Die For You

from some meal he’d eaten there in the last week, an old mug in which coffee had solidified and was beginning to send off an odor. He dumped the cup in the trash rather than wash it, cleared a space to rest his elbows.

Jez had a printout of Isabel’s e-mail in front of her and was reading rather than looking at Grady.

“Camilla Novak and Kristof Ragan, if that’s really his name, conspired to kill Marcus Raine and steal his money,” she said. It sounded as if she was certain. This was how they did it-came up with theories, tried to shoot them down, see if they held.

“Then how did Ragan wind up married to Isabel Connelly, running a legitmate business, leaving Camilla Novak weeping on the sidewalk outside his luxury, doorman building?”

She thought about it for a minute, tapping her pen. “He was a con. Isabel Connelly was his next mark. Somehow he convinced Novak to wait, promised her the payout would be even bigger after he’d run his con on Isabel Connelly and her family. Maybe he gave her money, continued their love affair, keeping her hope alive. But she got tired of waiting.”

Grady thought about it, about the e-mail Isabel had forwarded to him. “She started e-mailing Isabel Raine- trying to burn it down, like she threatened on the street.”

“He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Isabel. But he did. He fell in love with her, with the life they made,” said Jez.

“He didn’t want to leave her,” Grady agreed.

“And his brother, Ivan Ragan?”

Grady already had a theory about this. “Okay. So Ivan and Kristof Ragan both come to the U.S. at the same time. Kristof is the good one, goes to college, gets a job at Red Gravity. There he meets Marcus Raine, decides he wants what this guy has-money, the girl. He enlists the help of his criminal brother-someone to do the dirty work, the kill, the disposal-for a share of the haul.”

“But at the end of the day, Kristof doesn’t want to share,” added Jez. She shifted through her file and found the arrest report for Ivan Ragan, handed it to Grady. “Ivan Ragan was arrested after an anonymous tip that he had enough guns in his home for a small army.”

“Kristof Ragan betrayed his brother, had him sent away.”

“Why not kill him? Why take the risk that Ivan would use what he knew to get off?”

Grady shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t want to kill his brother. Maybe he believed that Ivan wouldn’t betray him, wouldn’t suspect that his brother had been the one to turn him over to police.”

“But Kristof had to know Ivan would get out one day, that he’d have to pay his brother off at some point.”

“Maybe he thought he’d be long gone by then. He didn’t expect to fall in love with Isabel. This was the one thing he didn’t plan for, the thing that caused him to stay too long.”

Grady looked down at the photographs of Kristof and Ivan Ragan and the other unidentified men on the dock. “Ivan found out his brother betrayed him,” he said.

“Looks that way.”

Jez was looking down at her own set of prints, shaking her head slightly.

“Is money really that important?” Grady asked, thinking about Kristof Ragan and how he’d deceived and manipulated, stolen and killed. Ragan betrayed his own brother, shot him and left him for dead.

She raised her eyebrows. “Money is important. It’s very important.”

“So important that you sell your ethics, your morals, betray people who love you, murder?”

“For some. But I’m not sure that’s just about money.”

“What’s it about then?”

She looked down at her desk, tapped her fingers. “An idea, an image of what money is, what it brings to your life, how it defines your worth.”

He shook his head. “It’s hard to understand.”

“Is it?” she asked. “Before Benjy I never worried about money. I thought as long as I had what I needed to pay the bills, put some away for later, and have a few extras, that’s all I needed. I’ve seen those skells-pimps and drug dealers-with all their money. It bought them everything, cars and clothes, flat screens and leather couches. But they were still scum, still dirty, still nothing.”

“And now?”

“And now, there’s Benjy’s private school education and saving for college and the cost of health care, gas and groceries through the roof. And he goes to school with all these rich kids, and they have these sneakers that cost $200 and jeans that cost as much and more. Even the T-shirt he wanted? $150. I want him to have those things. I can’t always give them.”

Grady had never heard her say anything like that. He always thought of her as so sensible, pragmatic, not the type to worry about whether her kid had designer jeans or not.

“But he doesn’t need those things,” Grady said. “I never had them when I was a kid. Yeah, it sucked then. But I was better for it. And don’t they wear uniforms at private school?”

“Yeah, they do,” she said with a nod. “But after school and at parties, you know. Those kids are his friends. They live in homes that look like hotels. They show up in Polo and Izod. I hate sending him in less. But I have to. I won’t go into debt or sacrifice his future. And it’s almost Christmas. He wants a Wii, and a new bike. I can’t afford to get him all the things his friends will get.”

He could tell by the line of her mouth that she was sad, that these things worried her in bed at night. He wished good people didn’t have to fret over money.

“But I bet none of them has a mom who knows kung fu.”

“That’s true,” she said with a slow grin. “I am cool.”

“And cool beats rich any day. You could kick all the other moms’ asses.”

“Thanks, G.”

She looked down at her cuticles, snapping her right thumb and pinkie nail together. Something she did when she felt awkward or uncomfortable.

“I guess what I’m saying is that it’s not so hard to understand why Kristof Ragan liked what he had with Isabel Raine-the money, the lifestyle, the image. If it hadn’t been for Camilla Novak making threats, I doubt he would have fled. He’d still be running his company, maybe screwing around, but I think he liked the whole successful urban couple thing. He liked what he was with her.”

It made sense to Grady. Kristof Ragan had the life he wanted. Why would he leave it for Camilla Novak? He wouldn’t. He may have wanted her once; she was beautiful. But Isabel Connelly was the golden ticket-not just money. Class. Respect. With her, he had entree into a whole other world.

“So who was the crew that trashed his office and home?” Jez said, flipping through the file, staring at the crime-scene photos. “How did he have associations like this?”

“Through his brother?”

Jez held up one of the frames Isabel Connelly had sent. Kristof Ragan surrounded by grim-faced, black-coated men on a Brooklyn pier. One of them his brother.

“I don’t think his brother’s allies were interested in working with him anymore, do you?”

“Maybe not,” he admitted.

Anyone else would be dead, but Kristof Ragan was still alive. He flipped through the photos, watching events unfold a frame at a time.

“He was combat-trained somewhere,” he said. “You don’t take down four armed men like that without some training.”

“The real question is: Who took these pictures? Who else was watching?” said Jez.

Somewhere a phone started ringing. Grady could hear a television set on down the hall-some kind of game, people cheering.

“And how did they get in Camilla Novak’s possession? Who was she giving them to? And why?” she went on, writing down her own questions in a notebook.

“No ID yet on the shooting victim in Central Park. I just checked with the morgue.”

“And who’s this chick?” Jez held up the picture of S.

“I don’t know but I’m glad she’s not my girlfriend. You’d never know if she was going to make love to you or kill you while you slept.”

Jez had a good laugh at that one, and he joined in until they were both doubled over, tearing. They were punchy now-overworked and overtired.