Richard Hawke - Cold Day in Hell

“Got him!”

“Who? Got who?”

“Who do you think? Spicer. You’ll never guess where we grabbed him. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He managed to spend the night there, then went off into the wrong restroom this morning. A nun came into the women’s room, and there he was in one of the stalls, screaming fire and brimstone over his phone to Jimmy Puck. The nun fetched a pair of cops from out in front of the church. We just got him in the box a few minutes ago. He says he doesn’t want a lawyer. I’m putting him on a low boil until you can get back here. What’s up on your end, anyway? Do we know who beat up Mrs. Fox?”

“She didn’t give a name.”

“Didn’t give a name? What does that mean? She has a name but she wouldn’t give it?”

Megan chose her words carefully. “She’s in shock, Joe. And she’s very bullheaded. When a woman like that wants to clam up, she clams up.”

“Okay. You can fill me in later. I need you back up here. Spicer’s already blowing off like Vesuvius. If he killed Burrell and Riddick, I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble coaxing it out of him. This is a man who is proud to be angry.”

Megan clicked off the call and pocketed the phone. Bruce Spicer was in police custody. A man with a motive-several of them, in fact, however perverse they seemed. Megan knew she should be hightailing it back to the car and hitting the cherry lights and getting back uptown as quickly as possible. This was the moment of the kill.

Except it wasn’t. Megan closed her eyes and tilted her head back to face the falling snow. Her lips parted slightly as she took the flakes with her tongue.

It’s not him. It’s not Bruce Spicer.

She knew it in her heart. In her gut. Yes, the man had made the threatening phone calls. Unquestionably, the very existence of Robin Burrell and the other women he had phoned-or attempted to phone-had inflamed him to no end. And he had desperately wanted his wife off the jury. The man was eminently capable of causing havoc, no question about it. But it wasn’t him. And Megan knew she was right. The person who had gone on a killing rampage was the man Rosemary Fox was protecting. What was worse-much worse, Megan realized-was that a horrible mistake had been made. And she had made it.

Marshall Fox wasn’t guilty, either. It was this man. Rosemary Fox’s lover. It was Rosemary herself.

“Oh my God.”

Megan’s hands shook as she pulled out her phone and punched in a number. It answered after two rings.

“Malone.”

Megan almost hung up. There was the right way to do this. By the book. Megan knew better. This was hardly the time to go cowboy.

Screw it.

“Fritz, it’s Megan Lamb. Listen. I’ve got a question for you. I don’t have much time here.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

A yellow snowplow was moving north along York, the diagonal snow flashing in the truck’s amber beam. The blade rutted roughly along the pavement with an angry animal sound. Seeing the cascade of salt stones coming her way, Megan turned her back to the street and huddled in to the phone.

“Any chance I can convince you to break the law a little?”

“THIS IS MRS. FOX,” Margo snapped into the phone. “Who is this?”

“This is Luis, Mrs. Fox. Are you okay?”

Margo threw me a wink. “Luis, listen to me. The police are going to be coming by sometime in the next hour. I want you to let them into the apartment, do you understand?”

“Are you all right, Mrs. Fox? Is-”

“Luis. Just do what I ask. Please.”

“Well, yes, ma’am. But I-”

“Thank you, Luis.” Margo hung up the phone. “So, do I make a grade-A bitch or what?”

I stepped over to the couch, knotting my tie. “Amazing.” Margo adjusted it for me. I shrugged into my coat and slid my thumb along the brim of my hat. “Well?”

“Are you honestly going with the fedora, too? This isn’t 1930.”

“It’s snowing. People wear hats in the snow.”

“Good thing you’re prettier than Humphrey Bogart. That’s all I think of when I see a fedora. Sorry, but I think it’s overkill.”

“Do I look cop enough for you?”

“A uniform would clinch it.”

“A uniform would clinch me jail time.”

She shrugged. “This’ll do fine.”

I TOOK A CAB across the park. The cabbie had his opinions about the snow, but I tuned them out, and by the time we were passing the Boathouse, he’d stopped sharing them with me. I had other matters to mull.

Megan Lamb had laid out her case quickly but succinctly. She’d emphasized that it was only a theory, but the pitch of her argument betrayed the conservative note. What if Rosemary Fox already had a lover of her own at the time her estranged husband was shagging everyone who came down the pike? What if the two of them had cooked up a scheme that not only generated some pretty audacious revenge on Rosemary’s part-the elimination of two of Fox’s lovers-but also succeeded in focusing the police investigation on Fox himself?

Megan hadn’t had time to embellish her theory or to poke and prod it to see where all the weak spots were. But she’d sounded convinced.

“Robin Burrell. There’s lover number three. I don’t know where Riddick fits in. Maybe he was becoming suspicious of Rosemary. Or maybe he was coming on to her and she set her goon on him. The point is, I need to find out the identity of Rosemary’s lover. This guy did a real number on her this morning, and for whatever reason, she’s willing to give him a pass. As my mother used to say, that don’t stink good.”

The cab came out of the park, and I directed the driver to drop me a block from Rosemary’s building. No need to let the doorman see “Captain Nicholas Finn” of the NYPD getting out of a taxicab instead of a department vehicle. Nick Finn had been a friend of mine in the days when I was attending John Jay College with an eye toward following my old man’s footsteps into the police force. Nick’s death had coincided with my abandoning those plans, and not a few people think it’s somewhat perverse that he lives on in a drawer full of falsified documents that I keep in my desk at the office.

The doorman barely glanced at my shiny badge when I presented it to him.

“I wanted to call the police when I see Mrs. Fox like that. But I don’t dare. She said she is fine, but she looks like she was hit by a bus. I got her a taxi, like she asks, but she-”

I interrupted him. “Luis, I need you to let me into Mrs. Fox’s apartment. If you’d like to call the station and speak with her first-”

The man shook his head rapidly. “No, no. It’s okay. I spoke with her already. I’ll let you in.”

Nicholas Finn slipped his badge into the pocket of his trench coat. Heeding Margo’s advice, he’d passed on the fedora.

I SAW THE BLOODSTAINS on the carpet the moment I entered the bedroom. A greenish robe was bunched nearby. I crossed to the robe and knelt down to examine it. In front of me was an accordion wall made completely of mirrors. A clothes closet. Its reflection included me and the door to the bathroom, which was open behind me. As I picked up the robe, there was a shifting of the light, and in the reflection I saw a figure-a man-stepping into the bathroom doorway. The reflection froze and so did I, but only for a split second.

“Who the-?”

He didn’t finish his own question but instead took two speedy steps into the room and shoved me with all his strength just as I was twisting around to face him. I tumbled up against the mirrored wall. The man was out the bedroom door by the time I had scrambled to my feet. As I raced into the front room, he was snatching a down jacket off the couch. He turned. He charged me. I’d been reaching for my gun but yanked my hand free to ward off the attack. The guy barreled into me and sent me reeling backward. I slammed into a small table, toppling a brass lamp and an ashtray. The man veered toward the front door. I grabbed the table and whipped it sideways at him. It hit him behind the knees, and he stumbled to the floor.