Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

What about me? Well, my list shows that I have three women who could be delivering at any moment or, at the very least, in the next few hours.

Meanwhile, my waiting room is full, very full, eleven women full. Four are there for the prenatal diet and exercise class. We do it. There’s a lot of moaning and quite a few bathroom breaks, but eventually the one-hour class ends.

Damn it, there’s still no word from Tracy Anne. I’ve called her. HR has called her. So I email my favorite backup midwife over at NYU Langone. Her name is Lizzie Witten, and she’s the best in the business. Great news: Lizzie Witten’s available, and she’ll be at GUH in twenty minutes. The moment Witten arrives, I run down to the temporary NYPD/ FBI investigation room on the second floor, where I’m told Blumenthal is right now back at the NYPD Major Case Squad offices downtown.

I am, as I have often been, pissed off at Blumenthal. His long silences come across as smugness. His voice usually has a bored or impatient tone to it, as if it’s nothing but a painful chore to speak to me, to answer my questions. And his lack of gratitude for my help in this case so far makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him.

The more I think about Blumenthal, the angrier I become. After my encounter in the cemetery, after my mugging in the park, after my trip out to Brighton, the volcano inside me feels like it’s about to explode.

So I take the subway down to One Police Plaza. Hell. I just can’t control myself.

“Welcome, Ms. Ryuan,” Blumenthal says when, without knocking, I walk into the office I’ve been led to by another detective in the squad. “Always a pleasure.”

“I’m warning you, Detective. Don’t start up with me,” I say.

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to tell you in person that I had my cell phone recording translated.”

“I’m not at all surprised. I suspected you would do that.”

My hands are practically vibrating with anger. My mouth is going dry. Then it happens. I explode.

“You self-satisfied son of a bitch. I’ve done more to move this case forward than you or anyone else in this department. And I’m not even part of this goddamn department. ”

“Lucy, listen—” he begins.

“‘Listen’? ‘Lucy, listen’? Don’t you dare start with that ‘Lucy, listen’ phrase,” I shout. “Don’t fucking condescend to me. I’m the one who spotted the shoes on Nina. I’m the one who played decoy in the cemetery and met with two criminals, two killers. I’m the one who got my head smashed open in the park.”

“Stop it,” he says. Loudly. Very loudly. Then he says, “And I’m the one who appreciates it all. You’re the one who needs to be petted and kissed and thanked a thousand times. I absolutely appreciate all you’ve done … and all you can still do to help.”

I have to interrupt. “Then why did I have to schlep out to the bowels of Brooklyn because you wouldn’t give me the translation?”

“That’s because it was classified, and we can’t transmit classified information over the phone or by email. If you had just waited, if you had just trusted me. And anyway, now that we both know what Orlov and Nina were saying to each other, let me ask you: does it make any difference?”

The conversation goes silent. Finally, I break that silence.

“No,” I say. “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

Silence once again. Blumenthal looks down at the floor. Then we both look through a glass panel of his office wall. We look out at the men and women in the office who are pretending not to look at us.

Now I speak quietly. I almost want to hold him by the shoulders so that he’ll listen. “Detective, please, please pay attention to what I say. If you do, then you’ll understand why I am the way I am.” Then I say, “This is all about babies . This isn’t a jewel theft on Fifth Avenue. This isn’t a druggie who cuts his skeevy dealer in the belly. This isn’t a robbery in a bodega or a husband who skipped out on his wife with the savings account money. This is babies! I’m not a very good Catholic. There’s a lot I don’t believe in. But I do believe that babies are miracles. They’re gifts from God. This is the biggest tragedy I’ve ever been close to. This means everything to me.”

There is no pause. Blumenthal looks straight at me and says, “Lucy, I feel exactly the same way.”

And suddenly I believe that he does.

When he speaks next, he is all business, but it’s important business. “I want to tell you that I think I’m on to something—actually, someone—who can help us,” he says.

“Did Orlov start talking?” I ask.

“No. He’s still closed tight. But like I said, I’ve got something else— someone else.”

“Okay,” I say. “What is it? Who is it?”

Blumenthal picks up his cell phone and drops it into his shirt pocket. He walks to the office door.

“Just follow me.”

CHAPTER 61

I WALK WITH LEON Blumenthal down some flights of stairs to a parking garage, then we take a sweaty drive in an unmarked police car north to West 35th Street and the Midtown Precinct South. It dawns on me that I was quite recently here. After the mugging at Penn Station.

When we enter, I immediately get the impression that Blumenthal is a pretty respected guy here. He walks the wide, gray corridors while handing out a lot of friendly nods. He takes me well past the room Willie and I sat in that evening, and deeper into the building.

“Go left here,” Blumenthal says. A stenciled plastic sign on a glass door is meant to spell out the words INTERROGATION ROOMS. Instead some clever asshole has blacked out the first seven letters of the sign and inked in SEGRA. So now it says SEGRAGATION ROOMS.

“Very classy signage,” I say. Then I add, “Ignore the fact that the word’s misspelled. What the hell does that mean?”

Blumenthal shrugs. “Who the hell knows?” he says. “A lot of angry, crazy people pass through every precinct in this city.”

We arrive at a door marked ROOM 1. Next to that door is another door. This second door is marked OBSERVATION ROOM 1.

“You wait out here for a minute, Lucy. I’m going in to clear you with the interviewer and, even more important, with the guy we’re interviewing.”

So it’s a guy.

Blumenthal knocks and enters. I immediately recognize Bobby Cilia’s voice coming from inside the room.

“Detective Leon Blumenthal enters the room at ten seventeen. Good morning—”

The door closes, and I’m left standing alone in the hall. Not many people are walking this hallway. One officer with one weeping woman in cuffs. Two officers walking together while both are looking at the screen of a cell phone.

I’m about to check my phone, but before I can punch in my code, a young and quite pretty woman appears next to me. The woman is blond and unnecessarily skinny. She is wearing a sundress—light, cotton, sleeveless, big red floral print on a white background—and carrying a chic brown Birkin bag. She speaks to me.

“Forget it.” She points to a sign: NO CELL PHONES IN INTERROGATION ROOMS.

“Wow,” I say. “I should read more. That sign is bigger than my car.”

Then she says, “Have you by any chance seen Leon Blumenthal slithering around here?”

“Yeah, he slithered into this room right here,” I say, pointing to the interrogation room.

“I’d better not interrupt. Leon hates that,” she says. At first it seems as if the woman is going to walk away with her sunny little sundress, in her heels with red soles, but then she stops.

“Hey,” she says. “I have to ask you something: are you Lucy Ryuan?”