Hanging on a String Read online

“I have some information that I think is going to interest you,” said Marcus. “Actually, it’s not good information for your client.”

  “Which client?” I asked.

  “Lucius Pileski.”

  At that moment the waitress came back with our glasses of wine. After taking our order, she left the table.

  I took a sip of my Chardonnay. “Okay,” I said. “What’s Lucius done now?”

  Marcus stared directly at me. “I think your client shot an unarmed young man in cold blood. Mariah may have been telling the truth. Daniel Brown didn’t have a gun.”

  “My client claims he saw a gun. His partner backs his story.”

  “We have a witness, a very credible witness, who’s come forward. She tells a different story.”

  “What witness?” I asked.

  “Her name is Treva Moore, and she’s a sixty-two-year-old woman with no axe to grind against the police department. She was out walking her dog at the time. She says she saw everything.”

  “Why didn’t she come to the police before?” I asked, but even as I asked the question, I remembered that Mariah had been certain that there was someone else on the scene. Her son had remembered hearing a dog barking and seeing someone. I remembered her phone call to my office when she’d given me this information. My heart sank.

  “The lady was scared,” Marcus replied, “and I can’t say that I blame her.”

  “Why’re you telling me this?” I asked.

  “I wanted you to know that your client is a liar,” he replied. “I also wondered if you thought there was any connection with this case and Chester’s murder—actually, not just Chester’s murder, but Irmalee’s and Lamarr’s. This wasn’t a very popular case.”

  “You’re right about that,” I replied. “There were a lot of people against us defending Lucius.”

  “Well, I guess even the devil deserves legal representation,” he said neutrally.

  “That’s debatable,” I replied. “Still, why hasn’t the DA gotten in touch with me about this? I’d think they’d be trying to broker a deal right about now.” Sam Worthy, the assistant DA in charge of the case, had only just recently talked to me about trying to get Lucius to plead to some lesser charges.

  “You’ll hear from them tomorrow,” said Marcus. “They’re just trying to make sure that they’ve got everything in order.”

  “Should you be telling me this?” I asked.

  “I’m not breaking any protocol,” he said, smiling. “Sam knows that I’m meeting you tonight, and he suggested I give you a heads-up.”

  I was surprised. “How would Sam know about our dinner?”

  “Relax,” Marcus said as he reached across the table and took one of my hands in his. “Sam’s an old friend. I’d been talking to him about the case and whether it tied into the murders I’m investigating. I mentioned that I’d be meeting you, and he told me to give you a heads-up. He’ll call you tomorrow. By the way, he said some nice things about you.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” I replied. Sam and I often had heated exchanges in court, even though we were always professional.

  “He said that you were as tough as you were pretty, and that’s saying a lot, because you’re beautiful.”

  “Sexist statement,” I said, even though I was secretly pleased that Marcus thought I was beautiful.

  “True,” he said as he traced his index finger in my palm. I felt a surge of heat grow, and I licked my lips nervously. It had been a while since any man had touched me, and this simple caress had ignited something in me that I thought had died a painful death—passion, pure and unadulterated. I had a strong urge to lean across the table and kiss him.

  The waitress appeared with our meal, and I attacked the food with gusto. I loved Ethiopian food, particularly injera, the soft, fluffy bread. We ordered a variety of dishes, which included my favorites: doro wat, chicken simmered in berbere sauce; yebeg alecha, lamb cooked with onions and green peppers; shiro wat, ground roasted yellow split peas cooked in sauce; and doro alecha, chicken cooked in herbed butter; and ate family style, using the injera bread to scoop up the variety of choices.

  I licked my fingers when the food was gone. We’d spent the time eating and talking about ourselves. The investigation had taken a backseat as I learned more about Marcus Claremont. He’d been raised by a single dad. His dad was a janitor, who’d worked for City College for over forty years. His mother died when he was four years old, but he still remembered that she liked roses, yellow ones. He’d never been married, but he’d come close. He let me know that his heart had been broken when three weeks before the wedding, he’d been dumped. She eventually came back, he assured me, but by then, the magic had gone. He was an only child who’d gotten in trouble as a teenager. He’d been scared straight by his dad and by an Italian detective who’d taken an interest in him, Detective Spinozzi, who was still a family friend. He’d followed Spinozzi’s footsteps and ended up with the NYPD. He’d never looked back. It was easy to talk with Marcus. He felt familiar. He felt like coming home.

  As the waitress was clearing the table, his cell phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket, looked at it, and then said, “Sorry. I’ve got to take this one.”

  He flipped open the receiver and listened for a few minutes. Then, he said thanks and hung up. After the conversation, he looked grim.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “That was my friend from the New Haven PD. He found the file on Chester’s investigation. Had to do some digging, but believe me, it was worth the wait.”

  “What is it?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

  “It appears the world at B&J is very small.”

  “Marcus, please stop talking in riddles.”

  “Okay,” he continued. “The woman who accused Chester of raping her was named Gemini Allen.”

  Gemini Allen. That was the name of the cheerleader in the Yale yearbook picture ... the one that was circled.

  “What does Gemini Allen have to do with B&J? Did she ever work there?” I asked.

  “No,” Marcus replied. “But her sister does. Nina Smyth.”

  Gemini Allen was Gem, Nina’s sister—the woman I met in the hallway at B&J.

  I remembered that Nina had been briefly married before coming to B&J, but I’d assumed that Smyth was her maiden name. I was apparently wrong.

  “How did the detective find out about the connection to Nina?”

  “Nina was a law student at the time of the incident. She’d come to the police department with her sister. She’d also given a statement. The statement was signed Nina Allen Smyth. My friend did some more digging and found out that Nina Smyth ended up working at B&J, just like Chester.”

  I remembered that Nina had come to B&J shortly after Chester arrived.

  My eyes widened.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked Marcus.

  “Let’s get the check,” he replied grimly.

  Marcus paid the waitress for our meal. I called Hernanda on my cell phone and found out that Nina had left for home about an hour before that. Even though the firm was on its last legs, Hernanda informed me that there were quite a few attorneys working late, trying to get their cases in order at Raymond’s request. I was certain that most of the associates now knew what Raymond had done, and I suspected that in addition to getting their files in order, they were also polishing up their resumes.

  Nina lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a decidedly more upscale neighborhood than mine. Although there were only about thirty blocks separating us from her neighborhood, it took us almost half an hour to navigate the nightmare New York rush hour (which occurs at all hours of the day, in my opinion).

  Marcus flashed his badge, and the doorman let us enter Nina’s high-rise building.

  “Miss Smyth sure is popular today,” the doorman commented drily. “She’s already had two visitors go up there, and she just got in about half an hour ago.”

  Two visitors?

/>   “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t announce our arrival,” said Marcus.

  The doorman stared at the badge that was still in Marcus’ hand. “I ain’t seen you. Go on up. She’s on the thirty-fourth floor. Apartment 34J.”

  I was impressed by the lobby—with it’s soaring ceilings and polished marble floors. Partners apparently made very good money at B&J, I thought as I rode the elevator with Marcus to the thirty-fourth floor.

  “Nina can be very difficult,” I said as we exited the elevator on Nina’s floor.

  “More difficult than you?” Marcus teased.

  “Trust me. I’m like a walk in the park on a sunny day compared to her.”

  Marcus rang the doorbell when we got to Nina’s apartment. The door opened instantly, as if someone had been expecting us. I wondered if her doorman had ratted us out, but most people had a healthy fear of getting on the bad side of the NYPD, so I suspected that she might have been waiting for someone.

  “This really isn’t a good time,” Nina said nervously as she stood in her doorway.

  Once again, Marcus flashed his badge.

  “I’m sorry that we’ve come at a bad time, Ms. Smyth, but I’ve got some questions that I need to clear up with you. We can either do this here, or we can do this back at the station.”

  “Let them in,” a woman’s voice called from behind the door.

  Nina stepped aside, and we walked into her apartment. The first thing I saw was Raymond, who was tied to a chair in the corner, with a scarf of some kind tied around his mouth. His eyes looked dazed. I had the feeling that he’d been drugged. The next thing I noticed was the gun, and then the pretty lady, Gem, who was holding it.

  Nina closed the door behind us.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  Gem gave me a kind smile. “I think that should be obvious,” she said. I had the clear impression that she was crazy.

  Marcus pulled me close to him, and the gesture was not lost on Gem.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” she asked as she pointed the gun in our direction. “Your boyfriend’s trying to protect you.”

  “He isn’t my boyfriend,” I said automatically as Marcus flashed a look of annoyance at me.

  “Ms. Allen, put the gun down,” he said to Gem.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she replied. “I’m going to do some killing here today, and I need the gun to accomplish that.”

  I knew for certain that Gem’s elevator didn’t come to her top floor. She was talking about killing people in the same tone she might use when asking if we took cream in our coffee.

  “Gem, please,” said Nina, her voice pleading. “Put the gun down. This has gone too far.”

  I watched as Gem licked her lips nervously, her calm demeanor now gone. “You’re wrong, sis. It hasn’t gone far enough.”

  I watched as Raymond’s head slumped forward.

  “What have you done to him?” I asked Gem.

  “I gave him a little something to calm him down, the same thing I gave to the junkie.”

  I knew she was referring to Lamarr. She’d killed him, just what she was preparing to do with Raymond and with Marcus and me. I wondered if Nina was going to share the same fate. I’m a pacifist and a Baptist, but I suddenly had the urge to slap the devil out of Gem. I felt Marcus’s restraining hand on my arm.

  “He wasn’t a junkie,” I said through clenched teeth. “He was a very kind man who didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

  I watched as Gem’s eyes widened in anger. “Who says people get what they deserve?” she yelled. “I didn’t deserve to have Chester rape me, but he did. Did I deserve that?”

  Marcus took his hand off my arm and started speaking directly to Gem. “No one deserves to be raped,” he said softly. “Is that what happened to you?”

  Gem’s laugh was hard and brittle. “I was raped. I was a nineteen-year-old virgin, and I was raped by a man who offered to pass me to his teammates. Thankfully, they declined.”

  “Gem, please, just put the gun down,” Nina pleaded. “We can work this out.”

  “Oh yes, we can work this out,” Gem replied. “Just like we’d planned to work it out all along. We took care of Chester and his lying whore, Irmalee. We even took care of the nosy junkie. Now, we’re going to take care of Raymond, the son of a bitch who got Chester off.”

  Marcus took a step closer to where Gem stood. “Raymond was only doing his job.”

  “His job let a rapist walk free,” said Gem, “and don’t come a step closer.”

  Marcus stopped walking, but he continued talking. “Gem, you’ve been hurt by somebody, hurt badly. You don’t want to hurt anybody else, do you?”

  This seemed to get to her. I watched as her eyes welled up. Beside me, Nina stood, silently staring at her sister. Had they been in on the murders together?

  “I was raped,” Gem said. “Do you know what that feels like?”

  Marcus shook his head. “No, Gem, I don’t. I do know that it was a terrible, terrible thing, but killing people, even people who’ve hurt you, won’t make it any less terrible for you.”

  Gem laughed again. “That’s what Nina says.”

  “Gem, please ...” Nina’s voice trailed off.

  “We planned this together,” said Gem, now changing back to her conversationalist mode. “Me and Nina. We’d planned what we’d do years ago. We were going to get justice our way. It took us a while to find Chester, but imagine our surprise when we found that Chester, Irmalee, and Raymond worked at the same place ... It was perfect. It was fate. But Nina couldn’t go through with it.”

  “Gem, it’s over,” said Nina. “It’s over.”

  Gem ignored her sister. “It was almost too easy. First, Chester was such a whore, it wasn’t hard for Nina to get close to him.”

  They were both sick. How could Nina sleep with the man that raped her own sister?

  “But when it came down to it, Nina just couldn’t do it,” Gem added. “I didn’t have that problem. In fact, it got easier and easier. The junkie was the easiest.”

  I didn’t want to hear this.

  “Why’d you kill Lamarr?” Marcus asked.

  “Because he knew too damn much,” said Gem. “Irmalee had spoken to him about what Chester did. He’d confronted Chester about it. Chester was upset and talked about it with Nina. He was worried about what would happen to his flourishing career if the rape investigation came out.”

  “So you killed him?” I whispered. “Even after he went to Chester about what he’d done to you?”

  “He was a nice enough guy,” Gem said dismissively. “But he knew too much. He was beginning to put things together. He had to go. Believe me, I was humane. I just gave him something his body was craving.”

  I shook my head. “Lamarr was clean for years,” I snapped. “He would never willingly put that poison back in his veins.”

  “True enough,” Gem replied. “But I’d given him a little of what I’ve given Raymond, so by the time I gave him Mr. Heroin, he was in no position to object.”

  Marcus shot me a look that clearly said, “Let me handle this. I’m the cop.”

  “Irmalee, she put up a struggle, but eventually ... Well, you know the outcome,” Gem continued.

  Marcus looked over at Nina. “Were you involved in this?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Nina. “I helped with the plans. I couldn’t carry out the killings. Gem did that. But I’m involved.”

  “She tried to stop me after Chester,” said Gem. “She felt that it was enough to deal with him. She didn’t want me to hurt Irmalee or Lamarr, but I had to do what I had to do.”

  And now she was going to kill us.

  As if she read my mind, Gem turned and looked at me. “I’m sorry, Jasmine, but you and your boyfriend are not going to leave this place alive.”

  “How do you think you’re going to get away with it?” I asked.

  “Jasmine, please ...” said Marcus. I knew he wanted to tell me to shut up, but
he was too much of a gentleman. I gave him a small, confident smile, which hid the fact that I was more terrified than I’d been in my entire life. No matter how tough my life had gotten, I wasn’t ready to check out yet. It’s not fair, I wailed inwardly to the Almighty, I have finally met an interesting, sexy man, and now I’m going to be murdered by a psychopath.

  “Get away with it?” Gem asked. “Get away with what? This is where the story ends for all of us. None of us are going out of here alive.”

  This crazy woman was planning on killing herself after she killed us. This, apparently, was news to Nina.

  “Gem, this is crazy. It has to end now,” cried Nina.

  I hated to point out the obvious, but I had to ask. “If you’re planning on killing yourself, why’re you taking us with you?”

  I heard Marcus heave an exasperated sigh. “If the law thing doesn’t work out, you might not want to go into anything related to suicide prevention.”

  “It’s not like I want her to kill herself,” I tried to explain to Marcus. “I don’t want her to do anything to herself, but I especially don’t want her to do anything to us.”

  “Jasmine, I think maybe we should table this discussion,” he replied.

  “You know, if I hadn’t come along, you two would have had a great future together,” said Gem. “But today, unfortunately, is going to be the day that you die.”

  “No one’s gonna die today,” came a raspy, very familiar voice from the corner. I looked over to see a still groggy, but determined Raymond try to get out of his chair. He’d somehow managed to get the gag loose, and he was struggling to get free of the rope that was keeping him tied to the chair he was sitting on.

  As Raymond stood up, Gem turned her attention to him, and at that moment Marcus lunged at her.

  “No!” Gem and I screamed in unison as she fired the gun in Marcus’s direction. I watched in horror as he sagged for a horrible moment. The bullet had hit him, but he kept on moving. I felt adrenaline rush through me as I realized that if I didn’t do something, the next voice I might be hearing was the Lord’s, welcoming me to heaven. I ran toward Gem, but Marcus had gotten there before me and knocked her down. I saw that there was a blood stain spreading by Marcus’s arm. I kicked the gun out of Gem’s hand and scrambled for it. Nina stood still.