Hauck shrugged. “That’s what it was deemed at first.”
“Then I’m sure you read that this one was deemed to be a suicide.” He split a nut and tossed the shell into his trash bin. “What sort of similarities are you looking for?”
“Two money managers dead under suspicious circumstances? I was wondering if you had a chance to look over the victim’s phone records yet.”
“Phone records?”
“Or maybe at the building’s security cameras. I assume they have them.”
“For what?”
“For anyone who might’ve entered close to the time of death.”
“Security cameras…” The detective popped the nut into his mouth and looked at Hauck’s card again. “Hauck, right? Talon… Heard of it. Big firm. This says you’re a partner up there. I know it’s hard to turn down these kinds of opportunities. Maybe if something came my way…We all have to make a choice. You mind telling me just what is your particular point of interest here?”
A pushy ex-cop from out of town. A well-paid one at that. Coming around and sticking his nose into an active case. No particular jurisdiction. Hauck expected the response. “I knew a member of the Glassman family who was killed up there. I’m just following up to see if there’s any link between these two cases. Two rogue traders. Lots of losses. Two Wall Street firms driven over the edge. You heard the news today?”
“Yeah, it’s all here on page one oh six, right in my trusty bible.” Campbell picked up the Wall Street manual, smirking. “I assume you’re not buying into the home-invasion angle?”
Hauck shrugged. “All I’m buying is just to follow up. For a friend.”
Campbell nodded again, mock-sympathetically, but his gaze stayed on Hauck, then shifted again to his card. “Hmmph, you know, maybe this is my ticket out.” He snorted. “I’m not exactly Warren effing Buffett, y’know…Not much ever came my way. Listen, Mr. Hauck”-he made the name sound like “cancer”-“I know you’ve got some time in. You seem to have a personal interest here, and I don’t want to be nosy. I also know what it’s like when you leave the force.”
“Sorry?”
“You know, you leave early, miss the action. You probably deal with a lot of corporate stuff up there. White-collar clients. Like to keep your hands on the tiller.”
Hauck didn’t respond. The suffering-cop routine was starting to wear thin.
“But the facts are, Mr. Hauck, Mr. Donovan left his apartment in the night around three fifteen A.M. Like he was prone to doing lately. His wife woke up and took note of the time. Fell back to sleep. He had a key to the super’s office in the building, which is likely to get the poor sucker canned in this environment. The fingerprints on the door handle to the office were his and his alone. He used electrical wire the super kept in the storage closet there, which he slung over the ceiling pipes. The guy had a recent history of being upset. Not sleeping. He was on mood stabilizers. People at work said he was wired like a fuse. Not exactly a big surprise when someone’s lost the equivalent of the GNP of Belarus.” Campbell chuckled. “You notice how nothing less than a billion even makes the news today? Even his wife suggested the man was acting a little off lately. Forgot birthdays. Walking the dog at three A.M. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see the guy was depressed. Even his firm’s not pushing that anything was screwy on this. So why would we need to check his phone records? Or any video? Just who should we be looking for?”
Hauck could have answered, Maybe for a connection to Dani Thibault, or for the man April Glassman’s son had taken a shot of, with the braided red-brown hair, tattoo on his neck. But he didn’t want to bring up Thibault as a topic until he had something more to go on. Or until Foley gave him the green light.
And this guy was just trying to clear cases. And this one didn’t require much work.
“Like I said, just following up for a friend,” Hauck said, taking his jacket off his arm.
“You said you knew him, huh?”
“Knew whom?” Hauck wrinkled his brow, not sure who the guy meant.
“Donovan,” the detective said. “The vic.”
“I didn’t say I knew him. I said I knew one of the persons killed in Greenwich. A minute ago you didn’t seem to imply he was a vic.”
“No dealings with him at all?” the detective asked, removing another pistachio from the bag.
“No dealings.” Hauck looked at him quizzically. “Why?”
“No reason. Just trying to get things straight. That’s all.” He held up Hauck’s card. “Talon, huh? Mind if I keep this? May need some advice someday, if my ticket ever comes in.”
Hauck stood up and folded his jacket back over his arm. “Be my guest.”
“You know, maybe I will,” Campbell said, standing up as well; his gut was round and he was five inches shorter than Hauck. “Check out those phone records after all. Like you said. You never know what might turn up. If I did, you have a name I should be looking for?”
“You’ll let me know when you do,” Hauck replied, “and I’ll see if one comes to mind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
On the way home, Hauck took a chance and stopped on East Fifty-third Street, at the building where Donovan had lived.
He was met by the doorman at the entrance and asked to speak with Donovan’s wife. The man, who’d clearly been alerted to keep the press and any interested outsiders at bay, looked over Hauck’s card as if there was a secret code in the paper stock. Hauck convinced him to call upstairs. “He says he was a policeman from Greenwich,” the doorman said into the phone, “that he’s following up on some things pertaining to some other case up there. He said it would only take a minute, Ms. Donovan. You want me to let him up?”
The answer was apparently yes, and, eventually, the doorman directed him to an elevator bank on the far end of the lobby. The lobby was a full walk-through with a rear entrance that led onto Fifty-second. Hauck spotted a security camera perched on the wall above the rear door.
As he passed, it occurred to him he’d like to have a shot at checking out that film.
When the elevator opened on fifteen, he was met by a dark-haired woman with a pained demeanor in a black dress, her hair tied back in a bun. She introduced herself as Deena Wolf, Leslie Donovan’s sister. “We just buried my brother-in-law yesterday,” she said, as if to dissuade him. “My sister’s already spoken several times with the police…”
“I’ll only take a second,” Hauck promised. “It’s important.”
The woman nodded, looking harried. “Please…”
Inside, about a dozen people were gathered in the foyer and small kitchen. Sounds of laughter and food being served mixed with the somber looks and hushed replies. A couple of young kids ran through the living room chasing a white bichon with their parents yelling after them.
“My sister’s in here.”
She took him into a small room that looked like a combination TV room and study. Wood shelves filled haphazardly with books and brochures. Financial documents all around. A leather couch and a wide-screen TV. Leslie Donovan sat on the couch. She had thick dark hair pulled back tightly and a pale complexion, and was dressed in a dark burgundy sweater and skirt.
“I appreciate you seeing me,” Hauck said. “I’m sorry for your loss. I won’t take up much of your time.” He’d been in these situations many times and didn’t want to impose.
The woman nodded a little blankly. She was pretty, with a small nose and high cheekbones, though the stress was apparent. “It’s okay. Carlos said you were a Greenwich policeman?”
“I was in charge of the detective unit up there for six years. Now I work for a private security firm.” Hauck sat down across from her and put his card on the coffee table. She picked it up. “You’re familiar with the Glassman murders that took place up there a month ago?”