Stuart Kaminsky - Dead of Winter

"No," said Ann vehemently.

"What do you do for Louisa?" asked Aiden.

"Correspondence, set up radio and television interviews, print interviews, signings, tours," said Ann. "Pay bills, answer Website E-mail."

"You don't work on her manuscripts?" asked Mac.

"Yes, when they're finished. On some days I arrive at the apartment and she says something like, 'The new one's done.' Then she hands me a floppy disk, and I take it to the computer at the back of the apartment off of the kitchen and copyedit it. They're usually in good shape though, and there's not much to do. It's still a thrill to be the first one to read a new Louisa Cormier mystery."

"Then?" asked Aiden.

"Then I tell Louisa I'm done and I love the book, because I always do."

"And how does she respond?" asked Mac.

"She usually smiles, says 'Thank you dear' or something like that and takes the floppy.

"I was an English major at Bennington," said Ann Chen after another sip of coffee. "I've got two novels of my own finished. I've spent the last three years trying to decide if I should ask Louisa to read them. She might not like them. She might think I took the job with her just to get her to help my writing career. I did try a few times to let her know that I wanted to be a writer. She never picked up on it."

"How tall are you?" asked Aiden.

Ann looked surprised.

"How tall? About five two."

"Ms. Cormier have a gun?" asked Mac.

"Yes, I've seen it in her desk drawer," said Ann. "The only thing that really bothers me about working for Louisa is the number of real nut cases out there. You wouldn't believe the fans who write to her, send her E-mails, gifts with cards saying they love her and want her to put garlic around her windows to keep out alien invaders, stuff like that. There actually was that one about garlic and the aliens. I didn't make it up."

"Anything else about Louisa?" asked Aiden.

"Like?"

"Anything," said Mac.

"She went out every morning for a walk, rain, sun, snow whatever," said Ann, thinking. "When she worked on a book, she sometimes spent the last week or so working away with the door closed and locked."

"You handled her bank account?" asked Mac.

"Accounts, yes."

"Did she ever take large sums out in cash?" asked Aiden.

"Yes," said Ann. "When she finished a book, she would take fifty thousand dollars out of her personal account, in cash."

"What did she do with it?" asked Mac.

"She donated it to her favorite charities," said Ann Chen with a smile. "Put it in envelopes and went herself to slip it under their doors. The NAACP, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross."

"You saw her do this?" asked Aiden.

"No, never. She did it alone, anonymously."

"Did you do her taxes?" asked Mac.

"Yes and no," said Ann. "My brother has an MBA from NYU. He did them with me."

"And," said Aiden, "she declared her donations to charity?"

"No," said Ann. "I urged her to. My brother said it was ridiculous not to, but Louisa insisted that she wasn't using her gifts as a tax dodge. I'm telling you she's a good woman and I can see that you think she might have killed Mr. Lutnikov."

"Did she?" asked Mac.

"No," said Ann. "She was no more likely to do something like that than I am."

"All right," said Aiden. "Did you kill Charles Lutnikov?"

"What? No, why would I? That's really all I have to say. I don't like feeling disloyal to Louisa."

Ann Chen stood up.

"Thank you for the coffee," she said, putting on her coat.

When she was gone, Aiden said, "I'll check with the NAACP and The Salvation Army offices near Louisa Cormier's building and ask if someone's been slipping envelopes of cash under their doors about the time Louisa comes out with a new book."

"Another coffee?" Mac asked.

"Make it a decaf with half and half, no sugar," she said.

Mac ordered the coffee for her and himself and removed a plastic bag from his kit under the table. He put on his gloves while the young man behind the counter watched perplexed. Mac deposited Ann's used cup in the bag, sealed it, and dropped the bag in his kit.

"You're cops, right?" asked the kid bringing their coffee.

"Yes," said Mac.

"Cool," said the kid.

"How much for the cup?" asked Mac.

"Nothing," said the kid. "No one will notice it's missing. If they do, I'll say a customer broke it."

He looked at Aiden again and said, "You're a cop?"

"I'm a cop," she confirmed.

"You never know, do you," he said and moved back behind the counter as the door opened and a young, laughing couple walked in.

A little over an hour later, Danny sat in the passenger seat of Flack's car while Flack drove. Danny adjusted his glasses and made the call to Stella.

"Hotel manager wants to know who's going to pay for the carpet," he said.

"Tell him to submit a bill to the city," she said.

"I did."

The car came to a stop at a red light and slid to the right, stopping inches away from a small, white delivery truck. The driver looked over at Danny, first with an intake of air expecting a collision and then with a flood of anger.

Even through the frost-covered window Danny could hear the man shouting at them in a language that was definitely Scandinavian. Don Flack calmly removed his wallet from his jacket pocket and reached past Danny to press his badge against the window.

The Scandinavian man, who needed a shave, looked at the badge and flipped his hand to show he didn't care if it was the police, the mayor, the Pope, or Robert DeNiro.

"Video camera on this corner," Flack said, putting his wallet back. "I think somebody should calm the Viking down before he loses it and someone gets hurt."

Danny nodded.

"Danny?" Stella said with exaggerated patience.

"There was nothing in the floor," said Danny. "No holes bigger than ones left by the nails I pulled."

It was what Stella had expected. Danny pushed the button to put Stella on speakerphone so Flack could hear her. Flack had just finished flipping closed his own phone after alerting the video line monitors about the pink-faced Viking who had stepped on the gas as soon as the light had changed. He missed Flack's car by the width of a few sheets of paper and zigzagged forward ahead of them.

"Fingerprint came up with a positive ID," Stella said. "Steven Guista, aka Big Stevie, prior arrests for everything from intimidation to assault and murder. Two convictions for which he served time. One for perjury. One for extortion. Officially, works as a truck driver for Marco's Bakery which is owned by…"

"… Dario Marco," Danny finished.

"Brother of Anthony Marco, who Alberta Spanio was going to testify against tomorrow," she said.

"Mac know?" asked Flack, moving forward, letting the Viking in the van wobble toward the next light.

"I'm going to call him now," she said.

"What do you want me to do?" Danny asked.

"Get back here and become an expert on chains," she said.

"Whips too?" he asked flatly.

She hung up.

Big Stevie sat in Toolie Prine's Bar on 9th Avenue, gargling a cold Sam Adams. Officially, and according to the old-fashioned white letters on the window, the bar was called Terry Malloy's, named after the Marlon Brando character in Big Stevie's favorite movie. Officially, the bar was owned by Toolie's sister, Patricia Rhondov, because Toolie was an ex-con. Officially, Toolie was the bartender. Officially, he still had to report to his parole office once a week. Anybody who knew any of this and most who didn't know any of it still called the place Toolie Prine's.

Big Stevie's behind drooped over the bar stool. Stevie was strong. It was in his genes. He had never worked out. His old man had been strong, worked on the docks. Stevie could have been a stevedore like his father. He would have been Stevie the Stevedore instead of just Big Stevie.