“Then she’s still at large!”
“But the trail is cold. Salinas started the initial paperwork on finding her, requested a warrant for her banks records, her ATM and credit card charges. But we’re not officially on the case, so we’re going to do it another way.”
“Another way?”
“Yes, Clare. We’ll find her another way. I promise.”
“I’m sorry, Mike.” I massaged the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t mean to yell just now. I—”
He cut me off with a terse, “Forget it.”
After a long pause, I asked, “Where do we go from here?”
“We start wherever the trail ended. I have the last known address for Brigitte Rouille. It’s in Washington Heights.”
“Salinas is still suspicious of Brigitte, right?”
“Not anymore. She was a person of interest in the death of Vincent Buccelli, but last night he learned about Joy’s arrest and the details of Keitel’s murder. Salinas is now looking to charge your daughter with a second murder.”
I closed my eyes, hating the sound of the inevitable. “Both men were killed in the same manner,” I rasped, “chef’s knives plunged vertically into the base of the throat. Both men had relationships with Joy—one a lover, one a friend. Joy found both bodies. Oh, Mike…”
The room started a slow spin. I sank into a chair at the kitchen table, dropped my forehead into my hand.
“Clare, listen to me. We’re going to find Brigitte Rouille. We’re going to do it together. Give me a few hours, and I’ll pick you up at your coffeehouse. Okay?”
Mike’s confident, assertive voice sounded far away, like it was coming from another solar system. The room was still spinning; I had trouble thinking, forming words.
“Clare! Okay?”
The detective’s deep shout jolted me awake again. My mind began to clear; my focus returned. I lifted my head.
“Okay,” I said.
We bade each other good-bye, and I hung up. Then I rose from the chair and bolted my third cuppa nerves. If there was a solution to this horrific mess, I had to find it for my daughter’s sake. With Mike Quinn on my side, I might have a chance.
Putting down the empty demitasse, I turned to leave the kitchen. I had to shower and dress fast, get down to the Blend, and make sure there was coverage for the day. I checked the master bedroom. It was still dark and empty. The four-poster’s pillows and comforter appeared undisturbed.
I knew from long experience that Matt could be anywhere at the moment: eating breakfast with the Waipunas after their long night of partying or waking up in a new bed with a hot young thing he’d hooked up with at a dance club. Either way, I had to watch for the arrival of my ex-husband.
Joy’s father would have to hire the criminal defense attorney today, because Joy’s mother was going into the field. Despite the expressed feelings of my daughter, I was about to put my complete trust in the police—or rather, one very special police detective.
Seventeen
Mike picked me up at noon in a battered beige Dodge sedan that he sometimes used for undercover work. We drove north to Washington Heights, on the hunt for an address near Wadsworth Avenue—the last known residence of Brigitte Rouille.
Washington Heights was a large Manhattan neighborhood located above Harlem. Gentrification had infiltrated the area, but the wealth was concentrated mostly around Yeshiva University (an area recently dubbed “Hudson Heights” by a canny local real estate firm eager to attract a more upscale clientele). Gentrification had not yet spread to the shabby street off Wadsworth that Brigitte Rouille had been calling home until only a few weeks ago.
The language on the streets was Spanish, with a Latino population dominated primarily by Dominicans. The sidewalks were cracked and pitted on Wadsworth, and potholes dotted its side streets. I observed more than one homeless person lurching along, shouting at phantoms, and strange, illegible graffiti was spray-painted everywhere: billboards, buildings, passing delivery trucks.
Now I knew very well that graffiti had been around for a few millennia. The ancient Greeks had it. So did the Romans. But the stuff we were passing now wasn’t attached to 2,000-year-old historical relics. This wasn’t even the artsy kind of graffiti I’d seen during the eighties all over Soho and the Lower East Side: the kind of street art that had launched major careers, like the powerful primitive images of Jean-Michel Basquiat or the lighthearted pop figures of Keith Haring.
These slashing, sloppy, angular marks were gang tags, something I knew in passing but Mike knew in practice. “Violent drug dealers use the symbols to claim territory and send messages,” he informed me.
“Messages?”
“To warn away rival gangs.”
“And a Hallmark card would have been so much more thoughtful.”
Mike shot me an amused glance, but he didn’t laugh. As we walked along the run-down avenue, I sensed a tension in him. There was a slight wariness, too, in his gaze, as he continually scanned our surroundings. But what most radiated from Mike was a tremendous coiled energy. I couldn’t help flashing on a sketch I’d seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook: a medieval catapult, pulled all the way back, ready to unleash hell at a moment’s notice.
But, as it turned out, there was no reason to unleash it. No one bothered or threatened us in the least. And within minutes, we’d easily entered the shabby interior of Brigitte’s former address, which was not marred in any way by graffiti. The six-story dirty brick apartment building was merely filled with bad smells and a clashing color scheme.
The second Mike and I stepped through the front door, the scent of cigars was distinctly recognizable. The bouquet of cheap tobacco became even stronger as we headed down one flight of metal stairs to the basement. And by the time we walked the narrow, lime-green hallway with mustard-yellow trim, I’d added stale beer, scorched garlic, and the reek of industrial-strength cleaning fluid to my stomach-turning aromatic profile of the place.
We passed four apartment doors at the basement level.
Mike glanced at each one. He finally paused at the very last door on the hall. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, we stood together, reading the crudely scrawled name.
FELIX PINTO, SUPERVISOR
Spanish television was blaring on the other side of the door. From another apartment, I could hear a man and woman arguing loudly, speaking a language I didn’t recognize. Filipino? Tagalog? Somewhere else, a dog yapped continuously.
Mike’s square jaw worked a moment before he glanced at me. I was wearing my low black boots, a pair of pressed gray slacks, a loose white sweater, and a long gray overcoat. Mike told me to look like a professional detective, and I made sure to follow his advice.
“I’ll do the talking,” he said softly. “Okay?”
I nodded.
He lifted his knuckles and knocked. Three firm taps.
“Usted se va,” a muffled voice called from inside. “Yo estoy comiendo mi almuerzo.”
Mike frowned, turned his fist to the side and pounded. His deep voice boomed loud enough to make me flinch. “Lunchtime’s over, amigo! Open the door!”
“Vuelva a las dos,” the voice replied.
“No. Not two o’clock. Now!” Mike roared. “This is the NYPD. Policía!”
I heard muttering, and then a bolt was thrown. The door opened a few inches, until it was stopped by a chain. A young man in his twenties with slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin mustache peeked through the crack.