Cover-up (6 page)

“My grandmother won’t let me see her. Can you convince her? Please! I don’t want my mom to be alone,” he whispered urgently to Melanie.

A tall, bent woman of at least eighty was making her way across the room toward them, leaning on a metal walker and breathing with some difficulty. She was beautiful, with elaborately arranged white hair and striking features, wearing a blue velvet housecoat.

“Hold on, there, wait one minute!” she called to Melanie in a husky, nicotine-tinged voice. “I’m Lorraine Shepard, Suzanne’s mother.”

“Gran, I’m going to Mommy!” Charlie cried.

“You are not.”

Sobbing, he hung his head. Tears collected and streamed off the tip of his nose. Lorraine Shepard finally reached her grandson, and caressed his shaggy head with a blue-veined, perfectly manicured hand.

“Poor baby, I know, I know, let it out,” she said, weariness in her voice. Looking at Melanie over Charlie’s head, she asked, “You’re the prosecutor?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want my grandson seeing the body. He doesn’t need to grow up with that memory.”

“She’s my mother!” Charlie insisted, his shoulders heaving.

“You can’t see her anyway, sweetie,” Melanie said gently. “The medical examiner has to do a—well, they have to examine her.”

“See, Charlie, that’s the law talking. You’re not allowed to go. What’s your name again?” Lorraine Shepard asked Melanie.

“Melanie Vargas. I’m from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and I’m working with the FBI and the NYPD to solve this case.”

Mrs. Shepard eyed the jeans and boots Melanie had worn to the crime scene, which were flecked with mud. “Let me see your identification,” she said suspiciously.

Melanie pulled out her creds. Mrs. Shepard’s reading glasses hung around her neck on a gold chain studded with small diamonds. She settled them on her nose and studied the credentials, holding on to her walker with one hand for balance.

“Vargas. What’s that, Mexican?” she asked, handing them back.

“I’m half Puerto Rican,” Melanie replied.

“Hmmph. Interesting. How’d you end up an attorney?”

“I went to law school,” Melanie answered warily, not sure where this was going.

“Rich parents?”

“Not at all. Quite the opposite.”

“Worked hard?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The old lady nodded approvingly. “Good. You’ll do.”

“Do for what?” Melanie asked, unable to keep her lips from curving into a smile. But Lorraine Shepard gave her an outraged look that froze it right off her face.

“We need smart, hardworking people after this animal. Those idiots who came by before didn’t ask me a single question except what jewelry Suzy was wearing when she left the house yesterday.”

“Describing the jewelry is important. The killer stole it, so he’ll probably try to fence it,” Melanie explained.

Lorraine snorted contemptuously. “If you believe this was some mugging gone wrong, you’re not as smart as you look. Let’s sit down. I have a thing or two to fill you in on. Charlie, go to your room.”

“No way. I want to hear.”

“I’m not talking to this lady in front of you, young man. She
can just leave, then, and they’ll never catch the guy. Is that what you want?”

Charlie locked eyes with his grandmother for a few seconds to preserve his pride, then sighed and began to turn away. But he turned back suddenly and fixed Melanie with a pleading gaze.

“You’re gonna catch him, right?” he asked.

“I’ll do my best,” Melanie replied. As Charlie’s eyes filled with tears, she had to fight back a sympathetic welling in her own.

“It isn’t right. She was my mom!” he said, sniffling.

“Charlie, we’ll get him. I promise. It won’t bring her back, but at least you’ll know that whoever took your mother from you was punished.”

Charlie nodded, closing his eyes in pain. “Thank you,” he said, and ran from the room.

“I didn’t know Suzanne had a son,” Melanie commented to Lorraine after the boy had left.

“She kept him out of the public eye. She was a good mother, and it shows.”

“Yes, it does. What a sweet kid,” Melanie said wistfully. A sweet, orphaned kid, who deserved justice. Families needed closure in situations like this. Seeing Charlie in person brought that home to Melanie.

Lorraine Shepard turned the walker and began moving laboriously across the spacious living room toward an enormous brown suede sofa. The apartment was decorated with understated furnishings in shades of taupe and brown, and modern art that looked important. Shimmering bronze silk drapes skimmed the floor around enormous plate-glass windows, which revealed a breathtaking panorama of the midtown skyline bathed in peachy morning light. From this high up, the city looked fresh and full of promise, as if ugly things like murder couldn’t happen here.

Melanie helped Lorraine sit down, took a seat beside her, and pulled out her notebook.

“If you’ll bear with me, Mrs. Shepard, I need to ask you some questions.”

“I don’t stand on ceremony. Call me Lorraine.”

“I don’t mean to pry, but I need to get a feel for your daughter’s personal life. Was she divorced from Charlie’s father?”

“She wasn’t divorced because Jean Christophe never had the decency to marry her in the first place. Don’t get me started on him. Frenchman. Photographer. You get the picture. I stayed with her all these years to help with the boy, since that bum was never around. He lived in Africa for a while, and now he lives in Paris. But as much as I’m no fan of his, I can promise you Jean Christophe had nothing to do with Suzy’s murder.”

“How do you know?”

“Why would he want Suzy dead? She raised the boy, paid all the bills, and never asked him for a red cent, but she still let him see Charlie whenever he liked. Now he’ll be forced to take some responsibility.”

“I see. Was Suzanne involved with anybody else? A boyfriend who might’ve been disgruntled for some reason?”

“Suzanne had no social life. She worked too hard. Hand me that ashtray over there, would you? I need a smoke.”

Melanie grabbed a crystal ashtray from a nearby table, and Lorraine lit a Marlboro, glaring at Melanie defiantly.

“At my age, if it kills me, so what?”

“I didn’t say a word,” Melanie said. “Do you know why your daughter went to Central Park last night?”

Lorraine smiled, exhaling. “See, I knew you had a brain in your head. Now you’re getting somewhere. Boyfriends have got nothing to do with this. Suzanne had an appointment with a source last night! She called me around six to say something important had come up and she wouldn’t be home for dinner.”

“You’re sure she meant a source for a story and not just that she was meeting a friend for a drink?”

“What did I just say? You’re not listening. Suzanne had no friends. She worked day and night, and other than work, it was just Charlie and me. When she said something important had come up, she meant work.”

With Maya to care for and a demanding job, Melanie didn’t go out much herself. She was beginning to see Suzanne Shepard in a whole different light.

“Did Suzanne actually say she was meeting this person in Central Park?” Melanie asked.

“Not specifically. But given the timing, it had to be. I can’t imagine any other reason she’d go there.”

“You said she got this phone call yesterday at work, around six
P.M.
?”

“That’s right,” Lorraine said.

Melanie noted down the information. “We’ll check her work and cell phones to see if we can identify the incoming call. That’s very helpful.”

“There’s more,” Lorraine said, dragging on her cigarette.

“I’m listening,” Melanie said.

“We had a robbery here, not this past weekend, but the one before. The three of us were at the beach house. Somebody who works in the building had to be in on it, or the thief never could’ve gotten in. The security in this building is too tight.”

“What did they take?”

“Small things mostly. Easy to carry. A bunch of jewelry, and the cash we leave for the housekeeper to buy the groceries. Maybe a hundred bucks. But what matters is, they went through Suzanne’s office, and they took some files. About stories she was working on.”

Melanie felt a prickling along her scalp. It was a form of excitement she’d experienced in other cases upon learning something that could help her solve the puzzle. If this was a random slaying, then she was looking for a phantom. The city was big, and full of dark places to hide. Some no-name psycho with a television who’d taken it upon
himself to deliver a comeuppance to Suzanne Shepard might escape detection, because there was no pattern to lead her to him. But a man with a motive, she could find.

Melanie started writing faster. “Two weeks from this past weekend, you said?”

“Yup. We don’t know which day, because we were gone from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, and we didn’t find out about it until we got home.”

“Were the police called?”

“Yes. We needed a police report for the insurance.”

“Was anybody arrested?”

“Not yet. They say they’re working on it, but if you believe that, I got a nice bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.”

“Do you remember the detective’s name?”

“Pauline something. I got her card in the back bedroom. I’ll get it for you before you leave.”

“Tell me exactly which files were taken,” Melanie said.

“One had to do with a personal trainer at Flex. You know that place?”

“I’ve heard of it, sure. It’s one of the most exclusive gyms in the city.”

“This trainer’s name is Miles Ortiz. He has a big following among the rich housewife crowd. Suzanne heard from a source of hers who always knows where the bodies’re buried that Miles has a criminal record, and that he’s selling drugs to ’em.”

“Selling drugs to his clients at the gym?”

“Mmm-hmm, and we’re talking about women who’re married to the most powerful men in the country.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“That, I don’t know. Suzanne was looking into it, though, and she was starting to make people nervous. There’s a woman who lives in this building who had something going with that Ortiz character, and
she was giving Suzy funny looks. Thought she was asking too many questions. Kim Savitt is her name. Rich, spoiled little brat.”

“She lives in this building?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe an inside job.”

Melanie was writing furiously. “You said two files were taken. What was the other one?”

Lorraine hesitated. “This one I told Suzanne to stay away from, just on the idea of don’t shit where you eat.”

“Excuse me?”

“She was going after somebody close to her, somebody she needed. I was holding her back, telling her not to. She never got very far with the story.”

“Who was the target?” Melanie asked.

Lorraine sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, huh? It was Dr. Welch.”

“Dr. Welch?”

“Benedict Welch? Honey, he’s just about the most famous plastic surgeon in this town. He was willing to do what it took to keep Suzy beautiful. Not everybody’s so…creative like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“See, the best products, you can’t get here. Uncle Sam won’t let us have ’em. A miracle drug may exist overseas, but here the FDA orders a million tests, and if the tiniest thing goes wrong, the drug companies won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

“Are you saying Dr. Welch was using products that hadn’t been approved by the FDA?”

“Did I say that?”

“Like illegal Botox? I read about that. People get paralyzed from it.”

“Maybe if you deal with fly-by-night suppliers, but Dr. Welch is careful. Suzanne was a grown-up. Let her make her own decisions about what she needs and what risks she’ll take. Her face was her fortune.”

And yours,
Melanie thought pointedly. “Is that the story Suzanne was working on? The one the stolen file was about?” she asked.

“Why would Suzanne publicize the illegal Botox if she was using it herself? No, she’d found out something else about Welch, something much worse. Bad enough that she felt she needed to find out the truth, even if that meant he wouldn’t give her those shots anymore. She said she couldn’t tell me the details until she was a hundred percent sure her suspicions were correct. But in the past few days, she was getting close.”

9

M
elanie hadn’t slept all night.
She was still in the clothes she’d worn to the crime scene. A dull headache pounded behind her eyes, and she had that terrible emptiness in the pit of her stomach that the ugliest cases gave her. The feeling was akin to a bad hangover, and she knew of only one cure. She could use a hot shower and a change of clothes and a strong cup of coffee, sure. But what she really needed was a hug from her daughter.

When she walked into her empty apartment, a whiff of baby smell hit her in the face, that potent blend of Johnson’s lotion and the Diaper Genie needing to be emptied that made her long for Maya’s funny little face. Her ex-husband, Steve, was scheduled to drop Maya off at eight—ten minutes from now. Melanie would only have half an hour with her daughter, since she needed to head straight to work when the babysitter arrived. If she didn’t want to waste her precious Maya time getting ready, she’d better shower fast.

As she was toweling off, the buzzer rang. Melanie pulled on a bathrobe and hurried to peer through the keyhole. Steve looked as gorgeous as ever, with his rugged blond looks and expensive haircut.
A big part of Melanie’s burnout was lingering shock over her divorce. A child of divorce herself, she’d intended to marry once, for life. But then she’d caught Steve red-handed having an affair right after Maya was born—an affair that had obviously been going on for a long time. He’d wanted to reconcile, and despite the way he’d walked all over her dreams, she’d been tempted to listen—for Maya’s sake, for the sake of their history together. But in the end, she just didn’t trust the man, and she couldn’t stay married to somebody she didn’t trust.

Melanie pulled open the door.

“Hey, babe,” Steve said.

But now she’d turned her attention to her daughter. Maya was seventeen months old and full of personality. Her dark hair was done up in a lopsided Pebbles ponytail, and she still wore her feetie pajamas. Melanie was used to getting Maya back from Steve in need of a bath and with all her possessions in disarray, so she didn’t mind the wardrobe transgressions. But the translucent plastic pacifier moving in and out of Maya’s mouth to the rhythm of her suck was another matter altogether.