table leaving in her wake an unforgettably sensual and expensive scent. He made a note to pay a visit to the perfume boutiques at Saks when he had finished the interviews.
“Is there any possible connection between Crosetti and Handley? Could Handley have been a customer at La Venezia?” Kate Winter asked Cody.
“That’s what Larry’s trying to determine,” Cody said. “Right now their only obvious connection is that they’re both dead.”
“I don’t understand why we’ve come up so short on physical evidence,” she said. “Nobody’s that good.”
“I don’t think we’ve come up short at all,” Cody replied. “What I think is that we just don’t understand what we have yet. But we will. Leave that to the gang.”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Androg may just be the exception to the rules.”
Cody nodded. “Sure looks like he’s trying to be.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a call from Stinelli. “What’s the latest?” the Chief demanded. “I’m starting to get calls from The Daily News. It’s ruined my Sunday. Even that son of a bitch Hamilton’s on my ass already.”
“How the hell did they get onto this?” Cody wanted to know.
“They have eyes and ears everywhere, even more than we do I sometimes think.” Before hanging up, as though to vent his irritation, Stinelli reminded Cody that his captain’s ass was expected at the Ladies’ Auxiliary Ball Tuesday night come hell or high water.
“I’d hate to have your job,” Cody said, then registered what he’d just heard and tried to slough it off as though it were a casual invitation. “I’ve got my hands full here, Chief. Give me a break. You gotta let me off this friggin’ hook!”
But Stinelli wasn’t having it. It wasn’t an invitation, he pointed out; it was a command performance. Cody better be there, and in proper formal wear, with a proper escort. The idea was a show of force to show the Ladies the brass appreciated their charitable commitment to the general well-being of New York’s Finest.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cody said. But he was listening to a dial tone.
Who the hell am I going to drag to this circle jerk? he thought. Suddenly a not-altogether-unpleasant thought crossed his mind. He reached for the card still in his pocket, and punched in the numbers.
Amelie Cluett answered immediately, as though she were expecting his call. “I’m fine, Captain. Thanks for checking in on me.”
“Do you think I can ask you to do me an enormous favor?”
When she heard what he was asking she said, “Sounds to me more like a date than a favor.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked.
33
Monday, October 29
Before he could make it to breakfast, Cody got a call from Kate Winters. She was in a panic.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” she started. “I may not make it in this morning.”
“What’s wrong, Kate? Pressure getting to you already? It’s a little early to be claiming a mental health day…”
“Song didn’t come home from the E.R. this morning. She didn’t even call. It’s not like her to disappear. In all these years it hasn’t happened once. I just-”
He and Charley changed directions and headed for the Loft. “Kate, it’s all right. You stay put. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.”
“She always comes straight home from her E.R. shift. I’m usually sound asleep,” Kate said, her voice on the point of breaking. “When I called them, no one had seen her this morning-but they’re the day shift. I finally got someone to tell me she hadn’t timed out yet. That makes no sense at all.” She was making a heroic effort to keep her voice steady.
By this time Cody was at his desk. “Look, I’m sending Ansa and DeMarco right away,” he said. “Ansa can stay at your place waiting, and DeMarco can go with you to the hospital to check it out.”
“Thanks,” Kate said.
Cody’s intercom buzzed. “Got a visitor, Cap,” Rizzo said. It was seven fifteen.
“Who the hell is it at this hour? I haven’t even poured my coffee yet, for chrissakes.”
“Says he has an appointment with you. To talk about the Melinda Cramer case.” He hung up before Cody’s swearing burst his eardrum.
34
Like a referee gingerly dancing around a ring at the start of a fight, Frank Rizzo escorted Ward Hamilton into Cody’s office. “Captain, this is Ward Hamilton,” he said, “who’s working on a story for Metro Magazine. Says the Chief told him you’d cooperate.” He turned to leave without waiting for Cody’s response.
“I’ve heard of him,” Cody said to Hamilton as though Wow were still there. He recognized the crime writer from the newspapers and the Internet, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that he looked like as big a prick in person as he did on YouTube.
It was hate at first sight.
Hamilton didn’t offer his hand, and Cody didn’t offer his either.
“How the hell do you come off waltzing in here at this hour of the day?” was Cody’s greeting.
“I find surprise can be quite revealing,” Hamilton answered. “Happy to see you’re already at it this morning, Captain.” He said the last word as though it were a taunt.
Cody had little use for writers in general. They were always sticking their noses in other people’s business, clogging up the machinery of life. On top of that, this one was a snob, smug, condescending, and arrogant. And it didn’t help that he was working on a magazine expose on cold cases, beginning with the only case in Cody’s twelve-year record as a homicide detective that went cold on him: the murder of Melinda Cramer.
“If you turn over your files,” Hamilton was saying, “we can make this painless for you. I won’t have to interview you here and tape it.”
“You won’t interview me because I don’t have time.”
“Yes,” Hamilton said coyly, “I do understand you have your hands full right now.”
Cody stared the man down, refusing to take the bait he was so subtly being offered.
“Don’t worry, Captain Cody, I won’t be too hard on you. I know you weren’t at the crime scene, and that the coroner put her down as a suicide.”
“That’s correct,” Cody said. “It was four days later that I had her exhumed, and re-autopsied. It was determined that she was dead before she hit the ground.”
“And that the cause of death was suffocation,” Hamilton chimed in, “not blunt trauma.”
Cody nodded. “Manual strangulation was indicated by fine pin point hemorrhages in the eyes.”
“Also hairline fractures of the larynx and hydroid bone,” Ward added, “that had been completely overlooked at the first autopsy.”
“The case was cold before I got it,” Cody finished, trying to keep any defensiveness out of his voice. “Since you seem to know so much about it, why do you need the files?”
“I like to investigate fuck-ups.” Hamilton’s smile was warm as a viper’s. “The public gets plenty of exposure to investigatory brilliance on television. I pride myself on giving them the other side of the coin-especially if it takes the hottest detective on the force down a notch or two. If I can slow your rise to power by just a little, I’ll consider my job well done.”
It was all Cody could do not to punch the guy in the face. But he hadn’t had his coffee yet, and he had better things to do this morning. The sooner Hamilton was out of here, the better. He couldn’t resist. “Didn’t you finally receive an award some people say was twenty years overdue?”
