Murder Games Read online

  “No—I meant the parking.” She’d pulled directly in front of a hydrant. “Nice perk.”

  “That’s nothing. I also never pay for coffee at the doughnut shop,” she deadpanned. “On the flip side, I have to interview grieving loved ones on a weekly basis, and approximately once a year someone shoots at me.”

  “So you’re saying it’s a toss-up?”

  She smiled at my sarcasm. “Actually, the free coffee is pretty nice.”

  “Has anyone shot at you yet this year?”

  “No, but it’s only September. Plenty of time left on the calendar,” she said, cutting the engine.

  I followed Elizabeth up the steps of Louden’s impressive town house, quickly reminding myself of what she’d told me. The guy had been killed right inside his front door, the same door we were about to knock on…the same door we were asking his wife, Emily, to open for us. No wonder the woman looked as if she were standing in a minefield when she greeted us in the foyer. I could still smell the bleach used to clean up her husband’s blood.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see us, Mrs. Louden,” said Elizabeth.

  “Correction: I only agreed to see you,” she said before pointing at me. “Who’s this?”

  “I’m Dylan Reinhart,” I said, extending my hand. Mrs. Louden ignored it.

  “Dr. Reinhart is a professor of psychology at Yale,” added Elizabeth. “He’s assisting in the investigation.”

  Elizabeth had essentially invoked the Jewish mother trifecta on my behalf: doctor, professor, and Ivy League. But Mrs. Louden ignored that, too.

  “As I explained on the phone, I’ve already told the other detectives everything I know,” she said. “And as you can see, I’m very busy here.”

  Every room off the foyer was stacked with boxes, loose sheets of Bubble Wrap strewn on the floor. It was side 1, song 1, of my favorite Billy Joel album, The Stranger. Mrs. Emily Louden was “Movin’ Out.” Hardly a surprise given the circumstances.

  “I understand,” said Elizabeth, “and I can only imagine what an incredibly hard time this has been for you. The reason Dr. Reinhart is here with me, though, has to do with your husband’s murder, something you should know.”

  Mrs. Louden put a hand on her hip and quickly looked me up and down with more shade than a solar eclipse. “Is this the guy who did it?” she asked. “Because if he’s not, I’m not interested.”

  “Mrs. Louden, if you could simply—”

  She cut Elizabeth off cold. “Now, you bring me the guy who did do it. Then I’ll be interested,” she said. “Really interested.”

  Chapter 9

  IT WAS Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the Swiss-American psychiatrist, who famously introduced the five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying.

  Stage 1 was denial. Stage 2 was anger. They were followed by bargaining, depression, and, finally, at stage 5, acceptance.

  But Mrs. Emily Louden was nowhere near stage 5. She was locked and loaded on stage 2. Angry as hell.

  Still, Detective Elizabeth Needham had a job to do.

  Elizabeth finished explaining to Mrs. Louden about my book being sent to Allen Grimes at the Gazette and the playing card with her husband’s blood on it. Did the king of clubs mean anything to her?

  No, she answered. It didn’t.

  “Your husband’s blood type,” said Elizabeth. “Did you know that it was rare?”

  “I didn’t know it at all,” said Mrs. Louden.

  “What about your husband’s doctors?” asked Elizabeth.

  “What about them?”

  “I’m assuming he had a primary care physician. What other doctors did he see?”

  “Don’t you think that’s personal?” asked Mrs. Louden.

  “I think it’s very personal,” said Elizabeth calmly. “But if we’re going to make a list of the people who would have knowledge of your husband’s blood type, that’s where we start.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Does it really make a difference?”

  “Not that I want to, Mrs. Louden, but I can easily get hold of your husband’s medical records without your permission,” said Elizabeth.

  “Then that’s what you’ll have to do,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind…get the hell out of my house.”

  I could tell that Elizabeth had no intention of doing anything that remotely resembled leaving. Not yet. All the more reason why I got an earful thirty seconds later out on the sidewalk.

  “For Christ’s sake, rookie, just because someone tells you to get the hell out of her house doesn’t mean you do it!” said Elizabeth.

  Rookie?

  “We weren’t getting anywhere,” I said.

  “That’s the point,” she said. “That’s why we needed to keep her talking.”

  “To tell us what? The names of his doctors? Anyone could’ve known Louden’s blood type,” I said. “It’s not only his doctors; it’s anyone who worked for his doctors. Or it could be a blood-lab technician or anyone who worked with that technician. Are we really going to interview each and every one of those people?”

  “Have you got a better idea?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  “You will? Oh, that’s just great, Reinhart. When exactly do you plan on having this better idea? Please—the suspense is killing me. When will you know?”

  “When he wants me to know,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Think about it.” I walked to the curb to hail a cab.

  “Wait: where are you going?”

  “I’ve got lunch plans,” I said.

  Chapter 10

  “I’LL TAKE a pound of the drunken spicy shrimp boil, one big-ass pork plate, a skirt steak with extra chimichurri sauce, an order of curried succotash, some crispy coleslaw, and a side of roasted whipped sweet potatoes with spicy nut topping,” I said. “Oh, and let’s add a couple of slices of your chocolate icebox pie.”

  “Anything else?” joked the woman scribbling my take-out order at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que up on 125th Street in Harlem. She looked like Lauryn Hill during her days with the Fugees. Great hair, beautiful eyes.

  “No—that oughta do it,” I said with a wink. “Thanks.”

  Tracy had gone to bed devastated and woke up devastated, blaming himself for ruining our chances of becoming parents. The mission now was to cheer him up with his favorite comfort food, and there was only one way to go about it. Shock and awe.

  Lunch in hand, I walked two blocks north into the offices of Harlem Legal House, which was actually just a guitar shop that had gone out of business a few years back. It was small and run-down, but on the plus side the acoustics were excellent.

  “Is he with anyone?” I asked Miss Jacinda, the receptionist who doubled as mother hen to all the staff members. Some of them were working attorneys volunteering on the weekends, while others were law school graduates who weren’t currently practicing. Or, as in Tracy’s case, never did practice.

  “Yeah. He’s got someone with him, but go on back,” said Miss Jacinda. “They should be finishing up any minute.” She leaned forward over her desk, her deep voice dropping to a whisper. “Is our guy okay?”

  “Is it that obvious?” I asked.

  “Only to me, sweetheart,” she said. “He’s still smiling, but there’s pain in those baby blues.”

  Pushing seventy, with every one of those years spent in Harlem, Miss Jacinda was more on the ball than anyone I’d ever met. You can’t teach intuition.

  I lifted the bag from Dinosaur’s, one of the corners already soaked with some leaking barbecue sauce. “Let’s hope it’s nothing that a few thousand calories can’t fix,” I said.

  I made my way back to Tracy’s office, somewhat glad that he was with a client. He hates when I do this, but I always eavesdrop a bit outside his door, listening to how good he is at helping people who really need his help. There’s never an insincere moment,
never a false note.

  If only casting directors felt the same way.

  Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Tracy McKay, the most genuine struggling actor in all of New York City.

  Which is not to say he never gets work. He does. There have been commercials, the occasional off-Broadway play, a two-week stint as the “handsome stranger” on a soap opera. They’ve all paid, and in the case of a few national spots, paid very well. They just haven’t led to his big break yet, let alone a role that has some real meat on it. He truly deserves it. Thankfully, when I tell Tracy how talented he is, I actually mean it. Half the battle for him now, though, is remaining as convinced of that as I am.

  “Is it too late to apply to Juilliard?” he’s joked more than once.

  For sure, not many head shots out there have Columbia Law School listed on the back. Then again, not many gay men went there because their parents were perhaps too accepting of their sexuality.

  It almost sounds like a brainteaser, but that’s what happened. Tracy caught the acting bug when we were at Yale together as undergrads. He squashed it, though, to pursue law. He thought he would be pleasing his parents. What he was really doing was overcompensating.

  Tracy’s parents—born-and-bred Iowans who aren’t exactly your Brie-eating, Chardonnay-sipping, Utne Reader readers—were so supportive and accepting of his coming out in high school that his biggest fear became disappointing them with his career choice.

  “Besides, it doesn’t get any less original than an unemployed gay actor in Manhattan,” he told me during his senior year. He was going to go to law school and become a lawyer. His father is a lawyer.

  So what changed his mind?

  Six words from his father, ultimately. Not unlike Miss Jacinda at the front desk, Mr. McKay could tell that his son wasn’t truly happy after graduating from law school.

  “I love you no matter what,” he told Tracy. Six beautiful words.

  Of course, then there’s what my father said when I told him I was gay after college. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Thanks, Dad.

  But that’s a whole other can of therapy.

  Chapter 11

  “THAT’S NOT very polite, you know,” said a little voice. “You’re eavesdropping.”

  I turned around outside the door to Tracy’s office, totally busted. Then again, the kid looked to be around six or seven. If he could believe in Santa Claus, what else could I make him believe?

  “I’m not eavesdropping,” I whispered.

  “You are, too,” he whispered back. “I caught you!”

  Okay, so maybe he did. “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “Yes it is,” he insisted. “And my mother says it’s rude.”

  I was getting schooled by a pair of mini Air Jordans and cargo shorts, although it was the T-shirt that mostly caught my eye. On it was a picture of Questlove, the drummer for the Roots—or, if you happen to be really, really white, “that drummer” for the Tonight Show band.

  Either way, it was pretty cute. The kid and Questlove had almost matching afros.

  “Who’s your mother?” I asked, still whispering.

  “In there,” he said, pointing at Tracy’s office. That figured.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “I had to go to the bathroom.”

  “Are you going to tell on me?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Mom says I shouldn’t do that, either, because no one likes a tattletale.”

  “You’ve got a smart mother.”

  “Yes, he does,” came another voice. Christ, busted again.

  I turned to see the kid’s mother standing next to Tracy in the doorway of his office.

  “Ms. Winston, I’d like you to meet my husband, Dylan,” said Tracy.

  “Oh,” said the woman.

  However, this “oh” was the exact opposite of the one we got out of Ms. Peckler, from the adoption agency. This was, “Oh, isn’t that nice?” No two ways about it.

  She extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Dylan,” she said. “I see you’ve met Miles.”

  “I’m named after Miles Davis,” the kid said proudly as he offered up a fist bump. “He played the trumpet.”

  “Boy, did he ever. Like nobody else,” I said. “Did you know I’m named after a musician, too? His name’s Bob Dylan. Do you know who that is?”

  “No,” said Miles.

  “You will one day; trust me,” I said. I turned back to Tracy and Ms. Winston. “Sorry for interrupting. We were trying to whisper.”

  “It was more the smell,” said Tracy with a nod toward the bag in my hand.

  “Is that Dinosaur’s?” asked Ms. Winston. “It’s got to be, right?”

  “Yes, and there’s plenty of it,” I said. “Have you eaten lunch yet?”

  “Thanks for offering,” she said. “We actually have a lesson to get to.”

  “I play the trumpet, too,” said Miles. “I’m not as good as Miles Davis yet, though.”

  “That’s what the lessons are for,” I said. “Right?”

  “Yeah, and lots of practice in between. Sometimes I like to play in front of my window in our apartment and pretend that the whole world is watching me,” said Miles.

  “Maybe one day it will be,” I said. You never know.

  Tracy walked Miles and his mother out as I waited in his office. I was emptying the bag from Dinosaur’s when he returned.

  “So are you trying to cheer me up or just put me in a food coma?” he said, staring at the feast laid out on his desk.

  “It is a lot, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s perfect,” he said. “I really appreciate it. Thank you.”

  “I was worried,” I said.

  “I know you were. But this place is the best cure for feeling sorry for yourself,” he said. “Miles and his mother? They might be homeless in a week. Their landlord thinks he found a loophole in their rent-controlled status.”

  “Did he?” I asked.

  “I don’t care if he did. I’m going to close it,” said Tracy.

  That wasn’t the lawyer speaking; that was the former Academic All-American lacrosse player who played his last three games as a senior with two cracked ribs. Always determined, never deterred. That was Tracy.

  “So do you want to make the call to the adoption agency on Monday morning or should I?” I asked as we began eating.

  “None of the above,” said Tracy, popping a spicy shrimp into his mouth.

  He had a different idea.

  Chapter 12

  TEN HOURS later and more than a hundred blocks south, Bryce VonMiller—black sheep son of famed restaurateur Aaron VonMiller—was coked out of his mind, something he hadn’t been for years. Cocaine, after all, was the pay phone of drugs. Still around but barely ever used.

  Instead Bryce’s usual party drug of choice was Ecstasy, and lots of it, although he wouldn’t have been caught dead—or, even worse, caught by an undercover narc—calling it that.

  Bean, blue kisses, white dove, thiz, hug drug, disco biscuits, Skittles…

  Proper slang was a badge of honor for the twenty-three-year-old regular of the Manhattan club scene, but it wasn’t enough to stay current. You had to stay ahead.

  Same for the drugs themselves. Bryce had been one of the first in the city to try the concentrated form of Ecstasy, called Molly. He was always on the lookout for the next big thing, the latest high.

  Tonight, though, he was going decidedly retro with some good old-fashioned blow, inspired by the recently opened White Lines, a 1980s throwback club in SoHo. Saturday was their masquerade night, but it wasn’t about wearing masks. Instead the theme was the classic eighties B movie Masquerade, starring Rob Lowe, Meg Tilly, Kim Cattrall, and Doug Savant, the actor who played “the gay guy” on Melrose Place. Dress up as any one of them and the fifty-dollar cover charge was waived.

  Grinding on the dance floor with a mixture of Tillys and Cattralls, Bryce thought he looked pretty damn fetching in his tig
ht shorts and polo shirt, the same outfit Rob Lowe wore throughout most of the movie. It was the hair, though, that was key. Feathered just so, it was longer than what Lowe sported in Oxford Blues but not quite as long as his St. Elmo’s Fire look.

  “I’ll be right back,” Bryce lied to some random Tilly he’d been making out with under the dozen or so mirrored balls hanging from the ceiling, which looked like the Liberace solar system. After a DJ mash-up of Duran Duran’s “The Wild Boys” and “Girls on Film,” it was time to look for trouble elsewhere.

  Sweat dripping down his cheeks, Bryce strolled into the Leather Room, toward the back of the club, which had been renamed the Junk Bondage Room for the night. With images of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken—both with and without his toupee—projected on the walls and ceiling, Bryce watched for a minute as a naked S and M couple took turns hitting each other with horse whips while sucking on cherry-flavored Ring Pops.

  Ho-hum.

  After a shot of absinthe at the bar, Bryce slipped a Benjamin to the man working the velvet rope of the VIP Room, but there was only a collection of Eurotrash sprawled on the sofas. For most of these shiny-shirt-wearing clowns, an eighties bar was a contemporary setting.

  Quickly Bryce was out of there, a waste of a hundred dollars.

  Then again, it wasn’t like it was his money. It had been earned by his father, who got it by wildly overcharging tourists and self-proclaimed foodies for Wagyu beef sliders and “fresh” Miyagi oysters FedExed in from the Karakuwa Peninsula. Domo arigato, suckers!

  Finally Bryce ended up in the men’s room for the least likely reason that any guy at White Lines ever ended up in the men’s room: he actually had to take a piss. Before he could, he was approached by a guy wearing black Ray-Bans and a shoulder-length blond wig.

  “Hey,” said the guy.

  “Hey, yourself,” said Bryce back.

  He knew most of the dudes in the neon-lit bathroom were there for one of two things—getting high or giving head. Bryce just didn’t know which of the two this guy was leaning toward.

  “Pulp?” the guy asked.