“That’s alright,” he said. “I was just heading up that way. I’ll swing by in a few minutes.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“It’s no problem.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
He grabbed his leather jacket and Charley started to get up.
“Stay, Charley, I’ll be back soon,” he said and the dog looked at him for a moment and whined again and lay back down.
As he walked out of his office he heard the end of Bergman’s conversation.
“His recorder just went dead,” Hue said.
“You heard, Nevins,” Cody said to him, “He said to put away the notebook. Erase what you taped so far.”
“Good call, Cody,” Kate Winters said and smiled.
Cody slipped his leather jacket on.
“Where you headed?” Si asked.
“Seventy-third Street,” Cody said. “The Cluett woman just called me.”
“She didn’t mention the Yellow Door in your Q and A.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You going on tape?’ Hue asked as Cody headed for the door.
“Monitor me and see,” Cody said as he headed for the elevator to the garage. As he left he looked at the clock on the big board.
11:57.
Below it was the real time and date. It was 6:59 p.m., 10/26/08 and they were almost twelve hours into the case and were without any hard evidence except the corpse and had no suspects except an elusive woman in a red dress and a Dracula mask. Cody was getting edgy, the crew could tell.
He checked out one of the town cars and headed to Bowery, took a left to Third and a right to 73 ^ rd.
He parked in the alley next to the Handley brownstone. Then he heard the wolf again. It was a high-pitched, modulated howl, a lonely sound tinged with sadness. He pressed the mike button on the gear shift.
“Hue?” Cody said.
“It’s Si. Hue’s grabbing dinner.”
“Have we heard anything from Cal?”
“Not yet.”
“Who’s running recon?”
“Jonee on the south side, Butch on the north. Hue’ll relieve Butch at eleven, Wow will take the south. I’ll run the board here. At six a.m. it’ll be Frank and Annie, south, Cal and Kate on the north, and Hue’ll be back on the board.”
“Anybody planning to sleep?”
“We’ll all be cat-napping here until we get back to normal.”
“That’ll be the day,” Cody said and chuckled. “That’s a good plan, Si. Thanks.”
“Oh, your pal Dave called. He’ll be calling you on your cell.”
“Thanks. I’m going off the monitor now. You need me, call the cell. I’ve got it on the hummer.”
“Gotcha.”
Cody turned off the car, got out and locked the doors. The wolf bayed again as he walked toward the front door and dialed Amelie Cluett. It was very dark. The lights over the doorway were off.
“Hello?”
“It’s Cody. Want to buzz me in?”
“Wow, that was quick.”
The door buzzed and popped open and he entered the hallway. He looked to his left, noticed a light switch and clicked it. The lights outside flicked on.
Huh, he thought. Then he heard her door open and he looked up, and sucked in his breath.
She was standing at the top of the stairs. She was wearing a madras skirt cut four inches above the knee, a white frilly blouse and a red vest. He looked her over as he came up the stairs.
“Not working tonight?”
“I took the day off,” she said, leading him into the living room. The smell of strong coffee greeted him.
“I started to go to the gym this morning but I changed my mind and came home, canceled my appointments and cried for a while. Then I decided to clean the place. That’s what women do when they’re upset, they sanitize the nest and take a shower.”
“And make coffee?”
“I put on a fresh pot after I talked to you.”
He started to take off his jacket as she went into the kitchen but she whirled around and said, “I mislead you.”
“That’s not easy to do.”
“I mean, when I said I had some new ideas. That was just a big, fat lie.”
He laughed. “Well, I admire your honesty. I guess I’ll have to give you that ticket.”
She started to pour the coffee but her hand was shaking so hard she spilled some on the counter.
“Oh, damn!”
“Hey, easy.”
He took the pot from her and poured the two cups and she started babbling as she cleaned the counter with a sponge.
“All of a sudden I was alone here, nobody in the building but me and I saw that yellow police tape on Raymond’s door and I, uh, I got scared to death and I’ve been scared to death all day and then it started getting dark and then there are these wolves over in the Park zoo and they started howling-I guess at the full moon, they do that you know-and I, uh, I just grabbed your card and…”
Who the hell put that tape there? he thought. Probably one of McKeown’s boys. He put a forefinger against her lips and stopped her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Incidentally, that’s an old wives’ tale, about wolves and the full moon.”
“It’s really eerie.”
“I suppose it can be. Particularly if someone you know has just been killed across the hall and you’re alone.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she turned her head. He stepped forward and put his arms around her, held her close to him and gently rubbed her back.
“It’s okay, let it out. You have a right.”
“I thought I was all cried out.”
“It’ll come and go for awhile.”
He stepped back and she dried her eyes with a dish towel. “God, I must be a mess.”
He thought for a moment then asked: “Have you eaten anything today?”
“No.”
“Well, neither have I and I’m starved. So how about we turn on all the lights in your apartment and I’ll go over and pull down the tape on Raymond’s door. And then we can go grab a bite somewhere. Or am I being too forward?”
“Oh yeah, you’re just all forward and a mile wide. Look, you don’t have to…”
“I don’t have to do anything. I’d love to take you to dinner.”
His cell hummed against his side.
“I’m gonna have to take this. Excuse me for a minute.” He looked at the call window, pressed the button and said, “Hey, Dave.”
“ Ahoki, brother. I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time.”
“Not at all.”
“Your friends miss you.”
“Yeah, I heard the alpha. I’m right up the street.”
“I picked up a couple of nice venison bones this afternoon at the market on Amsterdam.”
“Terrific. Give me fifteen. Oh, I’ll have a friend with me.”
