have to warm up the coffee…'
She had made cookies and coffee, the cookies laid out on a silver tray. She stuck a carafe of coffee in a microwave, fussed with cups and saucers.
'Such a nice apartment,' Lily said.
'Thank you. They filmed Moonstruck just down the way, you know. Cher was right down by the Promenade, I saw her…'
When the coffee was hot, Logan poked the tray of cookies in Lucas' face. Lucas tried one: oatmeal. He took another, with a cup of coffee.
'It wasn't a woman,' Logan said, positively, when Lily asked. 'The footsteps were too heavy. I didn't see him, but it was a man.'
'You're sure?'
'I hear people come and go all day,' Logan said. 'That's something I'd know. I thought it was Walter coming back-I wouldn't have thought that if it was a woman.'
'He went up, was there for a few minutes, then came right back down?' Lily asked.
'That's right. Couldn't have been more than a half-hour, because my show was a half-hour, and he came after the show started and left before it ended.'
'You told the investigators that it occurred to you that it wasn't Petty,' Lily said. 'But not seriously enough that you actually looked. Why did you think it might not be him?'
'Whoever it was, stopped in the lobby. Like he was looking at my apartment door or maybe listening for anybody inside. Then he went up. Walter was always very forthright. Walked right in, went right up. Especially on his Fridays. He'd always have two or three beers, and he couldn't hold it at all, and by the time he got here, he'd… you know: he had to go. You could hear the water running from the toilet, right after he went up. That night, though, whoever it was stopped inside. He did the same thing on the way back out. Stopped in the lobby. It gives me the shivers. Maybe he was thinking about rubbing out witnesses.'
'I don't think that's much of a threat,' Lily said, smiling at the 'rubbing out.'
'Why don't you say something, young man?' Logan asked Lucas, who was eating his sixth cookie. He couldn't seem to stop.
'Too busy eating cookies,' he said. 'These things are great. You could make a fortune selling them.'
'Oh, that's nice,' she said, smiling. 'What happened to your face?'
'I was mugged.'
'Isn't that just like New York? Even the cops…'
'How do you know this guy went to Petty's apartment?' Lucas asked.
'Well, I heard him come in, and then the elevator dinged, so he was going up. Then just a second later, I heard another ding, like it was coming from the kitchen. That's the second floor. If it goes to the third floor, I can barely hear it. If it goes to the fourth, I can't hear it at all.'
'Okay,' Lucas said, nodding. 'So you heard it ding on the second floor.'
'Yes. And the Lynns and Golds were already in and the Schumachers were at Fire Island that whole weekend. So it had to be Walter, and it was about the time he always came in. I didn't hear him flush, though. Then I heard the elevator ding on the second floor again, and it came down. Then whoever it was, I thought was looking at apartments again, because it was a minute before the outside door opened… I should have looked, but I was watching my show.'
'That's fine,' said Lucas, nodding. 'And it wasn't a visitor to one of the other apartments?'
'No,' Logan said, shaking her head. 'When the cops got here and I found out what happened, I told them about somebody coming, and they talked to everybody up there. Nobody came in at that time, and nobody had any visitors.'
When they finished with Logan, they rode up in the elevator and Lily cut the seals off Petty's door. The apartment had been neatly kept but had been pulled apart by investigators. The refrigerator had been unplugged, and the door stood open. Cupboard doors were open and paper was stacked everywhere. Lucas went to Petty's desk, which was set in a tiny alcove, and thumbed through financial records… No personal phone book.
'No phone book.'
'The Homicide guys probably have it. I'll ask.'
Ten minutes later, Lily said, 'This is like the interview with Rich. There isn't anything here.'
On the way out, Mrs. Logan met them in the hallway with a brown paper bag, which she handed to Lucas. 'More cookies,' she said.
'Thanks,' he said, and then, 'When I finish them, I may come back for more.'
The old lady giggled, and Lucas and Lily went looking for a cab. • • • Cornell Reed. Cornell Reed had seen the killer, an old white guy, and recognized him as a cop.
Lucas lay on the hotel bed and thought about it, sighed, rolled off the bed, found his pocket address book, and picked out Harmon Anderson's home phone number. As he dialed the number, he glanced at his watch. It would be midnight, Minneapolis time.
Anderson was in bed.
'Jesus, Lucas, what's going on?'
'I'm in New York…'
'I know, I heard. I wish I was there…' Lucas heard him turn away from the phone and say to someone in the background, 'Lucas.' Then to Lucas, he said, 'My wife's here, she says hello.'
'Look, I'm sorry I woke you up…'
'No, no…'
'And I don't want to cause you any problems, but would you be available to do a little computer work? I'd pay you a consultant's fee.'
'Ah, fuck that, what do you need?'
'I'm in a snakepit, man. Could you find out what airlines fly out of New York, all the big airports, including Newark, and check from the beginning of the month, see if there's a ticket for a Cornell Reed? Or any first name Cornell, if you can do that? Or Red Reed? I don't think it'd be overseas, except maybe the Caribbean. Check domestic first, like Atlanta, L.A. or Chicago. I need to know where he went and I need to know who paid for the ticket, if we can find that out.'
'Could take a couple of days.'
'Get back to me-and I'm serious about a fee, man. A few bucks.'
'We can work that out…'
'Get back to me, man.'
When he hung up, Lucas dropped back on the bed, thinking back to the interview with Rich. Rich didn't know why he'd been picked for Petty's team. Neither did Lily. His only qualification seemed to be that he'd later get a call from a burglar he knew, producing the only lead in the case. Good luck of a rare and peculiar variety.
Rich said that Cornell Reed was heavy into the crack. If that was right, Reed shouldn't be flying out of town. If he had enough cash to fly, he'd buy dope with the cash and take the bus. Or hitchhike. Or just not go. With enough crack, you didn't have to go anywhere… He certainly wouldn't take several hundred dollars out to La Guardia and push it across the ticket counter.
On the other hand, a doper doesn't take a cab to the bus depot, not when the A train would have him there quicker and leave him enough change for a rock or two. La Guardia was another story. There was no easy way to get there, except by cab…
So maybe he was flying. And maybe he was flying on an unrefundable ticket. And that sounded like a ticket issued by a government.
Or a police department.
And then there was Mrs. Logan's story.
That was very interesting; interesting and disturbing. Had Lily not understood it? Or had she hoped that Lucas hadn't?
CHAPTER
