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 We re up, aren t we? Barrott said.
 Hold on. Ahearn held up his hand.  Roy, did you ask Carolyn MacKenzie to give you the note her
brother left in the collection basket?
 She handed it to me the day she came to see me two weeks ago, Barrott said somewhat defensively.
 I gave it back to her. It was a scrap of paper in block printing with ten words on it. I thought it was
useless to try to do anything with it. We don t have her brother s fingerprints on file. Her uncle the priest,
at least one usher at the church, MacKenzie herself, and her mother had handled it.
 It probably is useless, but I want a subpoena issued for it, and for that tape she didn t give you the
other night as well. Now call Carolyn and ask what happened to her brother s car. My guess is that after
a year or two, they sold it.
Barrott admitted to himself that there was some satisfaction at waking Carolyn so early. Her refusal to
play the tape or give it to him on Monday evening had convinced him that beyond any doubt she was
protecting her brother. He was pleased when she answered on the first ring, suggesting to him that she
had not been sleeping well. Neither have the rest of us, he thought. He spoke to her briefly. From the
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startled look on his face, Ahearn and Gaylor knew he had stumbled onto an interesting development.
When he disconnected, Barrott said,  She ll check with her lawyer. If he agrees, she will turn over the
tape and the note. You may have heard me assure her that he will agree.
 What about her brother s SUV?
 You re not going to believe this. It was stolen out of the Sutton Place garage in the family s apartment
building about eight months after Mack took off.
 Stolen! Gaylor exclaimed.
 Were other vehicles taken? Ahearn asked quickly.
 No. That was the only one. It s not a large facility. One kid was on duty, asleep in the booth after
midnight. Next thing he knew, he had a bag over his head, tape over his mouth, and was handcuffed to
the chair. By the time he was found, that SUV was gone.
The three men looked at one another.  If Mack stole his own wheels, it s entirely possible he s still
driving it, Gaylor suggested.  My father-in-law has had his Mercedes for twenty years.
 And if he s still driving it, and if the wino s story checks out, there s an equally good chance that Leesey
may have driven off with MacKenzie, not DeMarco, Larry Ahearn said somberly.  All right, let s get
those subpoenas. Maybe that tape MacKenzie made with the drama teacher will give us something to
work with.
45
Howard Altman was well aware of his boss s shifting loyalties, but his first hint that something was
seriously wrong occurred when Mr. Olsen did not go out to brunch with him on Saturday morning. He
had noticed Olsen using the new Montblanc pen and correctly guessed that it was probably a present
from Steve Hockney, Olsen s nephew.
Steve is schmoozing the old man, Howard thought bitterly. It would be just like Olsen to leave
everything to him. The first thing Steve would do is fire me. Then he d sell all the apartment houses and
pocket the cash.
The building he lived in on Ninety-fourth Street was one of the smallest Olsen owned. It was four stories
high, with only two apartments on each floor. Most of the tenants had been there for years. His
apartment was the only one on the lobby floor. Sparsely furnished and immaculately neat, the living room
was dominated by his sixty-inch television set. Most of Howard s evenings were split evenly by his two
favorite activities, watching movies on television and visiting on the Internet with buddies from all over the
world. He found them infinitely more interesting than the people he met in his daily life.
An excellent chef, he always cooked himself a good dinner, watched a movie while he had a couple of
glasses of wine and ate from a tray table, then turned off the television set and went directly to his
bedroom computer.
Howard loved this apartment, which came with his job. He loved his job, especially now that he was in
charge of all Olsen s buildings. I earned it, he told himself, defensively. I got it because I proved myself. I
can fix anything that s broken. I can put up a wall to make two rooms out of one. I can replace old wiring
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and build cabinets. I can paint and wallpaper and scrape floors. That s why Olsen kept promoting me.
But what happens if he leaves everything to Steve?
The question persisted in his mind. For once, he could not focus on the movie in his DVD player. How
could he get Olsen to sour on his nephew?
And then the answer came to him. He had a master key to all the apartments in the building where Steve
Hockney lived. He d put a security camera in Steve s apartment. I ve seen him when he s high, and I ve
always suspected that he deals in drugs, Howard thought. If I can prove it, that would finish him with his
uncle.
Blood is thicker than water. Maybe.
Pleased at finding a possible solution to the impending problem, he turned off the television and went
down the hall to his bedroom. He smiled at the familiar whooshing sound he heard as he turned on his
computer.
He realized how much he was looking forward to connecting with his friend Singh in Mumbai tonight.
46 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]