David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

“This is unbelievable,” I say. “How did you find the time to do all this?”

“Hey, come on, you give me a job, I do it.”

“Have you gotten any sleep?”

“Of course,” he says. “In fact, last night I was trying to finish, but my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, so I had to stop for the night.”

He’s doing the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” and it’s a sign of my level of maturity that I feel a hint of excitement about it. I’m an Eagles fan, and when it comes to their lyrics, I can song-talk anybody under the table.

“I would think it must have been hard to pick it up again in the morning,” I say. “You had to find the passage back to the place you were before.”

He smiles slightly. The battle has been joined. But while we’re battling, I’d also like to hear about the Timmermans. I ask Sam if he noticed anything that seemed unusual.

“If we were talking about my world, everything would be unusual. For them, who knows?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Timmerman probably made a hundred international calls in the week before he died. Europe, Middle East… he spread it around. And every call was to a different number; he never repeated the same number. Not once.”

“How do you read that?” I ask.

“Either he or the people he was calling didn’t want anybody to find out who it was. My guess is that the calls were routed to one, or maybe a few, numbers, but in a way that couldn’t be traced.”

I nod; it’s possible he’s right, or it could be that Timmerman was just calling a lot of different people. “What else?”

“He had twenty million dollars wired to him from the Bank of Switzerland a week before he died. Now, he didn’t need it to eat, believe me, but it’s still a nice piece of change.”

“Anything about what he was working on in those final weeks?”

“No, and there’s a bunch of e-mails where people were asking him about it. There was no way he was sharing it with anybody; it was like he put up a wall. But he kept telling people that he had no time to see them, or go out, because he was so busy. It’s all here.”

“What about the wife?” I ask.

“She spent money like the world was coming to an end. You name the store, she spent a fortune there. Jewelry, cars… unbelievable.”

“I know the type,” I say. “Her mind was Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends.”

He smiles. “And my guess is she got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she called friends.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She made twelve phone calls to a hotel in New York in the six weeks before her husband died, one of those places that’s so hip they can charge seven hundred bucks a night. And she was there at least twice; she bought drinks on her credit card in their bar.”

“Do we know who she called or went to see?” I ask.

“Nope. No way to tell from this. That’s going to be up to you. But if you get me a name, I’ll take his life apart.”

“Maybe somebody at the hotel will remember her,” I say.

He smiles. “That’s my boy; you can do it. Go get ’em.”

“Your confidence is touching. I can feel my eyes filling up with tears.”

He laughs. “I mean it. I got a peaceful easy feeling, and I know you won’t let me down. ’Cause I’m already standing…”

“You’re already standing?”

He nods. “Yes, I’m already standing on the ground.”

I laugh. “All right, Sam, I want to go though this stuff, so get the hell out of here.”

He nods. “Right, boss.” He gets up, goes to the door and opens it, but then walks back to me.

“Now what?” I ask.

“Sorry, but every time I try to walk away, something makes me turn around and stay.”

This could go on forever; the Eagles have had a long career. “Sam, I’ve got work to do, beat it.”

He nods. “Okay. But all of this is gonna help you with the case, right?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What does that mean?” he asks.

I point to the papers. “It means, depending on what I find out, this could be heaven or this could be hell.”

I WALK IN THE DOOR and see Laurie coming down the steps to greet me.

She is holding on to the railing and trying to keep her shaky legs steady. She smiles when she sees me, and this causes her to momentarily lose her concentration. She starts to fall, and I can see the panic as she grabs for the railing.

As I so often do in situations like this, I just stand paralyzed, watching. She is unable to regain her balance and falls down the last three steps, landing with a thud on the floor.

Now that it is too late, I rush to her. “Laurie, are you okay?”

“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” she screams, pounding the floor. “Andy, I can’t stand being like this!”

“Really?” I ask. “I thought you were very graceful. Are you hurt?”

She pauses for a while before answering, as she assesses her own condition. “I don’t think so. Just frustrated and embarrassed.”

“Where’s the nurse?”

“I sent her home. I wanted things to be back to normal tonight.”

I help her over to the couch, and though she staggers slightly, she seems to be okay. Tara and Waggy immediately take advantage of the situation to jump on the couch and snuggle next to her, their heads coming to rest on each of her thighs.

Laurie starts to laugh at how quickly they’ve assumed the comfortable positions, and she pets both of them on their heads. It is amazing how comforting dogs can be.

I didn’t see Marcus outside when I arrived, but that doesn’t surprise me. Marcus has a way of not appearing to be somewhere until he needs to be there, and I’ve learned to have confidence in that. I’ve given him a key, so he can come in and out when he pleases, but I know when he’s been inside, because the refrigerator is empty.

“You sure you should be out of bed?” I ask.

“Yes, Andy. Despite my embarrassing performance on the stairs, I’m doing okay. I’m not an invalid.”

“Okay. Good.”

“I can do things. Really,” she says.

“Great. Make me dinner, woman.”

“Except that.”

“Okay. Let’s get naked.”

“And except that.”

I nod. “So, to rephrase, you can do anything except good stuff.”

She smiles. “Right. And I’m especially good at thinking.”

“What have you been thinking about?”

“Going home. Getting back to work.”

That was not exactly what I was hoping she’d say. “You’re not ready for that, Laurie. You must know that.”

She nods. “I do. But I have this need to get back to real life.”

“Living here is fake life?”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Andy, this is coming out wrong. I love it here, and I love being with you. I just can’t stand being helpless like this. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”

“Laurie, it feels like yesterday that you were in a coma, and you were… fighting for your life.” My voice catches on these last few words; just the thought of that first night in the hospital is enough to reduce me to a sniveling, unmanly wreck. “You’re doing great.”

“I know. I’m just impatient.”

“So how can I make you less impatient?”

“Maybe you can let me help you with the case. I can read through the files, maybe come up with some ideas. It will give me something to think about, and there’s a chance I can contribute something.”

This is an easy one for me; Laurie is as good an investigator as I’ve ever been around, and it can’t do anything but help to have a mind like hers on our side. “Absolutely. That’s a great idea.”

“I know I can’t come down to the office yet, but-”