But what got me was the expression on Tracy’s face. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen with him. Never, not ever, had he looked so panicked, so consumed by instant regret.
Still, I could’ve been mad. Furious, even. The process. We’d already devoted so much time and energy to it. Stacks of paperwork. Endless phone calls to government offices. On the surface it seemed crazy that Tracy couldn’t overlook the ignorance of one person. It was all a dog and pony show anyway, this in-home interview.
Yet I wasn’t mad. Far from it. If anything, I was more convinced than ever that Tracy and I were ready to be parents. Good parents.
“What you’ve done is the same thing we would’ve taught our child,” I said. “Always stand up for yourself.”
Chapter 8
“I KNEW you’d call,” said Elizabeth.
I knew I would, too. “For the record, though, that was by far the worst attempt at reverse psychology I’ve ever seen,” I said. “And I’ve seen them all, Detective.”
Elizabeth looked over at me, sitting in the shotgun seat of her unmarked Ford sedan. We were driving through Central Park late the next morning via the 65th Street Transverse, below Sheep Meadow. “It couldn’t have been that bad,” she said.
She was right. I was there with her, after all, even after she’d told me at Jojo’s that it was best if I didn’t strap on my junior detective badge and get too involved with the investigation. She could always follow up with me if she had any more questions. I could advise her from the sidelines.
Of course, she knew all along I wasn’t a sidelines kind of guy.
Hence my calling her first thing that morning. Had it not been the weekend, though, my first call would’ve instead been to the head of the adoption agency, Barbara Nash, to discuss the disaster of the in-home interview that never even made it into our home. Most Manhattanites have their cell numbers printed on their business cards. Barbara, a transplant from Montana, didn’t. I was fairly certain that wasn’t an oversight.
“There it is,” said Elizabeth, pointing.
As fast as you can say “Sherman Hemsley,” we’d crossed over to the Upper East Side, arriving at Jared Louden’s town house on 68th Street near the corner of Fifth Avenue.
“Must be nice,” I said.
Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah. Swanky neighborhood.”
“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.”