It could have been over. It could have been all over!
Why was he doing this? Why wouldn't he leave it alone?
Why won't he let me be? Why does he still want to ruin my life?
Why why why why why why why?
Trying to prove that Kid was murdered. Trying to find the murderer.
Okay. Let him try. And maybe he won't have to try so hard.
Maybe the murderer will find him…
The first thing Sergeant McCoy did was to tell Jack to call his lawyer. He didn't want to, didn't think it was necessary, but she told him it was and insisted before she hung up.
Jack stood off to the side as first a police team showed up, then McCoy, about half an hour later, then an ambulance, with medics to take Leslee's body away on a stretcher. Jack took them through what had happened step-by-step, told them all that the only thing he'd done since discovering the body was to turn the water off in the bathtub.
The cops took about two hours to go over the apartment. While they did, Jack sat in the living room on one of the couches. No one paid any attention to him. He didn't demand any attention be paid. He just sat quietly and watched them do their job until nine-thirty, when Herb Bloomfield, Jack's lawyer, showed up. He pulled Jack into the bedroom, asked him a few questions – what exactly had happened, what the hell was he doing there, what had the police said or not said to him – then the two of them went back into the living room and waited quietly.
It was ten-fifteen when Patience McCoy came over to the couch. She sat down next to Jack; he could feel the cushion sag as her weight was added to his. She didn't say anything to him or to Herb for several seconds. Then she turned to Jack, shook her head, and said, 'Is there anything you want to tell me?'
Herb didn't let him speak. He immediately jumped in and started insisting that this could be done the next morning, but Sergeant McCoy just looked wearily at him and said, 'I don't think your client is a suspect, Counselor. I think he's a damn fool but I sure as hell don't think he killed this girl. And I don't want to see him tomorrow morning because I don't want to have to think about this by tomorrow morning. I want it to be over now. So give me five minutes and then we can all go home.'
That shut Herb up immediately. He nodded, first at McCoy, then at Jack, a signal for him to say whatever he wanted.
Jack met McCoy's glare head-on. 'I don't know what you're looking for me to say,' he told her.
'I want to know if you've got any reason to think this is anything but a drug overdose. Our take is that she's the sequel to Kid's death. Maybe both were accidental, maybe not, but they both took too many drugs and they both died.'
'You're not serious.'
'I'm as serious as anyone you're ever going to meet, Jack. We got nothing to show that anyone's been in here but that poor girl – and you.'
'Somebody buzzed me into the apartment.'
'So you said. But you also said the door to the building was locked.'
'It is.'
'Uh-uh. The lock's been broken. So you ain't got a lot of credibility right now. Maybe you rang the wrong buzzer; it's possible. We're checking everyone in the building; a few people aren't home right now. Before we go to all that trouble, do you want to change your story?'
Jack was stunned. He knew the door had been locked. He'd tried it. What the hell was happening? Could it have been broken after he'd come up the stairs? And why? What in God's name was going on?
'Why would I lie?' he said to McCoy.
'You tell me,' was her response. 'You tell me, Jack.'
'Thank you very much, Sergeant.' Herb stood up now, took Jack's hand, and yanked him to his feet. 'My client's said all he's going to say.'
McCoy shook her head, held her hands out as if to signal a truce. 'I said he wasn't a suspect and he's not a suspect.' Standing now and turning to face Jack, she said, 'If you've got any legitimate reason to think this is a murder, tell me now because my boys didn't find a goddamn thing. Pending the lab report, it's going in the book as an accidental OD.'
Jack tried to gather his thoughts. Once again, he realized he was stymied. What could he say? The girl was killed by the same person who killed Kid? She was killed by someone who wanted to stop her from talking? She was killed because she knew something that none of them knew and now might never know? No, he couldn't say any of that. Because he had no proof. He knew it was true but he didn't have one shred of logical, irrefutable evidence. All he had was his gut. And his faith in Kid Demeter. And the fact that he knew someone had buzzed him into the Entertainer's apartment…
'No,' he said slowly. 'I don't have any reason to think it was anything but an accident.'
'You called it in as a murder.'
'I guess I was mistaken.'
Sergeant McCoy nodded grimly, clapped her notebook shut, and nodded at the team of cops that had gathered in the Entertainer's living room. As her team began to disperse, McCoy looked at Jack and said, 'I'm not sure why you're here, Jack, although I have a pretty good idea. I'm not gonna ask you because I don't think you'll tell me the truth, so what's the point. But I am gonna tell you something. Which is, whatever you think you're doin', stop it now. Not tomorrow, not the day after, now. Right this minute. Stop pokin' around, stop goin' places you have no business bein' in.
'Sergeant,' Herb interrupted, 'I've got to object to your behavior and your statement. My client has every right to be visiting a woman in her apartment.'
'I'm not saying he doesn't have the right. God knows I'm a big supporter of the Constitution of the United States, Counselor.' She smiled her most accommodating smile at the lawyer. 'I'm just telling him to stop exercising that right,' she said.
– '-'-'HERB HAD USED a car service to come to Leslee's apartment and he'd told the driver to keep the Ford Explorer waiting. They rode back to Jack's apartment in silence. When the Explorer pulled up in front of the building, Herb asked the driver to wait for him again, then, turning to Jack, said, 'You want me to come up for a drink?'
Jack shook his head. 'I'm fine,' he said and opened the car door.
Herb reached for him, touched him lightly on the arm, started to say something. But then he shook his head and gave a sour smile and said, 'Damn, this is the first time in my life I don't have any fucking idea what to say.' Jack started to step out but Herb tightened his grip. 'But that's not gonna stop me from talking,' he said. 'I don't know what's going on, old buddy, and if you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But as your good pal I'm telling you to be careful. As your lawyer, I'm telling you to be extra careful. That cop said you weren't a suspect but I know cops and she left out a word. And she did it because you're rich and well known and I'm almost as rich and, if not so well known, at least fairly well respected. The word she left out is 'yet.' You're not a suspect yet.'
With that, Herb released Jack's arm, watched as he got out of the car, and then nodded wearily to the driver.
In the elevator ride up to his apartment, Jack tried to piece things together. But the pieces all seemed so scattered, so disconnected. He arrived at Leslee's apartment, rang her buzzer. No answer. Someone was in there with her, though, had to be. But doing what? Putting the needle in her arm? Waiting for her to die? And then what? Jack had buzzed a second time, and this one was answered. A short buzz back, letting him into the building. A minute to climb the stairs? Two minutes? And now there was no one in the apartment. No one except the dead girl in the bathtub.
He tried to imagine what could have happened. Someone buzzes him in, leaves the apartment…
Jack realized he was picturing this someone as a woman. Someone Leslee would trust. One of Kid's team.
She had buzzed Leslee from downstairs. Identified herself as a friend of Kid's. Or maybe didn't even have to. Maybe Leslee was already in the tub, assumed that Jack had arrived early, hopped out to quickly press the buzzer, then dashed back to the bath. That made sense. He could picture that.
She got to the top of the stairs, saw the note – and the knife – that Leslee had left by the door. Went inside.
