The Red Queen Dies Page 11

  “What Joey didn’t know was that he could only push—sorry.” McCabe reached for her purse and her buzzing ORB.

  “Maybe it’s your father, making sure you’re having a good time,” Chelsea said.

  McCabe looked and shook her head. “Work.”

  She said her name and listened. “I’m on my way.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got to go,” she told Chelsea.

  “Your serial killer case?”

  “The droogie boys’ case. My witness, Mrs. Givens … they broke into her house and beat her up.”

  “Oh God,” Chelsea said. “That poor old woman.”

  * * *

  McCabe heard the weeping before she got to the waiting room in the ER.

  Inside, a group of people were huddled together, clutching one another.

  McCabe walked over to the two evening-shift detectives who had caught the call. “She didn’t make it?”

  “Just died,” Grace Eubanks said with a glance at the family. “The perps beat her around the head. If she’d lived, she probably would have had brain damage.”

  Dwight Parker looked up from his ORB. “But we got a break. The old girl put up a fight. FIU found some drops of blood on the way out the door. One of the little pricks was bleeding when they ran out.”

  “Good,” McCabe said. She tucked her hands into her jacket. ERs were like morgues—always cold. “I guess I should go over and speak to the family.”

  “I hate that,” Eubanks said. “That’s the worst part.”

  “She wasn’t going to testify,” McCabe said. “She had taken some lullaby, and she couldn’t remember the details of what happened. She came by to tell me that she couldn’t testify.”

  Parker said, “We saw your notation about that.”

  “Are you going back there tonight? To look for witnesses?”

  “As soon as we finish up here,” Eubanks said.

  “Mind if I ride along?”

  Parker touched her arm. “Just go home and get some sleep,” he said. “We wouldn’t have called you out, but we thought you’d like to know.”

  McCabe nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

  * * *

  McCabe took the long way home. Fog swirled around the streetlights. Outside, on the steps of brownstones, Friday night was still playing itself out. Laughter, curses, bottles passed back and forth. Couples courting or breaking up. Tired, cranky toddlers outside with their adults because of the scare since a rat had bitten a baby in her crib.

  No pest-free, climate-controlled conditions for poor folks who lived in old houses. You could only afford that if you moved in and gentrified. Then you could even go green and have solar panels. On a muggy October night, you could entertain your friends in the comfort of your own air-cooled apartment instead of meeting them on the stoop and hoping for a stray breeze.

  In the street where Mrs. Givens had lived, police cruisers were lined up in front of her house, lights strobbing, cops moving back and forth.

  McCabe parked in the next block. Looking in her rearview mirror, she watched a FIU detective come out of the building carrying a container.

  Up the street in front of her, a white boy in a hybrid had pulled up to the corner. A black kid, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, strolled over. A moment’s conversation and an exchange of cash for product. Bold as brass. Maybe they assumed the cops were too busy dealing with a murder to worry about a drug deal.

  McCabe reached for her ORB.

  When the white boy pulled away from the curb, she put her siren on.

  Lucky for him, he decided to stop. Equally fortunate for him, he was scared shitless and did what she told him when she ordered him out of his car.

  By the time her backup arrived, she had him cuffed and ready to go. She gave the uniforms a description of the juvenile dealer. They knew him. Knew his street name.

  Assuming the surveillance cameras on that corner were working, they would have the drug deal on video. Not that that meant anything. Everyone involved would probably still walk. A waste of her time and effort.

  * * *

  It was almost one o’clock when she got home. McCabe pulled into the driveway and sat there staring at the closed garage doors.

  She left her car in the driveway, got out, and went in through the back door. In the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of mango juice.

  The house was quiet except for the snoring from Pop’s room when she passed.

  McCabe undressed and got into bed, then lay there thinking about Mrs. Givens, who hadn’t wanted to have any more bad dreams and who had ended up dead anyway.

  She needed to get up in the morning. She turned off the lamp and shut off her mind. No more tonight. Let it go.

  15

  Saturday, October 26, 2019

  New York City

  10:35 A.M.

  Vivian Jessup’s condo overlooked Central Park. Remembering the statue of Alice in Wonderland near the boat pond in the park, McCabe thought that was appropriate. When she was a child, McCabe had always begged her father to take her to see the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Dormouse. Alice hadn’t been of as much interest to her. But maybe Vivian Jessup had gotten pleasure from the statue featuring a character she had played as a child.

  And what about the Alice-themed tearoom around the corner? Had they recognized Jessup whenever she went in and given her a seat of honor? Served her a little cake saying Eat Me, accompanied by tea in a bottle labeled Drink Me.

  Baxter joined her at the windows. “See something?” he asked.

  “Just thinking Jessup must have enjoyed her view.”

  McCabe turned as she heard their NYPD escort finish her call.

  “Sorry about that,” Detective Maggie Soames said in her Brooklyn accent. “My ex wants the kids this weekend. I had to explain to him why he is not taking my kids along on a road trip with his new girlfriend.” The crow’s-feet around her eyes deepened as her mouth curled in amusement. “That’s one of the good things about being a cop, right, McCabe? When a woman with a gun speaks, men listen.”

  McCabe said, “How many children do you have?”

  “Two boys, ten and twelve, and a daughter who’s four. I love ’em to death, but they’re a handful. Especially when my ex spoils them rotten whenever he has them.” Soames glanced around the room. “It’s a shame to end up dead when you’ve got digs like these.”

  “Amen to that,” Baxter said.

  “So shall we get started?” McCabe said.

  “Want to split up and each do a room?” Soames asked, pulling out the gloves she had brought along.

  “Sounds good to me,” McCabe said. “I’ll do this room and try to check what’s in the glass cases against the Alice collection inventory the insurance company sent over.”

  Soames said, “All yours. I definitely don’t know what to look for there.”

  “Me, either,” McCabe said. “Only thing I have going for me is that I’ve read both books and seen the movies.”

  Soames laughed. “My kids saw the last movie they made. A serious mistake to let my four-year-old see it. She had nightmares for two nights running. Want me to get the bedroom?”

  “Thanks,” McCabe said. “Here’s the inventory of the jewelry that’s supposed to be here in the apartment. Apparently, she kept most of her good stuff in a safe-deposit box. But everything is security-coded.”

  “Makes our lives easier,” Soames said.

  “I’ll get the kitchen,” Baxter said.

  “And whoever finishes first gets the bathroom,” McCabe said.

  She put on her gloves and started going through the drawers of the antique credenza that held a place of honor along one wall. Photo albums labeled with the names of the plays in which Jessup had appeared, with photos of Jessup herself, scenes from the play, cast members.

  In the next drawer, some of the items that appeared on the inventory—Alice collectibles—playing cards, coloring books, of value because of their age and uniqueness, the insuran
ce company rep had said.

  The bottom drawer contained magic lantern slides, bookplates, and hand puppets.

  McCabe checked the items in a glass cabinet, then worked her way around the rest of the living room.

  She stopped to examine the framed photos on display: ones of various family members; one of Jessup in her late teens with mother, father, and sister, standing behind the chair of a distinguished-looking older man. The grandfather, McCabe thought, who, according to Vivian’s official bio, had gone to England after World War II and founded the family’s theater dynasty. There was a photo of Vivian, now a grandmother, beaming down at a young woman in a bed who was holding a baby in her arms. Other photos had apparently been taken at last year’s Tony awards.

  “Mike,” McCabe called out.

  “What?” he said, coming to the door of the kitchen.

  “Look who,” she said, pointing.

  He came closer, peering at the photo of Vivian Jessup and her escort at what seemed to be a post-award party.

  “Teddy in his tux,” he said. “With his arm around our victim.”

  “Well, he did say they were old friends,” McCabe said. “But no celebrity gossip came up on the Web to suggest they had ever been a twosome.”

  “Maybe they managed to keep their private lives private,” Baxter said.

  “A real feat if they could pull that off. If they were involved, I wonder if Thornton’s fiancée knew.”

  “If she did, she might not have been thrilled when Vivian turned up wanting Teddy to back her play.”

  McCabe shook her head. “But Jessup was the third victim in a series of murders. Unless we assume that the person who killed the first two women was only marking time until he or she got to Jessup—”

  “Or maybe we’ve got ourselves a copycat killer.”

  McCabe said, “We didn’t release the information about the phenol. But Clarence Redfield did know there was something linking the two murders.”

  “And clammed up when he was questioned at the station on Thursday,” Baxter said.

  “And so far he hasn’t written any more about his serial killer theory in his thread. So we don’t know what he knows, how much he knows. But, as far as we know, Redfield had no reason to kill Jessup, even if he knew how the first two murders were done.”

  “And the fiancée, who might have had a reason, had no way of knowing about the phenol,” Baxter said.

  McCabe frowned. “Unless somehow Ted Thornton found out about it.”

  “How?” Baxter said. “He and the mayor are pals. But unless one of the brass told her, she doesn’t know the details of the murders. So unless Teddy has eyes and ears in the department who are feeding him information … But even if he did, would he have passed on the information to his fiancée?”

  “And if he did, would she have wanted to eliminate her rival enough to risk having him wonder when his good friend Vivian became the third victim?” McCabe picked up a chess piece in the shape of a dormouse from the set on the side table. “But there’s something off about all this, Mike. Remember what Agent Francisco said about serial killers having patterns, choosing their victims based on certain characteristics?”

  “I thought you weren’t buying what Francisco was selling?”

  “I was simply questioning her theory about our perp being someone with a medical background. From what I’ve read, she’s right about serial killers having preferred types. And that’s the part that we all agree doesn’t fit here. He kills two twentysomething hometown girls. And then he kills a forty-seven-year old Broadway actress who’s visiting.”

  Baxter glanced at Jessup’s photographs. “She was superhot for forty-seven, but there was no way he could have mistaken her for early twenties. Not even in low light.”

  “So what are we missing?”

  “Don’t know what you’re missing, guys,” Maggie Soames said from the doorway of the hall leading back to Jessup’s bedroom. “But I’ve found some interesting reading.”

  16

  Albany, New York

  Empire State Plaza

  10:47 A.M.

  Bruce Ashby took one of the elevators up from the parking garage. The doors opened on the concourse floor. He peered out, then stepped back out of sight.

  “This is the floor you requested,” the automated voice informed him. “Do you want another floor instead?”

  He slipped out of the elevator, taking cover behind a column.

  Lisa had stopped at the mouth of the North Corridor, which led out onto the concourse. She looked to her right toward the wing housing the legislative offices, glanced up at the signs overhead, then turned to the left.

  God, don’t tell me she’s going to the damn museum, Ashby thought.

  He moved up to the entrance of the North Corridor. He needed to give her a head start.

  She was wearing a red silk blouse and was easy enough to follow. Especially on a Saturday, when only a few state workers were around and no busloads of schoolchildren were milling through the miles of corridor.

  But the lack of people also meant that he had less cover and had to stay farther behind her. He stepped out into the concourse.

  She moved with a slender, long-legged stride past the closed bank, card shop, and flower stand, past the empty dining hall housing the food court, past the display of artwork, where she stopped to look at a painting, forcing him to turn and study the announcements on a bulletin board.

  She moved on. He followed.

  At the end of the corridor, she went through the glass doors. She took a few steps in the direction of the stairs leading up to the exit. Then she glanced to the left and toward the auditorium and the elevators and escalators leading up to the museum. She decided to go that way rather than outside and across the street.

  But she was going to the museum. All this, and she was going to look at Indian wigwams and Adirondack wildlife. Maybe she wanted to ride on the damn carousel.

  He waited a few minutes and then followed her up the escalator to the museum floor. He stepped back when he realized she had stopped at the information desk.

  She spoke for a few minutes to the woman sitting there, and then she headed toward one of the exhibit rooms.

  Ashby went in the other direction, circling around.

  When he spotted her again, she was studying the artifacts from the archaeological digs in Albany—the distillery and the broken pottery and other items excavated years ago, before a parking garage had gone up.

  Ashby watched her take out a palm-size camera. He sagged back against the wall and almost laughed out loud. Now the trip to the graveyard was beginning to make sense. Ted, giving one of his history lessons, had been talking last night about the British lord who was buried in the vestibule of one of the churches on State Street. The only British lord buried on American soil. Undoubtedly, she intended to amuse Ted with a photo montage of what he had described as “underground Albany,” all the bones and artifacts dug up or still buried in various places around the city.

  He watched as she finished taking her photographs and slid the camera back into her bag. She turned back toward the lobby.

  In the lobby, she paused, glanced toward the escalators back down to the concourse, then decided to go into the gift store.

  Through the glass walls, Ashby watched her browse. Finally, she chose something too small to make out from where he was standing. She paid at the counter and slid her purchase into her bag. Then she came out and stepped onto the escalator.

  Ashby waited until he was sure she was at the bottom of the second set of escalators. Then he followed. When he peered into the corridor, she was halfway to the glass doors leading back onto the concourse. When she had passed through them, he strode up the corridor. He waited at the glass doors until she was almost out of sight, then stepped into the concourse.

  At the flower stand, she turned. She looked back along the length of the concourse, staring straight at him. She blew him a kiss.

  Ashby choked, cold panic an
d colder rage spreading through him. He watched her walk away, disappearing in the distance. What the devil was he going to tell Ted? But she might decide it would be wiser to keep her mouth shut.…

  17

  New York City

  They had set the ORB that Maggie Soames had found in Jessup’s bedside table on the credenza. They projected the pages on the opposite wall.

  “Is this what women call ‘erotica’?” Baxter said.

  “Looks like she was writing it, not reading it,” Soames commented.

  Baxter said, “Guess this was her leisure-time activity when she got bored writing that play about Lincoln, Booth, and the actress.”

  McCabe said, “This is the kind of thing that makes you hope you’ll have time to clean out all your closets and drawers before you die.”

  Baxter slanted her a glance. “You about to confess to having a few secrets, partner?”

  McCabe shrugged. “We all have secrets. Even if it’s only a boxful of keepsakes that nobody else has ever seen. And we die, and someone comes in and starts pawing through them.”

  Soames said, “Well, better that we found this before her family did.”

  “Yes, definitely. And I’m really glad you found it, Maggie, because it might be useful. But—”

  “You’re just saying?” Soames said.

  McCabe nodded. “I’m just saying.”

  Baxter was reading. “This is about an actress. A young actress having an affair with an older married man.”

  Soames said, “If you go back to the beginning, it’s supposed to be set in 1995, when the young actress arrives in the City.”

  “About the time Jessup would have arrived,” Baxter said.

  McCabe said, “She calls the actress Kate Sheridan. And the older man, the lover, is Richard March.”

  “And by chapter two, they’re going at it hot and heavy, in all kinds of creative positions,” Baxter said.

  “Didn’t you say something about a book that Jessup was trying to buy from someone?” Soames asked.

  McCabe said, “From a collector. Is there—”