Heather Graham - The Death Dealer

Ah, yes. The gangs of New York. Ever present. Then and now.

A little Yorkie passed him, yapping shrilly. He was tempted to kick the tiny beast into the traffic. Instead, he paused and said something complimentary to the dog’s pudgy owner, who blushed and chatted. He moved on quickly then, afraid she was going to try to give him her phone number.

He passed a police officer strolling his beat, and nodded a greeting. The officer nodded and smiled in return.

As he walked at a leisurely pace, he passed an electronics store. A giant plasma screen took up most of the display window. The news was on, so he paused to watch.

His heart was filled with glee. He longed to laugh aloud. Instead, he watched gravely as other people grouped around him on the sidewalk.

The entire city was still pondering the death of Thorne Bigelow.

Philanthropist.

Icon.

Brilliant man of letters.

Like hell!

Bastard. Braggart. Glutton. Idiot.

“What a horrible way to die,” someone said.

“It’s that book he wrote. He was killed because someone didn’t like his book on Poe,” a young woman said solemnly.

Her boyfriend slipped an arm around her shoulders. She was hugging something that looked like a mop. Maltese, Pekinese, some kind of “ese.” What was it with people and their obnoxious little dogs ruining his Saturday morning?

“It could have been anything,” the boyfriend said. “I mean, the man was a billionaire.”

The man was a bag of hot air. Gas. He was one big fart.

“Tragic,” he said aloud.

The boyfriend was shaking his head. “Did you know that one of the guys who got hurt in that pileup on the FDR was some friend of Bigelow’s?”

The girl shivered. “And that psychic said somebody else is going to die.”

“Think psychics really know the future?” he asked, turning to the couple.

“Oh, yes,” the girl said, and turned to look at him. Maybe a little too closely. “There are real psychics out there. People who see things. Who knows if that woman, that Lori Star, is really one of them, though. I mean, I never heard of her. She hasn’t written a book or anything. Anyway, it’s all so tragic, don’t you think?”

“Tragic,” he repeated, shaking his head.

And he moved on somberly, his head lowered.

His grin wide.

Yes, it was a beautiful day.

His grin suddenly faded.

It was bull. There weren’t really people out there who could see the future, who had second sight, who could share experiences as if they were in another person’s body and just…know things.

Were there?

He kept walking, pensive.

Maybe it wasn’t such a beautiful day after all.

“Thanks, guys, for taking the time to meet me,” Joe said.

They were at Gino’s Salads and Sandwiches, near One Police Plaza.

Times had changed. Once upon a time, Raif Green would have been wolfing down a hamburger anywhere that served up hot, greasy food. Tom Dooley would have chosen corned beef on rye.

But, as he had discovered when he called Raif, Tom Dooley had suffered a heart attack two years ago. No doughnuts for these cops anymore.

Raif had opted for the Greek salad, while Tom was nibbling his turkey, low-fat Swiss, lettuce and tomato on wheat, as if by taking small bites he could make the sandwich last longer.

Thomas Dooley was a big man. He’d lost weight since Joe had seen him last, but he was still six-four and just shy of three-hundred pounds. Raif wasn’t really all that small or thin—five-ten and one-eighty, maybe—but next to Tom Dooley, he looked like a midget.

Both men were in their early forties.

Both still had their hair.

They were like Laurel and Hardy in size and appearance, but there was nothing comedic about the work they did.

“Hey,” Raif said. “It’s Saturday, we should be off, but here we are—working. You know, this may be a democracy but Joe Schmo in the streets gets knocked off and it’s nine to five. Bigelow…well, he was a big cheese. No one is off until we solve this one.” He cast Joe a crooked grin. “At least we can eat light and fit, with you picking up the tab. There’s the problem with heart-healthy. It’s expensive.”

“I’d kill for a fry,” Tom said. His round face was deceptive. He looked so amiable, but in an interrogation room, he was about as amiable as King Kong on steroids.

“So, one day, order some fries,” Raif said.

Tom shook his head. “My wife would kill me.”

“Is your wife here, Tom?” Raif demanded.

“I swear, that woman should be the detective. She’s got surveillance everywhere,” Raif said, shaking his head. “Hell. She’s got eyes in the flipping lettuce, I swear.”

“We’re getting old. Talking about food,” Raif said to Joe.

“The way of the world,” Joe assured him. “Your wife just wants you alive, Tom.”

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “Man, this is rabbit food, though.”

Joe nodded sympathetically, and asked, “What’s your take on the Poe angle? Motive or smoke screen?”

“So far?” Raif wiped his mouth with his paper napkin. “So far, we don’t have a hell of a lot to go on. What you saw in the papers is pretty much what we have. I wanted to conceal the note, but there was a leak—not a big surprise, there were uniforms all over the place before we got there. The crime-scene guys had a nightmare, trying to figure it all out. First the son gets there and gets hysterical, then the sister-in-law…and the butler, to boot. Everyone decides they’re going to save him. People calling 9-1-1, med techs all over. It looked like he’d had a heart attack or something.”

“What’s the deal on the butler?” Joe asked.

Raif shook his head. “You think it might be as easy as the butler did it? I don’t think so. He’s a skinny old English guy, and he was totally shaken. His name is Albee Bennet. He was in tears when we interviewed him, and he didn’t know a thing. He has his own little apartment in the building, and he was there napping when it happened. Never saw or heard anything.”

“You believe him?” Joe asked.

“Yes,” Raif said.

“I believed him, too. You know, it’s that sixth sense you get about people after doing this job for so many years,” Tom said.

“So, he was there. And the son?”

“First one on the scene. He’d been out. But he lived there—came and went all the time,” Tom told him.

“What’s your take on him?” Joe asked.

Raif shrugged. “His tears seemed real, too. Young guy, early thirties. We asked around, and it seems he and his dad didn’t have any major problems.”

“The sister-in-law?” Joe asked.

“Mary Vincenzo. His late-brother’s wife,” Tom said.

“You’ll interview her, I’m sure,” Raif said dryly. “But I don’t see it. She’s real thin, one of those nervous types. Wealthy in her own right. The brother left her part of the family fortune already.”

“You should have seen them wiping their lips when they heard it was poison,” Tom commented, shaking his head.

The concept of poison didn’t in the least deter him from his enjoyment of his sandwich.

“Sorry, I just want to hear it beginning-to-end. The med techs were there? How soon did they discover that it was a crime scene, if everyone thought it was a heart attack?” Joe asked.

“Pretty darned quick, thanks to one of the bright boys with fire rescue,” Raif informed him. “He stopped them from moving the body when he noticed it was cold. But, actually, they were right to think it. I mean, say your grandmother or someone in your house dies in the middle of the night, and you call 9-1-1. They’re taught to try mouth-to-mouth. Even if you’re sure they’re dead. Anyway, the body is cold, and this kid is bright. And because it’s an unexplained death, he tells the head guy on his team that they need the cops. The cops come, and then the medical examiner’s office gets out there. Doc Arbitter is on, and he figures out it could be poison in the wine. So at least there’s photo documentation of just about everything. Everything after the family and EMTs have moved everything to hell and gone.”