Ridley Pearson - The First Victim

‘‘She panicked and killed herself,’’ Boldt said.

‘‘You believe that?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘She knew they’d get her. Said as much. If I hadn’t gotten stuck in traffic. If I’d come right here instead. .’’

‘‘Who else did you tell?’’

‘‘No one.’’ She paused and blurted out, ‘‘You don’t believe me?’’ Her lips found the edge of the Styrofoam cup.

‘‘Doesn’t matter.’’

‘‘It does to me.’’

‘‘It isn’t relevant,’’ he said.

‘‘It is to me.’’

‘‘You’ve been sharing information with Agent Coughlie.’’ He answered her dumbfounded expression, ‘‘We hear things.’’

‘‘I didn’t share this!’’

‘‘You sure?’’

‘‘You suspect Coughlie?’’ she blurted out.

‘‘I didn’t say that.’’

‘‘You didn’t have to.’’

‘‘When there’s a lot of money at stake, we suspect everyone.’’

‘‘The INS? My god. .’’

‘‘Coast guard. Our own people. The list is pretty long, I’m afraid.’’

‘‘You’re wrong about Coughlie,’’ she warned.

‘‘I didn’t say anything about Coughlie. It’s just that his attorneys-the federal prosecutor’s office-tried to get hold of that video today. And since I’d heard you’d seen him. . I thought maybe-’’

‘‘Well you thought wrong!’’

‘‘How can I help if I don’t know what’s going on?’’ Boldt asked.

‘‘You stole that tape from me.’’

‘‘I made a bad decision,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘Let’s say I’d be willing to reverse that decision?’’

‘‘In return for?’’

‘‘A look at the videos you took from her apartment.’’ He cautioned, ‘‘And don’t tell me you didn’t. Being a reporter doesn’t allow you to lie to a cop.’’

‘‘I’m cold,’’ she complained, knowing when to cut bait.

‘‘We’ll get you home,’’ he offered. ‘‘Our officers will see you home.’’

She said, ‘‘So if it wasn’t coincidence, someone knew I was coming here.’’

‘‘Is that so impossible? Do you use a walk-around phone by any chance?’’

‘‘Not at the office. She called me at the office.’’

‘‘Cellphone?’’

‘‘It was my office phone.’’

‘‘No one in the room? No other calls? Cancel a dinner, something like that?’’

‘‘Nothing!’’

‘‘So maybe it was coincidence,’’ Boldt said. He added, ‘‘But it wasn’t suicide. Wasn’t even a good try at it.’’ He informed her, ‘‘Broken blood vessels in the eyes-manual strangulation. We think he may have raped her. If he did, it was postmortem.’’

She sat paralyzed behind the wheel. ‘‘You’re trying to scare me into cooperating.’’

‘‘Not at all. I’m just reporting. Funny, isn’t it? I’m reporting. You’re here investigating.’’

‘‘It’s not funny at all.’’

‘‘We can protect witnesses,’’ he said.

‘‘They’re not coming after me, Lieutenant. I got here too late.’’

‘‘But she contacted you,’’ Boldt reminded. ‘‘They may know that. How often do they sweep the station for surveillance devices?’’

‘‘That’s ridiculous.’’

‘‘I’m willing to trade tapes, Ms. McNeal,’’ Boldt repeated, hand on the door handle. ‘‘Offer stands. The offer of protection stands as well.’’

‘‘Someone to drive me home would be nice. I’ll take you up on that.’’

‘‘Well, that’s a start,’’ he said. ‘‘You think about the rest.’’

Stevie arrived at her apartment exhausted and afraid. Melissa had gone missing, Klein had been found dead, and the link between them was obvious, and worse, a link that Stevie herself had pursued despite warnings. She locked her apartment’s front door behind her and armed the security system. She drank Armagnac from a snifter, the bottle clutched under an arm, as she first locked and checked her bedroom door, then the door to the bathroom suite, before finally running bath water and undressing. The drink did nothing to quell the image of Klein’s body slumped in the chair. She could still feel the woman atop her in the mud, lukewarm and stiff, her own sense of helplessness trapped beneath it -not a person, not any longer. She had known this woman, she had spoken to her. It was no longer an image, but something warm and visceral.

She stayed in the tub for a long, long time, running the warm water continuously and allowing it to spill out the overflow drain. She scrubbed and soaked but never felt clean, the alcohol as warm inside her as the water on her skin. She refilled the snifter with slippery fingers hoping to purge her demons, but each time she closed her eyes she felt Klein on top of her. She caught herself wishing that she lived with somebody, wishing for a roommate or lover or husband, some companion to pamper or comfort her. Her aloneness caught up to her and caused an ache that nothing could reach, nothing could numb.

At last she dragged herself out and toweled off, surrounding herself in a sumptuous terrycloth robe, wondering why she allowed herself to feel so vulnerable and threatened. She let herself out of her sanctuary to where she had a commanding view of the Sound and the city’s night skyline. She could tell it was the weekend by the number of small boats out there. She longed to be tired, but this was not a night for granted wishes. She thought of all that shipping traffic coming and going, of all the thousands of containers en route from one place to another, the body bags hauled out of the recovered container, the families of the victims, the chain of events begun by that discovery. She wanted them all back; she didn’t give a damn about the power or impact of the story; she wanted Melissa safe and warm and sharing this view. She ached for her return. She cried about it, cried hard, finishing up the contents of the snifter and looking around for the bottle that she had left by the tub. She heard voices and wondered if they were in her head or far below on the street. She cried some more.

Feeling chilled, she checked to see if she’d left any windows open, walking around the darkened apartment in a state of shock and remorse. The night air that blew off the Sound was her favorite part of the apartment, though on this night she sought warmth. She found nothing open, except the front of the robe. She tied the robe shut, checked the lock on the balcony-something she never bothered to do, being she was the penthouse-and headed to bed.

She saw a shadow out there and jumped, only to realize it was one of her tropical plants in the sea breeze.

The walk back to the bedroom seemed to take too long and included a stop at the front door just to make sure. She wished she had something more than a keyed entry, dead bolt or not, but the building regulations specifically prohibited any such extravagance. (The building’s old-timers claimed this resulted from a lawsuit brought by the family of a man who had died of a heart attack. Though he had called 911, he had left his apartment door chained from the inside, delaying the response time of the emergency service.) The hallway to the master bedroom stretched impossibly long past a coat closet, a linen closet, a guest suite and a half bath. Never before had it seemed so far away. She locked her bedroom door, slipped out of the robe and into a pair of cotton pajamas. The pajamas held their own significance for her-she usually slept with no clothes on. She refilled the snifter and took it to bed with her, knowing she must be drunk, or close to it, but not feeling anything. This she also took as a signal because Armagnac typically flattened her. Afraid to make the room dark, she watched TV, surfing from one channel to the next, in what turned out to be an endless parade of commercials. In the black screen pulses and pauses between her switching channels she saw only Klein’s discolored face and swollen tongue. She saw death. Time seemed to be both moving slowly and running out at the same time. She caught her heart racing and thought maybe the booze was having some effect. She drank some more and decided it was not.