She said "yes," and a year later she said "I do."
For the past ten years, I"ve resigned myself to the fact that Kylie and Spence are rich, happy, and in love-the beautiful couple that everybody who is anybody in New York is thrilled to have over for dinner at their penthouse in the city, their home in the Hamptons, or their yacht.
I probably never fell out of love with her, but at least I moved on, and after bouncing around the New York singles market with one short-term relationship after another, I finally found Cheryl.
Cheryl Robinson was the first woman I ever dated that met the impossible standards I set for myself after I lost Kylie. We"d known each other for a few years, but it began to get serious only three months ago, and I was starting to hope that Cheryl could be the one. And now, suddenly, it was looking like Kylie"s relationship with Spence was starting to unravel.
If she were any other partner, I"d be rooting for her to get back together with her husband and get her life back on track.
But Kylie MacDonald wasn"t just any other partner. And right now, I had no idea how I felt.
Chapter 11.
Somewhere between 86th Street and the crime scene, I focused on the fact that, as crazy as I was, there was a guy out there with an unlimited supply of Hazmat suits who was even crazier.
"Screw the election," Kylie blurted out, and I knew that her head had gone to the same place mine had. "Irwin Diamond got it right. We"re not politicians. We"re cops, and our job is to catch Hazmat before he kidnaps and kills another innocent-correction-not-so-innocent victim. Where do we start?"
"Dryden gave me the names of the two detectives working the case-Donovan and Boyle out of the Five-but I"d rather hold off on calling them. I never got a chance to tell you, but there were two guys from Anti-Crime working the park. They called in the one eighty-seven. I recruited them and told them to do some legwork for us. Let"s check in with them first."
"Legwork," Kylie said. "So much more efficient than those newfangled computer machines."
"Hey, give the poor mayor a break. Police work is not his strong suit."
"Then he should never have blocked the department from investigating Cynthia Pritchard"s death. If he loses the election, he"ll be getting what he deserves," Kylie said. "And as long as I"m sharing all my deepest, darkest secrets with you, there"s one I"ve been holding back."
"What"s that?"
"Whether we solve this case by next Tuesday or not, I"m still voting for Sykes."
The area surrounding the carousel looked like ground zero for a flash mob. "Is this our crime scene," Kylie said, "or a Bon Jovi concert?"
As soon as I got out of the car, someone yelled, "Detective Jordan!"
It was Casey and Bell, working their way through the crowd. They had cleaned up from their homeless routine, but they looked frazzled.
"Boy, are we glad you"re back," Casey said.
"Sorry to cut and run," I said. "You guys in over your head?"
Bell grinned. "Maybe a little."
"Maybe a lot," Casey said. "This is light-years bigger than anything we"ve ever worked, but we got some good stuff for you, and one thing you"re going to hate."
"First, meet my partner," I said. "Detective MacDonald, these are the two guys I shanghaied, Detectives Casey and Bell."
Head nods all around.
"Okay," I said, "what"ve you got?"
"We found one of those folding shopping carts in the trees alongside the Sixty-Fifth Street transverse," Casey said. "Those things are valuable commodities around here, so it couldn"t have been there for long, or somebody would have scooped it up. You said Parker-Steele disappeared on Friday, so he didn"t kill her in the park. He killed her someplace else and dumped her here."
Dryden had already told us that, but I let them go on.
Bell picked up the narrative. "Our best guess is that after he killed Parker-Steele, he stuffed her in a bag, drove her to this neighborhood, and parked his car somewhere nearby."
"Can you guys check with Traffic for any parking tickets that were issued within a ten-block radius of key entry points?" Kylie said. "East and west sides."
"Will do, but I wouldn"t get my hopes up," Bell said. "Parking is a b.i.t.c.h during the day, but after ten p.m., there are lots of legal s.p.a.ces he could have used."
"So he parked his car nearby," I said. "Then what do you figure?"
"He loaded the body into the shopping cart and walked through the park as invisible as any of the homeless guys who roam the city streets," Casey said. "That"s the way me and Bell have been blending in. Then he cut the lock on the gate, strapped her on the horse, hot-wired the electric panel to get the music and the carousel going, relocked the gate, dumped the shopping cart, hopped over the stone wall, and walked along the transverse back to his car."
The two of them stood there looking at us like puppy dogs who had just fetched a stick and were waiting for a pat on the head.
"Good job," I said. "You see anybody that looked suspicious in the crowd?"
They turned to each other and laughed.
"Everybody in that crowd looks suspicious," Bell said. "A dead woman in a Hazmat suit on a carousel is like a magnet for wackos. For the killer to stand out, he"d have to be wearing a sign that says "I did it.""
"Hey!... Hey! You!"
I turned around. Two men scooted under the crime scene tape and headed straight for Kylie and me.
"What the h.e.l.l kind of c.r.a.p are you guys trying to pull?" one of them yelled.
"Hang on to your hat, Detective Jordan," Casey said.
"You know these guys?" I asked.
"We just met them ten minutes ago. Remember I said there"s one thing you"re going to hate? Here it comes."
Chapter 12.
"Their names are Donovan and Boyle," Casey said. "They"re acting like jerks, going around telling everybody that they"re-"
"I know what they"re telling everybody," I said. "Thanks. I"ll handle it."
Kylie grabbed my arm. "Zach, I"m in a foul mood. Let me take it out on somebody besides you."
"Be my guest," I said, and stepped aside.
Donovan and Boyle stormed across the lawn and stopped in front of us. Before they could say a word, Kylie went on the attack.
"What the h.e.l.l do you two clowns think you"re doing?" she said. "Back off. This is a crime scene."
One of them was tall, over six feet, with dark hair and a pretty-boy face. The other was shorter, with thin lips and a buzz cut-not nearly as pretty. I still didn"t know who was who.
"Our crime scene," Buzz Cut said. "I"m Boyle, that"s Donovan. We"ve been running the Hazmat case."
"From what I hear, you"ve been running it into the ground. Effective an hour ago, it"s ours."
"Says who?"
"My boss, Captain Delia Cates, her boss, Police Commissioner Richard Harries, and his boss, the mayor."
"This is bulls.h.i.t," Boyle said. "Why the h.e.l.l were we pulled off?"
"You weren"t pulled off," Kylie said. "The case was rea.s.signed to NYPD Red. I"m MacDonald, that"s Jordan, and you"ve been a.s.signed to our task force."
"We work for you?" Donovan asked.
"You have a problem with that, Detective Donovan?" Kylie said.
"You"re d.a.m.n right I do."
"In that case, send everything you"ve got on the Hazmat Killer to our office. We"ll take it from there."
"The h.e.l.l you will. n.o.body at Red gave a rat"s a.s.s about the first three victims, but now that Muriel Sykes is involved, the mayor jumps in and moves the case to the top of the dog pile. What"s your job? Get as much dirt on Parker-Steele as possible so he can sandbag Sykes"s campaign?"
"This isn"t about politics," Kylie said. "It"s about finding a serial killer."
"What the h.e.l.l do you think we"ve been doing for the past four months?"
"Funny, that"s what the mayor said. "What the h.e.l.l have those two cops been doing for the past four months?" If you don"t like his decision, file a grievance with the department."
Donovan looked at his partner. Clearly they didn"t want to be second string, but they had zero leverage, and Kylie knew it. Then he looked at me as though maybe I could talk some sense into Kylie. I didn"t blink.
"Make up your mind, boys," she said. "You on board?"
"Hey, if they don"t want it," Casey said, "me and Bell would be happy to-"
"Back off," Donovan said. "It"s been our case since day one, and we"re not being squeezed out because of some political bulls.h.i.t. We"re staying."
"You can start by getting the files over to us at the One Nine in twenty minutes," Kylie said, handing him her card. "I"ll be sure to tell the mayor how cooperative you"ve been."
My two puppies looked as if someone had just taken their favorite squeeze toy. "Does that mean you won"t be needing us?" Bell said.
"You guys were a big help, and we appreciate it," I said.
"But these guys are in, and we"re out," Bell said.
I nodded. Kylie, who always likes to get in the last word, offered up two.
"For now."
Chapter 13.
"Did you get all the nasty out of your system?" I asked Kylie after the two teams went their separate ways.
"I always have a reserve tank," she said.
"It sucks to have to trade off two gung ho cops for two with brooms up their a.s.ses," I said.
"Zach, we could have kept all four of them," Kylie said. "A case like this, we have a blank check. h.e.l.l, we could pull together a task force of fifty people and spend all our time bogged down in our own bureaucracy. The only thing this case really needs is you and me doing what we do best. I asked Donovan and Boyle to stick around because they have a serious learning curve. But as soon as we get up to speed, I will tap back into my tank of nasty and tell them to go play in traffic."
We spent another hour at the crime scene. Chuck Dryden"s people were still combing the area, and except for the shopping cart, nothing new turned up. We drove back to the office.
There"s no Red precinct. Like a lot of elite units, we"re housed in an existing precinct-in our case, the 19th on East 67th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues. The One Nine is home to more than two hundred uniforms and dozens of detectives, but it"s still big enough for Red to set up shop on the third floor, away from the day-to-day madness that goes on downstairs.
But we still have to walk through the tumult on our way upstairs. And you can"t get anywhere without being seen by Bob McGrath, the desk sergeant.
"Thanks for the wheels, Sarge," Kylie said.
"Anytime, Detective," McGrath said. "Hang on a sec. I"ve got something else for you."
He reached under his desk and pulled out a cardboard file box. "This was just delivered. It"s your Hazmat files."
I picked it up. It weighed next to nothing.
"Is that all?" I said. "Just the one?"
"That"s what they gave me. That"s what I signed for," he said. "Want to see the paperwork?"