Alvarez and the Downtown Queens.

She typed up a second report; the first had been submitted before she'd learned from young Juanita the reason behind her mother's murder. In the process of typing Marian found she was able to look upon the whole affair a little more dispassionately than before; nothing like a new murder to cure the blues brought on by the old. God.

When she'd finished her report, she opened a desk drawer and took out a notebook. Being careful to use a red-ink ballpoint pen, she copied everything from the notebook she carried in her handbag to the one she kept in the desk. The notebook she carried with her was filled with names, dates, interview notes, crime scene descriptions, all the details every crime generated. Those entries were written in blue ink, pencil, black ink; in abbreviations, in Marian's own special shorthand she'd developed over the years, in key words that would mean something to her but little to anyone else.

Marian printed the information neatly in block letters, making sure the new entries were complete and that everything was spelled correctly. She'd once had a defense counsel ask to see her notebook while she was testifying in court. Without actually accusing her, he'd managed to imply that because the entries were written in more than one color ink, she'd gone back after making the arrest and simply fabricated whatever details she'd needed to make her case. Her testimony was consequently discredited; the jury had bought the trick and the perp had walked. Marian had been furious and humiliated, and she swore it would never happen to her again.

She was just getting ready to go home when a phone call came in from an assistant DA she knew slightly; he told her the DA was taking the position that Juanita Alvarez's “unilateral” act of self-defense was unjustified, since she had other resources available to her. The assistant DA didn't sound too enthusiastic about the case; he asked who was the attorney representing the child in Juvenile Court. Marian shuffled through the papers on her desk and came up with the name of the kid lawyer the Public Defender's Office had assigned to Juanita.

As Marian was hanging up, one of the other detectives Captain DiFalco had transferred to the East River Park murders walked in. Tired-looking half the time and the only other woman detective in the Ninth Precinct, Gloria Sanchez was the offspring of a black mother and a Puerto Rican father, oscillating between ethnic identities as the mood hit her; today she was in her Hispanic mode. “Got something, Gloria?” Marian asked, shifting gears again, away from Juanita Alvarez.

Sanchez plopped down on the nearest chair. “Been talkin' to Candy Gee-Don't-I-Taste-Good Vickers. She dint have nothin' to do with her husband's death.”

Marian remembered that Candy was supposed to have appeared more aggravated than heartbroken by the news of Herb Vickers's death. “You mean it's finally sunk in on her? She's grieving now?”

“Naw, she's still pissed. Mrs. Herbert Vickers is ver' pretty, ver' young, and ver' lazy. She jus' wan's to be taken care of. She thought she was set when Fat Boy married her, but now she's gonna have to go huntin' again.”

“But he must have left her money—a sizable amount, I'd guess.”

“It's not jus' the money.” Sanchez made an effort and sat up straight. “She wan's a man arrangin' stuff for her, makin' decisions, like that. The only thin' she cares about is her looks—which are great, I gotta give her that. But that mirrorkissin' baby couldn't put herself out enough to commit a murder, much less four. And she couldn' handle it physically neither.”

“She could have driven the van.”

“No driver's license. My partner checked. Believe me, Marian, Candy Vickers is
not
behind the murders. She'd jus' wrinkle up her pretty nose and go
Ooooh!
You know what I mean.”

Marian knew. “What could she tell you about her husband?”

Not a whole lot, it turned out. Around noon on Saturday, Herb Vickers had told his wife he had some business to take care of; so she had assumed that meant he'd be in the offices of Universal Laser. But when she tried to call him there later in the day, she got the watchman, who said the place was empty. No, she wasn't worried when he hadn't showed up by dinnertime; Herb was rather careless about keeping track of time. She was a teensy bit put out with him, though; he knew she wanted to go out that night.

“So what did she do?” Marian asked.

So she'd called some friends and complained that she was bored and wanted a night on the town. There were five of them altogether, hitting one night spot after another. “And yes, they alibi her,” Sanchez said tiredly, “right up till almost three in the ay em. This one's a dead end, looks like.”

Marian nodded, quite willing to accept Gloria Sanchez's evaluation of the situation. The sooner they could eliminate domestic reasons for the killings, the more time they'd have for pinning down the real motive.

She told Sanchez to put it in writing and that she herself was heading home for some sack time.

Four hours' sleep made her feel a hundred percent better. There'd been a message from Brian on the answering machine when Marian arrived home. It was a friendly message, rather nice; he'd ended by saying please call him when she felt like seeing him again.

Foley was on the phone when she got back to the stationhouse; he hung up and said, “They found the van, abandoned at one of the deserted South Street piers. Stolen. Bloodstains in the back match two of the victims. No prints.”

“Of course not,” Marian said with a sigh as she sat down. “When was it reported missing?”

“Saturday afternoon, late.”

Shortly after the time Herb Vickers had left home—only to turn up dead in the park eleven hours later. Too big a time spread. “Autopsy report in yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well?”

“Well what? Oh. I suppose you want me to call Doc Whats-isname and bug him.”

“You suppose right,” Marian said, “and his name is Whittaker.”

Foley grumbled but made the call. “He says the gun was a thirty-eight, but he's not ready to say which of 'em died first.”

“What about the cuff marks on the wrists?”

“Nothing yet.”

Marian nodded, expecting no more. On her desk were reports detailing the follow-up interviews with the families of the victims. She picked up the first one.

Mrs. Conrad Webb had regained her composure by the time the police came again. She'd had several friends with her, offering sympathy and moral support. With trembling voice she'd explained that on Saturday her husband had left for a 1:30 luncheon appointment at the Tavern on the Green, and that was the last time she saw him. When he hadn't returned by seven that evening, she'd grown worried; Conrad was always so conscientious about letting her know when he was delayed. They'd been invited to a dinner party at the Hutchinsons'—both of whom were among the group of friends present during the police interview—and not knowing what else to do, she'd gone to the dinner party alone. There she'd expressed her concern, but her friends had persuaded her there was nothing to worry about. Conrad often got involved in marathon business meetings, they'd reminded her. She'd left the party shortly before midnight. Both the Hutchinsons confirmed her story.

No, Conrad hadn't said whom he was meeting or what the meeting was about. He hadn't seemed tense or worried about the meeting, or about anything else, as far as Mrs. Webb could tell. No, she didn't know what project he'd been working on lately, only that it required frequent trips to Washington. It was the interviewing detective's opinion that Mrs. Webb was reluctant to admit how little she knew about her husband's work.