7
Leo Farley hopped into the car waiting for him outside the building on Randall’s Island feeling as if he were twenty years younger.
He was sixty-five years old. If someone had asked him a decade earlier to look into a crystal ball and envision his retirement, he never would have predicted his current life. His wife, Eileen, died much too young. Then his daughter’s husband, Greg, was murdered, under circumstances none of them could have predicted. Leo had never been the planning type, but he had always assumed he would still be on the job by the time his number came up.
But, contrary to what he had expected, he had retired six years ago, at the age of fifty-nine, to help his daughter, Laurie, raise her son, Timmy. He went from roll calls and classified briefings to oatmeal breakfasts, walks to St. David’s, and chicken dinners at his daughter’s apartment.
He was an apple who never thought he’d be an orange. He had gone from being the first deputy commissioner of the NYPD to being a retiree who was helping raise his grandson. But then, three months ago, he had been invited to join an anti-terrorism task force with the NYPD, with headquarters right across the Triborough Bridge from the Upper East Side. He would work several evenings each month, such as tonight, and could do much of his work from home, leaving plenty of time to be around for Timmy and Laurie.
• • •
By the time he got back to Manhattan, Laurie already had dinner on the table.
“If I didn’t know better,” he said, stepping into her apartment, “I would think my daughter had learned how to cook.”
Laurie was a woman of many talents, but they weren’t found in the kitchen. “I’m tempted to tell you that I found a new recipe,” she said.
“I love you, sweetheart, but I’m still a cop at heart. I know when you’re twisting the truth.”
“It’s a new carryout service called Caviar. I can’t even claim credit for discovering it. Timmy placed the order.”
Leo scanned the options on the table: hanger steak, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, and a green salad.
“Sorry to use up your one red-meat night for the week, Dad,” Laurie said, “but this place is supposed to be fantastic.” A year ago, Leo had had a heart problem and had two stents inserted in his right ventricle at Mount Sinai. He wished Laurie had never known about the procedure, because now she was determined to transform him into a gluten-free, miserable vegan.
Leo was running the last slice of meat on his plate through a dollop of béarnaise sauce when Laurie changed the subject from a fundraising auction at Timmy’s school to a case she was thinking about covering at work.
“What do you remember about Virginia Wakeling? She was the board member pushed from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the night of the annual gala.”
By then, Leo had already retired from the NYPD, but the case had been front page news for at least a couple of weeks. “It was a horrible scene, a terrible way to die. Officially, the case is still open, but the unofficial word is that her boyfriend did it. He was after her money.”
“Except, according to him, she had willingly loaned him money,” Laurie said. She filled in her father on everything she had learned about the case that morning from Ivan Gray. “If anything, his gravy train dried up once she was gone.”
“Isn’t that the kind of case you look for?” Leo asked. “You need to find multiple sides to the story.”
She shrugged.
“That’s not like you, Laurie. What’s bugging you?”
“The case came in through Ryan.”
Leo set his fork down on his plate. He had only met Ryan Nichols a couple of times, but Leo thought the man’s ego got in the way of his brain. “Did he know Mrs. Wakeling?”
“No, worse. He’s friends with the boyfriend, Ivan Gray. He’s absolutely convinced the guy is innocent and the police unfairly stereotyped him.”
“Hey, Mom?” Timmy was nibbling on three French fries at a time.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to judge you or anything, but other mothers don’t talk about murder at the dinner table.”
Laurie gave her son a poke on the side of his waist. “How are you going to be the number one detective in all of North America if we don’t poison your mind at a young age?”
“The head of security at the Met is on this anti-terrorism task force I joined. We were just meeting about potential threats at high-occupancy targets. The head of detectives for the Central Park Precinct is part of the group, too. Do you want me to see what I can find out about the state of the pending investigation?” Leo asked.
Laurie was beaming at him as she cleared the dishes. “Is there anyone in this city you don’t know, Dad?”
• • •
He made two calls—one to the head of security at the Met, and one to a homicide detective he knew. Neither was detailed, but they ended in the same conclusion.
He found Laurie in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. “Sorry, kiddo, I’m no fan of Ryan, but this case might be right up your alley.”
“How so?” she asked.
“It’s chilly to the extent the police aren’t working active leads, but apparently there are still plenty of angles for you to pursue. A security guard saw her go upstairs, but the cameras were off. No one has any idea who might have been up there on the roof with her. Apparently there was a lot of money at stake. Any number of people had something to gain from her death.”
Laurie wrung out a sudsy sponge and propped it on the side of the dish rack. “That’s interesting, but frankly I was hoping you’d tell me it wasn’t my type of case.”
“Nope. From what I can tell, you might be able to do some good here. They need a new lead, or the case might go ice cold.”
“I don’t know. I’ve always been the lead contact for the person who’s—quote, unquote—under suspicion. If we do this case, I’ll be ceding a certain amount of power to Ryan.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, the head of Met Security said he’d be willing to meet with you anytime you want. He was there the night Wakeling died. I know better than to tell you what to do, but don’t turn a good case away just because it comes from Ryan. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Leo had little regard for Ryan, but he had a feeling that Laurie had her own reasons for resenting the young lawyer. It was about Alex Buckley, not Ryan. She looks so unhappy. Of course, she misses him. How could she not? And Timmy and I miss him too, he thought.