40
Laurie refused help from several passersby. Without her briefcase and purse, she stumbled back into the piano bar. Before she was able to tell Charlotte and the others what had happened, several members of the police came in. Someone must have called 911.
Laurie was never comfortable as the center of attention and now had a piano bar full of people watching her as she spoke from a bar stool to an ever-growing number of police officers.
“You’ve got injuries,” one of the officers noted. “Are you sure you don’t want an EMT to check that out?” He gestured toward the ice pack she was holding awkwardly against her scraped calf.
“Really, I’m fine. Just . . . rattled. That cabbie could have run right over me. Thank God he had quick reflexes.”
Another officer—this one the oldest so far—arrived on the scene. She could see from the insignia on his shoulder that he was a lieutenant. Her suspicions were now confirmed. Someone had connected the familial dots between the complainant and former First Deputy Commissioner Leo Farley.
The new arrival introduced himself as Lieutenant Patrick Flannigan. “I’m sorry this happened to you in our precinct.”
“No apology necessary . . . unless you’re living a double life as a mugger,” she added with a smile. “And trust me, I’ll tell my father that the NYPD was here within two minutes.”
“Unfortunately, my officers are telling me the response time wasn’t quick enough to find the man who did this. We found one woman who says a guy pushed past her with a large bag, but she didn’t get a good look at him. Seems he managed to blend into the theater district crowd and disappear. We’ll be pulling surveillance camera footage, though.”
She shook her head. “He was wearing a hoodie. I’m not sure what you’ll find.”
Flannigan waved the bartender over. “You have any customers here tonight who left the same time she did?”
The bartender squinted, searching his memory. “Maybe? There was one guy—same seat you’re in now, in fact,” he said to Laurie. “Johnnie Walker Black—a few of them. Don’t remember much more about him, though.”
“Do you have his credit card payment?” Flannigan asked.
“Paid cash. And I already told the other officer we don’t have cameras or anything like that. I feel terrible. This never happens around here. People just come here to have fun.”
Laurie heard Grace a few feet away crack a joke to Charlotte and Jerry about the male dancer establishment across the street, even as she was making phone calls to have Laurie’s credit card accounts frozen. A few of the police officers seemed to disapprove of the laughter, but it made Laurie feel safe. She wanted to believe that everything was normal, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the mugging was related to the Martin Bell investigation.
“Can I ask you, Lieutenant, whether it’s common to have a random mugging around here?”
He sighed. “I wish I could say it never happened, but this is New York City. Anything could go down at any time. But statistically? This area is pretty calm, especially this time of night. Two, three in the morning? That’s another story. But the bartender wasn’t lying when he said this was a rare occurrence. Why do I get the feeling you’re asking for a reason?”
“I’m a television producer. My show, Under Suspicion, reinvestigates—”
“I know your show well, Ms. Moran. You do good work.”
“Thank you, and please call me Laurie. We’re in the middle of a production right now. It’s the Martin Bell case,” she said, lowering her voice.
He let out a puff of air. “That’s a biggie. I don’t know the inside story, but seems like the case went stone cold.”
“Well, it did. And to be honest, we haven’t made as much progress as I’d like. But we have poked some bears and ruffled some feathers. And my briefcase with my laptop and notes was in that bag he just stole.”
“Any candidates come specifically to mind?”
She ran through all the possibilities. It definitely wasn’t Kendra. Even though she didn’t get a look at her assailant’s face, she could tell from his build and the way he moved that it was a man. Senator Longfellow was probably four inches taller than the man she saw running away, and was in the clear as a suspect anyway. George Naughten, on the other hand, was shorter and pudgier, but she didn’t believe he was physically fit enough to knock her down and sprint so quickly from the scene.
She briefly entertained the thought that Kendra’s boss, Steven Carter, might fit the bill. It was certainly possible, but how could he have known where she would be tonight? If this was something other than a random robbery, then her attacker must have been following her for hours.
No, of all the names waiting for her back on her office whiteboard, only one made sense—and it wasn’t even a name: Kendra’s mysterious drinking partner from the Beehive. She remembered how the woman at the dive bar had described him: rough-looking, with a shaved head and mean eyes.
She had never even seen the man’s face, yet somehow she could imagine those eyes—cold and steely—as he pushed her into the street.