Читать книгу Manhattan Serenade: A Novel - Joseph Sinopoli Steven - Страница 12
ОглавлениеAlice Simms and Robert Darcey parked their Crown Vic on Lexington Avenue around the corner from Gramercy Park and East 21st Street but near the building where Paul Myer had lived. The two detectives decided not to attract attention in this otherwise tony neighborhood where the privileged few who lived in the brownstones surrounding the park had their own keys to the private park. In an area where Beemers, Jags, and Bentleys were commonplace, a dull gray Ford would stand out like a Swede in China.
“This area depresses me,” Simms said as they walked along the park’s wrought-iron fence. “Reminds me of the dump I live in over on Broadway and 95th Street. Not even a pet to keep me company. Landlord doesn’t like them. Only cockroaches and fleas are allowed.”
“Sounds like you could use a husband or a new place.”
Simms snorted. “The latter definitely. As for the husband thing… done that.”
“There’s an ex?” Darcey said.
“Kevin Palmer, double ex. Ex-husband, ex-Army. Came back from Somalia with what the doctors described as post-traumatic stress syndrome, but it quickly developed into plain old run-of-the-mill alcoholism with physical abuse thrown in for good measure.” She turned and looked away. “Kicked his ass out two years ago.”
“At least you don’t have to worry about what your brother’s going to do next.”
“Oh, yeah. How is Eddie doing?” Simms said as they crossed the street toward the apartment building.
“Spends his whole day in the recliner, chain smoking and watching QVC,” Darcey said. “His room is full of unopened boxes, stuff he’s bought on TV. Says voices make him buy it.”
“He really should be in an institution where professionals can take care of him. Schizophrenia is not easy to handle.”
“Can’t. Promised mom before she died that I’d take care of him. He’s my older brother and the only family I have,” Darcey said as they neared the green marquee that jutted out over the doorway of Myer’s luxury apartment building.
“What I can’t figure out is how Myer rated living here,” Simms said. “When he got out of Attica he was living in a hole-in-the-wall tenement in the Village. Then two months ago he upgraded to this.”
Minutes later, the two cops stood in Paul Myer’s living room with a tile floor large enough and a ceiling high enough for a basketball game.
In Moran’s living room, he and Hernandez sat cross-legged on the abstract design carpet amid five open cardboard boxes, sifting through notebooks, jewelry boxes and other knickknacks that had once been Lacy Wooden’s personal effects.
Moran’s face was screwed on tight, his mood dark as he sifted through one of the boxes. “This is going to take forever. I hope Simms and Darcey get here soon,” he growled.
Hernandez peered at his boss. “Besides that, what else is bothering you?”
Moran narrowed his eyebrows and shifted his gaze to Hernandez. “As if we didn’t have enough to do. Shilling wants us to look into Paul Myer’s embezzling ten million dollars from Morrison Savings & Trust.”
Hernandez creased his brow. “Why is that name familiar?”
“It’s one of the banks that Hubert Singer did business with.”
“Now I recall. Singer closed out all his accounts a week before he…” Hernandez’s voice trailed off.
“Go on, you can say it. Escaped, vanished, disappeared—take your choice. And he did it on my watch,” Moran’s voice was bitter.
Sandra entered the room with a tray of sandwiches and two tall glasses of iced tea. “I thought you could use this.” She moved toward the coffee table.
“Sure looks a lot cheerier in here now,” Hernandez said. Gone was the dark, stodgy classical furniture that had once sat on top of a dark carpet. Also gone were the heavy mahogany bookshelves that had covered all four walls. They had been replaced by maple bookcases and track lighting. Black and white tile gave the living room an art-deco air, with recessed lighting in the ceiling and modern off-white Swedish functional furniture.
“Did you re-do the rest of the place?” Hernandez asked.
Sandra set the tray down on the coffee table across from the unlit fireplace, shook her head and glanced briefly at Moran.
“No, James only let me change this room. Told me the living room was mine to do with as I pleased, but the other two floors were not to be touched. So, upstairs we’re in a world of dark wood and rococo furniture.” She gave Moran a bored smile. “Like the Dark Ages.”
Moran reached over, grabbed a ham, mayo-and-cheese sandwich and took a large bite. Through a mouthful of food and with his thumb dabbing a spot of mayonnaise on his lip, he mumbled, “I only keep her around because she makes great sandwiches.”
Sandra rolled her eyes, “Men!” she exclaimed. “As Zsa Zsa Gabor said, the only time a woman can change a man is when he’s a baby.”
Hernandez chuckled and hoisted himself up from the carpet. He pointed to a silver frame on the mantle over the marble fireplace. The photograph of a brown-eyed teenage boy with sandy hair and a melancholy smile was in the center.
“It’s hard to believe the doctors in London couldn’t get all the tumor. How old would he have been now?” Hernandez asked.
Moran and his wife exchanged sad glances. “Fifteen in two weeks,” Sandra whispered.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” Hernandez said.
“That’s okay. We all thought the operation in London was going to work,” Sandra said.
Moran got to his feet and moved toward his wife. “There was nothing anyone could do.”
Sandra gave a forced smile. “I, eh, better get upstairs and finish vacuuming,” she said and hurried out of the room.
After Sandra left, Hernandez sat back down on the carpet and started to flick through Lacy Wooden’s diary, a leather bound book with a brass lock. “Hey, check this,” he said, and showed the page to Moran.
“April 6th- S is beginning to become a problem, so I’d better take matters into my own hands,” Moran read aloud and then shot his partner a quizzical look. “Who the hell is ‘S’?”
“More importantly, what did she mean by ‘taking matters into my own hands’?” Hernandez said and flipped through several pages and stopped. “Listen to this,” he said and read aloud:
“‘May 15 – M called this morning and canceled our date.
Lately he’s becoming impossibly jealous. I have to talk to C about keeping his promise—he’s so forgetful at times.” Hernandez turned the page. “May 16 – Saw H last night and he seemed so depressed. I wish he’d leave his wife once and for all. He’s not happy. That’s the tall and the short of it for now.’” He then turned another page.
“There’s an entry here regarding an ‘R’ person and some weekend they spent together,” Hernandez said.
“Let me see that,” Moran said and grabbed the diary. “S, M, C, H, R. What is this, the Alphabet Song book?”
“Maybe she had trouble spelling. I remember in grade school—” Hernandez began.
“Drop it, Frank. One thing’s pretty clear, the ‘M’ could be Myer.” Moran handed the book to the sergeant and swallowed a gulp of iced tea, then reached over and picked up a Bowery Bank savings book. He opened the passbook and whistled. “According to this, on the day Lacy died, she had fifty-thousand, two-hundred forty-nine dollars and fifty-five cents saved up.”
Hernandez seemed unimpressed. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Topless dancers make a lot of money, plus tips and other activities.”
“Except,” Moran said, and waved the passbook, “four months before she was murdered the account was opened with two cash deposits of five thousand dollars on the same day at two different branches. Bag it.”
Moran continued to sift through the contents and pawed out a neatly folded white T-shirt with the purple Arabic cupola logo of the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino on the front. He stretched it.
“Seems Lacy liked to gamble,” Hernandez said.
Moran set the T-shirt aside. “Ho-ho-ho, what’s this?” Moran brought out a 5x7 snapshot of a smiling Lacy wearing the T-Shirt posing on a veranda. An expansive beach in the background. The lieutenant turned the picture over. The date scribbled in pencil was two weeks before Lacy’s death, and the word ‘Jersey’ next to the date was underlined in heavy pencil.
Moran handed the picture to Hernandez. “I’d guess the Jersey Shore.”
“That’s pretty ritzy for a struggling dancer,” Hernandez said, and cast the snapshot on top of the T-shirt. He examined more of the strewn contents and lifted up a receipt and peered at it. “According to this, Lacy paid a visit to the Haifa Diamond Exchange on East 72nd Street a week before she was murdered and—” he handed it to Moran—“she exchanged a two thousand dollar ladies Movado for a diamond tennis bracelet.”
Moran read the receipt and set it down. “That address is only a couple blocks up from where she lived. I’ll—”
The front door buzzer sounded and Hernandez glanced at his watch. “Must be Simms and Darcey.”
When Sandra led the two detectives into the living room, Darcey stepped toward Moran and held out an evidence bag that contained a spiral notepad.
“We found it in the dresser drawer,” Darcey said.
“The guy obviously believed in the simple life. Two cans of tuna in the fridge alongside a bottle of Stoli, a beat-up sofa in the living room facing a 50-inch plasma television screen, and nothing else. In the bedroom only a bed and the dresser.”
As Moran took the bag, Darcey said, “I think you’ll find the notations on the second page very interesting.”
When Hernandez offered Moran a pair of latex gloves, the lieutenant gazed at his partner appraisingly. “I can’t believe you always carry these things with you.”
Hernandez smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Moran slipped on the gloves and Simms said, “Check out the second page.”
“Very n-i-c-e,” Moran said when he read the page. “July 2, five thousand dollars—good start. August 4, two thousand; September 2, three thou, October 4, six thou; and November 2, two thousand five hundred.”
Moran flipped through the rest of the pad. Blank pages. He handed it to his sergeant.
“We found a copy of the lease to the apartment,” Simms said. “The rent’s three and half grand a month and the deposit was seven thou in cash. Myer moved in on July first, before which he was living at…” She paused and flipped through her leather notepad. “181 West 6th Street.”
“I know that area,” Hernandez said. “Full of flophouses with hot-and-cold running mice.”
Moran asked if there was any cash in the apartment, but Simms and Darcey shook their heads. “Nothing,” Darcey said. “But Myer did own a closet full of Armani, Hugo Boss, and Calvin Klein suits.”
“Looks like besides banking, Myer was good at extortion,” Hernandez threw in. “From the regularity of these payments, I’d say somebody was being squeezed hard.”
Simms nodded. “One more thing,” she said. “The doorman said that while Myer lived there he had a visitor in black motorcycle gear and a helmet with the visor down. Came once a month.”
“Doorman know who the guy was?” Hernandez said.
Darcey shook his head. “Myer always instructed the doorman the morning of the visit that he was expecting a person fitting that description and to just let him through.”
“Does ‘Evel Knievel’ have a description—tall, short, thin, fat?” Moran asked.
Simms said, “Only that he was slender and about five-ten or five-eleven.”
“What about the bike?” Hernandez asked.
“Doorman never saw it. Figured it was parked around the corner,” Simms said.
Moran and Hernandez exchanged glances. “I want Myer’s apartment sealed off,” Moran told Simms. “And have a couple of uniforms make sure no one without authorization goes in or out.” He turned to Hernandez. “Have Forensics go over it. Maybe our motorcyclist friend left some prints.”
