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The last words he expected to hear were Camilla Rose Morgan is dead.
It had taken him five minutes in his foggy state of mind for the news to really register. Most of that fog, he realized, was because of all the scotch whisky he had consumed, the reminders of which were a throbbing head and a dry mouth that felt as if it was stuffed with cotton balls.
Then, through all that, the reason why he had hit the sauce so hard came back into painfully sharp focus. The thought of that made him feel there was a very good chance that he would become sick to his stomach. And right there and then.
He inhaled deeply, and let it slowly out, and the moment passed.
—
“Camilla Rose Morgan is dead,” Tony Harris had announced. “I’m at the scene at The Rittenhouse.”
Payne, rubbing his eyes, had then made out the sound of sirens once again bouncing off the buildings surrounding the park.
“Gimme ten,” Payne had muttered, and broke off the call as he shuffled the short distance to the bathroom, delicately checking beneath his bandage as he went.
—
Tony Harris was in the hotel lobby of The Rittenhouse, talking with Detective Richard J. McCrory, when Payne arrived exactly ten minutes later. Dick McCrory, a native of Boston, was thirty-nine, of medium build, with close-cropped dark hair graying at the temples. He had served on the department for eighteen years, six of those with Homicide.
Harris watched Payne passing through the bright glare of a television news camera while waving off a reporter’s questions. Harris motioned to McCrory, who turned and saw Payne and then disappeared around the corner.
Harris noticed that Payne looked somewhat pale and wondered how much of that was from a hangover or because he had inspected the scene before coming inside. Or both.
When the Crime Scene Unit blue shirts had arrived, they immediately erected a ten-by-ten-foot aluminum-framed canopy tent—one looking, more or less, like the square ones used by tailgaters in stadium parking lots—over a sleek silver Jaguar XJR sedan parked by the fountain. The tent’s opaque vinyl top and side panels shielded the scene—and the dignity of the victim—from the lenses of the news media, as well as from passersby and those looking down from the windows of nearby high-rises. Only the vehicle’s front and rear bumpers were exposed, and yellow police tape was strung around the XJR to create a protective perimeter.
Harris also noted that Payne had pulled on the clothes he had worn the previous night. His camel hair jacket was unbuttoned, and Harris could just make out the butt of the Colt .45 in the shoulder holster beneath it. The black leather case holding his badge hung from a chromed bead chain at the middle of his necktie. He hadn’t shaved.
“Jesus H. Christ, Tony,” Payne said, shaking his head. “The day that something like that doesn’t shake me to the core, just shoot me. Please.”
“No shit. Likewise.”
McCrory came back from around the corner bearing two large, waxed-paper cups of coffee.
He held out one each to Harris and Payne.
“Black and black, gentlemen,” he said, a distinct trace of his Southie accent still evident.
“I owe you, Dick,” Payne said, and, before taking a sip, asked, “So, what do we know?”
“Right now,” Harris said, “only that at oh-four-hundred she landed on the roof of that Jag, which is one of the chauffeured house vehicles. Made one helluva sound, then set off the car’s alarm. The guy on concierge duty ran out and found her.”
“Fell? Jumped? Pushed? What?”
Harris shrugged, and looked at McCrory.
“Door was open to her condo when they went up,” McCrory then said, “but no one was there. They found the place trashed. Looks like a party that got out of control. Booze bottles and narcotics—some coke, Ecstasy—everywhere.”
“Oh-four-hundred?” Payne said, exchanging a knowing look with Harris. “Security get any complaints?”
“None,” McCrory said. “Hank Nasuti has been upstairs making lots of new friends by knocking on her neighbors’ doors. So far, everyone has told him they know nothing, that they slept through whatever went on.” He paused and looked at Payne, and added, “How much of that you figure is the Center City version of the hood’s no-snitching bullshit?”
Payne considered that briefly, then said, “Some people here, for a number of reasons, can be very tight-lipped. But, by and large, people who invest in a place like this don’t tolerate wild parties and would say something. There are families living here, some with small children.”
He thought, Like I was hoping to be—and still am hoping to be.
McCrory nodded.
Payne looked at Harris, and said, “Last we know for certain is that she was in her condo, clearly alone, at nine twenty-five last night.”
