Page 81 of Two Kinds of Stranger

‘What? Did something go wrong?’

‘I’m afraid, Arthur, everything went exactly as I’d planned.’

Logan calmly took Kevin’s revolver from his jacket pocket.

And shot Arthur Cross in the face.

28

Eddie

We gave Elly the day to get back into the world.

Kate put her up in a hotel downtown. Somewhere expensive and quiet. She needed time to adjust to the hurricane of pain, loss, confusion and terror that had hit her for the past few days. We had questions that had to be asked, but now was not the time. People have remarkable strength, but everyone has their limits. We said we would talk after she’d had a good night’s sleep, a shower and some decent food.

Yesterday, even as I’d told her to get some sleep, I realized how foolish that had sounded. Elly didn’t say anything; she’d just nodded. I got the impression she hadn’t slept properly in weeks–not since she’d found her husband and her best friend in bed together: the betrayal that had started this nightmare.

This morning, we are all in the office early apart from Bloch, who had gone to pick up Elly from the hotel and bring her in.

Bernice had gotten her grand jury indictment and we finally had some discovery.

Not much. But at least we had a cause of death and, thanks to Harry, we also knew why the DA’s office was pushing for an early trial.

‘How do you think she’s going to take this?’ I asked.

‘I think she’s going to be okay,’ said Kate. ‘Right now, she’s hurt and she’s confused. This explains a lot. And it means we know what we have to deal with. Then we can make a planand let her know that we’re fighting for her. That will make a difference.’

‘Any word on the security footage for the route from Grand Central to the apartment where Elly was poisoned?’ I asked.

Lake said, ‘I talked to Bloch. She said there’s nothing. She got all the files from the stores. This man knew to walk a few feet from the entrances to the stores so the security cameras wouldn’t pick him up. The footage from the NYPD cameras were linked to the same cloud as the MTA. She tracked down the company who is supposed to store the footage. They’re called Secure One. She’s trying to get more out of them, but the company are stonewalling her.’

‘Probably afraid of being sued,’ said Harry.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Lake. ‘I’ll tell her to keep pushing.’

‘We could subpoena the CEO,’ I said.

‘That’s going to backfire,’ said Kate. She had more experience in the politics and corporate mindset of company executives. Roasting Fortune 500 CEOs over a pit was her specialty. ‘If we issue a subpoena, they’ll just lawyer up and the shutters come down hard. Then there’s no way of getting information out of them without a hearing. We need to dig into Secure One a little more, find out what’s making them nervous about talking to us. If we find that, then we’ve got leverage to force a meeting.’

While we were talking, Lake stood, head down, looking at the scuffed toes of his shoes.

‘Any more leads on Joe Novak?’ I asked.

‘He’s disappeared. Either the stranger with the suitcase got to him, or he’s left the city, or he’s hiding somewhere. I can’t draw a bead on him,’ he said.

‘Have you tried talking to the HOME-STAT people?’

‘I got nothing from them either. They’re super tight with security.’

There used to be a basic human right for New Yorkers to have shelter. In recent times, those rights have been loosened to an obligation to only provide between thirty and sixty days of shelter a year. This was due to an influx of migrants, people fleeing warzones to take up residence in the Land of the Free. In order to help with the overall homeless problem, the city employs survey-takers who walk Manhattan every day, taking a census of who is on the street without shelter and where they are located that day.

The problem is that a lot of people without homes don’t want to take up shelter for various reasons–addiction, mental illness and many other factors all play a part.

‘Try them again. Get to someone on the street conducting the surveys. They don’t make a lot of money. Find the right HOME-STAT survey taker and make the right play,’ I said, and peeled off five hundred bucks and gave it to Lake.

The office door opened and Bloch came in with Elly Parker, who still didn’t look as if she had enjoyed much sleep at all. She was young and didn’t have a single wrinkle on her face, but there were bags under her eyes, which were red and swollen. Her hair looked clean, and she wore fresh clothes and a little make-up. It was easy to see the burden of recent life-changing events crushing down on her shoulders. She even walked as if she was bent over, head down, eyes scanning the room fearfully. Still, there was a world of difference between the way she looked now and the time when I’d first met her in the interview room below the courthouse.

And yet, thinking of the way she looked in her social-media videos, she was half the woman she used to be. She’d lost weight and all her confidence.