“Lots of people use aliases online. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“And he talked to a lot of other women.”
“So? That’s the point of the site. You talk to a lot of potential partners. You’re trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
Jeff talked, she thought, to me even. Of course, he didn’t have the balls to tell her he had already found someone new. No, instead he gave her that crock about being protective and needing a fresh start. Meanwhile, he had already hooked up with another woman.
Why not just say so?
“Look,” Brandon said, “I just need to know his real name and address. That’s all.”
“I can’t help you, kid.”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t my business.” She shook her head and added, “Man, you have no idea how much this isn’t my business.”
Her cell phone buzzed. She checked the message and saw it was from Stagger:
Bethesda fountain. Ten minutes.
Kat rose from the bench. “I gotta go.”
“Where?”
“Also not your business. This is over, Brandon. Go home.”
“Just tell me his name and address, okay? I mean, what’s the harm? Just his name.”
Part of her thought that telling him was a mistake. Part of her was still a little hurt that he had pushed her aside. What the hell. The kid did have a right to know who his mom was shtupping, didn’t he?
“Jeff Raynes,” she said, spelling it with the y for him. “And I don’t have a clue or a care where he lives.”
• • •
Bethesda Fountain was the heartbeat of Central Park. The towering angel statue crowning the fountain holds lilies in one hand while blessing the water in front of her with the other. Her stone face is serene to the point of boredom. The water she eternally blesses is called simply the Lake. Kat always liked that name. The Lake. Nothing fancy. Call it what it is.
Beneath the angel were four cherubs representing Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace. The fountain had been there since 1873. In the sixties, hippies occupied it day and night. The first scene in Godspell was filmed there. So was a key scene in Hair. In the seventies, Bethesda Terrace became the focal point of drug trafficking and prostitution. Kat’s father had told her that even cops were scared of the terrace back in those days. It was hard to imagine now, especially on a summer day like this, that the place was ever anything but paradise.
Stagger sat on a bench overlooking the Lake. Tourists speaking every language imaginable floated by in boats, struggling with the oars before giving up and letting the nearly nonexistent current take them. On the right, a large swarm had gathered for the street performers (or were they park performers?) called the Afrobats. The Afrobats were black teens who did a show combining acrobatics, dancing, and comedy. Another street performer carried a sign that read: $1 A JOKE. LAUGHTER GUARANTEED. People statues—that is, people who stood still and pretended they were statues and posed for pictures with tourists; who was the first person to do this?—dotted the landing. There was a guy who looked like your favorite uncle enthusiastically playing the ukulele, and another guy wearing a ratty bathrobe pretending to be a Hogwarts wizard.
The black baseball cap on Stagger’s head made him look like a little boy. His gaze skimmed along the waterway like a flat stone. It was, in many ways, a typical Manhattan scene—you are surrounded and yet you find solace; you find isolation in the tornado of people. Stagger stared out at the water, looking bewildered, and Kat wasn’t sure what she felt.
He never turned as she approached. When Kat was standing above him, she waited a moment and then she simply said, “Hey.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
He kept his eyes on the water when he spoke.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t just go busting into my office like that.”
Stagger finally turned toward her. If the eyes had been calm looking out at the water, that calm was gone now.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“Bullshit, Kat.”
“It was just that I finally got Leburne’s visitor logs.”
“And, what, you desperately needed my take on them?”
“Yes.”
“You couldn’t even wait until my meeting was over?”
“I thought . . .” Behind them, the crowd roared with laughter at the Afrobats’ joke about robbing them. “You know how I am about this case.”
“Obsessed.”
“It’s Dad, Stagger. How do you not get that?”
“Oh, I get it, Kat.” He turned back to the water.
“Stagger?”
“What?”
“You know what I found, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” A slow smile came to his face. “I know.”
“So?”
His eyes found a boat and stayed on it.
“Why would you visit Leburne the day after he was arrested?” she asked.
Stagger said nothing.
“The feds arrested him, not NYPD. You had nothing to do with it. You weren’t even working my dad’s case, since he was your partner and you found the body. So why were you there, Stagger?”
He looked almost amused by her question. “What’s your theory, Kat?”
“Truth?”
“Preferably.”
“I don’t have a theory,” she said.
Stagger faced her. “Do you think that I had something to do with what happened to Henry?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then?”
She wished she had a better answer: “I don’t know.”
“Do you think I hired Leburne or something?”
“I don’t think Leburne had anything to do with it. I think Leburne was just a fall guy.”
He frowned. “Come on, Kat. Not that again.”
“Why were you there?”
“And again, I reply, Why do you think?” Stagger closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, turned back toward the Lake. “I see now why we never let people with personal connections handle a case.”
“Meaning?”
“You not only have no objectivity, you barely have any clarity.”
“Why were you there, Stagger?”
He shook his head. “It couldn’t be more obvious.”
“Not to me.”
“My point exactly.” His eyes locked on the boat, watching teens flail furiously and incompetently with the oars. “Go back for a second. Think it through. At the time of his murder, your father was coming close to bringing down one of the leading crime figures in the city.”
“Cozone.”
“Of course, Cozone. Suddenly, he gets executed. What was our theory at the time?”
“It wasn’t my theory.”
“No offense, Kat, but you weren’t a cop. You were a sprightly little coed at Columbia. What was our official theory?”
“The official theory,” Kat said, “was that my father was a threat to Cozone and so Cozone eliminated him.”
“Exactly.”
“But Cozone knew better than to kill a cop.”
“Don’t let the bad guys fool you with their so-called rules. They do what they think is best for long-term profit and survival. Your father was an impediment to both.”
“So you think Cozone hired Leburne to kill my father. I know this. It still doesn’t explain why you visited Leburne.”
“Sure it does. The feds arrested one of Cozone’s most active hit men. Of course we immediately followed up that lead. How can you not see that?”
“Why you?”
“What?”
“Bobby Suggs and Mike Rinsky were the lead cops on the case. So why did you go?”
He smiled again, but there was no joy in it. “Because I was like you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning your father was my partner. You know what he meant to me.”
Silence.
“I wasn’t in the mood to wait while NYPD and FBI dealt with their pissing contest over territory and jurisdiction. It would give Leburne time to lawyer up or whatever. I wanted in. I was impetuous. I called a friend with the bureau and asked a favor.”
“So you went to interrogate Leburne?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I was a dumb young cop trying to avenge his mentor before it was too late.”