“Not everything,” I said. “She’ll probably leave out the parts where Max lied to us through his teeth and substitute some flowery bullshit about the noble great white hunter avenging his brother’s death by conveniently killing the man who knew the answer to every question we had.”
“Exactly. Which means that in a few hours it’ll be on the front page of every paper and trending on the Internet. And since we can’t stop Annie Ryder from getting the news, the second-best thing we can do is break it to her ourselves, so we can watch the expression on her face when she finds out.”
I couldn’t argue with her logic, and I grunted in agreement.
We hung a right on 34th Street and headed east toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
“You think Annie is still alive?” I asked.
“God, I hope so, because if we find her in a pool of blood, we’ll be stuck at another crime scene till dawn.”
Annie Ryder was very much alive and as charming as ever.
“Don’t you two have anything better to do than harass law-abiding taxpayers in the middle of the night?” she said at her door. “I told you I haven’t seen Teddy, and I have no idea where he is.”
“Jeremy Nevins is dead,” Kylie said, hitting her with our biggest gun first.
The old con woman was a pro. “Never heard of him,” she said, doing her best not to react. But Kylie had been right. The news came as enough of a shock to Annie’s system that a tiny corner of her right eye spasmed involuntarily. She rubbed it and yawned in an attempt to cover it up, but if this had been a poker game, she’d have lost her edge. She’d given up the tell.
“Sure you heard of him,” Kylie said. “Nevins killed Raymond Davis, and he tried to kill Teddy.”
“Then good riddance,” Annie said. “Thank you for coming all this way to let me know. Good night.”
“We’ve also recovered the necklace that Raymond and Teddy stole from Elena Travers,” Kylie said.
The tic kicked in again, and her eye fluttered. “Teddy didn’t steal anything. He’s innocent.”
“Then tell him to turn himself in. We’ll cut him a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“We’ll charge Raymond with the murder and Jeremy as the one who orchestrated the robbery. If Teddy turns himself in now, we think we can get the DA to let him plead it down to involuntary manslaughter. He’ll probably only get eight years. If we catch him first, the deal is off the table, and he’s looking at life.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, girlie,” Annie said. “I told you Teddy was right here with me that night. You might not believe me, but a jury will.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Kylie said. “Juries want to buy a mother’s testimony, but a smart prosecutor will make sure they know that in this case, Mom is a grifter, a professional liar. And if that’s not enough, he’ll make sure they see the traffic-cam footage from the night of the robbery. The two men who jacked Elena’s limo were wearing masks on 54th Street, but one of them was stupid enough to pull his mask off when he got to 53rd. Now who do you think could be that dumb?”
“We’re done here,” Annie said, and shut the door.
“That was quite a picture you painted, Detective,” I said to Kylie as we rode down in the elevator. “I particularly liked the part about the traffic cam. Very believable.”
“I only wish it were true,” Kylie said. “But people are obsessed about Big Brother watching them, and I’ll bet Annie Ryder is more paranoid than most.”
We spent the rest of the trip to Manhattan in blessed silence. Once again it was almost two a.m. by the time I got to my apartment, but this time I didn’t have to wait to get upstairs to find out if Cheryl was there.
Angel, my doorman, handed me a note. “Dr. Robinson left this for you.”
It was a single scrap of paper that had been torn from the bottom of a yellow pad. The rest of the page and the pad it came from was on Angel’s desk. Cheryl had scribbled it out in a hurry as she was leaving the building.
Spending the night at my place. Be at Gerri’s at 6:30 a.m.
I thanked Angel and took the elevator up to my empty apartment.
Chapter 58
I shucked my clothes, showered, fell into bed, and reread Cheryl’s note.
It didn’t take a detective to figure out what she meant by “Spending the night at my place.” But “Be at Gerri’s at 6:30 a.m.” threw me. Did she mean “I’ll be at Gerri’s, and I’d love to have you join me”? Or was it “You better be at Gerri’s at 6:30 so I can read you the riot act”?
I set my alarm for five so I could be at the diner early enough to get Gerri’s worldview on my current situation.
She sat down at a booth with me, and I gave her the short version of what happened yesterday. “Any thoughts, Dr. Gomperts?” I said.
“Just one,” she said. “Why do I even bother giving you advice? I warned you the other day about spending your nights with Kylie, but I don’t think you remember a word I said.”
“Of course I do. How could I forget one of your puppet shows where I’m starring as a packet of artificial sweetener?”
“I’ll try one more time.” She slid my water glass to the edge of the table. “This is Kylie,” she said. “Her marriage is on a precipice.”
She stared at me, a devilish look in her eyes as she slowly pushed the glass with one finger. “It’s teetering, Zach. It’s on the brink.”
Just as the glass started to topple, I grabbed it. “You’re crazy,” I said.
“And you’re hopeless. You can’t let go of Kylie, and you always want to be there to catch her if she falls.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
She stood up. “Good question. Why don’t you ask the lady who just walked in the door?” she said, hurrying off to the kitchen.
It was Cheryl. She sat down across from me and got straight to the point. “What happened yesterday? And don’t skimp on the details.”
I told her everything, from Q’s early-morning visit to our post-midnight house call on Annie Ryder. Skilled psychologist that she is, she listened without interruption.
“If you knew you and Kylie were flying to Atlantic City, why did you lie and say you were working?” she said when I was finished.
“It was beyond stupid,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“What really hurts is that you felt you had to lie. Did you think if you had told me the truth, I’d have tried to stop you?”
“Cheryl, I told you the truth Tuesday night when I ran out on dinner, but you were still pissed. And the next night at Paola’s, you said you love being with me, but you’re not sure you can handle living with me.”
“Zach,” she said, resting her hand on mine, “that’s because a big part of living with you is about not living with you. When we were dating, and you got busy, I was at home in my own apartment. I missed you, but I could deal with it, because I understand the demands the job can put on a high-profile detective. But it’s different when I’m at your apartment.”
I shrugged. “Why?”
“Because when you don’t come home, I’m not just lonely, I’m lonely in a place I’d rather not be. Everything I see reminds me of you, but you’re not there. It’s like living with a ghost.”
“So you’re moving out?”
“Not out of your life, but I’m seriously thinking about moving out of your apartment.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I said I’d give it a month, and I’m a woman of my word. It’s only been twenty-eight days, so let’s try again tonight.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the heels of my hands. “I’m not going to be home tonight,” I said.