Now You See Her (28 page)

“No signs of sexual assault. Underwear was in place; prelim shows no semen present. Her friends say she left the party last night unusually early, so the timing couldn't have been planned. She left alone.” Ritenour yawned, bleary eyes focused on his notes. “The knife was from a set in her kitchen and was left at the scene. No prints. We have a lot of
smears on the doorknob, a partial of Mrs. Worth's right thumb, and a good set of the housekeeper's prints.”

“Doesn't look like a disgruntled boyfriend, either. She spread her joy around. There were a lot of men, but no one in particular.”

“But maybe one of them wanted to be particular. You know, the sour grapes thing. If I can't have you, blah blah blah. Anybody on that list she was seeing regularly, then
stopped
seeing?” Ritenour doodled on his pad. Like all detectives, he and Joe kicked things back and forth between them. The give-and-take sometimes triggered a new insight.

“Nobody that recent.” Aquino paused. “Senator McMillan's name on that list was interesting, but while he might not want his wife to know about it, I don't think he'd kill to keep it secret.”

“Not to mention he doesn't know this list exists.”

“Not to mention. Has the insurance company come through with a list of the jewelry she had insured, so we can tell what's missing?”

“Not yet. They're supposed to fax it over in the morning.”

“Let's walk through this.”

“We've walked through it twice already, Joe.”

“Humor me.” Aquino leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Guy breaks in. He's already got the jewelry. Maybe he plans on taking the television and stereo, too, but it's just one guy, so I doubt it. He's in the kitchen, looking in the refrigerator. Lot of people hide stuff in their refrigerators and freezers; they think it's an original hiding
place, so of course a good thief always checks the fridge.”

Ritenour picked up the narrative. “When she comes in, catches him, he panics. He grabs one of the knives. But he already has the jewelry, and he's stronger than she is; he can get away any time he wants. There wasn't any reason to kill her, unless she knew him.”

“Like an acquaintance trying to feed a drug habit? That might fly, except for the overkill. The punk enjoyed it. That brings me back to the setup. I think the murder was deliberate, and the rest of it is just stage setting. I don't think there was a burglar.”

“Then the guys on this list are our best possibilities.” Sourly, Ritenour surveyed the names. “Jesus, the lady saw a lot of action. The problem is, I don't think any of these names are on the security log.”

“What, you think a guy planning to commit murder is going to sign his real name for the guard?”

“Then how did he get in?
Somebody
would have to okay him, or the guard wouldn't let him go up. So he would have had to use his real name.”

“Or somebody in the building was in on it with him.”

Glumly they stared at each other. They were getting into wild territory with a conspiracy theory, and they knew it. The murder had been too personal. So they were left with the puzzle of how the killer got into an upscale apartment building with round-the-clock security. They kept staring at each other. Ritenour arched his eyebrows. “We need a list of recent tenants.”

“Yeah, we sure as hell do.”

“The name won't be right, but we'll be looking for a single man, and odds are if we get photos of all the guys on this list, the guards will be able to match one of them to the new tenant.”

Suddenly energized, they hit the phones. The late hour was working against them, though. There was no one in the office of the apartment building to give them a list of recent applicants. Getting photos of the men on the list would also take time; the photos of the ones who had driver's licenses could be got from the DMV, but a lot of people who lived in the city didn't drive because owning a car was such a bitch of a hassle. There was also the possibility that the guy could live across the river in New Jersey, or in Connecticut. Both were easy commutes.

“Jesus,” Aquino muttered, looking at the list of Mrs. Worth's lovers. “This could take the rest of the year. Have you counted how many guys are here? The woman must have had the brains of a flea, what with AIDS and everything. Look at this. I count twenty-three
new
guys in the past year; then there were all the repeaters. She was in the sack with somebody at least twice a week, on average.”

“My love life should be so active,” Ritenour said mournfully.

“The strain would kill you. Ah, hell, we aren't going to get anything accomplished tonight.” Aquino stood and stretched. “I'm going home. See ya in the morning.”

“Going home's the best idea you've had all day.”

Following suit, Ritenour grabbed his coat. “You wanna stop off for a couple of beers?”

“Nah, you go on. I'm whacked.” They were both divorced, and all either of them had waiting for them at home was laundry. The beers sounded tempting. But something was nibbling at Aquino, and he couldn't quite figure out what it was. Something about Richard Worth. It wasn't that he thought Worth was the killer; the man had no motive, and no opportunity. But he was too controlled; there hadn't been any shakes, any fidgeting, any show of temper, no visible emotion when he identified his wife's body—okay, soon-to-be ex-wife, and considering the abortion thing and all the other men, he could understand why Worth wouldn't give a damn—
nothing.
No sign he had a single nerve in his body. He had been patient and helpful, giving them access to his records so they could get the information a lot faster than if they had to go through legal channels. Aquino knew he had no reason to be suspicious of Worth, and he wasn't, not really. It was just a gut feeling that the guy was hiding something, that there was some loose end that needed to be secured.

He waved a careless good-bye to Ritenour, then slid his bulk behind the wheel of the nondescript tan sedan the city provided for his use. On impulse, he decided to drive by Richard Worth's town house, just to see what he could see. Hell, he might even park and keep an eye on the place for a while. In a detective, a little healthy curiosity was a good thing.

*   *   *

Richard gave the cabdriver a twenty and didn't wait for the change, just bounded up the steps to the town house. When he renovated the bottom floor for his offices, he had added a separate entrance for them tucked under the steps that went up to the main part of the house. The office floor was half underground, with the windows at street level protected by steel bars. He entered into a foyer, a ten-by-ten square laid with imported slate tiles. The rug centered on the tiles was a two-hundred-year-old Turkish rug so tightly woven it didn't depress under his weight as he strode across it.

He checked the answering machine in the den for messages. There were eleven of them, and he listened impatiently, fast-forwarding to the next one as soon as he identified each voice. Sweeney's wasn't one of them. He dialed her number and listened to the rings, counting them in his head. On the sixth ring, her machine picked up. Her voice recited the number; then she ended with a terse, “Leave a message.” Normally he would have been amused. Now he was worried sick. Goddamn it, where was she?

*   *   *

Sweeney hadn't meant to walk so far. The severe episode that morning had left her feeling dazed and dopey, even after she woke from the deathlike, three-hour nap. She had wandered around the apartment for hours, not expecting Richard to call but hanging around anyway, just in case he did. He would be so busy with the arrangements that she didn't expect to hear from him for a couple of days, at least.

Around sundown, though, she began to feel as if she couldn't stay inside another moment. Her thought processes felt slow and clumsy, as if she had been drugged, and she thought some fresh air might help clear her mind. Not trusting the chirpy weather lady who said the temperature was a pleasant sixty-four degrees, she pulled on a denim jacket and hit the street.

She didn't have any destination in mind. She just walked. She lived on the fringes of the Lower East Side, and the area was full of color, especially the human variety. The relatively low rents attracted artists and students by the thousands. Actors and musicians mostly gravitated to Greenwich Village, but some of the overflow ended up in the Lower East Side. The faces were fascinating, young and old. A young couple were out for a stroll, pushing their infant in a stroller, pride and contentment shining on their faces. She caught a glimpse of the baby's tiny, flowerlike face and its minuscule hands curled on the edge of the blanket, and her hands ached to touch the fuzz that covered its head.

A teenager was walking a tangle of dogs, ranging in size from an English sheepdog, peeping through its mop of hair, down to a dachshund, trotting along in double time. A big grin lit the boy's face as he was literally towed along the sidewalk: he was on roller skates. The dogs looked happy to be of use.

Gradually the neighborhood changed. Sweeney looked at window displays, stopped in a tiny bakery for a cinnamon roll with thick icing on top, then had to have a cup of coffee to wash it down. She strolled
along, hands in the pockets of her jacket, a light breeze flirting with her curls.

She tried not to think about Candra. She deliberately did not allow the image of the painting to form in her mind. She didn't think about much of anything, just kept walking.

Still, it wasn't a surprise when she looked around her and recognized the luxurious town houses and high-rise apartment buildings of the Upper East Side. She had walked at least a couple of miles, maybe more; she didn't know how many blocks constituted a mile. Richard lived here, in a town house off of Park Avenue. Candra had lived somewhere near here; Sweeney remembered Kai telling her that Candra's new apartment was in the upper somethings; she didn't remember which block.

Sweeney hadn't watched the news, just the weather. The local news would probably be full of the murder; such things didn't happen every day in one of the swank apartment buildings, and Candra was socially prominent, which made her murder even more newsworthy. Sweeney hadn't wanted to see anything about it, or hear any of the speculation.

All she wanted was to see Richard.

She walked up the street and stood looking up at the town house for several moments. She had been here once, three or four years ago, when she had briefly been in town and had stopped by at Candra's invitation while a party was in progress. Sweeney had stayed just long enough to pretend to sip some champagne, tell Candra hello, then she escaped.

Light shone through the fantail window above
the door. She stared at the window, wondering if he was at home or if the light was on to make people think someone was there.

This was a bad idea. If he
was
home, surely there were other people with him. Friends would be offering their condolences—or perhaps not, considering the circumstances. But they would definitely be trying to get all the gory details, hot gossip they could share over coffee with other friends the next day.

She wouldn't have to go in. Just ring the doorbell, tell him . . . tell him something inane, such as she was thinking about him, or offer her sympathy, something like that. Maybe he had staff and didn't answer the door himself. In that case, she would leave a message. He would know she had been there, and that was the important thing.

She climbed the steps and punched the doorbell, then stuffed her hands back in her pockets, standing with her head down and the night breeze ruffling her hair while she waited for the door to open.

It was jerked open so abruptly she jumped, startled.

Richard loomed over her, glaring. “Where in hell have you been?” he barked.

She blinked. “Walking.”

“Walking,” he repeated in disbelief. “From your apartment?”

“Yeah. I just took a walk and . . . ended up here.”

He stared down at her, his face expressionless but his dark eyes glittering with some unreadable emotion. “Come in,” he said, stepping back so she could pass by him, and after a slight hesitation, she did.

*   *   *

Sitting in his car thirty yards down the block, Detective Aquino raised his eyebrows, and made note of the woman's time of arrival. No particular reason why, he thought, just a cop's general nosiness.

They hadn't touched, but there had been that indefinable air of connection between them. So Worth had himself a honey; there was no law against it. In fact, after being separated for a year, the man would have had to be a damn saint not to have a lady friend.

What puzzled Aquino was why, in answering all the questions they had asked that day, not once had another woman's name been mentioned. Worth was a private man—Aquino had gathered that much—but when the issue came up, he had, reluctantly, told them about his wife's abortion. Having a lady friend was a lot less sensitive than that information. In fact, being involved with another woman would have been another point in his favor, making him even less likely to care what his estranged wife did.

But Worth hadn't mentioned his friend, and Aquino found that interesting.

C
HAPTER
    S
EVENTEEN

T
he foyer floor was some kind of dark gray tile, covered by a thick rug in the richest colors Sweeney had ever seen. She would have paused there, but Richard held out his hand, indicating she should precede him, and uncomfortably she did so. His expression was at its most stony, as if he didn't want her there but was too polite to say so. She jammed her hands deeper into her jacket pockets, feeling like an interloper.

She had felt like an interloper the other time she had been here, too. Of course, then she had been under the strain of trying to socialize—briefly—but she wasn't any more comfortable this time. Luxury made her nervous. As a child, she had always been the one who spilled the Kool-Aid on the irreplaceable lace tablecloth, or inadvertently smeared paint on a silk blouse, or stepped on a dropped ink pen
and cracked it so the ink ran all over a gazillion-dollar rug. Her mother had always put on that dramatic tone of voice and said the world would be safer if she could only keep Paris in a cage, and then she always profusely apologized for the child's clumsiness. For a while Sweeney had been terrified her mother really would put her in a cage.