“Now that Mrs. Prescott, she’s pretty-”
Malloy broke in with “Hot, yeah, I know. Keep going.”
“What I was
“True,” Malloy conceded.
“Reilly starts out talking about you being there.” Lucius poked a bony finger at Malloy, which seemed like a dig, but he let it go-as DeLeon’s lifted eyebrow was instructing. “And you were suspecting something. And making up shit about some police procedures and estate tax or something. He thought it was pretty stupid.”
Lucius seemed to enjoy adding that. DeLeon, too, apparently.
“And the wife said, yeah, you were making up something at her place, too. About a memorial ser vice or something. Which she didn’t believe. And then she said-get this. Are you ready?”
Malloy refrained from glaring at Lucius, whose psyche apparently was as fragile as fine porcelain. He smiled. “I’m ready.”
“The wife says that this whole problem was Reilly’s fucking fault for coming up with the same idea he’d used in a book-bribing a doctor to fake a death certificate.”
He and DeLeon exchanged glances.
Lucius continued, “And then she said, ‘Now we’re fucked. What’re you going to do about it?’ Meaning Reilly. Not
“Anything else?”
“No, that was it.”
“Good job,” Malloy said with a sarcastic flourish that only DeLeon noted. He slipped an envelope to the snitch.
After Lucius left, happy at last, Malloy said, “Pretty good case.”
“Pretty good, but not great,” the partner replied slowly. “There’s the motive issue.”
“Okay,
“Oh, I got that covered.” Malloy pulled out his BlackBerry and scrolled down to find something he’d discovered earlier.
He showed it to DeLeon.
The estate of the late J.B. Prescott has announced that his co-author, Aaron Reilly, has been selected to continue the author’s series featuring the popular Jacob Sharpe character. Prescott’s widow is presently negotiating a five-book contract with the author’s long-time publisher, Hutton-Fielding. Neither party is talking about money at this point but insiders believe the deal will involve an eight-figure advance.
Ralph DeLeon said, “Looks like we got ourselves a coupla perps.”
But not quite yet.
At 11:00 P.M. Jimmy Malloy was walking from the subway stop in Queens to his house six blocks away. He was thinking of how he was going to put the case together. There were still loose ends. The big problem was the cremation thing. Burning is a bitch, one instructor at the academy had told Malloy’s class. Fire gets rid of nearly all important evidence. Like bullet holes in the head.
What he’d have to do is get wiretaps, line up witnesses, track down the ambulance drivers, the doctor in Spain.
It was discouraging, but it was also just part of the job. He laughed to himself. It was like Jacob Sharpe and his “tradecraft,” he called it. Working your ass off to do your duty.
Just then he saw some motion a hundred feet head, a person. Something about the man’s mannerism, his body language set off Malloy’s cop radar.
A man had emerged from a car and was walking along the same street that Malloy was now on. After he’d happened to glance back at the detective, he’d stiffened and changed direction fast. Malloy was reminded of the killer in Vermont, disappearing quickly after spotting the deputy.
Who was this? The pro? Aaron Reilly?
And did he have the break-down rifle or another weapon with him? Malloy had to assume he did.
The detective crossed the street and tried to guess where the man was. Somewhere in front of him, but where? Then he heard a dog bark, and another, and he understood the guy was cutting through people’s yards, back on the
The detective pressed ahead, scanning the area, looking for logical place where the man had vanished. He decided it had to be an alleyway that led to the right, between two commercial buildings, both of them empty and dark at this time of night.
As he came to the alley, Malloy pulled up. He didn’t immediately look around the corner. He’d been moving fast and breathing hard, probably scuffling his feet, too. The killer would have heard him approach.
Be smart, he told himself.
Don’t be a hero.
He pulled out his phone and began to dial 9-1-1.
Which is when he heard a snap behind him. A foot on a small branch or bit of crisp leaf.
And felt the muzzle of the gun prod his back as a gloved hand reached out and lifted the phone away.
Well, Prescott’s wife and co-author had done just that: come up with a perfect plot. Maybe the man on the street a moment ago was Reilly, acting as bait. And it was the professional killer who’d come up behind him.
Maybe even Jane Reilly herself.
The detective had another thought. Maybe it was none of his suspects. Maybe the former agent, Frank Lester, had been bitter about being fired by his client and killed Prescott for revenge. Malloy had never followed up on that lead.
Hell, dying because he’d been careless…
Then the hand tugged on his shoulder slightly, indicating he should turn around.
Malloy did, slowly.
He blinked as he looked up into the eyes of the man who’d snuck up behind him.
They’d never met, but the detective knew exactly what J.B. Prescott looked like. His face was on the back jackets of a dozen books in Mal-loy’s living room.
“Sorry for the scare,” Prescott explained, putting away the pen he’d used as a gun muzzle- an ironic touch that Malloy noted as his heart continued to slam in his chest.
The author continued, “I wanted to intercept you before you got home. But I didn’t think you’d get here so soon. I had to come up behind you and make you think I had a weapon so you didn’t call in a ten- thirteen. That would have been a disaster.”
“Intercept?” Malloy asked. “Why?”
They were sitting in the alleyway, on the stairs of a loading dock.
“I needed to talk to you,” Prescott said. The man had a large mane of gray hair and a matching moustache that bisected his lengthy face. He looked like an author ought to look.
“You could’ve called,” Malloy snapped.
“No, I couldn’t. If somebody had overheard or if you’d told anyone I was alive, my whole plot would’ve been ruined.”
“Okay, what the hell is going on?”
Prescott lowered his head to his hands and didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “For the past eighteen months I’ve been planning my own death. It took that long to find a doctor, an ambulance crew, a funeral director I could bribe. And find some remote land in Spain where we could buy a place and nobody would disturb me.”
“So you were the one the police saw walking away from where you’d supposedly had the heart attack in Vermont.”
He nodded.
