Харлан Кобен - Win

In short, she is not going home.

I follow from across the street. Two minutes later, she walks past the Dakota and crosses into Central Park. At this hour, the park is pretty much abandoned. I see no one else. Trailing her will be more difficult. We all possess lizard brains, don’t we? And in a situation when you are a woman alone in a park and a man in a hooded sweatshirt, however tasteful that hooded sweatshirt may be, is following you, you take notice.

When she heads north on the sidewalk running along what is simply called the Lake, I take a parallel path west of her that goes through the brush. This path is dark and in some ways not the safest at night, but one, I am always armed, and two, if you are any sort of experienced mugger, you wouldn’t set to pounce in an area so remote that you’d have to wait days, weeks, or months for a profitable target to happen by, would you?

I lose sight of Kathleen for seconds at a time, but so far, this appears to be working. She is making her way north toward the entrance to the wildlife thicket known as the Ramble on the north shore of the Lake. The Ramble is a nearly forty-acre protected natural reserve with winding paths and old bridges and a tremendous variety of topography and fauna and the like. There is bird-watching, yes, but in a less enlightened day, the Ramble was best known for hosting homosexual encounters. It was a spot where gay men would “cruise,” as we used to say. It was supposedly the safest place to avoid being assaulted by those who meant them harm, which is to say, of course, it hadn’t been very safe at all.

Kathleen stops on the bridge that crosses over the Lake and into the heart of the Ramble. The moon glistens off the water, and I can see her silhouette. A minute passes. She doesn’t move. There is no reason to pretend anymore.

I come down the path. Kathleen hears my approach and turns expectantly.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say when she sees me.

Kathleen jolts back a little. “Wait, I know you.”

I don’t reply.

“What the hell, are you following me?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“Ry Strauss won’t be coming tonight.”

“Huh? Who?” But I can see the fear in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I move closer, so she can see my disappointed frown. “You can do better than that.”

“What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

“With what?”

“Ry was murdered.”

I just say it like that, too matter-of-factly. Breaking bad news is not my forte.

“He was...?”

“Murdered, yes.”

Tears push into her eyes. Kathleen makes a fist and places the back of it against her mouth to stifle a cry. I wait, give her a moment or two. She puts the fist down and blinks into the moonlight.

“Did you kill him?” she asks me.

“No.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“If that were my plan, you’d be dead by now.”

That doesn’t seem to comfort her much.

“What do you want with me?”

“I need your help,” I repeat.

“With what?”

“With trying to catch his killer.”

Kathleen doesn’t say a word as we head back down Central Park toward Seventy-Second Street and my abode. The gate over the arch entrance of the Dakota is locked for the night. I ring the bell. Tom comes out and unlocks it for me. He’s used to seeing me bring women back here at all hours, though not as many in recent years, but I think Kathleen’s advanced age surprises him.

We head through a courtyard with two fountains and take the elevator up to my apartment overlooking the park. Some people are intimidated by this place. She is not one of them. She used the walk over here to regain her bearings. She moves straight toward the window and looks out. Kathleen moves with confidence, head high, eyes dry. Her clothes are wrinkled from a long night, the blouse is still working-barmaid-one-button-too-low at the neckline. I bought this apartment fully furnished from a famed composer who lived here for thirty years. You may already be conjuring up the layout in your mind’s eyes — dark cherrywood, high ceilings, inlaid woodwork, antique armoires, crystal chandeliers, oversized fireplace with brass tools, ornate silk oriental carpets, red-maroon velvet chairs. If so, you are correct. Myron describes my abode as “Versailles redux,” which is both spot-on in terms of impression and technically incorrect in every way, since I own nothing from that particular geography or era.

I pour Kathleen a cognac and hand it to her.

“How did you know?” she asks.

I assume that she is talking about her weekly meetings in the park with Ry Strauss. I hadn’t known for certain, of course. I just followed my intuition. “For one, you have a police record for twelve arrests, all for civil disobedience at various progressive rallies.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s ‘for one.’”

“And for two?”

“You told me that you started working at Malachy’s in 1978. Frankie Boy told me you were a part-timer as early as 1973.”

“Frankie Boy has a big mouth.” She takes a deep sip. “Is Ry really dead?”

“Yes.”

“I loved him, you know. I loved him for a very long time.”

I had figured this. Kathleen hadn’t “rescued” Lake Davies — or if she had, only inadvertently. Her real goal in facilitating Lake’s surrender was simpler: Remove the competition for Ry Strauss’s affection.

“Who killed him?” she asks.

“I was hoping that perhaps you could help me with that.”

“I don’t see how,” she says. “Do the police have any suspects?”

“Not a one.”

Kathleen takes a deep sip and turns back to the window. “Poor tormented soul. All of them really. The Jane Street Six. They never meant to hurt anyone that night.”

“So I keep hearing.”

“Idealistic kids. We all were. We wanted to change the world for the better.”

I want to get off this overly worn excuse-justification track and back on one more fertile to my investigation. “Did you know where Ry was living this whole time?”

“Yeah, of course. At the Beresford.” She turns to me. “Have you seen old pictures of him? I mean, when Ry was young? God, he was so beautiful. Such charisma. Sexy as all get-out.” I could see her smile in the window’s reflection. “I knew he was damaged — I could see that right away — but I’ve always been a sucker for the dangerous type.”

“Who else knew Ry lived at the Beresford?”

“No one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Did you ever visit him?”

“At the Beresford? Never. He’d never allow a guest. I know that sounds odd. Well, Ry was odd. Became odder by the day. A hermit really. He’d never let anyone else in. He was too scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Who knew? He had an illness.” Then, thinking on it for a moment, she adds, “Or so I thought. But maybe, I don’t know now, maybe he was right to be scared.”

“How did Ry end up there?”

“In that tower, you mean?”

I nod.

“After Lake surrendered, Ry and I, we got together. He moved in with me. I had a place on Amsterdam near Seventy-Ninth. A walk-up above a Chinese restaurant. Then it became a mattress store. Then a shoe store. Then a nail salon. Now it’s Asian fusion, which sounds like a fancy name for a Chinese restaurant to me. Everything that goes around comes around, am I right?”

“As rain.”

“What does that mean anyway? Why would someone describe rain as being right?”

I sigh. “Anyway.”

“Anyway, I shared a floor with one of those massage parlors. Not what you’re thinking. They were legit. Cheap, no frills, but legit. At least I think they were legit. But who knows? All that happy-ending stuff. Who cares, I’m just babbling, sorry.”