The 6th Target

Chapter 60

THE TENANTS' MEETING HAD HEATED UP to a full boil by the time Cindy got there. A couple hundred people, more or less, were crammed into the lobby. President of the Board Fern Galperin was a small, pretty woman with wire-frame glasses, her head barely visible over the crowd as she tried to quell the clamor.

'One at a time,' Ms. Galperin shouted. 'Margery? Please go on with what you were saying.'

Cindy saw Margery Glynn, the woman she'd met in the garbage room yesterday, sitting on a love seat, jammed between three other people.

Glynn cried out, 'The police sent me a form to fill out. They're not going to do anything about Barnaby, and Barnaby was family. Now I feel even more at risk because he's gone. Should I get another dog? Or should I get a gun?'

'I feel as scared and sick as you do,' Galperin said, clutching her own small dog to her bosom. 'But you can't be serious about getting a gun! Anyone else?'

Cindy put down her computer bag, whispered to a striking brunette woman standing next to the refreshment table, 'What's going on?'

'You know about Barnaby?'

'Afraid so. I was in the garbage room when Margery found him.'

'Nasty, huh? Barnaby was kind of a pest, but for somebody to kill him? It's certifiably crazy. What is this… New York?'

'Catch me up, will you? I'm new here.'

'Sure, okay. So Barnaby wasn't the first. Mrs. Neely's poodle was found dead in a stairwell, and that poor woman blamed herself because she'd forgotten to lock her door.'

'I take it someone in the building doesn't care for dogs.'

'I mean, yeah,' the brunette woman continued. 'But there's more. A month ago, Mr. Franks, a real nice guy who lived on the second floor, had a moving van come, like, in the middle of the night. He left Fern a packet of threatening letters that had been slipped under his door over a number of months.'

'What kind of threats?'

'Death threats. Can you believe it?'

'Why didn't he call the police?'

'I guess he did. But the letters were anonymous. The cops asked a few questions, then let the whole thing drop. Typical crap.'

'And I assume Mr. Franks had a dog?'

'No. He had a stereo. I'm Debbie Green, by the way.' The woman smiled broadly. ' 2F.' She shook Cindy's hand.

'I'm Cindy Thomas. 3B.'

'Nice to meet you, Cindy. Welcome to A Nightmare at the Blakely Arms.'

Cindy smiled uncertainly. 'So aren't you scared?'

'Kinda.' Debbie sighed. 'But my apartment is fantastic… I'm dating someone now. I think I've talked him into moving in.'

'Lucky you.' Cindy turned her attention back to the meeting as a stooped elderly gentleman was recognized by the board president.

'Mr. Horn.'

'Thank you. What bothers me the most is the stealth,' he said. 'The notes under the doors. The murdered pets. I think Margery is on to something. If the police can't help us, we must form a tenants' patrol -'

Voices erupted, and Ms. Galperin cried out, 'People, raise your hands, please! Tom, you have something to say?'

A man in his thirties stood up. He was slight and balding, standing far across the room from Cindy.

'A tenants' patrol scares the hell out of me,' he said. 'Who-ever is terrorizing the Blakely Arms could sign up to be on a patrol – and then he wouldn't have to sneak around. He could walk the halls with impunity. How scary would that be?

'About three hundred eighty-five people live in this building, and more than half of us are here tonight. The odds are nearly fifty-fifty that our own private terrorist is in this room. Right now.'

Chapter 61

YUKI HAD NEVER SEEN Leonard Parisi mad before. 'Red Dog,' as he was called, was red haired, tall, more than two hundred pounds, usually affable and avuncular – but right now his dark eyes were pumping bullets as he pounded the conference table with his fist.

Platters of leftover Chinese food jumped.

The five new ADAs around the table looked shocked, with the exception of David Hale, who'd had the bad judgment to remark that the Brinkley case was a 'slam dunk.'

'There's no such thing as a slam dunk,' Parisi roared. 'O. J. was a slam dunk.'

'Robert Durst,' said Yuki.

'Bingo,' Parisi said, staring around at all of them. 'Durst admitted that he killed his neighbor, chopped him into a dozen parts, and dumped him into the ocean – and a jury of his peers found him 'not guilty.'

'And that's our challenge with Brinkley, David. We have a taped confession and more witnesses than we can count. The crime was caught on tape. And still, it's not a slam dunk.'

'But, Leonard,' Hale said, 'that tape of the crime makes the killer in the act. It's admissible and indisputable.'

Parisi grinned. 'You're quite the bulldog, David. Good for you. You all know about Rodney King?' Parisi asked, loosening his tie.

'Rodney King, a black parolee, refused to exit his car after he was stopped for speeding. He was pulled out of his vehicle and struck fifty-six times by four white cops – a massive, bloody beating, all caught on videotape. The case went to trial. The cops were acquitted, and so began the race riots in LA.

'So the tape didn't make the case a slam dunk. And maybe this is why: First time you see the Rodney King tape, you're horrified. Second time, you're outraged. But once you see it for the twentieth time, your brain has been around every corner of that scene, and you remember it, sure, but the shock power's gone.

'Everyone in this country with a television set has seen Jack Rooney's tape of Alfred Brinkley shooting those people over and over and over again. By now it's lost its shock power. Understand?

'That said, the tape is in. We should win this case. And we're going to do everything we can to put Brinkley on death row.

'But we're going against a smart and tenacious attorney in Barbara Blanco,' Parisi said, leaning back in his chair. 'And she isn't working this crap public-defender job for the money. She believes in her client, and the jury is going to feel that.

'We've got to be prepared for anything. And that's the end of today's lecture.'

A respectful silence fell over the conference room. Len Parisi was definitely 'da man' around here.

'Yuki, anything we forgot to go over?'

'I think we're covered.'

'Feeling good?'

'Feeling great, Len. I'm ready to go. Can't wait.'

'Sure. You're twenty-eight. But I need my beauty sleep. I'll see you here at seven thirty a.m. Everyone else, stay tuned. We'll have a postmortem at close of day tomorrow.'