Full Frontal Murder (14 page)

“Trouble?” Holland asked sleepily.

“One of my detectives is dogging it, that's all. Go back to sleep.”

Dowd was the first one she heard from Saturday morning; Walker had wasted no time in telling him the bad news. But at least Dowd had called her instead of skulking in the background and hoping she'd forget about him. “Look, Lieutenant,” he said in a tight voice, “I'm real sorry about last night. It was just, uh … am I in hot water?”

“Damned right you are. What do mean, ducking out on an assignment like that?”

“Well, you didn't give us much notice, and I had this date, see—”

“Oh well, gosh. You should have told me. Your social life is more important than any puny little murder investigation.”

“Aw, Lieutenant. Is this going on my record?”

“Of course it's going on your record, what do you think?” She let that sink in for a moment, and then added, “Unless …”

He was quick to jump on it. “Unless what?”

“Buchanan told me you were going to take the Sergeants Exam but you weren't going to study for it. Is that right?”

“Uh, yes. So?”

“So now you're going to study for it. You're going to study
hard
. Remember, I've taken that exam and I'll have access to all the scores—so I'll know if you've been dogging it again. And Dowd, that is the
only
way you're going to keep a dereliction-of-duty report off your record.”

“I'll study,” he said hastily. “I'll ace the damned test.”

“Good. I'm sure you'll make an outstanding sergeant.” She didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Change of subject: “What are you doing now?”

“We got a home address for Hector Vargas. We'll try there if he's not at his agency.”

“All right. Have me paged when you've got something.” She hung up and noticed Holland was watching her with an amused look on his face. “What?”

“I see you're not above a little judicial blackmail when it suits your purpose,” he said. “I can't tell you how that delights me.”

“Yeah, well. Dowd's a good detective when he puts his mind to it, but he tends to get lazy now and then. He'll be on his toes now for a while. Look, as soon as my clothes are wearable, let's go out. It's a gorgeous day and I don't want to stay cooped up.”

“We could go to Belmont Park. Sit in the sun and watch the horsies run.”

She considered it. “No, that's too far. I've got three teams of detectives working on three different lines of investigation, and any one of them could break at any moment.”

“Three? Nick Atlay would be one, and I assume your spying cleaning woman is another. What's the third?”

“The picture we saw at Alex Fairchild's exhibition—the one of a man caressing a young boy's neck in a men's room?”

“Yes?”

“The pederast is Hugh Galloway's attorney.”

His eyebrows rose. “Well, well. What a
remarkable
coincidence. And we are firm believers in coincidence, are we not?”

“Right, it's just a little too convenient.”

Holland thought a moment. “If you're thinking he's casting a lustful eye on young Bobby Galloway, forget that. It would be far too dangerous. Seducing the son of a client? He's not going to run a risk like that. He'll stick to boys who don't know his name.”

“I know. Dammit.”

“You don't have a real suspect, do you? What's the attorney's name?”

“Bradford Ushton. Jim Murtaugh knows him.”

“Cozier and cozier. Did Fairchild know who Ushton was when he hung that picture?”

“That's one of the things we'll find out today.”

“The answer you'll get will be no, I'll wager. Notice how Fairchild keeps popping up all the time? And always he's pure as the driven snow. He's the one who discovers the cleaning woman spying. When the kidnapping fails, he's right there at his sister's side. After the firebombing, he's the one who provides Rita and Bobby with a home. He's the one who hangs a picture in public exposing Ushton's perversion. But is he
involved?
Oh, no. Mr. Innocence himself.”

Marian smiled. “You just don't like him. There's nothing in any of that to make him a suspect.”

“Has he made a move on you yet?”

“He asked me out to lunch, if that counts as making a move.”

“Did you go?”

The question annoyed her. “No, I did not. Holland, stop this. You're making Fairchild into a rival when he isn't one.”

He was silent a moment. “Yes, I am making him important, aren't I? But I can't pretend indifference when I see him trying to move in on me. Ah … that came out sounding more territorial than I intended. But don't expect me to remain detached when another man shows interest in you. I won't even try.”

She looked at the grim set of his jaw and decided this conversation was going nowhere. “Oh well,” she said with mock regret. “He probably doesn't wear black silk briefs anyway.”

Holland stared at her—and then burst out laughing. The awkward moment passed.

It was almost one before Marian heard from Perlmutter. She and Holland were having lunch at an outdoor café near Lincoln Center when her pager went off. She called in from the table.

“We're not having much luck tracing Nick Atlay's known associates, Lieutenant. But we finally found an old con named Lippy Sarkoff who's seen him once since they both got out. And Lippy says Atlay
was
working as a janitor.”

“Aha. Does he know where?”

“No, but he said Atlay was running errands for one of the tenants.”

Marian sat up straight. “Find that building, Perlmutter. Residential or office?”

“Lippy didn't know. But he did give us a few leads, people Atlay mentioned. We're going to look for them now.”

“This Lippy is very helpful. Sure you can believe him?”

“Oh yeah. Lippy's one of those old criminals trying to go straight because they're scared to death of the new breed of younger prisoners we're sending up—you know, the punks who'll stick a knife in you if they don't like the way you look at them. Lippy'll do anything to stay out of prison. Even tell the cops the truth. What about Walker and Dowd? They get anything?”

She told him about Julia Ortega and that she'd worked for a detective named Hector Vargas. “Vargas is in Atlantic City today, working a case. So right now Walker and Dowd are talking to Ortega's neighbors and friends to see if she told anyone about the case she was on.”

“How'd they find out about Atlantic City?”

“Mrs. Vargas. His office was still locked up when they checked this morning, so they went to his home address. Back to Lippy a minute. Is he the only one you've found who's seen Nick Atlay lately? The
only
one?”

“Afraid so. It's June, the weather's nice, no one's staying inside if they don't have to. We got some repeat calls to make.”

“Find that building,” Marian said and broke the connection.

Holland was looking at her quizzically. “‘Lippy'?”

“Good name for a snitch, don't you think?”

They spent the next couple of hours wandering, not fully relaxed because of Marian's mood of anxious expectancy. At any moment her pager could go off; which of her three lines of investigation would bear fruit first?

Eventually the park beckoned. They stopped to watch a man with a camcorder taping the impromptu performance of a street mime. The camcorder man was more entertaining than the mime; he was constantly on the move, always looking for a better angle, hunkering down and shooting upward, climbing onto a bench and shooting downward, thrusting the lens up close in the performer's face, then backing rapidly away for a long shot. After a few minutes of this, the mime began to get a little disconcerted. Other people watching yelled at the camcorder man to knock it off.

“Too bad,” said Holland. “I don't like mimes. I was cheering for the man with the camcorder.”

“You don't like mimes? Why not?”

“Oh, they play at being coy and wistful, but that's only to put you off guard so they can slip in a zinger. Mimes like to embarrass people.”

“This one didn't.”

“Only because that budding film director over there never gave him a chance. Perhaps I should pick up a camcorder,” Holland added as they strolled away.

“What for?”

“For when we're old and jaded. Taking dirty pictures of ourselves might spice things up.”

“Uh-huh. Well, let's just hold off on that for a while, if you don't mind.”

They walked a little more … and then Marian suddenly stopped. “Holland. I'm just too fidgety for a stroll in the park.”

He wasn't happy about it, but he understood. “I'll drive you to the station.”

It took them twenty minutes to get back to where he'd left his car, and it was after four by the time they pulled up in front of the Midtown South station on West Thirty-fifth. Someone else had had the fidgets as well: Captain Murtaugh was just getting out of his car.

“Jim?” Marian said. “You didn't need to come in.”

“I know,” he answered. “But I wanted to be here if something breaks.”

She smiled. “And Edie is still out of town.”

“That too.” He looked at the other man. “Holland.”

“Murtaugh.”

A silence developed; the chill between the two men was too strong to pretend it wasn't there. Marian was annoyed; the two most important men in her life, and they couldn't get along. But she knew whose fault
that
was. She turned to Holland and said, “I don't know how long I'll be.”

He spread his hands. “In that case, I'll put a candle in the window.” He looked at Murtaugh and his voice took on a taunting tone. “You will let her out eventually, won't you, Captain?”

“She can let herself out.” Murtaugh turned and strode into the stationhouse.

Marian waited until he was out of hearing and said, “What
is
it with you two? And what was that crap about letting me out?”

He sighed. “That's exactly what it was. Crap. I can't seem to avoid locking antlers with that man every time I see him.”

“Well, that's a great pity, because he's a big part of my life. And you're not helping any by sniping at him.”

“I did not snipe.”

“Only because he walked away before you could start. And I don't like the idea of being, well,
let out
—as if I were some sort of pet that needs looking after. You can get pretty damned possessive at times, Holland.”

“Have I ever really ‘possessed' you?”

“We'll talk about this later.” She went into the station-house, leaving his question unanswered.

14

It was Campos who broke his case first.

Bradford Ushton, highly respected attorney and child molester, had followed a ten-year-old boy into the men's room of a movie house. When the two detectives tailing him saw him go into a children's Saturday matinee, they'd split up. One sat three rows behind Ushton in a theater full of noisy, popcorn-munching kids. The other went into the men's room and stood on the toilet seat in one of the booths; anyone checking for feet under the closed doors would not know he was there.

He hadn't had to stand there long; Ushton had simply followed the first boy who'd needed to pee. The detective watched over the top of the booth as Ushton had petted and sweet-talked the boy, offering to let him play with the latest electronic gadgets geared to the under-twelve set. Ushton had promised to have the kid back in time for the next showing of the movie.

That alone would have been enough to nail him for solicitation, but Sergeant Campos had said to get as much on the attorney as possible without endangering the child; Campos wanted to hit this guy with every law in the book. So the detectives had followed the man and the boy, on foot, to a nearby apartment building. Ushton and his new young friend had gone in the back way, so the boy wouldn't see the street address prominently displayed on the front of the building. None of the mailboxes in the lobby had Ushton's name on it; the cops had described Ushton to other residents until one of them identified him as the man in 410. Instead of crashing in, they'd gone outside and climbed the fire escape. Through a window they saw Ushton taking off the boy's T-shirt.
Then
they went crashing in.

“We've got him cold,” Campos told Marian and Captain Murtaugh. “You should see that place. One-room apartment, within walking distance of several different movie houses. He kept it just for a place to take the boys. Packed with stuff for kids—video games, action figures, like that. In case they needed persuading. And the old fool took pictures. Look at this.” Campos fanned out a stack of Polaroid shots on Marian's desk, all of naked boys. “He kept those displayed on a big bulletin board. I guess he figured if a new boy saw other boys undressed, he wouldn't think it was so weird.”

“Where's the boy he picked up today?” Murtaugh asked.

“I had a bluesuit drive him home and explain to the parents what happened. The kid still don't understand what was going on.” Campos grinned crookedly. “Those parents are gonna get a real talking-to. The bluesuit was pissed that the kid didn't know no better than to go with Ushton. He kept saying the parents shoulda taught him better, they shoulda warned him.”

“Perhaps they did,” Marian said mildly. “Kids don't always listen. Where's Ushton now?”

“Interrogation room. Waiting for a lawyer he called. I was hoping the old buzzard would represent himself, but he's too shrewd for that.”

“I want to talk to him,” Murtaugh said. “Has he been charged yet?”

“Yeah, he's been charged.”

Campos and Marian went to the small room on the other side of the interrogation room and watched through the oneway glass. Ushton sat with his hands folded on the table in front of him, face impassive, aware that he was being watched.