42
Fifteen blocks from the piano bar, in a bathroom at a Starbucks, Laurie’s assailant was replaying the night’s events in his head.
I knew I shouldn’t have started with the Scotch, the man thought. It makes me mean, just like everyone always told me, back when I had people in my life who tried to make me better. Tonight, he’d been stupid and impulsive when he’d wanted to be smart and methodical. He acted without thinking; now here he was with a bag full of her belongings.
He had already rifled through what most people would call the “gag gifts” from the evening: an “I Do” workout shirt, an “I’m getting meow-ied” coffee mug (complete with a cartoon of a cat in a bridal veil), and a few barely R-rated stickers about marriage.
Her cell phone was useless, at least to him, since it asked for a password he didn’t have. The first thing he had done once he blended into the crowd in Times Square was to duck into a restroom stall in a McDonald’s. A quick search of the duffel bag revealed the phone. He had turned it off and dropped it in a trash bin. Rookie mistake to get caught with a trackable phone.
Fortunately, her computer wasn’t similarly protected.
He had gone through her calendar and recent emails, searching for information that might be relevant. Her inbox had several recent messages from a Realtor named Rhoda Carmichael, complete with photographs of luxury apartments and lavish descriptions of amenities in five-star co-ops. He remembered a time when he was able to afford a home not unlike those. He got the impression from the messages that Ms. Carmichael was eager for Laurie and her accomplished fiancé to select a property quickly.
He knew that once they moved in together, it would be even harder to get to Laurie. After all, she was marrying a federal judge. The Honorable Judge Buckley had enhanced security not only at work but also at home. For now, though, Laurie had a separate apartment, without all the bells and whistles.
He had moved on to reading the scribbles in her spiral binder. The most recent handwritten notes on paper were about Daniel and Leigh Ann Longfellow. He wondered briefly how much money he could make by selling these pages to a tabloid, but then realized he could be jeopardizing his anonymity by cutting that kind of deal. Instead, he took a small amount of satisfaction reading information to which only a few people would be privy.
From what he could tell, Laurie had plenty of theories about who might be guilty in her latest case, but could not yet prove who had murdered Dr. Martin Bell.
He closed both the laptop and the notebook and returned his attention to the crystal frame in the robin’s-egg-blue cardboard box. He yanked the frame from the box, flipped it upside down, and pulled the photograph from the crystal, tearing it up in pieces and throwing the scraps in the toilet. He watched the tatters of glossy paper swirl with the flush, just like his own fairy-tale romance—down the drain.
He stuffed the contents of the duffel bag into the garbage, covering up the top with wads of paper towels. The garbage bag might seem a bit heavy to whatever employee carried it out later tonight, but the man had schlepped fifteen blocks from the piano bar for a reason. He was well beyond any feasible radius for a police search. And no chain store coffee-shop employee was going to wade through the contents of a New York City trash can out of curiosity.
This leather duffel bag, however, was a problem. It was simply too large to fit into a garbage container. He flopped it over his shoulder, tucked his chin to his chest, and made his way to the street outside. When he passed a homeless man sleeping next to a cardboard box that appeared to contain his belongings, he slipped the bag from his shoulder and left it as a gift, checking all directions to make sure no one noticed his good deed.
Now what? he thought. He considered going back to 46th Street to pick up his SUV, but it was too risky. The police might be watching the block. He’d take the subway home tonight and come back for his car tomorrow morning. The police wouldn’t be scoping out the area by then.
As he took the stairs down to the Q train, he thought again about all those meandering notes Laurie had made about her latest investigation. She would be gone before she could solve the case; he was certain of that. He just needed to find the right opportunity. Next time, he wouldn’t make a stupid mistake.