I burst through the doors on the upper deck of the gymnasium and heard the sounds of a pickup basketball game in progress. There were voices and a few hoots and hollers.
I froze at the sight of Brian playing one-on-one with Allan Martin. My other boys, Trent, Eddie, and Ricky, sat in the front row, cheering their brother on.
No one was dead. There wasn’t even any blood. I eased onto the very top bleacher. I realized my legs were shaky. I wasn’t sure if it was from the sprint or the fear I’d had about what Brian could’ve done.
I watched silently. Both of the boys were better than I’d thought. Allan sunk a three pointer. Brian hit three fifteen-foot jumpers. On the last one, after the ball had slipped through the hoop and bounced on the hardwood floor, the boys stood face-to-face.
Brian called out, “Game.” He stared down the younger boy and said, “Do it. Do it right now.”
I was intrigued, but also ready to intervene if Brian was ordering Allan to do something out of line. I watched as they both stepped over to the bleachers. Allan retrieved his phone, and the other boys gathered around him.
I made my way down the bleachers until I was in the lower level, not too far from the boys. None of them noticed—they were all too focused on Allan’s phone.
Ricky said, “Put it on speaker.”
Allan said, “Don’t you trust me?”
“Not even a little. Now put your phone on speaker so we can all hear it.”
Allan pushed a few buttons.
“Hello?” said a voice I immediately recognized as Jane’s.
Allan didn’t waste any time. “I’m sorry for breaking up with you, Jane. It was a mistake. Is there any chance you would still go to the dance with me?”
There was almost no hesitation on the line as Jane answered. “No.” Then she hung up.
I couldn’t keep a wide smile from spreading across my face.
My three younger boys all started to hoot and chide Allan.
Trent said, “She’s already over you, loser.”
Eddie said, “Can’t play basketball, don’t know women. Good luck in the future.”
All four of my boys walked out and left the entitled little shit standing in the gym by himself.
Chapter 76
The next morning, I lingered long enough to eat breakfast with the family. Jane looked much better. Being able to turn Allan down had meant a lot to her.
Mary Catherine lingered over our kiss good-bye at the front door. It’d been so long that I’d forgotten what a good mood felt like. She made me promise to call her soon with an update on Brett Hollis. I hopped into my city-issued Chevy Impala and made the short drive to the Columbia University Medical Center.
Outside Hollis’s room, I took a moment to compose myself. As I opened the door, I heard a voice behind me. I turned to find a tall nurse with reddish hair.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
I closed the door. “I was going to visit my partner, Brett Hollis. Isn’t this his room?”
“He’s resting right now. They set his pelvis last night. Come back sometime after lunch and he’ll be ready for visitors.”
I knew not to argue with the nurse. Nurses are right up there with nuns, judges, and teachers.
It took almost no time for me to make it back to my car. I had a number of assignments I wanted to cover today.
Mainly, I was checking with employers of the victims from our homicides, my own follow-up to the initial Task Force Halo outreach.
It took me less than an hour to visit the workplaces of the victims in Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as Columbia Law School, where Chloe Tumber had been enrolled. No one had any new information. I would hit the rest after I saw Brett Hollis this afternoon. I might even get home before dark again.
Almost as soon as I settled at my desk, I saw John Macy trudging through the office, straight toward me. “I heard Hollis is out of action,” he said. “I guess we’re stuck with each other.”
I thought about that for a moment. I looked up at the well-dressed mayor’s aide and said, “Let me just wash up. Have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”
Macy seemed to appreciate my new attitude. He smiled and pulled a notebook out of the leather satchel he always carried. He settled in at Hollis’s desk, not thinking twice about reorganizing Hollis’s papers.
I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. I didn’t want to lie.
Then I left the office. I decided it would probably be a good idea to finish my visits with the other businesses before I went back to the hospital.
I smiled as I drove away, wondering how long Macy would sit quietly at the desk before he started asking about me.
Chapter 77
The people at Manhattan Family Insurance, where victim Elaine Anastas had interned, were pleasant and tried to be helpful. They all spoke highly of her.
Not that I’d expected anything else—most people only seem to recall a homicide victim’s positive qualities, although someone’s bad traits are more likely to have led to their death. Not that that necessarily applied when we were talking about a serial killer. Still, I tried to hide my impatience when I heard on endless loop: “Elaine was so bright.” “Elaine was so driven.” “Elaine came from someplace upstate but managed to make it in the city.” High praise from fellow New Yorkers.
About the fifth person I spoke to was a man named Luis Munoz. Munoz was dressed in a black suit with a yellow tie and acted more like he owned the place than managed it. He also made sure to tell me that he’d gotten his MBA at Columbia.
We sat at adjoining empty desks. After Munoz went on and on about what a good intern Elaine had been, I said a little harshly, “C’mon. It’s just us. I’m not going to make any notes. And I promise I won’t remember who tells me what. But this bland information about Elaine won’t help me capture her killer. I need to understand who she really was. Can you help me?”
Munoz considered my position and finally said, “Okay. Truth is, I knew Laney reasonably well. I even met one of her two roommates at an office happy hour. I can’t remember the girl’s name, but she interned with the Yankees. She loved baseball.”
I had spoken to that roommate. It had been her bobbleheads I’d first noticed.
Munoz continued. “Laney was highly social. Almost had, like, a phobia of loners or of being alone.”
I asked a few more questions and was impressed by how forthright Munoz was being. He even admitted that Elaine had once turned him down for a date. Not that, as her supervisor, he should have been asking, I thought, keeping the future working lives of my daughters in mind.
As I started to wrap things up, I noticed a sticker, then saw that duplicates had been applied to the frame of every computer monitor and landline phone in the office. The stickers showed a cartoon computer, its long arms holding a radio in one hand and a telephone in the other. Underneath it was a company name: Computelex.
The branding struck me as unusual so I took a picture of it with my phone.
I thanked Munoz and decided it was time to head over to the hospital.
Chapter 78
The nurse caring for Brett Hollis recognized me from this morning, nodded, and waved her hand toward his room.