Stuart Kaminsky - Dead of Winter

Mac nodded, looked at the file folder again and then up at Jordan Breeze.

"Where did you get the gun?" he asked.

"It was my father's," said Breeze. "He died a few years ago, cancer."

"What kind of gun?"

"A.22 millimeter."

"What were you doing on the elevator to the upper floors?"

"I followed Lutnikov when he got off and changed elevators," said Breeze. "He seemed surprised and amused."

"You got on the elevator because you planned to kill him," said Mac.

"Yes."

"What did you do with the gun after you killed Charles Lutnikov?"

"Got off the elevator and sent it up. Then I trudged happily through the snow to the East River and threw it in," said Breeze. "It went through a thin layer of ice. I threw the leather gloves I was wearing into the river too. I'm afraid you have me on charges of murder and polluting the river."

"How many times did you shoot Lutnikov?"

"Twice," said Breeze. "Once when he was standing and again when he fell."

"The doorman doesn't remember you going out," Mac said.

"I waited till the afternoon and lots of people were going in and out."

"How well do you know Louisa Cormier?" asked Mac.

"Never met her," he said. "Don't even know if I've even seen her in the building. I know she's in the penthouse. I haven't been in the building that long."

"Do you mind if we look at your apartment? We can get a warrant."

"Please," said Breeze, "by all means examine my apartment and check my storage locker in the basement."

There was a calm smile on Breeze's face, close to the contented smile of cult members who are certain they know the truth about life and have reduced its mystery to a simple loyalty.

Mac turned off the tape recorder, rose, and went to the door. As he opened it, Breeze stood on shaking legs.

When Jordan Breeze had been taken away, Aiden entered the interrogation room where Mac sat tapping the thin folder on the table.

"You don't think he did it?" she said.

"I'll look into it. If he didn't do it, someone gave him a lot of information on the killing," said Mac. "And we keep on the with the investigation of Louisa Cormier."

"You could be wrong," she said.

"I could be," Mac agreed.

STEVIE COULDN'T GET THE FIRST CAR he tried to start. It had been almost fifty years since he had boosted a car. Sometimes you do forget how to ride a bicycle.

The car was a green Ford Escort parked half a block from where he had left the two men from the bakery, one doubled over in pain, the other trying to stop the bleeding from his nose. He had been sure they were hurt too badly to try to follow him. He had considered killing them both, but that would leave two bodies. Better to let them crawl away.

The problem was that Stevie also had to almost crawl away. He was losing blood and trying to think of where he could go.

One of the back doors of the Escort had been open, the lock broken. Should have been easy. But Stevie had no screw driver, no knife. Nothing he could use to steal a car.

He had gotten out of the car, looked back at the doorway where he had left the two men. He half hoped they had recovered enough to come after him instead of crawling away. Stevie had taken the gun from the one he had hit first. He wiped his fingerprints from the weapon and threw it over a brick wall a few feet away. He knew how to use his hands. He knew he had more trouble using his mind.

The second car he tried, a 1992 white Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais, almost renewed his faith in God. The window pushed down with pressure until he was able, just barely, to reach back and open the door. He slid into the driver's seat and tried to figure out what to do.

He opened the glove compartment searching for a tool he could use. Nothing, but there was a dark leather coin holder. He opened it. A key, a plastic Oldsmobile key.

The car turned over almost immediately and Stevie was on his way. To where? The Jockey. He wasn't sure he could trust Jake Laudano. What they had was more like an occasional business pairing than a friendship, the slow powerful big guy and the nervous little man. Neither man was quick of wit or ambitious.

Not much choice, Stevie thought. Either the Jockey or a hospital, if I can even make it to the Jockey's.

No, there was no "if" he decided as he drove. He would make it.

The next forty minutes were lost. When he woke up, the dull sunlight was coming through a window and he was lying on a lumpy sofa too small for him.

He sat up slowly. His leg was bandaged. The throbbing was tolerable. Determination was strong. He was in a small studio apartment, sofa against one wall, a Murphy bed across the room tilted back up into the wall.

The door to the apartment suddenly opened. Stevie tried to get to his feet, but his leg sat him down again.

The Jockey came in with a paper bag in one hand.

"Brought you some coffee," he said. "And a couple doughnuts."

"Thanks," said Stevie, looking inside the bag Jake handed him and taking out the coffee.

He felt queasy. The coffee and doughnuts might help. He didn't know, didn't care. He was hungry. He picked up a doughnut and laughed.

"What's funny?" asked Jake.

"Yesterday was my birthday," said Stevie.

"No shit," said the Jockey. "Happy birthday."

Anders Kindem, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University, retained only a trace of a Norwegian accent.

Mac had read about him in a New York Times article. Kindem had, supposedly, definitively confirmed that whoever William Shakespeare was, he was certainly not Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, or John Grisham.

Kindem, blonde straight hair, slightly gawky, with a constant smile, wasn't yet forty. He was addicted to coffee, which he drank from an oversized white mug covered with the word "words" in various colors. A tepid cup of hazelnut, which he had brewed from the tall green jar of whole beans he kept next to the grinder and coffeemaker in his office, stood next to one of four computer screens.

Kindem had two of the computers on a desk. Two others were on another desk facing the first two computers. The professor sat on a swivel chair between the four computers.

Mac sat watching him swivel, turn, move from computer to computer, looking more like a musician at an elaborate keyboard than a scientist.

Further detracting from Kindem's image as a scientist were his new-looking jeans and a green sweat shirt with rolled up sleeves. Across the front of the sweat shirt in white letters were the words YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHERE TO LOOK.

Music had been playing when Mac had entered Kindem's lab, carrying a briefcase containing the disks of Louisa Cormier's novels.

Kindem had turned down the volume and said, "Detective Taylor, I deduce."

Mac shook his hand.

"Music bother you? Helps me move, think," said Kindem.

"Bach," said Mac. "Synthesizer."

"Switched-On Bach," Kindem confirmed.

Mac looked around the room. The computer setup used half the room. The other half contained a desk with still another computer on it and three chairs facing the computer screen. Framed degrees and awards hung on the walls.

Kindem followed the detective's eyes and said, "I hold small seminars, discussions really, with the graduate students I advise."

He nodded at the three chairs.

"Very small seminars. And the adornments on the wall? What can I say? I'm ambitious and possess a small streak of academic vanity. The disks?"

Mac found a spot at the end of one of the desks holding two computers. He opened his briefcase, took out the disks, each in a marked sleeve, and handed them to Kindem.

"You'll want to read them," Mac said. "You can give me a call when you know something."