heart-attack thing but he still sent a few people to the place where Prescott was hiking just to take some statements. After the ambulance left, one of the deputies saw somebody leaving the area. Male, he thinks. No description other than that, except he was carrying what looked like a briefcase or small suitcase.”
“Breakdown rifle?”
“What I was thinking. And when this guy saw the cop car, he vanished fast.”
“A pro?”
“Maybe. I was thinking that co-author might’ve come across some connected guys in doing his research. Maybe it was this Aaron Reilly.”
“You got any ideas on how to find out?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Standing in the dim frosted-glass corridor of a luxurious SoHo condo, Jimmy Malloy made sure his gun was unobstructed and rang the buzzer.
The large door swung open.
“Aaron Reilly?” Even though he recognized the co-author from the picture at Prescott’s funeral.
“Yes, that’s right.” The man gave a cautious grin.
Which remained in place, though it grew a wrinkle of surprise when the shield appeared. Malloy tried to figure out if the man had been expecting him-because Jane Prescott had called ahead of time-but couldn’t tell.
“Come on inside, detective.”
Reilly, in his late thirties, Malloy remembered, was the opposite of Jane Prescott. He was in faded jeans and a work shirt, sleeves rolled up. A Japanese product, not a Swiss, told him the time and there was no gold dangling on him anywhere. His shoes were scuffed. He was good-looking, with thick longish hair and no wedding ring.
The condo-in chic SoHo-had every right to be opulent, but, though large, it was modest and lived-in.
Not an original piece of art in the place.
Zero sculpture.
And unlike the Widow Prescott’s abode, Reilly’s was chock- a-block with books.
He gestured the cop to sit. Malloy picked a leather chair that lowered him six inches toward the ground as it wheezed contentedly. On the wall nearby was a shelf of the books. Malloy noted one:
Malloy was struck by the word, “with.” He wondered if Reilly felt bad, defensive maybe, that his contribution to the literary world was embodied in that preposition.
And if so, did he feel bad enough to kill the man who’d bestowed it and relegated him to second-class status?
“That’s one of my favorites.”
“So you’re a fan, too.”
“Yep. That’s why I volunteered to come talk to you. First, I have to say I really admire your work.”
“Thank you.”
Malloy kept scanning the bookshelves. And found what he’d been looking for: two entire shelves were filled with books about guns and shooting. There had to be something in one of them about rifles that could be broken down and hidden in small suitcases. They were, Malloy knew, easy to find.
“What exactly can I do for you, detective?”
Malloy looked back. “Just a routine matter mostly. Now, technically John Prescott was a resident of the city, so his death falls partly under our jurisdiction.”
“Yes, I suppose.” Reilly still looked perplexed.
“Whenever there’s a large estate, we’re sometimes asked to look into the death, even if it’s ruled accidental or illness related.”
“Why would you look into it?” Reilly asked, frowning.
“Tax revenue mostly.”
“Really? That’s funny. It was my understanding that only department of revenue agents had jurisdiction to make inquiries like that. In fact, I researched a similar issue for one of our books. We had Jacob Sharpe following the money-you know, to find the ultimate bad guy. The police department couldn’t help him. He had to go to revenue.”
It was an oops moment, and Malloy realized he should have known better. Of course, the co-author would know all about police and law enforcement procedures.
“Unless what you’re really saying is that you-or somebody-think that John’s death might not have been an illness at all. That it was intentional… But how
Malloy didn’t want to give away his theory about the crooked doctor. He said, “Let’s say I know you’re a diabetic and if you don’t get your insulin you’ll die. I keep you from getting your injection, there’s an argument that I’m guilty of murder.”
“And you think somebody was with him at the time he had the heart attack and didn’t call for help?”
“Just speculating. Probably how you write books.”
“We’re a little more organized than that. We come up with a detailed plot, all the twists and turns. Then we execute it. We know exactly how the story will end.”
“So that’s how it works.”
“Yes.”
“I wondered.”
“But, see, the problem with what you’re suggesting is that it would be a coincidence for this ‘somebody,’ who wanted him dead, to be up there in Vermont at just the moment he had the attack… We could never get away with that.”
Malloy blinked. “You-?”
Reilly lifted an eyebrow. “If we put that into a book, our editor wouldn’t let us get away with it.”
“Still. Did he have any enemies?”
“No, none that I knew about. He was a good boss and a nice man. I can’t imagine anybody’d want him dead.”
“Well, I think that’s about it,” Malloy said. “I appreciate your time.”
Reilly rose and walked the detective to the door. “Didn’t you forget the most important question.”
“What’s that?”
“The question our editor would insist we add at the end of an interrogation in one of the books: Where was
“I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“I didn’t say you were. I’m just saying that a cop in a Jacob Sharpe novel would’ve asked the question.”
“Okay. Where were you?”
“I was here in New York. And the next question?”
Malloy knew what that was: “Can anyone verify that?”
“No. I was alone all day. Writing. Sorry, but reality’s a lot tougher than fiction, isn’t it, detective?”
“Yo, listen up,” the scrawny little man said. “This is interesting.”
“I’m listening.” Malloy tried look pleasant as he sat across from Lucius the snitch. Before they’d met, Ralph DeLeon reminded him how Malloy had dissed the man earlier. So he was struggling to be nice.
“I followed Reilly to a Starbucks. And she was there, Prescott’s wife.”
“Good job,” DeLeon said.
Malloy nodded. The whole reason to talk to the co-author had been to push the man into action, not to get facts. When people are forced to act, they often get careless. While Malloy had been at Reilly’s apartment, DeLeon was arranging with a magistrate for a pen register-a record of phone calls to and from the co-author’s phones. A register won’t give you the substance of the conversation, but it will tell you whom a subject calls and who’s calling him.
The instant Malloy left the condo, Reilly had dialed a number.
It was Jane Prescott’s. Ten minutes after that, Reilly slipped out the front door and headed down, moving quickly.
And tailed by Lucius, who had accompanied Malloy to Reilly’s apartment and waited outside.
The scrawny snitch was now reporting on that surveillance.
