“I . . . I’ll look it up. I don’t remember. I can’t think.” He dropped his head into his hands, then jerked it up again. “Mamie, the children. Oh, God, oh, God. I have to go. I have to get my wife. We have to go to Mamie.”
“Soon. The most important thing you can do for Jamal right now is give us information. We believe whoever was in the car with him killed him or knows who did. Who was in the car, Mr. Chin?”
“Wait.” He rose, went to the unit on the counter. “It doesn’t make sense. I know it was a new client, but he just wanted to surprise his wife by picking her up in style at the airport, then taking her out to a late supper. I remember that. Here, here it is. Augustus Sweet. The pickup was in front of the Chrysler Building. He was going to work late, and wanted to be picked up at his office. I have his credit card information. We always take that information in advance. I have everything here.”
“Can you make me a copy?”
“Yes, yes. But he was going to pick up his wife at the airport. He did request our best driver, but he didn’t even know Jamal, so I don’t understand. I could have been driving. Any of us could have. It was just . . .”
The flip of a coin, Eve thought.
He fell apart when Eve allowed him to call his wife in. Sobbed in her arms. She was six inches taller with flaming red hair, and was hugely pregnant.
Eve watched tears run down her cheeks, but she held together.
“We need to go with you,” she said to Eve. “She shouldn’t hear this from strangers. I’m sorry, that’s what you are. She needs family with her. We’re family.”
“That’s fine. Can you tell us the last time you saw or spoke with Mr. Houston?”
“Yesterday, about five, I guess. I’d gone over to Mamie’s because she was watching Tige—our son. His babysitter needed the day off. He came in just as we were leaving. He had that run later, and he went home for a few hours first. And I guess you need to know, because that’s the way it is. Michael got home about six-thirty, and we had dinner with our boy. Michael gave him his bath and put him to bed just before eight, because I was tired. He ran the dispatch from home. He came to bed about eleven. I know because I was still awake. I was tired,” she added, rubbing her belly. “The baby wasn’t. I don’t know the exact times, but that’s close.”
Eve ran them through a few more routine questions, but she already had the picture, had a sense.
The Houstons had a large and pretty suburban house with big windows, a rolling lawn, and a front garden that made Eve think of Ireland. Mamie Houston, a wide-brimmed straw hat protecting her face from the sun, stood snipping long-stemmed blooms and putting them in a wide, flat basket.
She turned, started to smile, to wave. Then the smile froze, and her hand dropped slowly to her side.
She knows something’s wrong, Eve thought. She’s wondering why her friends, her partners would drive to her house with a couple of strangers.
She dropped the basket. Flowers spilled out on the green lawn as she began to run.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Mamie.” Michael’s voice cracked. “Jamal. It’s Jamal.”
“Has there been an accident? Who are you?” she demanded of Eve. “What’s happened?”
“Mrs. Houston, I’m Lieutenant Dallas with the NYPSD.” As Eve spoke, Kimmy Chin moved to Mamie’s side, put an arm around her. “I regret to inform you your husband was killed last night.”
“That’s not possible. That can’t be true. He’s out for his run, or at the gym. I . . .” She patted her gardening pants. “I don’t have my ’link. I always forget my ’link when I come out to work in the garden. Michael, use yours, will you? He’s just gone out for his run.”
“He came home?”
“Of course he came home.” She snapped it at Michael, then bit her lip. “I . . .”
“Mrs. Houston, why don’t we go inside?”
She rounded on Eve. “I don’t want to go inside. I want to talk to my husband.”
“When’s the last time you did?”
“I . . . When he left last night for work, but—”
“Weren’t you concerned when he didn’t come home?”
“But he must have. It was late. He was going to be late and said I shouldn’t wait up, so I went to bed. And he got up early, that’s all. He got up early to take his run and go by the gym. We have a gym in the house, but he likes to go there, to socialize. You know how he likes to take his run, then go to the gym to gossip, Kimmy.”
“I know, honey. I know. Let’s go inside. Come on now, we’re going inside.”
Inside, Kimmy sat beside her, holding her close in a sun-washed living area. Mamie stared at Eve, eyes glassy and unfocused.
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to find out what happened. You can help us. Do you know anyone who’d want to cause your husband harm?”
“No. He’s a good man. Tell her, Kimmy.”
“A very good man,” Kimmy soothed.
“Any trouble with employees?”
“No. We’ve kept it small. Exclusive. That . . . that was the whole point.”
“Has anything been troubling him?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Any money problems?”
“No. We have a good life, the business has given us a good life. We like the work—that’s why he still drives, why I keep the books. He’s always wanted to be his own boss, and the business is everything we wanted. He’s proud of what we’ve all built. We have two children in college, but we planned for it, so . . . the children. What will I tell the children?”
“Where are your children, Mrs. Houston?”
“Benji’s taking summer classes. He’s going to be a lawyer. He’ll be our lawyer. Lea’s at the beach for a couple days with friends. What should I tell them?” She turned to weep on Kimmy’s shoulder. “How can I tell them?”
Eve kept at it a while longer, but—for now at least—there was nothing here but shock and grief.
Stepping out into the drenching heat was a relief.
“Let’s check out the business financials, get a background on the partner and his wife, the rest of the employees. We’ll check this gym, verify his early-morning habit.”
“I’ve got it started. Doesn’t feel like it’s there,” Peabody commented. “They really do seem like family.”
“We closed a case recently where everybody was friends and partners with the dead guy.”
“Yeah.” Peabody sighed. “It can sure make you cynical.”
“Did you run this Augustus Sweet?”
“Yeah. He’s a senior VP, internal security, Dudley and Son, pharmaceuticals. Chrysler Building HQ.”
“Let’s go pay him a visit.”
5
DUDLEY AND SON SPREAD OVER FIVE PRIME floors of the landmark building, with its lobby areas done in what Eve thought of as swanky urban excess. The steel and glass counters meant that none of the half dozen working reception could forget to keep their knees together, while the polished silver wall behind them shot out reflections and shimmered with light zeroing in from a multitude of windows.
Weird glass sculptures hung from the ceiling over a high-gloss floor in unrelieved black.
Visitors could bide their time on long, backless benches padded with black gel cushions and watch a wall of screens hype the company’s self-proclaimed innovations and history.
Eve chose a receptionist who looked bored, and laid her badge on the glass counter. “Augustus Sweet.”
“Name, please.”
Eve laid a finger on the badge.
“One moment.” She danced her fingers on a screen behind the counter. “Mr. Sweet is in meetings until two. If you’d like to make an appointment, I’d be—”
Eve tapped her badge again. “That’s my appointment. You’re going to want to interrupt Mr. Sweet and tell him the cops are here. Oh, and one more thing? If you send his admin or some other minion out here to ask me what my business is, I’m going to take it the wrong way, and I’m going to take that wrong way out on you.”
“There’s no reason to get snippy.”
Eve merely smiled. “You haven’t seen snippy yet. Get Sweet, then we can both do our jobs.”
She got Sweet. It took nearly ten minutes, but he walked through a set of glass doors. He wore a dark suit, dark tie, and an expression that said he probably wasn’t a fun guy.