“Warts and all,” Barbara said slowly. “Are you sure you want to go there?”
“And I haven’t mentioned perhaps the most important thing of all,” Glover said. “You’d be looking at a mid-six-figure fee. With the potential for bonuses should the book stay on the bestseller list for an extended period of time.” He grinned. “Or if anyone ever wanted to turn it into a movie. You know. A biopic. Despite your little speech, it could happen.”
Headley had the decency to blush. Barbara figured even he had to know that was over the top. She poked the inside of her cheek with her tongue. “Golly. That’s something.”
Headley leaned forward, lowered his voice, as if they were the only two in the car. He locked eyes with her and said, “I believe, despite our differences, we could work together.”
Barbara appeared to consider the offer as the mayor leaned back in his seat. “I could probably carve out some time from my Manhattan Today duties.” An eyebrow went up as she looked at the mayor. “Maybe weekends?”
“Oh,” said Glover, who had glanced down for two seconds to read a text on his phone. “Working on this book would be a full-time proposition. At least for the duration of the project, which I think would take the better part of a year. Wouldn’t you agree, Valerie?”
“I would,” she said.
“Jesus.” It was the driver. They all looked forward up Third, through the windshield — Barbara and Glover and Chris had to turn around in their seats — to see the traffic stopped dead at Fifty-Eighth. Police cars blocked any further passage northward. The limo driver snaked the car between some taxis, heading straight for the makeshift barricade of emergency vehicles. He powered down the window as a police officer approached.
“You can’t—”
The driver said, “I got the mayor here.”
The cop leaned forward to peer into the back to be sure, then nodded and waved them through. But it wasn’t possible to go much farther. Emergency vehicles clogged the street.
Glover, waving his phone, said, “Latest is three dead, not four. Elevator dropped at least twenty floors. No word yet on the survivor’s condition.”
Headley nodded solemnly.
“We’ll walk from here, David,” Valerie told the man behind the wheel.
The limo came to a dead stop. The driver jumped out and opened the door on the mayor’s side.
Chris Vallins opened his door and, once out, extended a hand to Barbara to help her out. Her first inclination would have been to refuse. I can get out myself, thank you very much. But some other, perhaps more primal, instinct overruled that inclination, and she accepted the offer. His grip was strong, his arm rigid enough.
“Thank you,” she said.
Vallins nodded.
Glover had gotten out the other side and ran around to Barbara. Quietly, he said, “It was my idea.”
“I’m sorry?”
“About the book. To see if you’d be interested. My father took some convincing. I think you’d be perfect.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Barbara said.
“No, it’s not like that. You’d do a good job.” His voice went even softer. “I’d never admit this to Dad, but I’ve admired your work for a long time.”
She hardly knew what to make of that.
They caught up to the rest of the group as they walked toward the office tower where, it appeared, the accident had occurred.
“Son of a bitch,” Headley said, more to himself than anyone else.
“What?” Valerie asked.
“Morris Lansing’s building,” he said. Valerie looked at her boss blankly, clearly not immediately recognizing the name. “Seriously?” he said.
A CBS camera crew spotted the mayor and zeroed in on him.
“Mr. Mayor!” someone shouted. “Do you know when this elevator was last inspected?”
A camera was in his face. Headley looked appropriately grim.
“Look, I’ve only just arrived, and haven’t been briefed, but I can assure you I’ll be speaking to all the involved parties and bringing all the powers of my office to bear on...”
Barbara slipped through the media throng and headed for the main doors in time to see the paramedics wheel out a gurney with a bloodied woman strapped to it.
“Make way!” one of them shouted, and the crowd scattered so that they could reach the open doors of the waiting ambulance.
The gurney passed within a few feet of Barbara, who got a look first at the woman’s sneakers, and then, as she was hustled past, her face.
Barbara only caught a glimpse of her. Two seconds, tops.
But it was long enough.
“Paula,” Barbara whispered.
Four
Detectives Jerry Bourque and Lois Delgado decided to split up duties.
Delgado was going to look for overnight surveillance video. There were cameras on the High Line and undoubtedly on nearby buildings. She was also going to be tracking down the city workers responsible for locking up access to the High Line at the end of the day to ask whether they had seen anything that, in retrospect, might seem important.
Bourque would check reports of any missing person whose description might match their victim. He also had an idea where to get a lead on those shark socks.
After the chief medical examiner had arrived, the body would be moved to the Manhattan forensic pathology center, where a DNA sample would be retrieved. If the deceased’s genetic ID was on file, they’d know with certainty who he was. The only problem, of course, was that it could take weeks or months to get those results. Fingerprints would have been a faster route, but that was obviously not an option this time.
An autopsy would tell them more about how those fingertips were removed, and how, exactly, the man had died. Those blows to the head, most likely, Bourque figured. When the lab was done scouring the man’s body for clues, his clothes would be searched and analyzed.
A four-block-long stretch of the High Line was to remain closed for the day as forensic experts examined every inch of it. Maybe they’d be able to pull up a shoe print with a hint of blood on it. The rain might not have washed away everything. Maybe the killer had dropped something. Handrails on the stairs at access points north and south of the scene were to be searched for blood traces, and dusted for fingerprints, although that was not expected to produce much in the way of results, considering thousands of people touched those handrails every single day.
Officers were dispatched to knock on the doors of every single apartment along the High Line with a view of that curved bench. Any apartment where no one was home through the day was to be revisited that evening. Bourque also wanted someone there after midnight to make note of apartments that remained lit right through till morning. One of those night owls might have been looking out the window at just the right time.
I’m doing okay, he thought. I got through all that just fine. As long as I don’t think about it, I’ll—
Which, of course, made him think about it.
About those drops. Blood drops. Falling like red rain onto the lips of that—
“Jerry?” Delgado said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You off?”
“Yeah, I’ll catch up with you later,” Bourque said, feeling his throat start to constrict.
Bourque headed for his car. Once he was behind the wheel, he took another hit off the inhaler. He held his breath for ten seconds as he slipped the device back into his pocket, then glanced at his watch.