The Fregoli Delusion (8 page)

“A closeness. Really.”

Holland stared back at her.

“Any fights with him lately,
disagreements, anything like that?”

Holland glanced down at his right
hand for an instant, then looked at her. “No. Nothing important. He didn’t like
a marketing strategy we submitted to him a couple of weeks ago, tore it all to
shreds and threatened to have security throw us out into the street naked.
Typical H.J. So I’d been giving him a few alternative things to look at over
the last week. He seemed to like this stuff better. But you don’t take any of
that sort of thing personally if you’re going to survive at this level. You
stay on an even keel. When he doesn’t like something, he lets you know. But if
he does like something, he also lets you know, and you just take the good with
the bad, and maintain your focus. It’s the only way to weather the storms and
get where you want to go. Long story short, he gave me shit a couple of weeks
ago but I already had him back more or less where I wanted him, so there’s
nothing worth mentioning.”

Karen stared at him. “What kind of
car do you drive?”

“Something that costs a little
more than your Ford Escort, I’m sure.”

“For your information, pal,” Karen
leaned her elbow on the bar, “I drive a 1979 Firebird Esprit, the Redbird
edition with the 301 four-barrel, stock, and I’d rather drive it than any of
those over-priced pieces of euro-crap I saw out there in the parking lot.”

Holland raised his eyebrows. “My
apologies. A respectable choice, but you have to admit it’s still a long way
from my ride, which is a 2011 Ferrari 599 GTO, with a v-12, 612 horsepower that
cost me three hundred and eighty grand, and I’d rather drive
it
, believe
me, than anything else parked out there today.”

“We’re talking about that silver
one I saw sandwiched between a Porsche and a Mercedes?”

“Not literally sandwiched, I
hope,” Holland joked, “but yeah, it’s silver.”

“Got the navigation system with
it, Richard? I couldn’t see it there.”

“Do me a favor,” Holland said, his
good humor evaporating. “Look but don’t touch, okay? That’s a really expensive
piece of machinery. And to answer your question, no, it doesn’t have the
navigation system. It was screwed up when I bought the car, so I had them take
it out. I don’t need GPS, believe me. I
know
where I am at all times.”

Karen shrugged. “Explain something
else to me, then. How come you’re here playing golf with your pals instead of
attending the big press conference to circle the wagons at Jarrett Tower?”

“Believe me, I’d much rather be
there,” replied Holland, “but Parris thinks these three turds are important
right now, that we need to keep our key government contacts calm and reassured,
so I obeyed our new acting CEO’s orders and played golf instead of getting
network face time like the rest of them.” He glanced over at the table. “All
they could talk about was the shooting, the idiots.”

“When did you hear he’d been
killed?”

“About nine fifteen. My EA
called.”

“You don’t seem all that broken up
about it.”

“You have no idea what I’m
feeling, Detective, so I’ll thank you not to presume.”

“One more question for you,” Karen
said in a bored tone of voice. “How
do
you get along with Walter
Parris?”

Holland shrugged. “Okay, I guess.
We have the odd debate about expenditures and so on, but he’s a professional
guy and I can respect that. If you’re thinking that he killed H.J., then you’re
way off base. H.J.’s more likely to have been shot by one of Santa’s elves than
by Walter Parris.”

“You’re probably right.” Karen
eased off the stool as Hank closed his notebook and put it away. “Nice,
harmless family man. His son is an interesting guy. Know him?”

“Brett? Only slightly. He has some
kind of condition.” Holland stood up as well. “At our company Christmas party
one year he thought one of our directors was me in disguise. He got upset and
they had to leave.”

“Sounds pretty strange,” Karen
said.

“Yeah. Then a few weeks ago he was
at the tower taking pictures. Walter asked us all if we minded. I said, hell,
no, maybe we can use a few of them in next year’s annual report. Anyway, the
guy started insisting my executive assistant was me. And one of Walter’s senior
staffers, and a couple other people. They were all me, in disguise. It was
completely bizarre. I understand he does that sort of thing all the time.”

“Did it bother you?”

“It weirded me out. But like I
say, I don’t take stuff personally.” He tapped his temple lightly. “Too
focused.”

“When was the last time you saw
him?”

“Brett? That day at the tower, a
couple weeks ago.”

“All right.” Karen stepped away
from the bar. “We appreciate your time.”

“You don’t think Brett did it, do
you?”

Karen frowned, as though her
intelligence had been insulted. “We’re just asking questions, Mr. Holland,
about a bunch of people. Have a nice day, and enjoy your little boys’ club.”

Bernhardt walked them out and
shook Hank’s hand, ignoring Karen again. They got into the Crown Vic. Karen
buckled in and started the engine.

“We should come here more often,”
she said. “I like the ambience.”

Hank laughed.

“I really, really can’t stand that
guy.” She gripped the steering wheel tightly, backing out of the parking space.

“Who, Bernhardt?” Hank knew she
was referring to Holland but wanted to chafe her a little.

“Funny man. I don’t care if he’s
alibied, he’s a goddamned liar and he thinks way too much of himself.”

“He’s a Type A super-executive.
Typical self-centered bulldozer.”

“Sure enough, but I’m not buying
his bullshit. I think Brett Parris really did see him running from the scene.
I’d bet money he’s our shooter.”

“Brett Parris is not going to be a
reliable eyewitness, and anyway, it’s far too early for that kind of
assumption.”

“It’s never too early to lock onto
a fucking piece of slime like that.” She threw the transmission into Park,
unbuckled her seat belt, and took out her cell phone.

“I don’t know,” Hank said. “I
thought he was kind of nice. I may go golfing with him.”

“Yeah, well, I may just shoot you
both.” She opened the door and got out.

Hank watched her walk back up the
row of parking spaces, passing Holland’s Ferrari without a glance. The Porsche
that had been parked to the left of it was now gone, leaving an empty space.
She walked past that space and stopped at a car farther down. She held up her
phone, took a photo, then looked around, spotted another car that interested
her on the opposite side and took its picture, came back, took a shot of
Holland’s Ferrari, getting a clear view of it from the side, thanks to the
empty space next to it, then took a picture of the Mercedes beside it. She came
back to the Crown Vic and got in.

“I love cars,” she said, buckling
up again. “I get it from Del. I should e-mail him these shots and ask him to
guess which one I just bought. He’ll have a stroke.”

Del was Delbert Stainer, her older
brother, the auto mechanic in Houston who’d fixed up and sold her the Redbird
she’d just bragged about to Richard Holland.

“A car photo array,” Hank said.

“Why not? Parris may be psychotic
but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. So he’s not into cars and doesn’t know a
Ferrari from a Volkswagen. Big deal. Doesn’t mean he can’t identify a car from
memory if he sees a picture of it.”

Karen rolled through the big
gateway and turned right, onto Howard Boulevard.

“He’s not going to work as a
witness,” Hank said. “The state’s attorney’s not going to be interested. He’s going
to wish Brett Parris didn’t exist.”

“Yeah, well, he exists and I’m
starting to believe him.”

Hank’s cell phone vibrated. He
took it out, looked at the display, and thumbed the button. “Hello, there.”

“Hello yourself,” replied Anna
Haynes Donaghue. “Am I calling at a bad time?”

“No, not at all,” Hank said.
“We’re just driving back downtown. How are you doing?”

“Not bad for an old girl. I
understand you’ve been spending a lot of your time up here in the Park lately.”

“Too true.”

“I saw you on the news at noon.
You looked very good. Better than your chief did this afternoon, I daresay.
Once a Fed, always a Fed.”

“Thanks, Mother. I guess.”

“The politics will be fierce on
this one, dear. One of the more high-profile homicides in state history.
Everyone will be trying to get a finger in the pie. Makes me wish I was still
on the job.” She held the phone away from her mouth to sneeze. “Sorry. Roberts
just got himself a cat. He neglected to ask me first if I was allergic.”

Roberts was James Roberts, Anna’s
friend and companion. General James Roberts, United States Army, Retired. Now a
military consultant, he spent most of his time out of the country on contract
as an adviser to heads of state with more money than brains, according to Anna.

“He should have gotten one of
those hairless cats,” Hank said. “They’re hypoallergenic.”

“They’re aliens from another
planet, poor things, but that’s not why I called. There’s something happening
tomorrow night I need you to attend.”

“I’m going out with the boys to
shoot pool and steal a few cars.”

“It’s the fundraiser for the
Mercer Foundation,” she went on, ignoring him. “I thought Constance would
probably want to reschedule it, given what happened today, but she feels it’s
even more important now than ever, so we’ll all be there. You, too.”

The Mercer Foundation was a
non-profit organization created by Constance ten years ago in her father’s
memory to raise money for a mental health center providing support and services
to people with severe mental health issues. They delivered education and
awareness programs, operated an advocacy network for improved medical insurance
coverage, and provided shelter, maintenance programs, and short-term funding to
people in distress. The Foundation’s annual event was notoriously
politician-heavy, and Hank preferred just to mail them a check. Unfortunately,
he’d lost track of when it was coming and hadn’t arranged a suitable excuse.

“I need to spend a lot of time on
this case,” he tried.

“Nonsense. Jarrett won’t be any
deader if you take an evening off. You can bring that new girlfriend of yours.
It’s about time I met her, and this will be neutral ground, as it were.”

“She’s just a friend, Mother.”

“That’s not what I hear. I’ll send
a car for you at six o’clock. Black tie, Henry, but I suppose as usual you’ll
insist on wearing a suit instead of formal evening wear.”

“I only have the one dinner
jacket, Mother, and it doesn’t fit. I’m a cop; nobody expects a cop to dress
well. Besides, didn’t Alan Flusser write that a solid navy suit, a white shirt,
navy tie, and white pocket scarf are an acceptable alternative?”

“Only if the occasion’s black-tie
optional.”

“Sigh. Then I guess I’ll just have
to be a rule-breaker, Mother.”

“I don’t see why. You look very
handsome when you dress well. See you there.”

“All right.” Hank closed the phone
and stared at it, reluctant to dial Meredith’s number and ask her to go to a
high-profile gala fundraiser on such short notice.

Karen looked over at him and shook
her head in disgust.

“Mamma’s boy.”

9

Hank loved the city at night. He
walked down Cooper Street at a few minutes before 9:00
p.m
., on his way to meet Martinez at Phil’s Diner, a block
from departmental headquarters. The cigar in his mouth was a Partagas petit
corona, good for walking. He’d lit it after leaving the restaurant where he’d
had dinner. He was taking his time, enjoying the night. Martinez would be
early, waiting for him, but she always showed up early for meetings, and
waiting was not a problem for her. She always had an abundance of things to
occupy her mind no matter where she was, and Hank knew she put her time to good
use without even appearing to move a muscle.

The hot night air moved around him
in a steady current. A bus passed in the street, its brightly-lit windows
filled with heads and shoulders facing forward, bored, tired. A motorcycle
accelerated around it into the inside lane. Cars followed. Downtown traffic. He
looked up and saw lights moving in the sky above the buildings. A plane leaving
the airport in Springhill.

He waited at an intersection for
the light to change. Sirens began a few blocks away and klaxons sounded as
emergency vehicles rushed toward him. Fire and EMS. When the light turned green
he waited until they had passed, then he crossed the intersection, throwing the
remainder of the cigar down a sewer grate.

Martinez sat at a table for one at
the rear of Phil’s Deli. Tonight she wore a navy business suit, white blouse,
and black pumps. She sipped coffee from a tall cup with a corrugated paper
sleeve, watching him edge down the narrow aisle toward her. He grabbed a stool
and dragged it into the aisle.

Martinez held up her cup.
“Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Hank sat down and
put his foot up on the bottom rung of the stool. “How’s Peralta?”

Martinez reached into the pocket
of her jacket and put Peralta’s badge on the table between them. “I tried, for
over an hour. I said she could have forty-eight hours, think it over, but she
blew it off. Her mind’s made up.”

Hank touched the badge, spun it
around so that he could read the number, then spun it back. “I’m not surprised.
I saw it in her eyes. Will she be all right?”

“I think so. She doesn’t want an
exit interview with anyone, doesn’t want to talk to any of us, but she has a
doctor’s appointment on Monday and her husband’s sticking close to her, so I
think she’ll be okay. There’s a lot of stuff she has to work through. It’s
going to take time.”

She picked up the badge and put it
back into her pocket. “She kept saying she didn’t want to end up like Stainer.
She wanted a life away from the job. She didn’t want to be the kind of person
who could shoot someone in the head and walk away from it, like it was
nothing.”

Hank looked out the window as a
police cruiser hurried by, lights flashing. “I understand where she’s coming
from,” he said, “but it’s not exactly fair to Karen.”

Martinez shrugged. “It’s out of
our hands. The bottom line is, we’re down another detective at the worst
possible time.”

“At least we don’t have to work
Chinatown for a while.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” She set her
cup down. “He’s a butthead. I’m real sorry Carleson decided to go with him, but
I can see it. It’s a good move.”

Hank waited.

“The chief’s calling the Jarrett
case a task force in public,” she said, “but he’s not funding it like one.
We’ve got a small budget coming out of his discretionary dollars. I talked him
into letting us bring in one detective on a temporary basis, specifically for
Jarrett. What’s your plan?”

“I want Horvath working with Karen
on it.”

“Kaplan and Belknap will have to
catch everything else for the time being, then.”

“Can I borrow someone from another
unit to help cover Homicide, short term?”

“What’re you thinking?”

“What about Higgins, in Robbery?”

“I was thinking of Peet in Arson.”
Martinez pursed her lips. It was her way of smiling without smiling. “Arson’s a
little quieter right now, thank God. Would you rather have Higgins?”

“Yeah. He’s older, more
experienced. He can swing between Kaplan and Belknap and it won’t bother him.”

“All right. I’ll let Murchison
know tonight, and we’ll get him on board tomorrow.” Jim Murchison was the
supervisory lieutenant in Robbery, also reporting directly to Martinez.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. But you still get
another body for Jarrett right now.”

Hank folded his hands on the
table. “I’d like to bring in a detective from Cold Case. Maureen Truly.”

“Don’t know the name. Why her?”

“A hunch, I guess. I looked
through her file this afternoon.”

“And?”

“Just the minimum street
experience in uniform and not a lot of field investigation either, I admit, but
she’s done well in Cold Case. Five closures in four years through new DNA
evidence and reworking the files.”

Martinez shrugged. “It’s CCU we’re
talking about here.”

“I know, but she’s got a good
rapport with Criminalistics and a knack for collating and analyzing
information, from what I can see. Her career path probably points to
Intelligence, but I think I can use her on this. It’s a big case, the suspect
pool is wide and deep up front, and she can help everyone stay focused.”

“I thought that was your job.”

“My job is to make sure the right
people are doing the right things at the right time, Ann.”

She pursed her lips again. “One of
the many things I learned from you along the way.”

“I want Stainer and Horvath at the
front end and Truly at the back end.”

“And you in the middle.”

“I’ll be everywhere on this one.”

“Roger that.” Martinez looked away
as two young people, a male and a female, obviously students, came into the
deli and leaned on the counter to talk to the kid up front at the cash
register. “We’re both in the cross hairs on this one. We blow it, we’re both toast.”

“Then we won’t blow it.”

She sighed, watching the kids.
“Ever wish you were still that young, Hank? Back in school, full of piss and
vinegar?”

“No. Never.”

She laughed lightly. “Not one to
look back, are you? I’ve always admired that. No regrets, no second guessing.
Always in control of the moment.”

He looked at her profile and
involuntarily remembered other times and other places he’d studied the hook in
her nose, the large, dark, almond-shaped eyes, the arching eyebrows, the loose
black curls. Time moved on; you moved with it. How you felt about it was
irrelevant, in the long run. She was wrong about him, but there was no
percentage in correcting her. Not anymore.

Abruptly he stood up and put the
stool back where he’d found it. “We’ve got your back, Ann. We’ll close it for
you.”

“Thanks.” She reached out and
touched his arm.

“For what it’s worth? I’ve got
yours, too. Always.”