“For Chrissake!” Angelo whispered. “What’s the matter with you? This is no time for screwing around.”
“I don’t like that witch looking at us.”
“Get over here!” Angelo ordered. He looked away from Tony, shaking his head. That’s when he caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman’s silhouette dashing by the wire-embedded, smoked glass of a door to the fire stairs.
It took Angelo a second to appreciate what was happening. “Come on,” he said as soon as it hit him. “She’s going down the back stairs!”
Angelo ran over to the stairwell door and yanked it open. Tony sprinted through. They both halted momentarily at the banister and peered down a dirty stairwell that dropped in a series of short flights to the ground floor five stories below. They could see Laurie several floors lower and hear the echo of her heels on the bare concrete treads.
“Get her before she reaches the street,” Angelo snarled.
Tony took off like a rabbit, taking the stairs four at a time. He gained steadily on Laurie, but wasn’t able to catch her before she went through a door on the ground floor leading to the backyard.
Tony reached the door before it had a chance to swing shut. He pushed through to the outside and found himself in a rubble-strewn backyard overgrown with weeds. He could hear Laurie’s running footsteps echo as she sprinted down a narrow passageway leading to the street. Leaping over a short handrail, Tony ran after her. Laurie was only twenty feet away. He’d have her in a moment.
Laurie had known that she’d not slipped out unnoticed and that the police were behind her. She’d heard them coming down the stairwell. As she fled, she’d questioned the advisability of having done so. But, having started, she couldn’t stop. Now that she’d run, she was even more determined not to be caught. She knew that resisting arrest was a crime in and of itself. On top of that, the thought of whether they were bona fide police crossed her mind.
As she mounted the final steps to the street, Laurie knew that one of her pursuers was almost on her. At the lip of the steps, pushed against the wall of the building, was a collection of old, dented, metal garbage cans. In a fit of desperation Laurie grabbed the top edge of one and pulled it behind her, sending it clattering down the steps to the floor of the pass-through to the backyard.
Seeing her pursuer stumble on the can and fall, Laurie quickly rolled the rest of the cans to the lip of the stairs and sent them crashing down. A few pedestrians passing on the street slowed their pace at this spectacle, but none stopped and no one said anything.
Hoping that her pursuer was momentarily occupied, Laurie ran down to First Avenue. She praised her luck as the first cab she saw came over to her and stopped. Completely out of breath, Laurie jumped in and yelled that she wanted to go to Thirtieth Street.
As the taxi accelerated into the traffic, Laurie was afraid to look back. She was also trembling, wondering what she had done now. As she thought about the consequences of resisting arrest, she changed her mind about her destination. She leaned forward and told the driver that she wanted to go to police headquarters instead of Thirtieth Street.
The driver didn’t say anything as he turned left to head over to Second Avenue. Laurie sat back and tried to relax. Her chest was still heaving.
As they worked their way south on Second Avenue, Laurie had a change of heart again. Worrying that Lou might not be at police headquarters, Laurie decided her first destination was better. Scooting forward again, she told the driver. This time he cursed but turned left to go back to First Avenue.
As she’d done with the previous cab, Laurie had this driver turn on Thirtieth and pull into the morgue loading area. She was relieved to see that Bingham’s car had left. After paying the fare, she ran into the morgue.
Tony paid the driver and got out of the cab. Angelo’s car was where they’d left it, with Angelo behind the wheel. Tony climbed in.
“Well?” Angelo asked.
“I missed her,” Tony said.
“That much is clear,” Angelo said. “Where is she?”
“She tried to lose me,” Tony said. “She had her driver make a loop. But I stayed with her. She went back to the medical examiner’s office.”
Angelo leaned forward and started his car. “Cerino doesn’t know how right he was when he said that this girl could be trouble. We’ll have to nab her from the medical examiner’s office.”
“Maybe it will be easier there,” Tony suggested. “Shouldn’t be many people there at this hour.”
“It better go more smoothly than it did here,” Angelo said as he looked back before pulling out into the street.
They rode up First Avenue in silence. Angelo had to hand one thing to Tony: at least he was fast on his feet.
Angelo turned onto Thirtieth Street and killed the engine. He wasn’t happy to be back at the medical examiner’s office again. But what choice did they have? There could be no more screw-ups.
“What’s the plan?” Tony asked eagerly.
“I’m thinking,” Angelo said. “Obviously she wasn’t so impressed with our police badges.”
Laurie felt relatively safe in the dark, deserted medical examiner’s building. She got into her office and locked the door behind her. The first thing she did was dial Lou’s home number. She was pleased when he picked up on the first ring.
“Am I glad to hear from you,” Lou said the moment Laurie identified herself.
“Not as glad as I am to get you.”
“Where are you?” Lou asked. “I’ve been calling your apartment every five minutes. If I hear your answering machine message one more time, I’ll scream.”
“I’m at my office,” Laurie said. “There’s been some trouble.”
“I heard,” Lou said. “I’m sorry about your being fired. Is it final or will you get a hearing?”
“It’s final at the moment. But that’s not why I called. Two men came to my apartment door a few minutes ago. They were policemen. I got scared and ran. I think I’m in big trouble.”
“Uniformed policemen?” Lou asked.
“No,” Laurie said. “They were in street clothes. Suits.”
“That’s strange,” Lou said. “I can’t imagine any of my boys going to your apartment. What were their names?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Laurie said.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t ask them their names,” Lou said. “That’s ridiculous. You should have gotten their names and badge numbers and called the police to check on them. I mean, how do you know they were really police?”
“I didn’t think of getting their names,” Laurie said. “I asked to see their badges.”
“Come on, Laurie,” Lou complained. “You’ve lived in New York too long to act like that. You should know better.”
“All right!” Laurie snapped. She was still overwrought. The last thing she needed from Lou was a lecture. “What should I do now?”
“Nothing,” Lou said. “I’ll check into it. Meanwhile, if anybody else shows up, get their names and badge numbers. Do you think you can remember that?”
Laurie wondered if Lou was deliberately trying to provoke her. She tried to remain calm. This was no time to let him get to her. “Let’s change the subject,” she said. “There’s something even more important we have to talk about. I think I’ve come up with an explanation about my cocaine overdose/toxicity cases, and it involves someone you know. I finally even have some evidence that I think you’ll find convincing. Maybe you should come over here now. I want to show you some preliminary DNA matches. Obviously I can’t meet you here in the daytime.”
“What a coincidence,” Lou said. “Sounds like we’ve both made some progress. I think I’ve solved my gangland murder cases. I wanted to run it by you.”
“How did you manage to solve them?”
“I went by to see your boyfriend, Jordan,” Lou said. “In fact I saw him a couple of times today. I think he’s getting tired of me.”