Murder 101 (17 page)

I froze. So, he knew about Crawford’s beach house and our trip there. I looked out the window of the car to hide the fact that tears were rolling down my cheeks. The street outside was dark and deserted. So, this is where I’ll die, I thought.

“Let’s just say it would behoove you to find out anything you can and let me know.” He patted my knee.

It would also behoove me to stay alive, but that didn’t seem likely, given my driving companion, the gun in the side pocket of the driver’s side door, and the location—a dark, deserted area of the southeast Bronx.

“By the way, I understand they had your ex in custody. What’s that about? The paper says he’s the main suspect,” he said.

I inched closer to the door; I was practically sitting on the door handle. That wouldn’t help me if he pulled out the gun and shot me in the head, but it made me feel better. “They questioned him. Just like they questioned all of Kathy’s teachers.”

He turned toward me. “They didn’t bring you into the station house. Or Sister Mary. Why’d they bring Ray in?”

“I don’t know, Peter.”

“He did it, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, Peter,” I repeated. I was glad that it was dark in the car; I didn’t want Peter to see the fear on my face.

He began muttering, almost to himself, like I wasn’t in the car. “It’s not like the old days. There was honor! Respect!” His voice rose. “You left the families alone. They had nothing to do with business!”

I had nothing to add. So this was about who killed Kathy, and a potential turf war to boot. I didn’t know which situation was better—if Ray killed her, he would end up dead. If one of Peter’s rivals killed her, that person—and maybe others—would end up dead. It was going to be ugly any way you looked at it.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park. In an instant, he turned menacing, grabbing me roughly by the neck and pulling me close to him. The change in him was so quick that I didn’t have time to react. I heard a squeak emanate from my throat as his hand, the size of a bear claw, wrapped around my throat. We were nose to nose, and his breath was hot on my face. “Find out who did this, Alison.”

I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

“Let’s put it this way: if you find out, I’ll owe you big-time. And if you don’t—well, let’s just say I’ll continue to owe you.” He calmed down slightly, but retained his hold on my throat. “You might not be too crazy about the ex, Alison, but I’m sure you don’t want him dead, either.” His fat, stubby fingers tightened around my throat, and I began to choke. “Find out, Alison. Find out who did this. Because if you don’t, after I’m done with Ray, I’m gonna start looking for your friend, Max.”

There was no more air left in my lungs, and dots danced in front of my eyes. Tears rolled down my cheeks. There was nothing I could say. Peter finally let go of my throat and I gulped in air. He hit the button that opened the locks on the doors. “Get out, Alison.”

I looked at him, unbelieving, but I took off my seat belt. We were in the middle of nowhere. Worse than that, we were in the middle of a crime-filled nowhere. I’d be dead in an hour if I didn’t get out, but I’d also be dead if I stayed in the car.

He gripped the steering wheel. “Get out of the car!” he shouted.

Before I had a chance to act, Peter opened the car door and shoved me with a force that stunned me more than anything else. He reached over and closed the door, giving me one last furious look before driving away.

Twenty-two

I watched in disbelief from my position on the ground as the car sped away, the taillights getting smaller until the car was out of sight. I got up and looked around, putting a hand to my hip, feeling my bloody leg through a gaping hole in my pants. The blood seeped through my fingers, and I rooted around in my purse for a tissue to blot some of it, coming up empty-handed. I hobbled over to the sidewalk and stood under the one streetlight that was working and looked around. There was nothing and nobody around who could assist me in getting from this point to a safer haven. As I stood there and took in the broken concrete of the sidewalks and the huge warehouses in the distance, instead of getting scared, I became angry. I started walking toward the Major Deegan Expressway, which I could see in the distance, elevated above the street I was on.

My next thought was to call Max. Although I seemed to have a little grace period until Peter killed both of us, my thoughts turned to her sitting at the bar at Nobu, waiting for me, and possibly being tailed by some Mafia hood with a name like “Tony Two Legs” or something like that. I pulled my phone out and dialed her number, in shock when her cell phone went directly to voice mail; Max’s phone is always on, and she always answers it. I tried to figure out what kind of message to leave. “Max, you’re probably going to get killed tonight . . . get out of Nobu and find a safe house” didn’t seem like an option. I was clearly out of familiar territory. After listening to dead air for a few moments, I settled on the old standby: “Max, please call me when you get this message.”

How in God’s name had I gotten mixed up in this? And how was I going to get myself out of it? I guess I was lucky that Peter hadn’t killed me. At the same time, I was angry that he thought he had so much power and was in such command of his intimidation skills that he could kidnap me right on my own street, drive me into the Bronx, and hurl me out of his car, warning me that he would probably kill my best friend if I didn’t do what he wanted. I limped along the deserted street, angry, confused, and alone, thinking that if I could get to civilization, I could get out of here and get back home and put the whole evening behind me.

As I got closer to what I was hoping was civilization, it became apparent that “civilization” might not be an apt term for what I would encounter. I had watched enough nightly news shows to know where most crimes took place and where in the City to avoid. Where I was ranked highly on the list of places that a solo, female college professor should avoid. As much as I wanted to get out of this situation by myself, I realized that I couldn’t go to the nearest inhabited block; nor could I climb up to the Major Deegan Expressway and hail a cab or a good Samaritan. Which left me no choice but to call the one person I knew could help me.

“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, and opened my cell phone again. With shaking hands, I dialed Crawford’s cell-phone number, which I had committed to memory. He picked up after a few rings. “Hi,” he said warmly. He seemed happy to hear from me, which was a good sign. I was sure his mood would change once he heard my predicament. Even if we stayed casual friends, I was becoming a giant pain in the ass.

I tried to steady my voice but it was tight after Peter had cut off the air to my larynx. “I’m sorry that I called you because I know you’re out to dinner with the girls, but I don’t know what to do and I don’t know where I am,” I babbled. I looked around and saw a rat scurry out from under a sewer grate.

“What’s going on?” he said, sounding alarmed.

“Crawford, I’m somewhere in the Bronx. I don’t know where I am,” I said, giving a little laugh and trying to convey a calmness that I clearly didn’t feel.

“Why are you in the Bronx?” he asked.

Good question. “Peter Miceli dropped me off here. How do I get out of here?”

“Peter Miceli?” he said, confused. He must have decided to come back to that later, because he said, “Just stay calm for a minute.” I guess I wasn’t as good an actress as I thought. “Do you see any street signs?” he asked.

“I’m sorry that I interrupted dinner with your girls,” I said, looking around.

“Stop apologizing and just tell me where you are.”

I didn’t see any street signs, but in the distance, on one of the large warehouses, I saw a sign that read
BRONX TERMINAL MARKET
. “I’m about two blocks away from the Bronx Terminal Market. Do you know where that is?”

“Are you north or south of the market?”

I told him I was south of it. “I can see Yankee Stadium, and the Deegan Expressway over me,” I said, and focused on a street sign down from me a bit. “I think I’m on 151st Street. Do you know where that is?”

“Stay put,” he said. “Don’t move unless you have to.”

Unless I had to? I didn’t like the sound of that but I kept listening.

“I’ll send someone from the four-one over. Keep an eye out. I’ll call you back as soon as I know a car is on the way. Keep the phone on,” he said, and hung up.

I stood under the streetlight and waited for what seemed like a lifetime for the sound of a siren breaking through the menacing still of the night. I crossed my arms over my chest, nearly jumping out of my skin at the trill of the phone. In the distance, I could see revolving lights atop a cruiser, coming my way. “Hello?”

“They’re on their way,” he said.

“I can see them.”

“They’re going to take you to the station house. Wait until I get there before you talk to anyone. I’ve already told them that I want to question you.”

“But what about the girls?” I asked.

“We’re just finishing up. I’ll rent some movies and set them up at home. They’ll be fine.” He paused. “They’re kind of used to this.”

The cruiser sped down the street toward me and skidded to a stop right in front of me. I wasn’t hard to spot, a lone woman with ripped pants standing under the one streetlight that worked. “They’re here. I’ll wait for you at the precinct. Thank you, Crawford.” I put the phone back in my bag and ran over to the police car, jumping into the back before the officers could even speak to me.

There were two of them: a Hispanic man and a black woman, who was driving. She turned around. “Are you OK, ma’am?”

It was the nicest “ma’am” I had ever heard. “I’m fine. Thanks for coming to get me.”

The male officer turned around. “We’re taking you back to the four-one. Detective Crawford from the fiftieth is coming to get you.”

I took a deep breath. “You guys don’t by any chance have a barf bag, do you?” I asked, as my stomach roiled. The adrenaline rush of being picked up by Peter, tossed from his car, and discovering the gaping wound on my leg had left me a little queasy.

The female officer took a hard right and drove the car straight up onto the curb. “Open the door!” she yelled as she looked in the rearview mirror and saw my face go from bright red to white in an instant. I opened the back door and hung my head out over the sidewalk and waited a moment while everything went upside down and then right side up.

“False alarm,” I said, and pulled myself back in the car. I rested my head against the back of the seat, thinking of how many skanky prisoners had been in this car and wondering what percentage of them had head lice. I sat up straight, moved to the edge of the seat, and tried not to touch anything.

We arrived at the station house a few minutes later. The male officer opened the back door for me and led me into the building, through a door flanked by two green lights. The interior was lit by the harsh fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look green and terminally ill. There was a huge desk, behind which a senior officer was perched. He looked down at me and smiled.

“Got a little lost, huh?” He had a chestful of colorful bars, which I guess made him the head cop comedian for the evening.

I managed a weak smile. “Where can I wait for Detective Crawford?” I asked as my escorts, the two cops who had driven me here, drifted off to parts unknown. Maybe they had some kind of bullpen where they told idiot civilian stories. Mine was sure to be a hit. “So, then, she gets in the car . . .” they’d be saying, having a good laugh at my expense.

The cop behind the desk pointed to a long wooden bench against the wall. I sat between an elderly Asian woman and a large white woman with a headful of cotton-candy hair who was painted into a purple spandex dress. What separated me from my bench mates was that I was the only one not handcuffed to the bench. I looked down at my purse and tried to remember how to mentally recite a decade of the rosary; Kevin had told me that it was a good meditation and would relax me in times of stress. This was about as stressful as you could get. I started saying Hail Marys.

The purple-spandex lady trained a heavily made-up eye on me. “What did they get you for?”

I looked over at her. “Get me for?”

She sighed. “Yeah. What are you in here for?”

It slowly dawned on me that she thought I had been arrested. “Oh, I’m not in for anything. I’m just waiting for someone.”

She chortled. “OK,” she said, not believing that explanation. “Me, too.”

“No, really. I’m just waiting for a detective.” Against my better judgment, I asked her, “What are you in for?”

She rolled her eyes. “Stabbing my man. The way he treats me, they should be giving me a fucking medal, not throwing me in jail.” She held up her handcuffed hands and screamed at the desk sergeant. “I told you that these are too tight!”

He looked at her. “If you don’t shut your freaking mouth, I’m sticking you in a cell.”

“I haven’t gotten my phone call!” she screamed. “Anyway, I told you that he fell on the knife!”

The sergeant pantomimed playing the violin.

She kept screaming. “I have rights! I’ve been here all fucking day!”

He came down from around the desk and stood in front of her, a short, sausage-shaped man who looked better behind the high desk than in front of it. “I have rights, too! I have the right to do my job and not get a freaking headache! That’s it! Vasquez!” he shouted toward a cluster of cops standing in front of the men’s room. “Get her out of here! And give her her freaking phone call!”

The Asian lady started babbling in what sounded like Chinese and let out a big laugh as Vasquez—the cop who had picked me up—came over and hoisted the spandex lady off the bench. “You should have kept your mouth shut. Now I gotta take you downstairs,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

I held my breath for a minute while Vasquez dragged her off. The woman was nearly twice his size and was flailing about like a giant grouper on the deck of a fishing boat. A couple of cops watched Vasquez struggle for a few minutes before taking pity on him and helping him pull her down to the floor. One of them sat on her midsection and the other held her arms down. I watched this car wreck of police activity for a few minutes and finally had to look away when it became apparent the woman wasn’t wearing any underwear. My cell phone began to ring a minute later, and I nearly wet my pants, the sound of it jolting me back to reality. I reached into my pocket-book, grabbing it before it rang again and flipping it open. Max was screaming into my ear before I even managed to get out a greeting.

“We’re going to lose our table!” she hollered into the phone. “You promised me you were going to be on time!”

“I can’t talk to you right now,” I hissed into the phone. “You’re going to have to cut me some slack. I was just kidnapped by Peter Miceli and left in the middle of nowhere. I’m waiting for Crawford at some precinct that apparently has been fashioned after Dante’s seventh ring of hell, and I will not be coming to dinner. Got that?”

She continued yelling at me, even though I could hear her perfectly well. “What do you mean you were kidnapped by Peter Miceli?”

“What part of that do you not understand?” I hollered back at her. I was out of patience. As far as I was concerned, if someone tells you they were kidnapped, there shouldn’t be any additional explanation necessary. I was so angry that I forgot to tell her that she might be in danger, too, before I hung up. I looked over at the Asian woman, who was staring at me. “What are you looking at?” I asked, and she turned away. I guess she spoke English after all.

Crawford arrived almost an hour later, during which time I came close to having a nervous breakdown. He walked into the station house, glad-handed a couple of uniformed cops, and greeted the desk sergeant by name. When he was done with his “return the conquering hero” routine, he turned to me, a little smile playing on his lips. I had crossed my arms and legs in an attempt at making myself as small as possible while sitting on the bench and waiting for him. He knew me well enough to know that this was the worst possible place I could be: it was loud, dirty, filled with criminals, and not the place you would usually find someone like me. I don’t even like going to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for precisely the same reasons. He had on a white oxford shirt and jeans, the gold shield hanging over the pocket of the shirt. He came over to the bench, and I stood.

He asked me if I was hurt, and I told him that I was fine except for the scrape on my upper thigh. He looked at the scrape and told me that he would get me some Band-Aids. He smiled. “Let’s go over this again. If someone pulls up next to you on the street and says ‘get in the car,’ what do you do?” he asked in a patronizing tone, I guess for the benefit of all of the other cops who were watching the two of us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of the uniformed cops chuckle. I resisted the urge to give the whole lot of them the finger as he took my arm and led me to a staircase next to the high desk.

We walked up a flight of stairs to the detectives’ area and went through a swinging door. “He had a gun, Crawford.”

“Did he point it at you?” he asked, concerned.

I thought for a minute. “Well, no, but he had one. And it was big.”

“As big as mine?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, out of patience with him, too. “I haven’t seen yours up close.”

He looked down at me and couldn’t control the urge to laugh out loud. We went down a short hallway, passing a couple of detectives, who fortunately did not have prisoners angry about the fit of their handcuffs or otherwise. He asked one of them as they passed if they could bring a first-aid kit to Interrogation Room Number One.