Shot in the Dark Read online

  “We are. But I can’t remember the last time we took a walk in the park.”

  “Neither can I.” Quinn’s arctic blue eyes peered down at me. “Although I’m fairly sure it was daylight . . .”

  At almost two in the morning, Hudson River Park felt desolate. Though the place officially closed at one AM, it was too big and too accessible to close in any literal way. While the tennis courts and playgrounds were locked up tight, the bike and pedestrian paths were open to anyone willing to venture along shadowy grounds in an under-patrolled urban area.

  Fortunately, for tonight’s venturing, I had a police escort. And not just any police escort, a decorated narcotics detective with years working anti-crime on the streets of New York.

  I elbowed my bodyguard’s solid chest. “Come on, admit it. This is nice.”

  “I’ll admit that being alone in the dark with you is giving me ideas.” By the glow of a distant streetlamp, I saw actual signs of warmth lurking in Quinn’s typically glacial gaze. “Why don’t we start our investigation over there on that bench?”

  “I’ll be game for that kind of activity later. Right now, we need to concentrate on business . . .”

  Quinn was good at business. Too good. His track record of closing challenging cases, along with his leadership abilities, and experience in Washington’s Federal Triangle, had made him one of the most popular officers in the department. It also made him a trusted one for “special” (i.e., impossible) assignments.

  That coffee stain on his gold tie, the slump of his posture beneath his sports coat, and the five-o’clock shadow morphing into late-night bristles told me the weight of too much responsibility had fallen on his shoulders again.

  Since we entered this shadowy park, however, a noticeable spring had boosted his steps, which told me he was enjoying tonight’s little foray into the kind of nitty-gritty police work he missed—and still loved.

  I knew these things because I understood my fiancé’s hard-to-detect disposition better than anyone, an intimacy that hadn’t come easily or quickly. What Quinn and I shared had grown over years.

  The first time I saw him, he strode into my coffeehouse looking like a man in need of caffeine. A rumpled trench coat hung from his broad shoulders, his blue eyes were bloodshot, his expression haggard. He’d been overworked, sure, but what really wore him down were the kinds of personal burdens I’d once carried.

  I would find out more about those burdens over time. During our first meeting—a routine follow-up after one of my baristas had been hospitalized—Quinn was all business. As we talked, I convinced him of two things: my employee’s “accident” was no accident, and my premium, meticulously made coffee was profoundly better than the stale dregs of the cheap cups he’d been drinking for years.

  Quinn was suitably impressed with my persuasive abilities, as well as my coffee, and kept coming back for more.

  We became friends, then confidants, until finally he convinced me to look past the poker-faced policeman and see the caring man behind the stoic mask.

  After years dealing with my ex-husband’s hot-blooded outspokenness, Quinn’s cool, enigmatic ways took some getting used to. For one thing, I had to learn a whole new language—how to read the man.

  But I loved what I read.

  Where Matt had been short-tempered, argumentative, even thickheaded, Quinn was patient, understanding, and perceptive. But then a good detective would have to be.

  Take tonight. With no more than a simple request, Quinn had met me at Pier 66. Explanations weren’t needed. I asked him to come, and he was there.

  After I’d given my statement to the Harbor Patrol and a team from the medical examiner’s office took the girl’s body away, Quinn even helped me pour a woozy Madame into the shop’s van and see her home safely.

  She was extremely chatty on the ride—mostly about that “intriguing” boat patrol Sergeant (not Davy) Jones. “How do you think he lost that eye? I’ll bet he’d make an interesting dinner companion. Not like that awful man I had to listen to all night, droning on and on about the New Jersey real estate market!”

  As soon as I got Madame up to her penthouse, I helped her change for bed. And (thank goodness) the moment her head hit the pillow, she was out.

  I borrowed her kitchen to press some Ethiopian light roast, poured the eye-opening brew into paper cups, and Quinn and I returned to the riverfront. On the way, I filled him in on Gun Girl’s bang-up performance in our second-floor lounge; the awful video-gone-viral; and my discovery of one of our young female customers floating in the Hudson.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” I admitted. “But I believe this girl’s death is connected to what happened tonight in our coffeehouse.”

  Quinn’s mask never cracked. “I think you’re right.”

  I sighed with relief, until he added—

  “It does sound crazy.”

  Eighteen

  I stopped walking.

  Quinn studied my face and softened his tone. “What I mean is: without evidence, it would sound crazy to an investigating officer.” He folded his arms. “I assume you have a theory?”

  “I do.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When Carol Lynn Kendall terrorized Richard Crest tonight, she claimed it was because he charmed her into sleeping with him and instantly treated her like dirt. This is a pattern for Crest.”

  “A pattern based on what?”

  “Nancy and Esther witnessed him emotionally abuse at least two other Cinder-ellas at our coffeehouse. Even Crest’s own statement to Franco corroborated his behavior.”

  “And the statement was?”

  “Something along the lines of: ‘A lot of these bitches see bags of money when they look at a guy like me, so I’ve got to be harsh to shake them off.’”

  “What a prince.”

  “I know. That’s why I think our dead customer was yet another Richard Crest horrible hookup. I think she arranged a meeting to confront him, just like Carol Lynn Kendall did. But something went wrong, and he threw her body in the river, thinking it would look like a mugging. Or suicide . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “For her body to have ended up at Pier 66, she would have gone into the water somewhere north of the pier, and this park seems a likely place for two people to meet.”

  “But how do you know the deceased girl met with Crest? Did the Harbor Unit recover her phone?”

  “She had no ID or phone. Her pockets were emptied, which makes me think Crest took it all with him—”

  “Slow down, Clare. Your theories are getting way ahead of the facts. I have yet to hear you connect the dead girl in any provable way with Richard Crest.”

  “Didn’t I mention? I sent the victim’s photo to my staff. Before you arrived at the pier, Esther texted back. She didn’t know the young woman’s name, but she remembered her as a customer because of the heart tattoo. She also remembered the last two times she saw her. Earlier this evening, she refilled her travel mug. She also saw Heart Girl about two weeks ago, sitting and talking intensely with Richard Crest.”

  Quinn frowned. “You realize that doesn’t prove anything.”

  “I’m not finished. The victim had a memory stick in her backpack containing five different recordings of tonight’s Gun Girl incident. I didn’t even know there were five. I only saw one. But she found and collected all five, each from a different website or social media platform, which she labeled on every video file. That’s what the officers from the Harbor Unit told me.”

  Quinn scratched the rough stubble of his unshaven jawline. “If she was astute enough to locate and download all those videos that quickly, she likely worked around here in Silicon Alley.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “So you believe our Jane Doe may have met with Crest to confront him, just like Ms. Kendall did in your coffeehouse. They
argued and then what? It’s your theory. Keep it going—”

  “He might have struck her. Maybe he panicked when he realized how hard he’d hit her. Instead of calling for help and giving paramedics a chance to save her, he could have taken her phone, wallet, and ID, making it look like a robbery. Then he dumped her unconscious body in the river. Or maybe she was dead already from his blow; the autopsy should tell us. Either way, I do think Crest is contemptible—and dangerous. If he was responsible for my customer’s death, I want to prove it.”

  “What about that memory stick? The one with the viral videos. Why didn’t Crest take that, too? It connects him to the victim, doesn’t it?”

  “My guess? In his haste or panic, he missed it. The same reason he misjudged her backpack.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The pack was bulky. At a glance, anyone would think it was also heavy and would drag her body down. But it was filled with empty Tupperware and a half-empty Village Blend thermos. The pack was also waterproof, so it acted as a flotation device, which is how I spotted her.”

  Quinn’s gaze drifted toward the overcast sky, where thick clouds were finally beginning to break up.

  “So where are we going, Detective Cosi? And what exactly are we hunting for?”

  Quinn already knew the answers to those questions. But after years of training rookies, Socratic habits die hard.

  “We’re looking for a crime scene,” I stated with patience. “Somewhere in this park. We should stick close to the water and move north, because the victim floated south with low tide.”

  “And? If you think the killer took her phone and wallet, what are we looking to find?”

  “Whatever else she might have had in her pockets that can be connected to her. An ATM receipt or sales slip with credit card number. A Post-it note with her handwriting. A key chain or charm—she had a thing for hearts. Whatever proves she was here.”

  Quinn scanned the waterfront around us. “I can see why you wanted to do this in the middle of the night. Sanitation is going to sweep this place in the morning, and anything like that will be gone. But I have to warn you, those things wouldn’t prove much. It’s pretty tenuous.”

  “Maybe. But don’t forget the primary reason we’re out here—the item I mentioned on our call.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t recall . . .” He scratched his head. “Drop the other shoe.”

  “Funny you should put it that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our departed Cinder-ella was only wearing one.”

  Nineteen

  FINALLY, Quinn saw the light—metaphorically speaking, because the deep shadows around us were as daunting as ever. But he had to agree with me. Locating the dead girl’s missing shoe would be a brilliant find.

  “If we actually discover it, I’ll call Night Watch myself,” he promised. “They can create a perimeter and get CSU down here to look for additional evidence—blood, hair, prints, fibers, whatever they’re able to recover. But I have to be honest, Cosi, I’m not optimistic.”

  “You’re here, Mike—and after a long day of work. That’s optimistic enough for me.”

  At that, he gave me a little smile. Then together we began casing the concrete walkway along the river.

  Every few feet, Quinn directed his heavy Maglite to aid my shadowy search. I carried a flashlight, too, a standard one from my shop van’s glove compartment. But he insisted on bringing his Mag, and I knew why.

  For years, the weight and solidity of the long-handled design allowed street cops to use the Maglite as a defensive weapon. It wasn’t a pleasant idea, but it certainly was a practical one when venturing down dangerous alleys, approaching suspicious vehicles, or (in our case) entering dark, desolate areas of an officially closed park.

  As we searched under trees, around bushes, and near every bench, we encountered others daring enough to enter the deserted green space.

  A few bicyclists raced by quickly, to avoid being ticketed by random patrols. We also found a pair of homeless men—one older, one younger—camped out among the greenery.

  Despite the autumn chill, the weather wasn’t bad enough to drive the two into city shelters, but soon enough winter would come. Feeling a sudden sting from winds off the water, I remembered the frigid day I’d taken a walk along the icy river and found a homeless old man frozen to death beneath a blanket of newspapers.

  I shook off the tragic memory as Quinn and I spoke with the bearded pair. Quinn initiated the conversation. Then I gave a general description of the dead girl and asked if they’d seen her.

  They both shook their shaggy heads.

  Before we left, Quinn shared a few more concerned words with the men, passing each a small card from a special pocket. I already knew what was on those cards: the addresses of shelters and food banks in Lower Manhattan.

  As we walked on, he silently handed me the Maglite and pulled out his phone. I knew why he’d done that, too. The HOME-STAT app would allow him to report the men—not for arrest, but to get them help via the city’s outreach program. A Street Action Team would arrive within the hour to evaluate their situation, and (hopefully) help the pair into transitional or permanent housing.

  As we continued along the riverfront, checking bushes and benches, I couldn’t help thinking back to my dinner with Madame—and what this park might have looked like if it had existed during the Summer of Love.

  “Those camped-out men we saw. They got me thinking . . .”

  “About?”

  “Something Madame brought up at dinner. Do you remember the Groovy Murders?”

  “Sure. They were way before my time, but senior officers talked about them, back in my Academy days.”

  “I know the facts surrounding the victims. But what about the two killers? Were they ever caught and convicted?”

  “They were.”

  “How?”

  Quinn shrugged his broad shoulders. “No Sherlock tricks, if that’s what you were hoping to hear. Just meat and potatoes police work.”

  “What? Detectives canvassed the neighborhood? Questioned residents?”

  “They did that. They also put the squeeze on their only witness.”

  “There was a witness?”

  “Experienced officers know that the person who ‘finds the body’ is sometimes responsible for the crime, and the ‘discovery’ is simply a ploy to hide his or her involvement. In the case of the Groovy Murders, the man who reported the dead teens was the building’s janitor. He used the basement boiler room—the location where the female victim and her friend, Groovy, were killed—as a place to crash.”

  “The janitor wasn’t involved in the crime?”

  “That’s what he claimed. But the detectives were suspicious, so they grilled him. While he was in custody, a woman reported being assaulted that same day, in that very basement. A little too coincidental, right? She identified the janitor, and they used that assault charge to put pressure on him for the names of the killers.”

  “He knew?”

  “He knew because one of the killers lived in the building. The other was the petty drug dealer who led the two victims to the basement with the promise of selling them LSD. The two killers were high when they did it, passing the murder weapon—a brick—back and forth.”

  I shivered. “So evil. So awful.”

  “Both of the killers died in prison.”

  As Quinn’s voice trailed off, his gaze scanned the brush and walkway. This time, I could tell, he wasn’t looking for a shoe or scraps of paper. The Groovy discussion seemed to make him more wary of our vulnerability.

  “As police work goes, Cosi, solving that murder was pretty routine, though the aftermath wasn’t.”

  “You mean the fear on the street when everyone learned about those murders?”

  “That was part of it. But you have to remember, wi
th all those kids bunking in parks, alleys, and doorways, and openly using drugs, the business owners and eventually the entire city expected the NYPD to do something about it. Those Summer of Love kids also had parents who were looking for them. The old-timers said not a day went by without some poor mother or father showing up at a local precinct desperate for news about a lost child. Or just wanting someone to explain to them how their child died—usually from an overdose.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “After those murders, the public expected police to do more than catch criminals after the fact. They wanted us to start addressing the underlying conditions that lead to crime.”

  “Madame was right then.”

  “She usually is.” He smiled. “What was she right about this time?”

  “She said the Groovy Murders changed the Village culture. But they did more than that, didn’t they? They started to change the NYPD.”

  “That’s true, I guess. Although when it comes to policing, some things never change . . .”

  Quinn’s last enigmatic comment became all too clear a few minutes later, when we passed more men along the waterfront. Only these guys weren’t homeless, or quietly camped out in the brush.

  Perched like roosters on the riverbank railing, this rough crew was loudly laughing and cursing. Their tan overalls were identical, displaying the name of a nearby West Side warehouse.

  Three of the six young men were smoking, and all of them held cans or bottles tucked inside wrinkled paper bags, a popular method of avoiding a citation for consuming alcohol in public.

  I could tell Quinn was going to ignore the raucous group, until a few made loud, lewd remarks about yours truly.

  That did it.

  “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Good evening, asshole!”

  The young man’s reply cracked up his five friends.

  Quinn didn’t blink. “Not just any asshole,” he coolly returned. “An asshole with a badge.”

  Twenty