The Family Lawyer Read online

  “It’s slow again tonight,” Amy says.

  Miles nods.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she continues. “Why don’t you play something?”

  “Play something?”

  “On your guitar.”

  Miles masks his alarm with a smile.

  “I’m a cut below hobbyist,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to torture you.”

  “Come on,” Amy insists. “You’re always carrying that thing around. I bet you’re really good.”

  “Trust me, I’m not.”

  Amy doesn’t seem to hear him.

  “I can sing a little,” she says. “I was in choir all through high school. Do you know any James Taylor?”

  Her voice is rising with excitement. It’s clear she won’t let up.

  “Ask me again,” Miles says, “and I might have to kill you.”

  He’d meant to strike a playful tone, but Amy’s smile is more than a little uneasy.

  For once he does not have to travel far—just a twenty-minute walk to a pedestrian bridge on the West Side Highway. Of all Jarry’s photos, this one might be Miles’s favorite, though it is far from the most beautiful. The composition includes a truck and its driver, an otherwise bare strip of urban highway, street lamps bleeding streaks of light, silhouetted water towers in the distance. Each component is ugly in its own right, but something about the whole turns beautiful—in an eerie, industrialized way—when photographed in black and white.

  This is the scene that will leave him most exposed, now when he is most fiercely hunted. He sits under a tree at the foot of the bridge, stopwatch in hand. The helicopters, he discovers, patrol at regular intervals; he will have just ten minutes to reach the center of the bridge, set up, identify his target, take his shot. The heightened possibility of being caught gives this kill the feel of a combat mission.

  As he sits waiting for the next helicopter to pass, he finds himself addressing his thoughts to Cheryl. He explains to her, in tender detail, the relief he can bring.

  “Is it true,” he asks, “that you were hospitalized?”

  He anticipates a reply, but now that he wants to hear it, her voice will not come.

  “All in due time, Cheryl,” he tells her.

  He lets one more chopper go by, then sprints for the pedestrian bridge, guitar case in one hand, Cheryl’s clue in the other.

  Chapter 17

  This time Branford is there ahead of us, standing with his arms crossed as though daring Randy to run him over.

  “This can’t be good,” I say.

  Branford is hovering on the driver’s side before Randy can step out. As usual, he doesn’t acknowledge me.

  “You see that?” he says, pointing somewhere behind my back. I turn, look. On the opposite side of the yellow tape, maybe a few hundred yards away, a small militia of protesters sport homemade picket signs. It’s me they’re protesting:

  Mabern’s the Murderer…

  May Burn in Hell…

  Who’s Policing the Police…

  Night Sniper 5/ Mabern 1…

  At Least the Night Sniper Ain’t Racist…

  “I told you from the start this was a piss-poor idea,” Branford barks at Randy. “Then you go and put her in front of a camera.”

  “I put myself in front of a camera,” I say.

  Apparently my voice strikes a pitch Branford can’t hear.

  “She’s a three-ring distraction,” he says. “I want her sidelined. Now!”

  “There’s a problem, Chief,” Randy says.

  “What’s that?”

  “The interview worked. The Sniper reached out, asked for Cheryl by name. She’s our only link to the killer.”

  “We’ve got him playing our game now,” I say.

  “Tell that to the dead trucker,” Branford says. “Tell him this is a game.”

  “Okay, poor choice of words,” Randy admits on my behalf. “But the Sniper’s talking now. Cheryl clipped his ego. He wants us to know who he is. It’s just a matter of time before he tips his hand too far.”

  “It isn’t a matter of time,” Branford says. “It’s a matter of lives.”

  Branford the humanitarian. He must be practicing for his mayoral run.

  Dennis and Kelly pull up, followed by Pete and Patsy. We form a small circle, with Branford at the center.

  “We’ve got to examine the scene now,” Randy says.

  “Not her,” Branford says, jerking a thumb at me. “Handcuff her if you have to.”

  “He said he’d give me a hint. He’s left a clue for me,” I tell Branford.

  “Maybe he’ll ask you to dinner next,” Branford says. “If there’s a clue, your colleagues can find it. This isn’t an Easter egg hunt.”

  “Chances are he’s here, watching,” I say, nodding toward the crowd.

  Branford squares his shoulders, steps to me.

  “Believe it or not, I went to the academy just like everyone else,” he says. “I’ve got cameras on the crowd.”

  I think: Seems like the Sniper’s ego isn’t the only one I clipped.

  Randy turns to me.

  “You’ll have to sit this one out,” he says.

  I install myself dutifully in the back of the sedan, watch my task force teammates march to the scene. With helicopters circling low to the ground and a not-too-distant mob calling for my blood, there’s no chance of a nap.

  A long hour later, Randy returns alone, climbs into the passenger seat, back to the windshield.

  “How did it play out?” I ask.

  “He fired from an overpass,” Randy says. “Through the heart, like always. The truck ping-ponged between the divider and a stone wall. The guy’s torso is mangled pretty bad.”

  “Anyone else hurt?”

  “There wasn’t anyone else around.”

  He sees me wanting to ask.

  “I’m guessing this is your clue,” he says.

  He hands over a creased postcard, its upper border stained with what I hope is mustard.

  “Already been dusted,” he says.

  Still, I hold it by the corners, thumb and forefinger barely making contact. It’s a black-and-white photo of a woman standing in front of a marquee. Top to bottom, the shot looks like a still from an old film noir. There’s a heavy mist and a light fog. The woman wears a raincoat and holds up an umbrella. Her back is to the camera. She’s svelte, with long blond hair. It’s late at night, no one else on the street. The light from the nearest lamppost looks like a Hollywood plant.

  “Turn it over,” Randy says.

  Across the back, in big block letters:

  FOR CHERYL.

  “I guess he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance,” I say. “Where’d he place it?”

  “In a garbage can, this side of the overpass.”

  “He saw us rooting through garbage cans at Times Square,” I say. “Who found it?”

  “Patsy. I asked her to keep it to herself for now.”

  “Good,” I say. “If I’m going to be at all useful on this, Branford can’t know. Not yet.”

  I open the car door, have one foot on the ground.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  I hold up the postcard, tap the copyright with a fingernail.

  “Museum of the City of New York,” I say.

  Chapter 18

  The kid selling tickets looks confused when I show him my badge, like he’s trying to remember if the museum has a discount for cops.

  “I need to talk to the manager,” I say. “Or director. Or whoever’s in charge at a museum.”

  I wait while he fumbles with the phone, then tells a Ms. Hall that there’s a detective here to see her.

  “She’ll be right out,” he says.

  I stand watching tourists pass through the lobby, catching snippets of German, French, a couple of languages I can’t place. A few minutes later, Ms. Hall’s stiletto heels cut through every other sound.

  She smiles, extends an overly manicured hand.

&nbs
p; “Detective…?”

  “Mabern,” I say.

  If she watches the news, she doesn’t let it show. She’s young and thin, attractive in her custom-tailored pantsuit. She’d fit right in on Wall Street but seems out of place here.

  I follow her to a windowless office—100 square feet she’s done nothing to make her own.

  “How can I help you?” she asks, gesturing for me to sit.

  I take out the postcard, set it on her faux-mahogany desk. She squints like she’s struggling to read the bottom line of an eye test.

  “You recognize the picture?” I ask.

  “Of course,” she says. “It’s one of Alfred Jarry’s. He’s the subject of one of this fall’s special exhibits.”

  I snatch up the postcard before she can read the back.

  “We found it at a crime scene this morning,” I say. “We’re pretty sure it was left there on purpose.”

  “Crime scene?” she asks. “What crime?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Then how is it you want me to help?”

  I ask for every scrap of information she can pull on every museum employee. I ask for the receipt of every patron who’s paid by credit card since the exhibit opened. I give her Randy’s email address. I tell her to take care of it personally.

  It’s clear I’ve ruined her day.

  “Anything else?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’d like to see that exhibit.”

  It’s like a house of horrors past, present, and yet to come. They’re all there: elderly restaurateur locking up shop in Chinatown; the doorman sneaking a cigarette in front of a swank facade; the woman on the bridge backlit by a bright moon; the subway passenger alone in his car; the truck driver alone on a highway.

  The Sniper led us right to his source. Why?

  He’s presenting me with a puzzle, betting I’m too slow to piece it together. In order to solve the puzzle, I have to figure out the order: his order. How does he select the next victim?

  He isn’t working his way through the exhibit from left to right or front to back: victims one and two hang on opposite walls; victims three and four hang in a small side room. His approach isn’t chronological: according to the museum placards, Jarry photographed the subway passenger a full year before he snapped the doorman’s picture.

  I walk the exhibit time and again, breaking the photos up into opposing categories. Figures in motion versus figures at rest. Black-and-white versus color. Male subjects versus female subjects. I consider types of architecture. Bridges, skyscrapers, brownstones, tenements. Nothing fits. No order falls into place.

  I keep walking, keep looking. I start to feel dizzy. The people in the photos seem to be moving, or else the people are standing still and the buildings are moving. I sit on a bench at the center of the main room, shut my eyes. I see Jarry’s photos overlaid with crime scene images. Every figure becomes a chalk outline.

  I wipe sweat from my brow.

  This isn’t a game, I remind myself.

  Branford was right about that much.

  I hear voices, open my eyes. Three generations of Swedish women—grandmother, mother, and teenage daughter—stand in front of a floor-to-ceiling blowup of a junkie dozing on a bench in Union Square. Based on the few English words I glean, I guess the women are trying to hash out where their hotel is located in relation to this photo. The daughter points emphatically to a building in the background, her index finger nearly touching the glass. From across the room, a hoarse male voice snaps:

  “Not so close, hon.”

  The security guard! Could it be that simple?

  A man who stands alone with these photos for hours on end. A man who goes unnoticed save when he’s scolding or giving directions. A man who could himself be the subject of one of Jarry’s photos.

  I spin toward him, make it obvious I’m staring. But his eyes are trained on the Swedish girl. And he’s too short by far. Our estimate for the man in the hat was six feet; this guard is five seven at best.

  I go back to brooding. Six victims so far, 120 photos in the exhibit. Jarry’s photos on display for four months. One hundred twenty victims for 120 days. That means 114 lives might still be spared.

  And then it hits me. That spark every investigator hopes for. The idea that feels true.

  He’s already told me who’s next.

  I stand, take the postcard from my pocket, hunt down the original. It’s one of the smaller photos, no bigger than an eight-by-eleven-inch sheet of paper. Still, details I missed in the reproduction are clear. At the far left of the frame, just barely in focus, is the edge of a movie poster in a glass case. Across the street, on the opposite side of the woman, is the sliver of a facade I recognize as the ground floor of the Astrophil Hotel.

  The woman is standing in front of the Marseillaise Theater.

  And then it all falls into place. I know now what the Sniper wants me to do.

  Chapter 19

  At the station house, Randy takes my arm, leads me into the break room, and locks the door behind us. Before I can tell him about the museum he says:

  “I need your gun and badge.”

  It’s like the world’s spun out of focus. I hear myself repeating:

  “Gun and badge?”

  “Branford’s orders,” Randy says. “He wanted to do it himself. I’m trying to spare you that much.”

  “Why?” I ask. “I don’t understand.”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  I shake my head.

  “There’s a new witness,” Randy tells me. “In the Jesse Smits shooting.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “A kid looking out his bedroom window.”

  “There wasn’t anything more to witness. It happened the way I said.”

  “The kid claims Smits had his hands up. Claims he’d already dropped his gun.”

  Randy holds out an open palm as if to say: Let’s get this over with. I oblige. For a moment we just stand there.

  “We’ll fight this,” he says. “We need you on this case.”

  I pretend I don’t hear.

  “Someone from the museum is going to be sending over receipts and personnel records,” I say.

  “Already has,” Randy says. “I’ve sent them on to Hawes in Crime Analysis.”

  “Good,” I say. “Hawes is good.”

  Randy looks eager to get me out of the room.

  “There’s more,” I say. “That museum is his hunting ground. His kills are all taken from photographs.”

  “Photographs?”

  “That postcard is part of a series.”

  I start to tell him about the Marseillaise Theater, about the Sniper’s next kill, but then the door to the break room rattles, followed by a heavy and persistent knock. Dennis wants his coffee. Randy lets him in, then turns to me and whispers:

  “I’m telling you, we’ll fight this. I haven’t forgotten. I know what I owe you.”

  The subtext is easy to read: I’ll make this right, but now it’s time for you to go. And part of me—the most childish part—thinks: Fine, then. You figure it out on your own.

  Chapter 20

  He should be asleep, but the morning’s events have left him jittery and full of questions. Why was Cheryl barred from the scene, sequestered in the back of an unmarked car? Are the protesters a curse or a blessing? Do they heighten Cheryl’s need for salvation or simply draw attention away from his cause? Will the public see her liberation as an act of mercy or justice?

  He gets up, switches on the television. He is not by nature a news junkie, but lately he cannot tear himself away.

  It isn’t long before the midday anchor turns his attention to the Night Sniper, or rather to Cheryl by way of the Night Sniper. Detective Mabern has been suspended. A new witness has come forward in the Jesse Smits shooting.

  After a quick recap of the Smits case, a pundit with some vague affiliation to the NYPD speculates that this witness may be a plant—a convenient way of lif
ting Mabern from the task force without overtly bowing to public pressure.

  Miles stands, starts to pace.

  It’s as if he is a mere sidebar, as if his kills are nothing more than a footnote to the ongoing coverage of Detective Cheryl Mabern’s tumultuous career. She has become his rival in more ways than one.

  But Miles cannot allow himself to be derailed by petty jealousy. Granting liberation to the person who would bring him low will be the Night Sniper’s crowning achievement. In time, people will come to recognize his dedication and sacrifice. Miles will emerge on the right side of history. He will bring Cheryl with him.

  The news cuts to a commercial. Miles begins to flip stations, stops when he notices an envelope shoved partway under his front door. No doubt a neighbor correcting one of the mail carrier’s innumerable mistakes.

  He shuts off the television, crosses to the entryway, pulls the envelope inside. Calligraphic writing on the front and back, RSVP across the seal. From Amy Winston and Ronald Affif. The card inside describes their impending marriage as a “blessed union.”

  Miles feels nothing but scorn. Their union is more banal than blessed—the joining together of two people as they march blindly down the path dictated by their narrow imaginations. A doctor and lawyer marriage—the white-class equivalent of cop and nurse.

  That isn’t love, Miles thinks. It’s people doing what they’re told.

  Amy is the opposite of Jarry’s distressed souls, the opposite of Miles’s “victims.” She is a pretty facade with no substance; there is nothing in her for the Sniper to liberate.

  But Cheryl, on the other hand…

  Cheryl, with her history of mental illness, is not only alone in the world, she is at odds with it. Now, more than ever, she must feel her solitude bearing down on her. Now, more than ever, she must long for release.

  But how will he give it to her?

  It occurs to him in a sudden and painful flash that Cheryl’s suspension means she is no longer working the case. And if she is no longer working the case, then he cannot contact her at the precinct. What’s more, she has no reason to talk to him, no reason to follow his lead.