“Did Mr. Zimmer have any enemies?” Kylie asked.
Neill shrugged. “Sure, but not the kind that would blow him up. Arnie pissed a lot of people off. If something wasn’t going the way he wanted, he was quick to get in people’s faces. You guys ought to know.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Yesterday afternoon Arnie told me he laced into the mayor, then he read the riot act to a couple of her supercops because they weren’t looking hard enough for whoever killed Del Fairfax. I figured that was you.”
“We’re not supercops,” I said.
“But you’re trying to solve the first bombing, and now you’re on the second one. Do you have any leads?”
“We’re working on it,” I said.
And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, it dawned on me. That was the same promise I’d made to Arnie Zimmer just twenty-four hours earlier.
CHAPTER 19
Kylie and I thanked Bill Neill and started walking back toward our car, which we’d been forced to abandon on 70th Street because York Avenue had been clogged with emergency vehicles.
By the time we got back to the blast site, some semblance of order had been restored. At least half of the fire trucks and patrol cars had been released, news vans were relegated to the side streets, and all civilian traffic from 61st to 72nd had been diverted to First and Second Avenues. That left two lanes open on York for official vehicles. I immediately recognized the black SUV parked in front of the 68th Street gate. It was the most official vehicle of them all.
“Detectives!” a voice boomed.
It was Charlie, the mayor’s driver. He waved us over to the car, opened the back door, and Kylie and I slid into the back seat next to Muriel Sykes.
“Yesterday, when I called you and asked you to get Arnie Zimmer off my back, this is not what I had in mind,” she said. “He has now managed to become a bigger pain in the ass to me dead than he was alive. I realize that the dust hasn’t even settled, but do you have anything? One murder is a tragedy. Two is a conspiracy.”
“Madam Mayor,” Kylie said, “when Zach and I met with the three surviving Silver Bullet founders yesterday, Arnie Zimmer tried to convince us that Del Fairfax was killed by a disgruntled contractor. If there’s a conspiracy against them as a group, I’m sure it came as as big a surprise to Zimmer as it did to us.”
“So you have nothing. No suspects. No leads.”
“Not yet.”
“What about Aubrey Davenport? She got bumped off the front page because of the bombing, but she’s a big-name filmmaker, and the whole autoerotic asphyxiation thing is going to sell a lot of newspapers. Where are you on that?”
We told her.
“So this Janek Hoffmann,” she said, going over the high points, “he’s her cameraman, and there’s evidence of a tripod at the crime scene. The brother-in-law tells you that the guy is mentally and physically abusive. Davenport’s car is parked a block from Hoffmann’s apartment, and he has no alibi for the time of the murder. It sounds to me like you have an incredibly viable suspect.”
“But we can’t arrest him,” I said. “We don’t have enough evidence to take to the DA.”
“Zach, I know the rules. I was a U.S. attorney, and when I ran for mayor, I pushed every law-and-order hot button I could. How is it going to look to the voters if I have two unsolved high-profile cases hanging over my head in my first four months? I need an arrest, and you’re closer on this than you are on the bombings.”
“Madam Mayor, if we go to Mick Wilson and tell him we want to charge Janek Hoffmann, he’ll kick us out of his—”
“I’ve got two words for our illustrious district attorney,” she barked.
I braced myself for the inevitable mayoral f-bomb.
“Selma Kaplan.”
“Ma’am?”
“Selma is the smartest ADA in New York County. If anyone can help me get a win on the front page, it’s her. Plus she’s got the balls to stand up to Wilson, and she’s loyal—we went to Brooklyn Law together. Talk to her and see what she can come up with.” She leaned over and yanked the door handle. “Please…”
Thirty minutes later, Kylie and I were in the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, reconnecting with one of the best prosecutors in the business.
Kaplan came around from behind her desk and shook our hands. “Detectives, I wish we could spend twenty minutes together rehashing past glories,” she said, “but the villagers are breaking the law faster than I can lock them up. The only reason you got past the wolf at the door is because my old friend Muriel has my cell number, and she’s not ashamed to beg. She gave me an overview, but tell me what you’ve got on this Janek Hoffmann.”
Kylie and I filled her in, and when we were done, Kaplan shook her head and frowned.
“If I’m going to get a conviction, I need more than some juicer playing Fifty Shades of Weird with the victim and no alibi,” she said.
“We told the mayor we didn’t think you could hang a case on it,” I said.
“I can’t.” She paused. “But—and this is a big but—my gut tells me you’ve got enough circumstantial evidence to convince a grand jury to lock him up. Especially once they’re told he’s a flight risk who could hop a plane to Warsaw at any minute. Bring him in. I can get an indictment. That’ll buy you enough time to either build a case against Hoffmann or, to quote O.J., ‘find the real killer.’”
“Thanks, Selma,” Kylie said. “We owe you one.”
“No, sweetheart,” Kaplan said. “Muriel owes me one. And make sure you let her know that I plan to collect.”
CHAPTER 20
The Miranda warning is eloquent in its simplicity. And yet a few seconds after we advised Janek Hoffmann that anything he said “can and will be used against you in a court of law,” he assured us that he understood his rights and then blurted out, “I didn’t kill her. But if I did, I didn’t mean it.”
Kylie tossed me a grin that summed up what we were both thinking: We may not have enough evidence to convict this idiot, but with a little luck, he’ll hang himself.
In short order, he was assigned a lawyer from Legal Aid, arraigned, and remanded without bail. The mayor’s spin doctors did their best to drum up media buzz for the arrest, but in a city whose mantra is “If you see something, say something,” the two unsolved bombings dominated the airwaves.
By six thirty we’d wrapped up the paperwork. Since Dr. Langford’s office was across town, we welcomed the opportunity for some new dining options and drove to Pizzeria Sirenetta on Amsterdam Avenue for some rustic Italian fare.
Ninety minutes later, we parked at a hydrant on a tree-lined stretch of West End Avenue outside Langford’s apartment building. Kylie and I had Googled him before we left the office. He was forty-seven and had written five books, and with his thick mop of ginger hair, surfer-blue eyes, and camera-ready smile, he was the guy the TV stations called when they needed an expert.
“Just our luck,” Kylie said. “Another pain-in-the-ass celebrity shrink.”
The two of us had faced off with our share of A-list psychiatrists in the past, and humility is not their strong suit. Rule of thumb: the more famous they are, the more arrogant they can get.
“Cheryl likes him,” I told her. “She says he’s a no-bullshit kind of guy.”
“Cheryl’s a lousy judge of character,” Kylie said. “Look at who she’s dating.”
It turned out that Cheryl was right: Langford was likable from the get-go. Two minutes after we entered his waiting room, he stepped out of his office, walked his patient to the front door, and introduced himself.
“Morey Langford. I’ve heard quite a bit about you both. I’m sorry to meet you under such tragic circumstances. I’ve been in a news-free zone since this morning. Have you made any progress?”