Well, the apartment was in Queens but Mank turned at just the right time to stifle that argument. ‘Who leases an apartment in the name of a cat?’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘I mean, if that’s the name on the lease, I doubt the cat signed it. Whose apartment is that?’

  ‘Could Eliza have rented it herself?’ Mank asked.

  ‘With what money? She’s lived in her father’s apartment all her life and as far as I can tell has never held a full-time job. How’s she paying rent in Long Island City?’

  Mank cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. ‘Maybe with money she was earning by helping Damien with his little pill business,’ he said.

  Well, that wasn’t a pleasant thought. ‘She swears she had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Oh yeah, well, that clinches it. Nobody who’s guilty of a crime has ever lied about it.’ Mank thought he was being witty but it was coming across as a little mean. He must have realized that. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That shows progress,’ I said. ‘But we don’t have any evidence that Eliza was involved with Damien’s drug business. And if she had the money, she could have rented the apartment under her own name. I think someone else rented that apartment and put it in the cat’s name as cover.’

  ‘Or as a joke.’

  I texted Ken that we were on our way and got back: So now that you’re booked you can go back on the grid? My brother, ladies and gentlemen.

  I didn’t get booked. Is she still in the apartment?

  It took a minute. Somebody is. I didn’t see them go in.

  Maybe the cat is playing with a cigarette lighter. I could use dark humor, too. And just as badly as my male associates. Ken didn’t answer that one.

  We pulled up to the building I’d scaled … yesterday morning? Was that possible? It was dark out by now. Knowing the layout of the building and the placement of Rainbow’s apartment, I waited until Mank parked (double parked; he’s a cop) and led him around the back to the alley from which I’d started my ascent. Sure enough, Ken was sitting on a garbage can, feet up off the ground. Ken hates rats, even though there was no sign of any currently in the area. It was a garbage can. Everybody has their phobias.

  ‘What’s up, shamus?’ I said when we were close enough, but not so loudly that anybody in one of the apartments might hear.

  ‘Who’s Seamus?’ Ken, when focused, is easily confused by shiny objects.

  ‘What have you seen?’ Mank asked him. Mank isn’t one of us in so many ways, and he wasn’t interested in the hilarious banter.

  ‘I’ve been watching from back here instead of the front of the building because Rainbow doesn’t have a window in front,’ Ken said, although that seemed pretty obvious. ‘So comings and goings have been pretty hard to see. I almost gave up after a half an hour and that’s when … that started.’ He pointed up at the window.

  There was a flickering light, but it wasn’t natural, like that of a candle. It was the kind of light you see if you go to a concert and the people want an encore.

  ‘She’s using her phone,’ I said. ‘It’s amazing the place isn’t swarming with cops.’ I looked at Mank. ‘No offense.’

  ‘None taken.’

  The flickering didn’t last long, and then the window was completely dark again. ‘How are we going to get in there this time?’ I asked. ‘The apartment door’s been repaired.’

  Ken nodded. ‘I checked when I got here because someone held the front door open for me. I thought about staying inside to let you two in, but then I couldn’t watch the window and I’d be kind of hard to miss hanging around in a hallway all evening.’

  That was true; Ken is hard to miss no matter where he is, but it’s easier for him to hide in a large crowd. I know the feeling.

  ‘We can watch the front door and wait until someone comes out,’ Mank suggested. ‘Or I can call the management office and flash my badge at the super.’

  ‘You’re not here as a cop,’ I reminded him. ‘You’re not the primary on Damien’s murder. I guess now Brooker is.’

  Mank and I stood there and thought about it for a number of minutes until Ken realized that at some point he’d have to put his feet down on the pavement. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I’ll break and enter if nobody’s coming out.’

  ‘There’s probably an alarm system,’ I warned him.

  ‘Life’s full of choices.’

  As it turned out, we only had to wait about ten minutes before a young woman exited the building and Ken, chivalrous to a fault, held the front door open for her. She nodded appreciatively at him, probably not just for the door being open, and walked away. We took the opportunity to go inside in a more conventional fashion than I had the day before.

  At the door to Rainbow’s (or whomever’s) apartment, I gestured for Mank and Ken to stand out of sight. Eliza probably would have preferred Ken’s company to mine, but she was probably expecting me. If she was being held here against her will I was prepared to do what was necessary, but I didn’t mind having backup.

  I knocked. It seemed the thing to do. Inside, I could hear a good deal of activity. Someone was moving around. Footsteps were very clear, on a wooden floor like the one inside Rainbow’s living room. Objects were being moved. I looked at Mank.

  ‘Somebody’s covering up and maybe trying to leave,’ I said.

  ‘If they can’t jump out the window and hope to survive, this is the only way out,’ he answered. ‘There’s no fire escape. This place should be shut down for code violations.’

  That hardly seemed the top priority at the moment, but Mank had a point. There was no reason to go outside and wait for escapee(s). ‘I don’t want to break down the door again,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be happy to do it for you,’ my brother added helpfully.

  I knocked again, louder and more times. ‘I can hear you in there,’ I said.

  The apartment door across the hall opened and a woman in a bathrobe stuck her head out. ‘What’s going on? You cops?’

  Honest to goodness, Mank started reaching for his shield. ‘No ma’am,’ I said. ‘We’re just concerned friends.’ We were concerned and we were friends. I hadn’t lied.

  The woman looked … well, unconvinced, but closed the door. And at the same time, the door to Rainbow’s apartment opened.

  Standing in the doorway, holding a taser, was Laura Rapinoe.

  THIRTY-THREE

  As far as I could tell, there was no one else in the room behind Laura. If Eliza was inside, she was in the bedroom or the bathroom. The kitchen was visible from the doorway. ‘What do you want?’ Laura demanded.

  ‘Can we come in?’ I asked. ‘You don’t want to tase us in the hallway, do you?’

  ‘Us?’ Laura hadn’t seen Ken or Mank yet. She looked from side to side and her eyes registered anger. ‘Who are those guys?’

  ‘They’re my crew,’ I said. ‘Can we come in?’ She hadn’t answered the question, after all.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re looking for Eliza. We think maybe she’s in there,’ Ken said. Laura turned her head to look at him and I could easily have taken the weapon from her hand, but I wanted her to have the mistaken impression that she was in charge of this situation.

  ‘She’s not here,’ Laura said, to Ken. ‘So you can go home.’ She actually reached over to close the door in my face, but I had longer, stronger arms and I blocked the door with my palm.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to see for ourselves,’ I told her. ‘Stand away and let us in.’

  Laura squared her shoulders to be facing me directly, and thrust the gun forward. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Maybe it was better if she didn’t think she was in charge. I reached over and grabbed the taser out of her hand in one motion. ‘I do,’ I said.

  Looking astonished, Laura took two steps backward and said, ‘Hey!’

  I nodded to Mank. He and Ken walked in past me as I put the gun into my pocket. I closed the apartment door behind me. Ken walked toward the bedroom and Mank headed into the hall that would end at the bathroom door. ‘You could have just let us in,’ I told Laura. ‘Now, why not tell me what you’re doing in this apartment?’

  She looked sincerely surprised. ‘It’s mine,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’

  Mank walked back in, shaking his head. Eliza wasn’t in the bathroom. Ken, having turned the lights on in the bedroom, came back in spreading his hands; same result. But a little yellow cat walked out of the bedroom, which smelled of kitty litter. ‘The lease lists the renter as Rainbow Zelensky,’ I said to Laura. ‘Why would you sign a cat’s name to your lease?’

  ‘I can if I want to,’ she said, a defiant lower lip turning down. She looked like she was thirteen years old. ‘What difference does it make to you?’

  ‘Seems to me that if you’re hiding your identity from your landlord, it might be because there’s some activity going on here that you don’t want to let them know about,’ Mank said. He’s such a cop. ‘Like selling drugs to students on a college campus.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have anything to do with Damien’s business.’ Laura wasn’t making eye contact. It’s not the only sign, but it’s a sign. Another sign was that her respiration went up a tick. Ken gave me a look that showed he’d noticed that too.

  ‘You knew Julio had someone following Damien,’ Mank said, moving closer to Laura and standing over her. She had chosen to sit back down on the floor despite there being perfectly good, if well-used, furniture throughout the apartment. ‘You knew Damien was going to that basement in the Bronx to confront them. You told other students at New Amsterdam about Damien if they needed something. You had something to do with Damien’s business, Laura.’

  Even with the bedroom lights on, the living room was pretty dim, but I could see Laura’s shoulders start to tremble. She was crying. I gestured for Mank to back off, and he did.

  I knelt down to be on a level close to Laura’s but she was assiduously avoiding looking at me. ‘You loved Damien and you wanted to help him,’ I said in a quiet tone that I hoped was soothing, but you can never tell about your own voice. ‘But the only way to really honor him is to tell us everything you know about what was going on. Do you think you know who killed Damien?’ I was struggling to avoid mentioning Eliza because I had been getting the impression that Laura saw her as a competitor or a threat, two things Eliza probably was not.

  ‘I don’t think it was Julio,’ she said, and her voice was damp. She sniffled a bit. ‘He just wanted his money. He couldn’t get it by killing Damien.’

  ‘How about Julio’s supplier?’ Mank asked. It wasn’t the wrong question to ask, but did I mention what a cop he is? The direct approach isn’t always best. ‘Could he have been mad enough to kill Damien?’ I had an irrational moment of feminist outrage at Mank’s failure to acknowledge that a woman might have been supplying pills to Julio.

  ‘I don’t know who it was,’ Laura said. She wrapped her arms around her knees and I thought she might start rocking back and forth soon. Her boyfriend was dead, the cops were after everyone she knew, and she was sitting on the floor of a cat’s apartment in the dark, playing with her phone. She was spiraling at the time we needed her to give us information and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  Luckily – and this might be the only time you hear me say it – Ken was there.

  He sat down on the floor next to Laura, then stretched himself out and lay on the hardwood, fingers laced behind his neck, the very picture of relaxation. He even smiled. ‘Laura,’ he said. ‘That’s a nice name.’

  That seemed to snap Laura out of her fog. She looked at him sharply and said, ‘What?’

  ‘I said that Laura’s a nice name. Mine’s Ken.’ Did my brother think he was talking to a five year old? But he was getting her to look him in the eye, something Mank and I had been failing at stupendously.

  Not unreasonably, Laura looked puzzled. ‘Hi?’

  Ken unlaced his fingers and reached out his hand to her. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Fran’s brother.’

  Laura did not acknowledge his admission that he had anything at all to do with me. I was an annoyance, a pest. Ken was the calming influence. It was becoming clear to me that my brother had some strange power over female college students and I didn’t want to think about how he might use it. (To be fair, he tends to date women roughly our age.)

  Laura took Ken’s hand and didn’t so much shake it as hold it for a moment, then let it go. He went back to pretending the hardwood floor was a hammock. ‘I’m sorry about everything that’s been going on,’ he told Laura. ‘You’re having a really hard time.’

  She reverted a little, clutching her knees again. ‘I know. Nobody seems to notice that.’ Poor Laura. Eliza was probably kidnapped and wanted by every law enforcement agency in the Tri-State area. Damien was dead. Even Jules seemed scared and confused. But it was her plight that clearly seemed the most unfair to Laura. I had to remember she was still a teenager.

  ‘I think it’s a shame,’ Ken said. His voice almost sounded like he was singing lightly. ‘But maybe we can help it get a little better.’

  Laura put her palms down on the floor and looked at him. ‘How?’ She was almost wailing.

  ‘We’ll find out who killed Damien and you can look them in the face and scream at them if you want,’ Ken said. ‘And I’ll ask his mom about letting you speak at his funeral, if that’s something you’d like to do, let everybody know how you two felt about each other.’

  Man, I thought that was going about six miles over the top, but Laura was buying it. ‘You think she’d say it was OK?’ That was when I knew Ken had her reeled in.

  ‘I can’t promise, but I will talk to her.’ Ken had never spoken to Helena Van Dorn in his life, but if he could work her as efficiently as he was doing with Laura, she might agree to booking Beyoncé for Damien’s funeral and having Laura serve as one of her backup singers. ‘But first you have to help us.’

  Laura shrunk back down a little, but she nodded her head once. ‘Damien wasn’t looking for some drug business at the beginning,’ she said. ‘He just wanted to get his mom off his back about the rent at his place and getting a work/study job or something at a restaurant wasn’t going to pay enough. Someone he knew – I don’t know their name – hooked him up with Julio, just a little to start. But then it got bigger.’

  ‘How much bigger?’ Mank was conducting a police interrogation. I thought that was the wrong question. Our goal was to determine Eliza’s role in this and figure out who was holding her, if anyone. We needed to find Eliza. Mank was investigating the murder in the Bronx without being assigned to it.

  ‘Bigger,’ Laura said. ‘I don’t know numbers. He started off with two or three people and by the end … he had a bunch. Maybe ten.’

  ‘That’s a good business but it’s not enough to kill someone for,’ Mank said, fingers on the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m not sure that was the motive for killing Damien.’

  I needed to bring this back to our real purpose. ‘Right now I’m focusing on Eliza,’ I said. ‘Laura, you have to have some idea who might have seen her as a threat.’

  Laura looked confused. ‘A threat?’

  Ken, ever the charmer and calming influence, sat up to make a connection with Laura. He actually took her hand. I thought that was a corny gesture, but Laura stared into his eyes like she’d found a long-lost friend. ‘Someone took Eliza,’ he said. ‘There’s been no demand for ransom, so we can only assume they have another reason. One, given all that’s happened, is that she knows something that can be a threat to whoever is holding her. Now, do you have any idea who would think that, or what kind of danger she might pose to someone?’

  ‘How do you know they’re holding her?’ Laura asked. ‘How do you know they didn’t kill her like they killed Damien?’ It was an academic question, reading her face. She didn’t especially care if Eliza was dead.

  ‘She was taken when she was with me,’ I said. ‘Whoever it was took her somewhere else. It doesn’t do us any good to think she might be dead. We need to find her. Do you know anybody who might think they had to get her away from other people?’

  It seemed this time like Laura was really giving the matter some thought. She didn’t look at her phone and she didn’t stare at the floor in shame or whatever she’d been feeling before. She looked away, not to avoid contact but to give her brain a blank image so she could consider. It was pretty dark in the apartment, especially if you were insisting on staying on the floor.

  ‘I can’t think of anybody special,’ she said finally, and the other three of us in the room let out a collective sigh of frustration that I don’t think Laura heard. ‘I mean, there weren’t that many people involved. Damien, Julio, Julio’s jerk, the guy with the birthmark, and Neil. I think he knew the supplier.’

  Mank was first but he asked the wrong question again. ‘The skinny dude and the guy with the birthmark – did you know their names?’

  But I was already barreling through, because it was starting to come together in my head. ‘Neil?’ I said. ‘Big guy? A little older than all of you?’

  ‘I only saw him once, but yeah, he’s pretty big,’ Laura said. ‘Do you know him?’

  I looked at Mank, who had caught on to what I was thinking, and he looked stunned. ‘Maybe,’ I told Laura. ‘Except I know him as Detective Brooker of the NYPD.’

  Thirty-Four

  ‘We’ve got nothing,’ Mank said.

  After considerable discussion and in some areas argument, I’d given Laura her taser back, she’d sat back down on her living-room floor and turned off the light in the bedroom, and then locked the door behind her after Mank, Ken and I had left. Then we’d taken Mank’s car (Ken had used the subway to get to Rainbow’s apartment) back to our apartment and we were working on determining a next step. Mank was trying to suggest that without proof of Brooker’s involvement in Damien’s drug business, we didn’t have enough to do much of anything.

 

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