Page 57 of Two Kinds of Stranger

‘I need something else. My client is going to make bail in the morning. I need to get some clothes and essential items from her apartment. I’m on my way there now.’

‘Her apartment is sealed. She can’t stay there. You want in there you need to file a motion.’

‘A lady from my office wants to go over there and pick up some of Elly’s clothes and personal items. I don’t need to file a motion for my client to access her underwear drawer.’

‘It’s a crime scene, Eddie.’

‘You’ve gotten all the forensics you need from that apartment. Or are you telling me there’s evidence in that apartment you’re not showing to the Grand Jury? Maybe I should ask Kate to file a motion to dismiss on grounds of withholding evidence.’

Bernice sighed, said, ‘I’ll ask the detective to meet you there. Give me an hour. And don’t screw me on this.’

She hung up.

We were almost at Elly’s apartment building.

I called Bloch. She was in her car, with Lake, on speaker.

‘I need you and Lake at Elly’s apartment. Police will be here within an hour to supervise. They’re letting us inside to grab some stuff for our client. You’re going to pack up some clothes and personal items for Elly.’

A pause.

‘You want to tell me what we’re really doing?’ asked Bloch.

‘The apartment is still sealed. We need access and time to examine the crime scenealone. You and Lake can grab our ownforensics. I just need to get rid of the detective who’s supervising the visit.’

‘How are you going to do that?’

Harry pulled up across the street from Elly’s apartment building. She lived on the fifth floor. I glanced up, checked out the four windows of her apartment. Construction workers were on the sidewalk and the street outside the building, with about thirty feet coned off, taking up one of the eastbound lanes.

I said, ‘When you’re on your way here, stop by Times Square and pick up some flyers for whatever’s hot on Broadway right now. Maybe a dozen should do.’

Bloch didn’t ask questions. She just agreed and hung up.

‘You gonna bribe the cop with tickets for a show?’ asked Harry.

‘Not exactly,’ I said.

Con artists, like lawyers, have to be able to adapt and improvise on their feet.

Quick thinking. Fast hands. Ideally, you should have both. That’s what my father used to say. And if your head ain’t as quick as your hands you can still get out of a tight spot, just with a little less elegance.

Harry leaned on his cane outside Elly’s apartment building, Bloch beside him. I was across the street in the driver’s seat of Harry’s car, Lake beside me in the passenger seat. I’d put on Harry’s overcoat and turned up the collar. I added his Yankees baseball hat and my sunglasses. Lake put on a beanie and folded up the collar of his overcoat. It was just a precaution. I didn’t think for a second our mark would ask someone to check the city cameras. He would likely want to forget the whole episode. Still, it paid to be careful.

Lake had an old canvas shopping bag between his legs filled with an assortment of latex gloves, bottles of chemicals, evidencebaggies and forensic kits. He fished out a pair of gloves and started putting them on.

‘How much time do you think we’ll have?’ he asked.

‘Best guess, eight minutes. Maybe longer.’

The elastic at the base of the glove snapped over his right wrist and he began wriggling his left hand into the next one.

‘That’s not a lot of time.’

‘It’ll have to be enough. Right now, the cops and the DA are holding all the cards and the trial will be right in front of us before we know it. The longer they hold out on us the less time we have. We need to get ahead of this.’

The second glove snapped over the skin on the back of his hand.

‘I get the feeling we’re already too late,’ he said.