It was a motley crew assembled in the lobby of 4 °Court Street, and none of them was particularly happy to see the others. I almost wished I had a video camera to tape the introduction of Y.W. Fenn to Captain Larry McDonald to Detective Robert Gloria to Pete Parson. One thing I can say without qualification is that the elevator ride up to Spivack’s was the quietest, most uncomfortable elevator ride I’d ever taken.
As on my first visit, Joe Spivack hung back just long enough for the receptionist to greet us. And in keeping with everybody else’s rotten moods, he seemed particularly miserable this morning.
“This way,” he growled, his eyes burning holes in my forehead.
I understood the reason for his dissatisfaction. Not more than an hour before, I had had the unpleasant task of informing him that he was going to host a gathering of people he probably had no interest in meeting. I’d also demanded that he not inform his employer and mine, Thomas Geary, of this get-together.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he’d screamed over the phone. “I don’t work for you, you small-time little shit. I can lose this account if he finds out I didn’t-”
“As I recall,” I said calmly, “Geary promised me your full cooperation, so cooperate and maybe I can spin this so you don’t come out looking bad.”
He couldn’t have liked hearing that, and if I was correct, there were things he was likely to hear that he would like far less. What Spivack didn’t know, what he couldn’t have known, was that I had extracted individual promises from everyone else involved to keep this meeting, the things discussed during it, and the events leading up to it confidential. If things broke right, confidentiality wouldn’t be an issue. If they didn’t, confidentiality would be in everyone’s best interest.
Spivack walked us past his office to a large conference room. We all found places around a black oval table that shone like a freshly waxed car. I did a second series of introductions.
“What the fuck is this, Moe?” Larry Mac asked the inevitable.
“I think I know what happened to Moira Heaton.”
Detective Gloria gave voice to what he’d thought all along: “Brightman?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but the only thing Brightman did wrong here was hire Moira Heaton. It was wrong because it gave the real perp access to her.”
“She dead?” Pete Parson asked.
“I’m pretty sure, but I think we all assumed that all along anyway.”
Silently, they nodded their heads in agreement. Although he’d known the reality of the situation from the day he’d taken the assignment, Wit seemed distressed at the unanimity of opinion. The death of hope is never a pleasant experience.
Now it was Spivack’s turn. “So …”
I pulled out the sign-in sheets from Brightman’s office, selecting five sheets in particular. I passed them around, letting everyone get a good look.
“The name Ishmail Almonte appears on these sheets five times in the six weeks leading up to Moira Heaton’s disappearance. As far as I can tell, his is the only name that appears that frequently.”
“That’s kinda thin, ain’t it?” Pete wondered.
I didn’t answer directly. “You got the sheets in front of you. Anyone wanna tell Pete something else about Ishmail Almonte’s visits to the community affairs office?”
Wit spoke up. “He saw Moira Heaton on all five visits.”
“That’s still thin,” Larry Mac said. “Can’t build a case on that.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Now, I know the answer to this already, but I’m going to ask anyway. Mr. Spivack, how many people on these sign-in sheets have you or your employees interviewed over the last nineteen months?”
“Every one of them,” he boasted, “with the exception of the deceased, the infirm, and people who’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Holy shit!” Detective Gloria was amazed. “Your client got some deep-ass pockets.”
“And who interviewed Ishmail Almonte?” I continued.
Spivack squirmed. “I did.”
“Why you?” I asked.
“Because I’m not blind. I was a U.S. fucking marshal for twenty-two years. It didn’t escape me that his name appeared so frequently.”
“And …?” Detective Gloria prodded.
“And nothing,” Spivack said smugly. “The guy’s story checked out. He said he was an illegal and wanted to find out how to get a green card. He said Moira Heaton was helping him. I ran the guy’s sheet. He was clean.”
“Oh, please!” Larry Mac was skeptical. “He was clean ‘cause he gave you a bullshit name.”
Spivack turned an angry shade of red. “Listen, you second-guessing prick, ask your buddy over there from Missing Persons how many of these people he interviewed. Ten? Five? One? None? He had access to the same records I had. If the fucking NYPD did their job in the first place-”
Gloria jumped up. “Watch your mouth, asshole. I never met a fed worth his weight in piss.”
“Okay, okay, this shit’s gonna stop right here and now,” I bellowed, pounding my fist on the table. “Right here and right now! Not one person in this room could’ve done anything to prevent what happened to Moira Heaton. Not one. If who I think did what I think, she was long dead by the time anyone even knew she was missing. So let’s stop the name-calling and recriminations. To me, the only thing that matters now is that we find the guilty party and bring a little peace to the family so they can grieve. Agreed?”
They all nodded sullenly.
“Agreed, Mr. Prager,” Wit repeated. “But evidently, you think this Ishmail Almonte is responsible.”
“Sort of,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pete was curious.
I turned to Spivack. “I think we all realize you interviewed a ton of people in the course of the investigation, so no one’s gonna get bent outta shape if you don’t remember what Ishmail Almonte looked like.”
“Twenty-five to thirty years of age. Light skinned, Spanish speaker with a Cubano accent. Some English. Five foot six or seven inches tall, one hundred forty pounds, muscular build. Shoulder-length black hair, full beard and thick mustache. Dark eyebrows, dark brown eyes, broken nose. No visible tattoos or scars, as I can recall. But you know all this. There’s a copy of my interview notes in the file, Prager.”
Wit was fascinated by a single detail. “How did you know it was a Cuban accent?”
“Seven years working in Miami-Dade’ll make you an expert,” Spivack said. “I can also smell a phony Cohiba from a mile away, for what it’s worth.”
Strangely, the tension in the room seemed to evaporate. Spivack finally relaxed. Wit lit a cigarette. Larry Mac loosened his tie. Pete Parson took off his jacket.
I pushed ahead. “What Spivack said before about my having a copy of his interview notes on Almonte is true. It’s also the case that I looked them over before we came here. That’s beside the point. It’s not whether I looked the notes over that’s important, but whether Spivack looked them over.”
“I didn’t.”
“Come on, Joe.” I was incredulous. “Out of all the people you interviewed over the last nineteen months, you remember some little Cuban guy you spoke to a year ago for no more than fifteen minutes.”
“I remember a lot of them. You get good at remembering. I was a U.S.-”
“-fucking marshal for twenty-two years,” Pete and Larry Mac recited in unison.
“Yeah,” Pete chided, “we heard that one.”
Everyone laughed, even Spivack.
“Fair enough,” I said. “I still remember the faces of people I wrote up for spitting on the boardwalk, of all things. But why do you remember Almonte? Was there something about-”
“His eyes,” Spivack mumbled almost to himself. “He had those chilly black eyes. You know, the kind that make it difficult to distinguish the pupils from the irises, wet and opaque like the ocean at night.”
I reached into my pocket and unfolded the front page of yesterday’s Post.
“Dead eyes. Eyes like these?”
“Fuck!”