NYPD Red (13 page)

THAT SECTION OF Furmanville Avenue in Queens was a quiet working-class neighborhood lined with small two-story homes, even smaller front yards, and a schizophrenic mix of Japanese compacts and oversized gas-guzzling SUVs. In the middle of it all was a serviceable 1960s white-brick, four-story building that strived for nondescript, but landed on ugly.

The maroon canopy in front said
PARADISE GARDEN
.

“It’s nice to see that the zoning laws in New York City are flexible enough to allow someone to build a funny farm right in the middle of a neighborhood filled with impressionable youth,” Kylie said.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Detective,” I said. “Maybe the nut jobs were here first, and the happy little neighborhood just sprang up around them.”

“I’ve been to places like this before,” Kylie said. “Private clinics, nursing homes, psych hospitals. You try to ask them a few questions and they’re more defensive than a mob lawyer. Usually there’s some smarmy little weasel who
really wishes he could help,
then falls back on doctor-patient confidentiality and won’t tell you squat without a subpoena.”

“Maybe we could threaten to bust the smarmy little weasel for false advertising,” I said. “The sidewalk is cracked, the grass is brown, and the building is an eyesore. Paradise Garden, my ass.”

The lobby was warm and humid. If the inmates were paying for air-conditioning, they weren’t getting their money’s worth.

The receptionist was a middle-aged woman who obviously bought her red hair coloring by the gallon. She looked up and gave us a welcoming smile. We were off to an excellent start.

“Gud aftanoon. Kin I help ya?” she said in an accent that branded her as born, raised, and educated in Queens.

“NYPD,” I said, flashing my badge. “We’re looking for Gabriel Benoit.”

“Who?”

I pronounced the name slowly.
Ben-oyt.
B-E-N-O-I-T.

“Oh.
Ben-wah,
” she said, shaking her head at my lousy diction. “He’s no lawnga a resident.”

“Where can we find him?” I said.

“You’d hafta tawk to our directah, Dr. Ben-David,” she said. “Have a seat.”

The waiting area was filled with overstuffed furniture that might have been considered gracious during the Truman administration. At this point in its life cycle, the grace had turned to gloom.

We sat. “Bet you five bucks he’s a die-hard Mets fan,” Kylie said.

I was about to turn down the chump bet when we heard a piercing scream. People who live in psych wards scream day and night. But this was different. This was someone in agony. I knew it, Kylie knew it, and the receptionist knew it.

“Oh my Gawd,” the receptionist said and started running down the hall. “It’s Dr. Ben-David.”

KYLIE AND I followed the receptionist down a wide hallway that might once have been painted a cheery yellow, but was now a sorry shade of jaundice.

The door to Dr. Ben-David’s office was open, and the three of us stormed in. The director was not at all what we had expected.

Laura Ben-David was in her midthirties, strikingly attractive, and lying there, sprawled out on a sofa, strikingly pregnant.

“Dr. Ben-David,” the receptionist said. “You awl right?”

Ben-David sat up. “I’m fine, Doris. I’m so sorry about that scream, but this little bugger seems to want to get out two weeks ahead of schedule,” she said, putting both hands on her belly. “He just gave me a doozy of a contraction.”

“You’re in labor?” Kylie said.

“Full blown.”

“We’re with NYPD. Can we drive you to the hospital?”

“No, thanks. I called my husband. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“They were asking for Gabriel Benoit,” Doris said.

“I’ve been worried about him,” Ben-David said. “Is he okay?”

“We don’t know,” Kylie said. “I’m Detective MacDonald, and this is my partner, Detective Jordan. Are you up to answering a few questions?”

“I can probably handle a couple of true or false. But I’m not sure this kid is going to stay put long enough for me to answer the essay questions.” She winced. “Doris, go back to the front desk, and send Lawrence back as soon as he gets here.”

Doris left and Kylie sat down next to the doc.

“Your receptionist said Mr. Benoit is no longer a resident,” Kylie said. “What was he in here for?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

“Can you tell us when he left?”

“A few months ago.”

“And could you give us the name of the doctor who checked him out?”

“He checked himself out,” Ben-David said.

“These people can just walk out on their own?” Kylie said.

“These people?”
Ben-David said. “Most of them can’t, but Gabriel came in voluntarily, so he could discharge himself at any time.”

“Did he leave a forwarding address?”

Ben-David laughed. “Ouch,” she said, grabbing her belly again. “Don’t make me laugh. People in Gabriel Benoit’s mental state never leave forwarding addresses. They’re always afraid somebody is out to get them.”

“In his case,” Kylie said, “he’d be right.”

A man opened the door without knocking and knelt down beside the doc.

“Laura, you all right?” he said.

As if on cue, she let out a yelp, not nearly as loud as the scream we’d heard a few minutes before, and dug her fingers into his back as she powered through a thirty-second contraction.

“I’m fine,” she said, coming out of it. “Detectives, this is my husband, Lawrence.”

“Honey, whatever this is, it can wait. The car’s outside. Let’s go.” He helped her off the sofa.

Our best link to Benoit was about to rush off to a maternity ward. We needed a Hail Mary.

“Dr. Ben-David,” Kylie said. “Gabriel Benoit is a suspect in a string of violent homicides.”

Ben-David stopped in her tracks.

“Homicides,” she said. “Oh, my Lord. That’s terrible.”

“We know about HIPAA, we know about doctor-patient confidentiality, but more people—a lot of innocent people—are at risk,” Kylie said. “Is there anything—
anything—
you can say that will help us?”

Ben-David turned to her husband. “Lawrence, give me a minute. Please. Wait outside. I’ll be right there.”

“Laura, are you…? All right. You got one minute and then I’m coming back in and dragging you to the hospital.”

He walked out and shut the door behind him.

“Detective MacDonald,” Ben-David said. “I am bound by law not to divulge any patient information without a court order.”

“That’s not helping,” Kylie said.

“You’re not listening. Let me finish.
I—repeat, I—
am bound by law not to divulge any patient information without a court order.
My staff
is bound by the same law. Our job is not to help you catch a murderer. Our job is to take care of the one hundred and eighteen other people who live in this facility who
are not
—
repeat, are not—
bound by any such law. Are you with me so far?”

Kylie nodded.

“Most of our residents are very inquisitive,” Ben-David said. “In fact, a lot of them are downright nosy. And they’re talkative. Especially J.J. But they are also fragile, delicate, and easily frightened.
Do not
—
repeat, do not—
scare them. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kylie said. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Ben-David said. “Unfortunately, it’s also the most I could do.”

Kylie hugged her gently. “Have a wonderful baby.”

I opened the door, and Lawrence led her down the hall.

“Nice lady,” I said to my partner. “Hardly the smarmy little weasel I was told to expect.”

DORIS WAS BACK at the front desk.

“Thanks for your help,” I said. “Dr. Ben-David said she wouldn’t mind if we took a quick look around.”

“Then you may want to look for the man in the Freud T-shirt,” she said, barely making eye contact with us. “The dayroom is over there.” She cocked her head to the right.

Doris was obviously in the loop.

Nothing says
“I’m glad I’m not locked up in here”
like a large communal room in a mental institution.

There were a few dozen men and women scattered about, both alone and in groups, some watching TV, some staring into space, some talking to one another, some sitting off to the side quietly tapping away at a laptop or a video game.

It’s the same kind of tableau you might see in an airport lounge. Except it was obvious that these people had no place to go. You could see it in their eyes.

“Sigmund Freud T-shirt at eleven o’clock,” Kylie said.

The man was my age, with a long, lean body, thinning blond hair, and round wire glasses. He was looking out a window, holding two unlit cigarettes in his left hand.

“Don’t forget what the doc said,” I reminded Kylie.

“He’s nosy and likes to talk.”

“I mean the part about him being fragile. Be gentle.”

“You know me, Six. I’m as gentle as a kitten.”

She didn’t mean it to be any kind of a sexual reference, but the male brain doesn’t need innuendo to get it thinking about sex. My mind flashed to our first month in the police academy. Before Spence came back into the picture. Kylie MacDonald was more tigress than kitten.

“You probably have a problem preying on the mentally ill,” she said. “I don’t. Follow my lead.”

She eased toward Freud, then stopped a few feet away, within earshot.

“I thought Gabriel would be here,” she said to me.

“Gabriel who?” I said.

“The film director,” she said. “Are you new here? I thought everyone knew him.”

Freud turned away from the window. “Excuse me,” he said. “You looking for Gabriel?”

Kylie smiled, perky and happy to find a helpful soul.

“Yeah. Hi. I’m Kylie.”

“I’m J.J.,” he said. “What are you looking for Gabriel for?”

“I’m an actress. He’s a director. Duh.”

J.J. laughed. Crazy or not, he was as susceptible to Kylie’s charm as the rest of hetero mankind. “I know him,” J.J. said. “Are you in one of his movies?”

“I wish,” Kylie said. “I’m auditioning. Is there anything you can tell me that would help me nail the part?”

“Let’s sit on the porch,” he said. “We can smoke out there.”

The two of them stepped through a pair of French doors onto a narrow porch with outdoor furniture as run-down as the indoor stuff.

J.J. sat on a wicker rocker and Kylie sat on a bench across from him. I hovered in the background.

J.J. shifted the two cigarettes to his right hand, but made no move to light them. “Gabriel is a difficult director,” he said. “When you audition, never ad-lib. I’m serious. Always do the script as writ. He hates it when somebody tries to rewrite him. Like one night at dinner, we were supposed to have meat loaf, but they gave us fried chicken. He went ballistic, screaming, ‘Who rewrote this scene?’”

“He sounds dedicated.”

“No, Kylie. Scorsese is dedicated. Gabriel is just crazy.”

“I still want to audition,” Kylie said. “Where is he?”

“Gone. Vanished. Poof—just disappeared into thin air. One night he walks into the dayroom—some of us were watching that show with the Japanese robots—do you watch that?”

“No. Is it good?”

“If you like robots, yeah. Anyway, Gabriel, he just walks in and announces that he’s finished shooting all the wacko-people shit in his script. He says we’re all stars, but he can’t promise who’s going to be in the final cut until he edits it. The next morning he was out of here.”

“Did you ever see the script?”

“No. The only ones who were ever allowed to see it were Gabriel and Lexi.”

“Who’s Lexi?”

“His girlfriend.”

“Do you know her last name?”

J.J. shook his head. “No. It’s just the one name, like she’s so famous that she doesn’t need a last name. Like Oprah. Except most people know it’s Winfrey.”

“Is Lexi still here?”

“No. She never lived here. But I bet he’s with her. They go everywhere together. You know what I think?” he said, gesturing with the cigarette hand.

“Tell me.”

“I think Gabriel doesn’t have to be locked up in a place like this. I think he only came here to shoot scenes for his movie.”

“I’m surprised they let him bring a camera in here,” Kylie said.

J.J. looked at her like she was nuts. “There’s no camera,” he said. “It’s all in here.” He tapped his forehead.

“The movie…” Kylie took a second to reprocess the information. “The movie is
in his head?
”

J.J. shrugged. “Hey, I told you—the guy is crazy.”

LEXI HAD FOUND his hiding place months ago. It was in the desk. His desk—the one piece of furniture he had brought to her apartment.

She had been looking for the stapler, opened the bottom drawer too fast, and pulled it out completely. The drawer was half the length of the others. It had a false back.

And there they were, stashed in his secret space. Letters. Lots of them.

Obviously they had to be from other women. Gabe had girlfriends before he met her. Still, it pissed her off that he had saved them, and worse yet, hid them from her.

She put the drawer back. The letters were none of her business. She made a vow never to read them. That lasted about ten minutes. She came up with a compromise. She’d read two or three just to get the flavor of the other girls. Maybe see how she stacked up. That would be enough. Unless any of them were written after she and Gabe were a couple. Then there would be hell to pay.

She pulled out the drawer and grabbed a handful of envelopes. They weren’t from women. They were business letters. From movie studios, television networks, production companies, directors, actors. She read a half dozen.

They were all the same—thanks but no thanks. Rejection letters. Hundreds of them, some more than ten years old. How sad.

In the months that had passed, she hadn’t said a word. She wished she could talk to him about the letters, maybe make him feel better about himself, but that would mean admitting she had read them.

And now, she had made his life even more miserable. She bungled the robbery scene. She so much wanted to be a part of his movie, and as soon as he said yes, she screwed up.

She had to make it up to him. She
would
make it up to him. And then, sitting at her computer, surfing the best sites for the latest Hollywood dirt, it hit her. Inspiration. Brilliant actually, because this would completely tie in to the rest of the movie.

She clicked on Microsoft Word, opened a new document, and began typing.