Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery (3 page)

Chapter Five

“I’m Sam North on the East Side of Manhattan with breaking news. Liberty News anchor and host of
Steele Yourself
, Jack Steele, is dead.”

I paused for a beat and hoped I was right. Hoped this wasn’t actually the fat guy in accounting somewhere.

“A New York City Police Department source confirms that Steele’s body was found floating in the East River here at the end of Twenty-third Street early this morning.”

I turned and walked back the few steps to the edge of the parking lot, and Charlie moved with me. He went past me and shot straight down into the dark water so people could see the rotting pilings as I spoke.

“Steele’s body was found floating right here in this spot among those posts you can see sticking up out of the water. The body was discovered by a private sanitation worker.”

Charlie came off the river, took a few steps back, and I was again on camera.

“The recovery of Steele’s body was recorded by a freelance cameraman who arrived on the scene. Liberty News has obtained that footage and will air it now. But this exclusive footage contains graphic images.”

Townsend was in my ear. “Video is up.”

I spoke and allowed enough time for the video to run twice, as planned.

“A New York City Police Department Harbor Patrol unit responded, as did an Emergency Services crew, and Steele’s body was pulled from the river. Jack Steele was pronounced dead a short while later.”

Townsend cued me. “You’re back up.”

I took a breath and tried to phrase this perfectly, knowing this was the part that could come back to bite me in the ass.

“As for the circumstances surrounding the death of Jack Steele … a police source tells Liberty that a suicide note has been discovered in Steele’s Manhattan apartment where he lived with his wife, Roberta. No further details are available at the moment.”

I stood there and let it sink in, then wrapped and tossed it to the morning anchor team in the studio.

“Once again, New York City Police Department sources confirm that Liberty News anchor Jack Steele has been found dead. His body was found floating in the East River at approximately two-thirty this morning. On the East Side of Manhattan, I’m Sam North. We go now to Liberty’s New York studios, where Kelly Hunter and Dan Miller are standing by.”

I waited for Kelly or Dan to speak up, but all I heard was something that sounded like a sob off in the distance. It was awkward and uncomfortable. Finally, Hunter broke the silence.

“Sam, it’s Kelly. This … this is shocking …”

Miller chimed in from next to her on the couch back on the set.

“Truly shocking …” Miller said.

We now had it confirmed by both anchors that Steele’s death was shocking.

“This … this … note the police say they have, Sam. It’s a suicide note?” Hunter asked.

Of all the info Rinaldi had given me, this made me the most nervous. I hadn’t seen it. Rinaldi hadn’t seen it. It was a rumor at this stage and a mighty big one at that.

“Kelly, as I said, a police source tells us that a note, and they are terming it a ‘suicide note,’ was discovered. We don’t know much more at this stage.”

“Any idea what specifically the note says, Sam?” Miller asked.

“Dan, at this point, that is all the information we have,” I said.

Hunter’s voice was choked by sobs.

“I … I just saw Jack yesterday,” she said.

“Me … me, too,” Miller said, not to be outdone.

Viewers now knew that, yes, many of the people at Liberty did in fact see one another at work. After a few more questions, Miller called this a “tragic, tragic event,” and the live shot was over.

I stood there with sweat coating my forehead and waited for Townsend to clear me. Overhead, the dull thumping of helicopter blades filled the air. My phone vibrated with incoming calls and texts.

“You’re clear,” Townsend said.

Before I could move, Jennings was in my ear.

“Don’t move, Sam. We’re going to need you back on in sixty seconds, Kelly and Dan are sobbing on the goddamn set. You’d think they could at least pretend to be professional.”

I looked at Charlie, who stood there shaking his head.

“We’re screwed, Sam. You know how much ad revenue Jack brought in?”

There were more choppers in the sky now. Within minutes it was going to get very crowded over here.

Jennings screamed in my earpiece. “Need to get you back on. Fast. They’re a mess.”

My phone vibrated again, and I looked at an incoming number I didn’t recognize.

“Yeah,” I answered over the din.

“Is this Sam North?”

It was a woman’s voice.

“It is.”

She spoke between sobs, and her voice had an edge to it. “You’re wrong,” she said.

I pushed the phone against my ear and struggled to hear.

“I’m wrong?” I asked, with an edge all my own.

“Yes. Jack Steele didn’t kill himself.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Jack didn’t kill himself,” she repeated.

She was defiant now, but I could match her.

“Look, I don’t have all day; you going to tell me how you know this?”

She sobbed some more, and I thought for a second that maybe I had lost her.

Jennings voice knifed through my earpiece. “Get ready, Sam.
Now
,” he screamed.

I yelled into the phone, “Look, lady, you got to tell me what you’re talking about. How the hell do you know Jack didn’t—”

She cut me off, and her voice filled with anger. “Because I’m his wife,” she yelled.

Chapter Six

At ten minutes before midnight I got out of a cab at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixty-eighth Street across from Central Park and looked up at the white brick apartment building in the middle of the block. It was home to Jack and Roberta “Robbie” Steele.

I pushed through the revolving door and stepped into what felt like a walk-in freezer on the other side. A doorman stood in front me blocking my way, like he expected me to make a run for the elevators across the lobby.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Geez, you could chill fish in here,” I said.

That got me nothing. No response, no indication of a sense of humor. Just a blank expression from this guy. It was a toss-up as to which was colder, the doorman or the lobby.

“I’m here to see Robbie Steele,” I said.

I gave him my name and he walked to the little doorman’s desk, which was jammed in a corner by the door, picked up the phone, and punched a few buttons.

“I have Mr. North here, ma’am,” he said.

I was having a tough time thinking of Robbie Steele as a “ma’am.” Steele had been sixty-one, and she was thirty years younger. Most of the pictures I had seen of her were from a
New York
magazine spread on the most attractive yoga instructors in the city. She was right at the top of the list, dressed in a skintight outfit that would make it virtually impossible to focus on anything else in her class. There was nothing “ma’am” about her.

“You can go up,” Mr. Serious said. “Apartment Ten D. Take a left off the elevator. Last door on the right.”

“I’ll try not to break anything,” I said.

I crossed the lobby and rode the elevator up to ten, wondering what I was about to walk into. I got out and went down the long hallway to the last door on the right and knocked lightly. After a few seconds I rapped a bit harder and heard the sound of shoes on a hardwood floor.

Deadbolts were turned, the door was unlocked and opened, and Robbie Steele stood in front of me. Her sandy-blonde hair was long and straight and shiny and she wore it in a ponytail. She had a healthy tan, but her eyes were red and tired.

“Robbie Steele,” she said, extending her hand.

I grasped her hand and tried not to squeeze too firmly.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” I said.

She invited me in, and I followed her out of the foyer and down a short hallway. She was of medium height and had on low heels that still managed to show off her legs. She wore black leggings and a long button-down maroon top that I’m sure sold for five times more than I could guess at some Madison Avenue boutique.

She led me into the living room, a big, open room with a wall of windows that looked out onto the black expanse that was Central Park. Across the park I saw the lights of the Time Warner Center and the buildings along Central Park West. Sliding-glass doors opened onto a terrace, and a baby grand piano was positioned in one corner, next to a few high bookcases that were packed with hardcovers.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

I passed on the offer and she crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the couch with her back to the windows. I took a seat on a matching leather chair across from her, on the other side of a glass-and-chrome coffee table.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” she said.

She sat with perfectly straight posture, her legs angled slightly and touching at the knees.

“I’m very sorry about Jack,” I said.

She nodded, and I said a few kind words about her late husband. She thanked me and there was an uncomfortable moment where neither of us spoke.

“So I’m wrong?” I asked.

“You are,” she said.

“And you’ll tell me why?”

“In a moment.”

I was tired and exhaled and she must have seen my shoulders rise and slump because now she glared at me.

“I’m sure there are a hundred other reporters who would like to hear what I’m about to tell you. The only reason I called you was because I saw your report this morning.”

“I want to hear what you have to say,” I said, in as neutral a tone as I could manage.

“Jack did not kill himself,” she said.

“Okay.”

“You’re trying to sound like you believe me,” she said.

“Should I not believe you?”

“I know you don’t. I’m not stupid,” she said.

“I can tell.”

“And this isn’t some widow-in-denial thing,” she went on. “That’s what the detectives told me when I talked to them about this.”

“And you’ll tell me what you told them?”

“Only if you agree to help me,” she said.

“I’m not sure what it is you want me to do.”

“I need you, or someone else, to find out who killed Jack,” she said. Her tone was flat and unemotional, like she was telling me there was a bit of rain in the forecast. “The detectives won’t. They think it’s Jack’s handwriting on that damn note.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t know, okay? I said it was at first, but now I really don’t know. It’s being checked out. But … but I don’t know.”

She tried to hold back a sob, and I looked for a way to buy time to try and decide if she was nuts.

“Robbie …” I said, but she didn’t let me finish.

“If you’re going to tell me I’m just upset and emotional, save it.”

“What bothers you about the note?”

She sat there with her posture perfect and an almost elegant bearing and shook her head at the whole idea of the note. “There’s something about it that … I … I don’t know …”

“Maybe we come back to it,” I said. “Why don’t you just tell me what you think happened.”

The word from Rinaldi was that Steele had left here just before one a.m., gotten into a cab, gone down to Thirty-fourth Street and First Avenue, walked over to the end of Thirty-fourth by the heliport, and jumped in the river.

That wasn’t the way Mrs. Steele saw it.

“I think he went to meet someone,” she said.

“And this someone would be?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And that’s what you want me to find out?”

“Yes. He had a lot of enemies, people were always sending him threatening e-mails,” she said. “Some of the things people said were so—” She shook her head and tried rein in her emotions.

It crossed my mind that Robbie Steele, much like her late husband, might be something of a conspiracy theory nut. Jack Steele had built a multimillion-dollar cable-TV franchise using conspiracy theories as a key component. Maybe some of that flowed into his home life.

Robbie looked at me like she was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” she asked.

I had learned it was never good, and rarely smart, to agree with a woman’s self-assessment if it included the word
crazy
. And definitely not to agree with any assessment that included the word
stupid
.

“Robbie …” I said. “The police say—”

“I don’t give a damn what the police say.”

Her face tightened, and she wiped away a tear then began to cry. I decided this was getting a little too nutty for me. Here I was, sitting in Jack Steele’s apartment almost in the dark, with his very attractive widow, less than twenty-four hours after he killed himself.

She was becoming more unhinged by the second and asking me to chase some wacky conspiracy theory. If I did, I would then become the wacky conspiracy theory reporter. I was having enough trouble hanging on in this business without that label.

It was officially time for a graceful exit before she completely broke down and I felt the need to give her a hug or something, making this all the more bizarre.

I got up and tried my best to sound comforting while at the same time moving to leave.

“Robbie, look, I’m not so sure I can be of much help here,” I said.

She got up and stared at me. “Listen to me,” she snapped. “I’m telling you that Jack did not kill himself.”

“But what about the note?”

“I don’t know how to explain that,” she said. “I told you that.”

“Then how can you be so certain about all of this?” I asked.

She moved closer to me and, her eyes soft with tears, and began to flat-out sob. She took another step and before I could react she pounded my chest with the side of her fist and let loose a day full of grief and anger. Then she looked up at me through tear-filled eyes.

“Because I’m pregnant,” she said.

Chapter Seven

“And she hasn’t shared this little nugget with anybody else?” Liz asked.

“Nope.”

“Interesting.”

“Guess I’m special,” I said. “But you already knew that.”

“Yes. Of course,” she said.

Liz Harrison and I were at a table for two upstairs at the Union Tavern on Park Avenue South at Eighteenth Street, around the corner from my Gramercy Park apartment.

Liz was still dressed from work, a white blouse and a form-fitting black skirt, with heels that were tasteful yet sexy. Most of what she wore was tasteful yet sexy, and it was my feeling that she was easily the sexiest investment banker in the business.

“You think that’s odd?” I asked. “That she told me but no one else?”

Liz stopped picking through her salad, put her fork down and picked up her glass of French rosé. She sat back and took a sip of the wine.

“Well, yes. I mean, no knock against you.”

“No knock taken.”

“But why not tell the police?”

“She said she didn’t want it getting out in the media.”

“Then telling a reporter might not be the smartest idea.”

“I prefer TV personality,” I said. “‘Reporter’ sounds so pedestrian.”

“Right.”

“Plus, I have a face you can trust. Look, it worked with you,” I said.

She raised her wineglass to her lips and shot me a smile before taking a drink.

“Then I guess it’s quite an honor,” she said. “Picking you to share the big news with.”

“Robbie said they had been trying for a long time,” I said. “Said Jack had always wanted to be a dad and knew it had to be now or never.”

“Scary thought,” she said.

“Cable talk-show hosts are allowed to spawn like the rest of us,” I said.

“Some shouldn’t be allowed to.”

I looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. A woman at the table to our right shot me a smile while the guy she was with was working on a large, messy burger.

“Worried?” Liz asked as she watched me watch others.

“A little bit.”

“Would you like us to speak in hushed tones?” she asked.

“You’re an investment banker; doesn’t your type speak in hushed tones anyway? You know, when you’re doing a deal and stuff?”

“No. Usually I speak in a normal conversational tone. Sometimes I even shout,” she said. She studied me. “You’re not sure whether to believe her, are you?”

I had a drink of my Brooklyn Lager and used my cloth napkin to wipe the corners of my mouth. “She was pretty convincing. But it doesn’t help me decide whether or not she’s a nut,” I said.

“She certainly has a not-so-stellar reputation. You know, the whole home-wrecking thing.”

“Be nice,” I said.

“I am,” she said.

“She’s a grieving widow,” I said. “Okay, a very good-looking and rich widow, but grieving nonetheless.”

Liz was back to moving things around on her plate, determined to find some other vegetable to nibble on.

“Do insurance policies pay off on suicides?” she asked, looking up.

“I have no idea. But that occurred to me.”

“Maybe Yoga Mama isn’t getting the money she thinks she needs or is entitled to if her hubby the talker did in fact kill himself.”

“It’s Yoga Babe.”

“Soon to be Yoga Mama—that is, if you believe her,” she said.

“What do you think? You think she’s making this up?” I asked.

Liz shrugged, and even that was attractive as her long silky brown hair fell easily over her shoulders.

“It would be pretty extreme for her to make it up,” she said.

“Part of me thinks she’s nuts.”

“It’s that other part of you that worries me,” she said with a wink.

“Now, now. I can control myself around a beautiful, vulnerable woman.”

“You didn’t around me.”

“Yes, but only after you had given me the green light,” I said.

“Funny, I don’t remember flashing any signals, colored or otherwise.”

“Hmm,” I said, “maybe not. But it worked out for the best, don’t you think?”

I finished off the last piece of my steak and followed it with some more of the lager.

“Here’s the problem,” I said, again checking to make sure we could talk without some busybody overhearing. “I have to decide if this is worth chasing. I mean, let’s say she’s not nuts. That would mean that someone killed him.”

“One heck of a big story, Mr. Reporter,” she said.

“But—”

“There’s always a but,” she said.

“If someone didn’t kill him, then what?”

“Then she’s a conspiracy nut like her late husband,” she said.

I saw our waitress on her way over. She was in her mid-twenties, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she paid more attention to me than to Liz. A busboy was with her, and he took our plates. We placed an order for coffee, and after she left Liz shot me a little smile.

“Think you have a fan. It must be so difficult being a TV personality.”

“It can be a burden.”

“Hah,” she said.

Liz was sitting back looking very relaxed, her glass of wine raised. Under the table I felt the brush of her bare foot against my leg.

I looked down to my right at the crowd at the bar.

“Please, what about them?” I asked, nodding toward the scene at the bar below.

“I have no intention of rubbing all their legs.”

“I meant, what would my public think if they saw you trying to seduce me?”

“Trying?”

Liz seemed to enjoy my little problem of whether to get involved with Robbie Steele.

“Okay, so why you?” she asked. “Why does Ms. Steele pick
you
to confide in?”

I shrugged. “The rugged good looks, maybe?”

“Hah, again,” she said. “And this time no footsie.”

“Darn,” I said.

“Dang.”

“Drat.”

“How long you want to go on for?” she asked.

“Until we run out of
d
’s,” I said. “Besides, you already cheated. Dang is not a word.”

“It most certainly is. I’m expressing my dissatisfaction and annoyance,” she said.

“You never expressed dissatisfaction with me before.”

“Until now.”

Liz sat forward and looked at me.

“Ah, to get involved with the beautiful widow or not. Tough choice to make, tough guy,” she said.

“Tough guys make tough choices,” I said.

My new friend the blonde waitress was back with dessert menus just in time to hear me.

“Oh, I like that,” she said.

“You have my permission to use it,” I said.

She gave me a little smile and walked away.

I looked over to Liz. “I may have to come back here solo some night,” I said.

“Yes. So you and Barbie can discuss geopolitical events.”

Liz smiled, and all felt right. I had gotten lucky.

“So what’s it going to be?” she asked. “Work with the crazy, but gorgeous home wrecker, or be happy to capitalize on your newfound fame and return as the conquering hero to the morning shift?”

“I’m not even quite sure where to begin, if I decide to work with her. I’ll have to start poking around in whatever Steele was involved in.”

“That could be interesting.”

“Let’s not forget the cops have this thing down as a suicide, end of story.”

“Hmm. I sense hesitation,” she said.

“I’m forty-seven, been awhile since I chased something like this,” I said.

Liz covered her mouth in a fake gasp. “Good heavens. You told me you were thirty-seven.”

“I may have.”

“I just consider you experienced, if that helps.”

“It does. Especially from someone eight years younger.”

“Tell me again about the seventies,” she said.

“When I remember them, I will. Mind if I get back on topic?”

“Please.”

“To do this right, I’m going to have to start asking a lot of questions of a lot of people, all on the premise that the New York City Police Department is wrong and Jack Steele’s gold-digging wife is right.”

“You’ll be doing a great service to gold diggers everywhere if she’s right,” she said.

“The chances of her being right are pretty damn small,” I said.

“But,” she said. “If she is, and you pass on it and someone else nails it, how are you going to deal with that?”

“Not well.”

“So you have to go for it.”

“But if I go all in, and there’s nothing there, then I become the reporter linked to the nutty widow.”

“Thus becoming nutty in the process.”

“And thereby ruining what’s left of my career.” I tried to pull a memory up from a decade ago. “There was a guy, big name years ago, who insisted a plane had been blown up when everything pointed to a mechanical problem.”

“Who?”

“Exactly,” I said.

I had some more of the Brooklyn, and Liz gave me some space to figure it all out. I put the glass down, and she leaned forward.

“So, what’s it going to be, tough guy?”