Killer Look (9 page)

“Mr. Savage didn't know the first thing about that,” Wanda said. “He didn't even know how this one square mile of New York City real estate got its start as the Garment District.”

“Alex here knows everything about the city's history,” Mike said.

“No, I think Wanda's got me beat this time.”

“How about you, Mr. Wallace? You ought to know.”

He shook his head. “You got me there, Wanda.”

“It's one of the great ironies of history. By the 1850s, when the first sewing machines had been patented, this little patch of the city began to manufacture textiles for the whole country,” she said, staring straight at Mercer. “Your ancestors and mine? They were raising cotton and baling it to send up here—right around the corner to what became Seventh Avenue.

“And men like Wolf Savage,” Wanda went on, “made their money by producing the uniforms our people wore in the fields and in the plantation houses and shipping them back south. What established this place as the center of the garment-producing world is the very clothing that marked our folks as slaves.”

Wanda Beston turned in a circle till she came face-to-face with Mike. “Who's going to get me out of this uniform
now?”

I walked Wanda Beston to the elevator and thanked her for coming in to help us. Mercer and Mike were sweeping the death suite one more time when I reentered the room.

The hand truck with a rack full of pastel summer sundresses from the WolfWear line were a bright spot in the cheerless room. The dresses had been pushed apart after the first photographs had been taken so that the two metal canisters that had been hidden below them could be removed and taken to the crime lab for analysis of their remains.

“That's a sobering thought,” I said, closing the door behind me. “That clothing for the slave trade was what put the Garment District in business.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “I was ready to open my mouth and hazard a guess that it was Civil War soldiers' uniforms that were the first mass-produced clothing. But Wanda had me beat with her nugget of history.”

“Where did they find the note that Wolf wrote?” I asked.

“Right there,” Mike said, “on the night table.”

“Anything else?” I asked. “Any signs of a struggle?”

“Nothing. Not a thing out of place.”

“Did you give any thought to whether it looked like someone had straightened up the room?” Mercer asked. “Like the scene was too staged?”

“Glad to know you remember your days in homicide, buddy. You think I'm still an amateur dick?”

Mike had come on the job three years after Mercer.

Mercer laughed. “You know how it is when you want to put your own hands on an investigation. Start with a total redo.”

“I bought into the suicide theory,” Mike said. “Everything fit.”

“We don't know enough about the man himself,” I said. “We've got to talk to the people who knew him best, at the office. The family members have too much at stake to rely on their truth-telling, don't you think?”

“
We?
” Mike said. “I'm still stuck on the ‘we' bit, blondie.”

Mike was opening dresser drawers and looking in the desk for anything he and the first responders might have missed.

“Isn't it better to have my keen sartorial eye helping you on this case?” I said. “Especially since you seem to think that ‘home alone' is bad for my health.”

“Consider today my favor to you,” Mike said, walking over the threshold to the living-room area. I followed him in.

“You owe it to me and the Harrison Dolphins, Detective. That's what brought Lily Savitsky to your attention.”

“I've got a short window before Dr. Parker lets the dearly departed depart from the morgue. I got places to go, Coop. People to see.”

“What's tomorrow?” Mercer asked.

“Starting my day bright and early at the Savage offices. Meet and greet with some of the staff. The CFO, Wolf's executive
assistant, the marketing guru,” Mike said. “Make sure the business part of the business was on solid ground.”

“You think you can trust Josie—the housekeeper who had the key to the other room?”

“Not from here to the corner. Not that she's sinister, but because I can't quite figure her out,” Mike said, checking his watch. “I'm waiting for the guys to pick her up, right? I'm more than curious about how Wolf came to be her reference for this job.”

Mike picked up the remote and turned on the television. He had a better sense of timing than anyone except Jack Reacher. He really didn't need to wear a watch. He hit the Final Jeopardy! question on the mark, just like he did every weekday.

“Do you know the difference between ready-to-wear and haute couture?” I asked.

Mike ignored me.

“What's an atelier, Detective? And how do they set the pecking order for seating at next week's fashion show?”

“You have a distinctive advantage, kid. You learned your French on your back, in a bedroom on the Riviera.”

“Oooooh. Low blow, Mike,” I said. He was referring to a former lover of mine, whom he disliked intensely. Luc was a restaurateur in the South of France. “It's not your language skills I was referring to. It's the fact that there's a lot about this business that you don't know.”

“Here's what I do know about: murder, Coop. Greed, jealousy, lust, revenge. That sort of covers the main motives. I don't get a whiff of one of those in the next day and a half, it doesn't matter what language the fashionistas speak and what the spring colors are.”

Alex Trebek had just revealed the screen to show that the category was
EXPLORERS
.

“Pony up the cash, you two,” Mike said.

The topic was perfect for both of them. Mike had majored in history, with an emphasis on all things military, from the breed of Napoleon's warhorse to the number of ships that sailed in the Spanish Armada. Mercer's father had been a Delta Airlines mechanic, complete with travel perks for his family. My dear friend had papered the walls of his childhood room with maps of the world and knew almost as much about the geography of places he had not been as those to which he had traveled.

“I'm good for it,” I said.

“The Final Jeopardy! answer is:
HENR
Y HUDSON
'
S
HALF MOON
CREW MEMBER JOHN COLMAN WAS
THE FIRST THIS IN 1609
,” Trebek said, repeating the explorer's name and the year of his arrival in New York Harbor.

“We're on a roll, Mercer,” Mike said. “Double or nothing?”

“Double at least,” Mercer said. “I'm feeling lucky.”

“My historical knowledge isn't entirely shabby,” I said. I hoped they couldn't hear the tremor in my voice. The Hudson River, named for the great explorer, was ground zero for my all-too-recent period of captivity.

The first contestant was wrong. “Who was the first man to claim the land for the British?” Trebek said, reading from her slate. “No, madam. That would be wrong. Hudson was English, of course, but working for the Dutch East India Company when he sailed into the harbor.”

The second contestant shook his head. Like me, he had gotten no further than “What was the first—?”

Trebek laughed. “Well, you're not even as close as a wrong answer, sir. Sorry you didn't take a stab at it.”

The third contestant and current show champion didn't even venture a guess.

“You guys think you know?” I said.

“Oldest cold case in our homicide files,” Mike said. “Who was the first murder victim in New York's recorded history?”

“I'm surprised you don't know that, Alex,” Mercer said. “They've been teaching it in the Academy for years. Applying modern forensics to a four-hundred-year-old case. Seems John Colman took an arrow to his throat.”

I clutched my neck with my hand.

“Local Indians were none too happy to see a boatload of white men with muskets,” Mike said, as Trebek confirmed that was the winning factoid.

Mike clicked off the remote just as his cell phone rang. He took the call, turning his back to Mercer and me, then pocketed it and faced us.

“How's your voodoo, Coop?” he asked. “Can you cast a spell or do any black magic?”

“Not so good lately,” I said. “Why?”

“The cops from the Seven-Seven just called the lieutenant. They'll sit in front of her building all night if that's what it takes, but another tenant in Josie LaPorte's house says she came in after work today and left twenty minutes later with a suitcase.”

“Maybe she's tracking the spirit of Wolf Savage,” I said.

“We don't even know what their connection is, or why he recommended her for this job.”

“And now,” Mercer said, “Josie LaPorte is in the
wind.”

The three of us stopped in at Primola for dinner. Giuliano, the owner, was glad to see us and sent over a round of cocktails to welcome me back. Press reports of my abduction moments after leaving the chic restaurant on the Upper East Side had done nothing to hurt his business. It probably increased demand by curiosity seekers, not that it would be easy for them to get reservations or prime seating.

The ice-cold scotch was as soothing to me as a double dose of tranquilizers would have been. I drank it too quickly and was glad that Mike stepped outside to call his boss so I could slip in a second serving. He noticed it as soon as he sat back down, pursing his lips as he looked at me.

“Where will you be tomorrow?” Mike asked Mercer after we paid the bill and stood up to get our coats and leave.

“We got a great hit in the databank from an old rape evidence kit that was part of the backlog of cases in Ohio that had never been tested,” he said.

“No one told me—”

“Easy, girl,” Mercer said, putting his hand on my arm. “Everything's under control. Your team's on it.”

The perp was already in prison on a conviction my unit got two years ago, Mercer explained to us, and he was driving upstate to interview the man.

“He knows you're coming?”

“Knows that. Just doesn't know his DNA linked him to five victims in Cleveland, dating way back before he saw fit to move to Manhattan.”

“That dude got some 'splaining to do,” Mike said, slapping Mercer on his back. “Leaving his jism all over town like that. No wonder DNA are Coop's three favorite letters of the alphabet.”

“No wonder at all,” Mercer said, kissing me good night. “Stay in touch with me, Mike.”

“Roger that,” Mike said. He took my hand and walked me to his car, which was parked around the corner. “Do you want me to—”

“Yes. Yes, of course I do.”

He laughed. “Don't jump the gun, babe. Maybe I was going to ask if you wanted me to suck your toes or drop you at the nearest all-night spin class.”

“I don't care how the question ended, Mike. I'd like you to be with me.”

“All in,” he said, opening the car door for me. “As long as there's no shop talk.”

“Deal.”

I showered first and slipped under the covers. Mike followed. I was still getting used to the feel of his hard body against mine, his strong arms wrapping around my torso to hold me close to him. He made me feel safe, and I liked that as much as I enjoyed being loved.

The combination of making love and a powerful sleeping pill
got me through the night. I didn't even feel the mattress move when Mike slipped out of bed in the morning to run over to Central Park for his jog around the reservoir.

I was dressed and on to my second cup of coffee by the time he returned. I had my culinary specialty—a perfectly toasted, lightly buttered English muffin—ready to serve when Mike finished grooming for the day.

“Where to?” I asked.

“You're a spoiled girl, Alexandra Cooper,” he said, “You're only getting your way because you're likely to find some kind of mischief if I leave you alone, and because maybe you do know something about the fashion world that I don't.”

I was dressed for Seventh Avenue, with a little more attention to style than my ordinary attire for the DA's Office. My mother had given me a black Armani sweater for my birthday, which complemented the slim-fit Escada slacks that hugged my hips. I tied a classic cashmere Hermès scarf around my shoulders, cinching my waist with the signature gold
H
belt.

“Are you giving me up to Lieutenant Peterson?” I asked. “Does he know I'm going to be shadowing you today?”

“You're lucky he likes you.”

“But he won't tell Battaglia?”

“You're lucky he really dislikes the DA,” Mike said. “Let's go.”

I stood on tiptoe and kissed Mike at the nape of his neck, lifting his thick, dark hair to make contact. He brushed me away, but with a smile, ready to get to work.

It took only fifteen minutes to get to Midtown. Mike parked on West Thirty-Sixth Street, just off Seventh Avenue. It was still too early for most offices to be open for business, so we bought another cup of coffee at a street cart and walked north on the east side of the broad avenue.

Every few feet for the next five blocks, embedded in the
sidewalk below us, was a huge circular disk. Each one carried the name of a famous designer—Bill Blass, Diane von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein, and two dozen others—and a sketch of the person next to his or her name.

“What's this about?” Mike asked.

“It's the Fashion Walk of Fame,” I said. “It's sort of fun to see. It's the equivalent of the Hollywood Stars for the great designers who've worked here.”

“You spend much time here lately?”

“Sample sales. Personal shoppers take clients like Joan and me into the showrooms of the fancy houses, if you can wear a sample size,” I said. “You can get stuff wholesale.”

“So there's a frugal side of you after all?”

“Nothing beats a bargain.”

“Who's that guy?” Mike asked.

We were about to cross the street, stopped in front of an eight-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a man wearing a yarmulke, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was seated, bending over a table guiding a piece of clothing that he was working on a sewing machine, pumping the pedal with his foot.

“That statue is called
The Garment Worker
,” I said. It was iconic, designed by a woman whose father—an immigrant from Russia, like my father's family—had been a tailor in the district. “My dad used to tell me that this area, this industry, was really a unique part of New York. No matter where people came from, if they were willing to do mind-numbing physical labor—sewing garments or working in a cutting room or crowded into a sweatshop—in exchange for a regular paycheck, they could find work.”

“But now that's all gone overseas,” Mike said.

“Most of the manufacturing has, for sure,” I said. “I think a few of the old-timers are still trying to make the district work.”

We crossed the street and entered the lobby of 530 Seventh
Avenue. We signed the security log and were directed to the WolfWear offices on the twenty-eighth floor.

We stepped off the elevator into the main reception area. It looked more like a funeral parlor than an upscale design house. There were enormous baskets of flowers, as though each florist had tried to out-stuff the arrangements of his competitors. The largest ones, their cards displayed on the petals of a large rose or the stem of a bird of paradise, were signed with a single name, which was all you needed to know about the top echelon of this business: Anna, Donna, Marc, Giorgio, Carolina. The aggregated cost of the flowers I could see would have fed a small village in Africa for a month.

The receptionist was coming out of the hallway to settle in at her desk. “Good morning,” she said. “We're not yet open, but how may I direct you?”

“I'd like to see Mr. Savage's personal assistant,” Mike said.

“I assume you've heard about his death,” she said. “I'm afraid we're not entertaining any of our clients for another week or so.”

Mike took his shiny gold-and-cobalt-blue badge out of his pocket and flashed it at her. “I'm not here to be entertained, ma'am. I'd like to see his assistant.”

The woman jumped out of her chair like she'd been stung by a scorpion.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “It's just that we're not expecting you. The police were here yesterday to look at some items in Mr. Savage's office. I'll go back and see whether—”

“I'd prefer you sit down and use your intercom,” Mike said. He always favored the element of surprise. “Tell her there's a Mr. Chapman to see her.”

“Certainly, sir,” she said. She pressed a few buttons on her telephone console and then said exactly what Mike had asked her to.

“What do you think the cops took from his office?” I asked
Mike. He was standing in front of a large poster of one of the supermodels, who was decked out in WolfWear from head to toe.

“I know they needed a handwriting exemplar to compare to the suicide note. Pretty routine to get one for the case file. I can't imagine they took anything else of consequence if they didn't go begging your office for a search warrant.”

The WolfWear logo was everywhere. It was spelled out in gold letters a foot tall on the wall above the head of the receptionist. There were framed photos from the covers of all the fashion magazines—American and international—and pictures of movie stars on red carpets at every awards show dressed in Savage style. Coffee mugs were stacked on a side table, and ballpoint pens were neatly arrayed on top of notepads that bore the faint outline of a wolf's head on the paper.

I heard the intercom buzz and watched the receptionist pick up the receiver and turn to the side, covering her mouth to whisper into it.

“Mr. Chapman? I'm afraid Mr. Savage's assistant isn't in yet. Perhaps you can come back this afternoon?”

“That wouldn't be too convenient for me,” Mike said, walking past the receptionist's desk before she could get to her feet again. “You stay put. Water the flowers, why don't you?”

She tried to block my path as I followed Mike into the hallway, but I sidestepped her and caught up with him.

Most of the offices had glass windows that fronted the corridor—offering the transparency that had become the modern corporate buzzword—and few of them were occupied.

The third door down the row on my right-hand side had a sign reading
HAL SAVAGE
and below it the word
PRESI
DENT
, but no one was inside. The other names we passed by were meaningless to me, but I made a mental note of them as I tried to keep up with Mike. There was a long room with a conference table in its center, and
on each end was a rack of dresses—all evening wear, all black with various degrees of glitzy trim.

More offices, smaller ones, led us down the hallway. The place seemed deserted, and quiet as a tomb. We were headed toward a dead end, with a solid wood door smack in the middle of our path.

Just before we reached it, a tall woman in a chic charcoal-gray suit and three-inch heels stepped out of her cubicle to the left side of that door.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chapman. I am—I was—the assistant to Mr. Savage. I'm afraid I'll have to stop you right here.”

“You must have come in the back door,” Mike said. “The girl at the desk told me you weren't in yet.”

“I was in the restroom, but I just got the message from her,” she said, dabbing at her heavily mascaraed lids with a handkerchief. Her smile was as artificial as her Botoxed lips and gelled fingernails. “We're all so upset about our great loss. How may I help you?”

“Who's in charge today?” Mike asked.

The ubiquitous logo was plastered on the wooden door in front of us, and below the fierce-looking animal image was the single word:
SAVAGE
. I knew Mike would have loved the opportunity to snoop around the dead man's office, but it was the one room that seemed not to invite transparency.

“I'll wait,” Mike said.

“That's not acceptable, Detective. I'll show you out.”

She took a step toward him but Mike didn't budge.

“I'm not looking to lock horns, lady. I just need to speak to one of the company's officers. A few simple questions about your boss's business so we can get out of your hair and put this matter to rest.”

“I know exactly what your angle is, Mr. Chapman, and you're not letting anything rest,” she said. “Including my late employer. But there's nobody home here.”

“Then I guess it will just be you and me, won't it? And this is Detective Cooper,” Mike said. “Let's just sit down in that office you're guarding and get the lay of the land.”

She stretched out her long arm across the doorway. “Some other time, Detective. And by the way? I read the newspapers. I know exactly who Ms. Cooper is,” she said, turning to me. “We have absolutely no need for your services here, dear.”

I hated it when people called me dear. I was about to tell her that when I heard a man's voice shouting from behind the wooden door.

“It's done, Savage. Play hardball with me and I'll have this all over the media before you can bury your brother.”

Mike got to the door, pounded on it twice, and turned the handle. I was looking over his shoulder, and everyone in the large room was staring back at us.

“I'm sorry,” the assistant called out to Hal Savage, who was sitting at the head of a large table in the office space. “I couldn't stop him.”

He got up and charged toward Mike while I tried to scope out the characters around the table.

“Get your ass out of here, Chapman,” Hal said. “Take the dame and get out of here.”

Reed Savage was seated at his uncle's left hand. The other four men at the table were probably the executives whose faces matched the names on the doors in the hallway.

The man doing the shouting was standing in front of the window, apart from the startled group of businessmen. He was Asian, medium height and broad-shouldered, in his forties, speaking with the clipped British accent of those Chinese educated in English schools in Hong Kong.

“A prayer meeting?” Mike asked, tossing the envelope with
Wanda Beston's tickets onto the table. “Or business as usual, now that the lone wolf has opened up some room at the top?”

Hal thought better of putting his hands on Mike. “Get security up here,” he barked at the assistant, who was frozen behind my back.

“What's your name, pal?” Mike said, pointing at the angry Asian man.

He got no answer.

“Tight-knit little family, aren't you?” Mike said. “Let me guess. You must have flown in from Beijing—the Chinese branch of the Savitsky clan—to pay your respects and collect your share of the pot.”