“We’re here for ya, Colly,” said Rook. “Let her rip.”
Colin withered under his manager’s look. “One evening last winter,” he began, “Miss Gray was a guest of the hotel and had a lapse in her sobriety. At two-thirty A.M., on my shift, as it happens, she, ah . . . had to be subdued in the lobby. Derek Snow was still about, and I asked him to help me escort her into her room. In the process, a firearm she had in her handbag discharged, and the bullet grazed Derek’s thigh.”
“Colin?” said the manager, obviously unhappy.
“I admit, we did not adhere to procedure and report this, but the plea was made by Derek not to make a fuss, and, well . . .”
“She paid you guys off,” said Heat. Not a question.
“In a word, yes.”
“And there’s no police report of this.” Again, Heat didn’t have to ask. When Colin shook his head, she said, “How bad was his wound? Doctors are required to report those to the department.”
“It was a graze but enough for several stitches. Miss Gray was acquainted with a physician who gave cast physicals for the film industry, and an arrangement was made.”
Now that Detective Heat understood the connection between Soleil Gray and Derek Snow, she asked a few more questions, details that satisfied her and allowed her to check later, and ended the meeting. After she got the contact information for Colin, she showed the police rendering of the Texan. “Have you ever seen this man here?”
They both said no. She asked them to think of him in a different context than as a guest, perhaps on someone’s security detail. The answer was still no, although the manager kept the picture.
“That’s all for now,” said Heat, “except a question about one more person. Has Cassidy Towne ever come here?”
“Please,” said the manager. “This is the Dragonfly.”
On the walk back to the car, Rook laughed and said, “Or we can talk to you in a . . . ‘more official setting.’ That goes on my list of Heatisms, along with Zoo Lockup and blast matrix.”
“I was showing some refinement. After all, it was the Dragonfly.”
Rook said, “So the question for me remains, why was Derek calling Soleil Gray the night of Cassidy’s murder?”
“Right there with you,” said Heat. “And the freak-out reaction from her.”
“I don’t suppose that’s because the concierge couldn’t get her the table she wanted at Per Se.”
“Not being a fan of coincidences, I’d say a call with that timing, two bodies with stab wounds, duct-taped to chairs . . . Derek Snow has to be related to Cassidy Towne, but how? And if Soleil wasn’t complicit in her murder, is she feeling in some kind of danger herself?”
“Here’s a nutty idea. Ask her.”
“Yeah, and she’ll be straight with me, too.” And then she said, “But you know I will.”
As Nikki headed north on First Avenue toward the OCME, Rook said, “With or without the lobby gunplay, I’m still going with the premise that Derek was a Cassidy tipster.”
“Well, we’re pulling his phone records, let’s see if you’re right.” She blew air out between her teeth. “Sordid, isn’t it? Thinking people are spying on you for cash. What you ate, what you drank, who you’re sleeping with, all so Cassidy Towne can put it out to people in the Ledger.”
“Most of it was true, though. She told me she got something wrong early on, right after she started her column, about Woody Allen having an affair with Meryl Streep. Her source said he was obsessed with her ever since Manhattan. Not true, totally blew it. The other papers pounced on it and called her the Towne Liar. From then on, she said if it wasn’t true and verifiable—from two sources—she’d rather let someone else scoop her.”
“Noble. For a scumbag.”
“Yes, and none of us ever read those columns, do we? Come on, Nikki, the problem is if you take them seriously. They’re like the sports section for peeping Toms, which is just about everybody.”