Law & Order Dead Line Read online

  “She was on cloud nine the last time I talked to her,” said Atterby. Most of the others hadn’t seen her for several weeks. One saw her in a coffee shop, but didn’t get a chance to talk.

  “You think if her book got turned down, she might have…?”

  “Killed herself?” said Atterby.

  “Gotten depressed, let’s say,” said Briscoe.

  “She was a strong woman!” said Atterby. “Isn’t that right?” The women nodded. “She’d have been disappointed. I don’t know what I would do, but I know she would pick herself up and go back at it twice as hard!”

  This set the crying woman to bawling. Briscoe raised an eyebrow at Green, his “Oh God, that’s enough” signal.

  “We’ll get in touch if there’s anything more,” said Green.

  “Will you let us know what happened?” asked Atterby.

  “That bastard hired someone to throw her off the roof,” said Patterson. “You can bet on it. She didn’t kill herself.”

  “We never said she did,” said Briscoe. “All we know so far is that she fell.”

  Patterson rolled her eyes.

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  “Is there anything you know about this you haven’t said?” Green asked Patterson. “Rumors about Mr.

  Chesko? Anything Barbara might have told you?”

  “All I know,” said Patterson, “is that money can buy more than bimbos. There are people in this city who’d murder anybody for a buck ninety-five.”

  “And don’t we know it,” said Briscoe. “But was Barbara afraid for her life or anything like that?”

  “If you want to know if I can tell you anything specific, well, no. I can’t. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I know a thing or two.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” said Green.

  “If you think of anything,” Briscoe said, passing out cards, “give us a call, ladies.”

  The door closed behind them.

  “‘Ladies’?” asked Green, pushing the elevator button. “One of them will probably file a complaint.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say ‘girls,’ did I?”

  “They’re just a group of people with a common interest.”

  “And knives in their fanny packs. You think they didn’t resent her for lining up Kirstner and Strawn?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You need a couple of ex-wives,” Briscoe laughed.

  “You’re a bitter man, Lennie Briscoe. Bitterer than they are.”

  “Thank you for sharing that, Ed. I’ll try to have pleasant dreams.”

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  SQUAD ROOM

  27TH PRECINCT

  MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 9:56 A.M.

  Van Buren appeared out of nowhere, looming over Briscoe and Green’s desks with a Diet Sprite and a granola bar. “Tell me you’ve wrapped up the jumper. I need help on that drive-by.”

  Briscoe raised his head from the smoked turkey sandwich he had split with Green and swallowed.

  “Curiouser and curiouser. There’s something hinkey about it.”

  “You think Santonio pushed her?”

  “We’re not sure,” said Green. “We checked into the details on the pilfering. There was a batch of small robberies—seven to be exact—at the Waterloo starting in April. A couple of wallets, purses, video cameras, a Nikon, that kind of thing. The guests were out of the room. The pilfering ended about a month later.”

  “The Santonios?”

  “They were there during that period, but they were also there before the pilfering and after. The manage-ment suspected a bellhop named Michael Donelly.

  The thieving started a week after he was hired and stopped when he was busted for possession.”

  “Could he have come back?”

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  “He was voluntarily deported back to Ireland. He was in jail in Derry on the day Mrs. Chesko died.”

  “So it doesn’t rule out Santonio. Are we going to charge him with murder? You’re homicide detectives.

  If there’s no crime, don’t waste the time.”

  “We can’t even prove he was in the room,” said Green. “The DNA is back already.”

  “Already? They’ve improved!”

  “It was a no-brainer,” said Briscoe. “They haven’t finished the full workup, but the blood type doesn’t match. Whoever had sex with Barbara Chesko was an O. Santonio is AB.”

  “So we can’t place Santonio in the room,” said Green.

  “He might have told his wife,” said Van Buren.

  “If we could find her.” Briscoe exploded his fingers.

  “Poof! Thin air.”

  “She’ll try to contact him, don’t you think? Their phone?”

  “They can’t afford one. There are fingerprints all over the hotel room, but neither Santonios’ are there.

  Bunches of others.” Briscoe shook his head. “I’m telling you, the guy is confessing to cover up for the mother of his child.”

  “So, you really believe he found the laptop in a trash can?”

  Green reached to his desk and opened the lower file drawer. The security tapes from the Waterloo were stacked behind the file divider. “They don’t cover the hallways, just the entrances. The lobby, basically, and the café.”

  “We haven’t gone through all seventy-two hours yet,” said Briscoe, “but somebody who resembles 64

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  Guillermo goes to empty the trash about the time he said.”

  “Which is actually the time he does it,” added Green.

  “What do you mean ‘resembles’?” said Van Buren.

  “The tapes are really lousy,” said Briscoe. “They haven’t bought new ones since the Betamax went South. And I think there’s dust on the lens. It goes in and out. It’s like watching reruns of Birth of a Nation in a blizzard.”

  “Not only that,” said Green, “the camera’s not in position for a good look at the trash can where Guillermo says he found the laptop. The camera’s aimed at the front desk, of course. The trash can is behind the corner of the desk area.”

  “They weren’t expecting anyone to rob the trash,”

  said Briscoe.

  “We can see Guillermo cross the lobby with his cart at eight-twenty something, but we can’t see whether he finds the laptop.”

  “He says he hid it in the bottom of his cart,” said Briscoe. “You can see him bend over, but not what he’s doing.”

  Van Buren shook her head. “Look, fellows, we don’t even have a good circumstantial case for murder.

  Maybe we should just charge him with the theft.”

  “You know,” said Briscoe, “that’s even a stretch. It was Ermilia who pawned the laptop. Nobody else has ever even seen Guillermo with it.”

  “All he’s got to do is say he confessed to protect his wife,” said Green.

  “He doesn’t have to say anything if we can’t corrob-orate any detail of the confession.” Van Buren thought a moment. “But maybe he’ll just plead, go on proba-65

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  tion, and later we’ll get something more. Meantime, you keep trying to find Mrs. Santonio.”

  Green caught Van Buren looking at his half of the sandwich, which he hadn’t touched. “You want this?

  I’m not hungry.”

  “No,” she said sharply.

  “I think the missus took it,” said Briscoe, “but that doesn’t mean she pushed Chesko.”

  “There’s no reason she might not have gotten desperate and pushed Chesko. Maybe she told this to Guillermo and that’s why he’s covering up. We’d better get something. The D.A.’s office doesn’t think he’ll be held very long. Maybe the end of the day.”

  “And he can walk out the door and disappear with Ermilia,” said Briscoe.

  “Exactly,” said Van Buren.

  “A suspect to a murder?” said Green.

  “What murder?” said Briscoe. “You don’t have to be a judge to think like one.”
r />   “I don’t know what else we can do,” said Green.

  “We have no leads on her. We could see if Guillermo calls her from jail, but, you know, if this is a suicide, what’s the point?”

  She crumpled the wrapper of her granola bar and glanced at Green’s half sandwich again. “Do we have any idea who’s the donor of the fluid on the bedspread?”

  “Not a clue,” said Green. “Her friends don’t know of anyone she dated. Nor her neighbors. A lonely, middle-aged woman. Dumped by her husband. No love interest. It smells like a suicide.”

  “Now I know it doesn’t always go to form,” said Briscoe, “but she had sex and then committed suicide?

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  And, then, she was really working hard to be an author.”

  “Twenty-five rejections’ worth,” said Green.

  “I can’t picture her suffering through that many turndowns only to kill herself before she gets to Barnes and Noble.”

  Van Buren’s lips pursed to her most skeptical expression. “I thought that’s what authors and artists did. It makes them immortal.” She paced one step in each direction. “Well, then, wrap it up. Likely suicide, whatever.”

  “You sure you don’t want this sandwich?” asked Green.

  “No!” said Van Buren. She glanced at Briscoe.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t want the sandwich. Is that a big deal?”

  Briscoe shook his head. “That isn’t what I was thinking.”

  “Here we go,” said Green.

  “I’m just thinking we’re going at this wrong,” said Briscoe.

  “Make my day,” said Van Buren, crossing her arms.

  “Maybe one of the Santonios stole the laptop, maybe one of them found it. But so what? There’s the ex. He was tired of supporting her,” said Briscoe.

  “I can’t shake the feeling there’s something with the ex.”

  “You ‘can’t shake the feeling’? Do you have any concrete reason why he should want her dead? Husbands off their wives. Abandoned wives are usually not the problem. The guy has moved.”

  “Ten thou a month,” said Briscoe, “is a lot of typing paper.”

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  “One hundred percent cotton paper,” said Green.

  “So he goes to court and gets the payment modi-fied,” said the lieutenant. “Rich guys use lawyers to do their dirty work.”

  “Maybe he was trying to reconcile with her,” said Briscoe. “That’s a good way to stop paying.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “Very funny,” said Briscoe.

  “All I’m hearing is ‘maybe’ this and ‘maybe’ that.

  Does he look dirty? Big insurance? Anything like that?”

  Briscoe shrugged. “We’ll check it out. He could use the dough, he says.”

  “If I don’t hear something better, we’re closing this file.”

  “The ex has another motive,” said Green. “Barbara was writing a nasty book about her married life with Ralph, a.k.a. Bill Shaft.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Green held up the manuscript. “Mr. Chesko may not have been the kind of man who inspires women to forget his weaknesses.”

  Briscoe mopped a blob of mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth. “We gather from talking to the woman’s writing group that it hits below the belt.

  Embarrassing personal stuff. Maybe lily wilting and such.”

  “And this would make him kill her? What does it say?”

  “Well,” said Green, “we haven’t read it straight through.”

  “Not enough pictures for me,” said Briscoe.

  “But it rakes him over the coals. And there was a good chance of it being published.”

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  Van Buren looked at the title page. “Shafted?”

  “See? She loves it,” said Briscoe.

  “Oh, right!” said Van Buren.

  “It’ll go to the top of the Times chick-book charts.”

  “Don’t give me a motive to murder you,” she said.

  Green rocked back in his chair. “Never mind the humiliation factor,” he said, rubbing his chin. “What about the growth fund? What if she threatened to say something about his business?”

  “Like she casually drops the passwords for his Swiss bank account? Something like that?”

  “Maybe not that, but maybe how he snatched the loot, something that reveals fraud or embezzlement or insider trading.”

  “Did he read the book?” asked Van Buren.

  “I don’t know. He acts like the thing isn’t very important, but that might mean he’s trying to keep us from reading it.”

  “Hell,” said Briscoe, “the writers’ group has heard at least some of the thing, and she was sending copies all around town. Wouldn’t somebody notice it was incriminating?”

  “We’re not talking about murder. It’s not like she’s accusing him of killing her brother or stealing the Mona Lisa. Anybody would notice that. But if there’s something in the manuscript that lays out his business practices, something the editors and the writing group wouldn’t recognize…. Some accounting thing or something. Anyone else might think it’s just business talk in a novel about a businessman.”

  “But if he read it, he’d recognize it immediately,”

  said Van Buren. “These finance guys have to take a number to get into court these days.”

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  of people think Chesko pulled something with the growth fund. As long as he was paying to finance her fantasy life, maybe she didn’t feel any particular calling to squeal on him.”

  Van Buren raised her hands. “I’m still hearing

  ‘maybe.’”

  “What if she tried to blackmail him?”

  “It’s still maybe, but it’s an interesting one.”

  “She wasn’t timid about turning Ralph Chesko into Bill Shaft,” Briscoe reminded her, “and freely discussing his, ah, shortcomings.” He waggled his head.

  “True,” said Van Buren, “but I like the money angle better. If it was just about humiliating him, why’d it take him six months to react?”

  “The book wasn’t about to be published,” said Green.

  “Maybe you should find out exactly what the story is on the growth fund,” said Van Buren.

  “You sure you don’t want the sandwich?” asked Green.

  Van Buren snatched up the pickle that lay beside the sandwich. “Get something or get off it,” she said, holding the pickle like a blackjack. She spun and marched back toward her office.

  “Dieting,” whispered Green.

  “I heard that!” said Van Buren as her door slammed.

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  SECURITY AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

  DIVISION OF ENFORCEMENT OFFICE

  233 BROADWAY

  MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2:00 P.M.

  S.E.C. Supervisor Milt McKinney hung up the phone and laced his fingers. “I told you it would be routine getting clearance,” he said. “But I have to follow the rules, and nothing goes out of this room.”

  “We understand,” said Briscoe.

  “The file is on the way in,” McKinney said. “At this point, I can’t let you read it or give you copies or anything, but Washington will clear it if it’s a part of a homicide investigation and I’m clear to discuss the details.”

  “We appreciate it,” said Green.

  “I don’t think you’ll find it very interesting, though.

  I could understand if Chesko himself had been murdered,” he smiled. “If I’d lost as much of your money as Chesko had lost for his clients, you might be gunning for me.”

  “How much are we talking about?” asked Briscoe.

  “Well,” said McKinney, “Chesko managed the High-Yield Monticello Growth Fund for the Monticello Investment Group. He was another one of those
‘financial geniuses’ for a while.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

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  “I mean he was lucky. Over a three-year period, he was a point and a half ahead of any other growth fund. There were articles in Forbes and The Street.com about him. He made the cover of Money and was interviewed by everybody. The fund’s assets shot up to nearly five hundred million at one point.”

  “He took care of five hundred million?”

  McKinney nodded. “Managed it. We’re not talking about a detective’s retirement fund.”

  “So, naturally,” said Briscoe, “his clients were disappointed when it tanked.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said McKinney. “When it dropped, the investors immediately began calling.

  The American Federation of Wire and Spring Workers lost a major chunk of their pension fund. You probably saw that in the papers. In today’s climate, they assumed it couldn’t happen without Chesko’s doing something illegal. Really, they just wanted their pound of flesh. They accused him of churning, misrepresent-ing proceeds, skimming, breach of fiduciary responsibility—you name it. We even looked into the possibility that the Monticello Group had committed a fail-ure to supervise. When we found nothing substantial, they screamed that Monticello or Chesko or both had bought us, the vice president of the United States, and on and on.”

  “Besides the Wire Workers, who else invested?”

  asked Green.

  “I can get you a list, but keep in mind it’s embarrassing for an investor to lose this much. And, after all, there were no illegalities.”

  “I notice you keep saying there was nothing illegal,”

  said Briscoe. “Anything slightly shady, but not strictly illegal?”

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  “Well,” said McKinney, “‘financial geniuses’ like Chesko normally dance along the edge. If a guy’s going fifty-seven in a fifty-five zone, do you ticket him or not? Usually not. Chesko pushed the envelope, but he never tore it. There wasn’t—”

  The door opened and a woman brought in a file.

  “Here it is,” said McKinney. He thanked her and she left. A scent of cinnamon dawdled behind her.

  “Did you suspect anything you couldn’t prove, or was it that he really was clean?”

  McKinney opened the file. “That’s like asking whether someone is innocent, isn’t it? No adult human being is innocent. But many of them are not guilty of specific crimes.”