The 6 20 man, p.19
The 6:20 Man, page 19
“What gives is that I do not have to explain myself or my reasoning to you. So, in exchange for what’s on your phone, the video of you and your entry log disappears. What do you say?”
“How can I possibly be sure you’ll really do that?”
“And how can I know you don’t have that stuff stashed in multiple places? At some point we have to trust each other.”
“If that’s the case, why exchange at all?”
“Mutual assured destruction. I was about to propose it myself. But there is no statute of limitations on murder. The video of me and Jenn shows up somewhere ten years from now, what I got is miraculously discovered and goes right to NYPD. And you go to Sing Sing or whatever place they have going at the time. And you never get out. Are we clear on all that?”
“Why do you care if anyone sees the pictures or video? You’re not married. You’re both consenting adults.”
“It’s the optics, Devine. I’m the head of a major investment house. I don’t need that crap plastered over the trash press. Clients wouldn’t like it. They’ll think I’m reckless. They’ll think I’m demeaning to women. And ladies run some of our biggest clients.” He added in a growl, “And I talked to you before about that. Use your damn brain.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
Cowl eyed him. “So, who killed Sara?”
“No clue. Did you have the same relationship with Sara you do with Jennifer?”
“Just like the last time you asked that, I’m not going to answer. But I will say that what Jenn and I have is . . . special.”
Devine visualized them on the desk and tried hard not to laugh. “You mean like you have with Michelle Montgomery?”
“Michelle is short-term. She knows that. She’s great to look at, great in the sack, and that’s the extent of her repertoire. Jenn is different. Gorgeous, with the brains to match.”
Devine felt his temper rising with these callous statements about Montgomery. He decided to change the subject. “Sara had an abortion.”
He couldn’t tell from Cowl’s features whether he was aware of this or not.
“Well, I’m not the father,” said Cowl.
“How can you know for sure?”
“A certain act has to take place for that to happen. It did not take place between Sara and me.” He paused. “Not for lack of trying. She was like Jenn. Brainy, beautiful, but also aloof, played hard to get. She drove me nuts, but I could never land her.”
You really are a dick, thought Devine.
Cowl finished off his brandy and rose. “Okay, we done here?”
Devine stood. “Done.”
“Good, now get your ass back to work and make me some damn money, Devine.”
CHAPTER
39
DEVINE WAS LEAVING THE BUILDING for his meeting with Ellen and Fred Ewes when the woman hurried up to him. She had obviously been waiting outside for him to appear.
Rachel Potter looked fired up and itching for battle as she approached him, microphone in hand, while her beefy cameraman hovered behind her filming it all.
“Mr. Devine, Rachel Potter, Channel Forty-Four News. I understand that NYPD is investigating you in connection with the murder of Sara Ewes, a story I previously broke. Do you have a comment, Mr. Devine?”
“No.” He pushed past her as people on the street gawked and started whispering.
Potter raced after him, the power pack on the back of her waist jiggling with the movements.
“Are you denying that you are a suspect in Sara Ewes’s murder? Are you denying that you had a relationship of a sexual nature with her? Are you denying that you are the father of the child she aborted? Are you denying that you had a motive to kill her?”
It was like machine-gun fire, only with words.
Devine allowed this barrage to go on for a half block as more damaging and lurid statements in the form of questions that the woman never expected answers to rained down on him like explosives from carpet-bombing planes.
“Is this live?” he asked, suddenly whirling around so fast she bumped into him.
“Would it be a problem for you if it were?” she said in a simpering manner. She stuck the mic in his face. “So, talk to our viewers, Mr. Devine. Here’s your chance. Tell us your side!”
“Okay, do you deny taking me prisoner in your news van while attempting to coerce me into giving you a scoop because you said you wanted to get away from shitty Channel Forty-Four and make it to the big-league single-digit stations?”
He stood there, and Potter stood there, her face shedding color like a landing plane did altitude, while the camera shot was jumping due to Beefy’s trying hard not to bust a gut.
“How dare you make such an accusation!” she wailed.
“Took the words right out of my mouth, lady.”
He turned and stalked off. This time Potter did not follow.
He dialed up an Uber and took it to Ewes’s old home in Park Slope.
Old home. It makes it sound like she’s been gone for decades instead of days.
Ellen Ewes answered his knock. She was dressed in jeans, a sleeveless white blouse, and sandals. The inside of the house was warm. It would be winter in New Zealand now, he thought. Maybe they were trying to take in as much heat as possible before heading back.
Fred Ewes was in the living room drinking what looked to be lemonade. He had on jeans, too, and a lavender polo shirt. He looked up absently at Devine. Ellen and Devine sat across from each other.
Ellen began: “The police have told us some things.”
“Really, such as?”
“They traced the clinic that Sara used for the abortion.”
“How did they do that?” asked Devine.
“I’m not sure. It was a place outside the city.”
“Were the doctors able to provide any information to the police? Do they know who the father was?”
“No, at least not that they’ve told us.”
Devine sat back, looking and feeling disappointed.
“If they had, would your name have come up?”
“Why would you ask that? Is it something Sara mentioned?”
“No, she was not very transparent with me on her relationships.”
“I thought you two were close. You said you talked pretty much weekly.”
Ellen looked uncomfortable with the question. “The fact is, Sara and I were estranged over the last year or so. She seemed to have changed.”
“Changed? How so?”
“She was not the girl that I raised,” replied Ellen.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. I just want to know if you could have been the father.”
“Okay, do they know how far along Sara was?” asked Devine.
“Eight weeks. At least that’s what we were told.”
“And when did she have the procedure done?”
“In December,” Ellen replied.
“Then I was not the father. I hadn’t even met her at that point.”
“But you had sex with her? Outside of marriage?”
“Is that the reason for the estrangement? Sara was having sex outside of marriage?”
“That is not how we raised her.” She glanced at her husband. “Fred?”
He didn’t look at her or Devine. He merely said, “Young people sometimes make . . . poor decisions.”
Ellen rolled her eyes at this mild rebuke and shook her head. “Yes, very poor. She took the life of our grandchild, which is a mortal sin.”
“I’m sure it must have been an incredibly difficult decision for her,” said Devine.
“It shouldn’t have been her decision at all,” Ellen said heatedly.
He put up a hand. “I’m not going to get into all that with you right now. But she must have had a good reason. The woman I knew was kind and gentle.”
Ellen exclaimed, “Then you obviously didn’t know her. But, no, you did know her. You slept with her like the slut she was.”
“How can you say that? She was your child,” Devine snapped back. “She was a good person. And she didn’t deserve to be murdered!”
“Neither did that poor, innocent baby.”
Silence lingered for a few moments until Devine broke it. “Did anyone check Sara’s social media accounts? I know she was on Instagram.”
Fred said, “The police looked at all that and found nothing helpful. No pictures or references to current or past boyfriends.”
“But that could mean nothing, since you weren’t on any of it, Travis,” noted Ellen sharply.
“Did the police tell you that specifically?”
She looked down and didn’t answer.
“Did they ever find her diary?” asked Devine.
“They found nothing like that, as I told you before.”
“How about on her electronics? Or in her personal cloud?”
“So were you two dating?” she asked.
“Relationships like that aren’t allowed at Cowl and Comely,” said Devine. “That gets you fired.”
“You kept it secret, then?” persisted Ellen.
He ignored this. “Do you know the name of the doctor who performed the procedure on Sara?”
“Yes, why?”
“Can I have it?”
“You say you’re not the father, so what does it matter to you?”
“It matters to me because a friend of mine, someone I cared about, was killed. I’d like to find out why and by whom.”
Ellen looked at her husband. He pulled something from his jeans pocket and handed it across. It was a slip of paper. On it was a name and address of a clinic in Westchester.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you out,” said Ellen.
They stood on the stoop for a moment. Ellen said, “I can see you do not approve of my beliefs.”
“They’re your beliefs, so I have to respect them.”
“But not agree with them?”
“Like I said before, Ellen, this is really not the time or place to have that discussion. You have the absolute right to believe what you want, and so do I.”
Her mouth suddenly twisted in disgust, but she wasn’t looking at him, Devine observed. He looked over his shoulder to see two women on the pavement holding hands and kissing.
Devine turned back to her. The disgusted look was gone, but she said, “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this town.”
CHAPTER
40
“WELL, TWICE IN ONE DAY. What a lucky girl I am.”
Michelle Montgomery had answered Devine’s knock on the front door of her walk-up. She had taken off her business suit and wore faded, holey jean short-shorts, a white short-sleeved T-shirt, and no shoes. Her toenails were painted scarlet.
“Depends on how things turn out,” he replied.
She ushered him inside, and he took in the space. Clean, uncluttered, minimal furniture, some decent artwork, colorful rugs on the hardwood floors, a couple pieces of what looked to be African sculpture, and the scent of reefer.
“Well, a couple more breaths and I’ll be feeling quite mellow after my long day of toil at Cowl and Comely.”
“I’ve got some good weed if you’re interested.”
“If you have some cold beer, I’d be very interested.”
She got the beers and said, “Come on, I know where there’s a breeze. The AC here isn’t the best.”
She led him up to the flat roof, where a couple of deck chairs were set up. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. They sat and she pointed out a sliver between two buildings and said, “Water view. That apparently costs extra.”
“And worth every penny. And so is that breeze.” He turned his face and let tendrils of air slide over his skin as he drank his beer.
“How’d it go with Brad?”
“Surprisingly well. We reached a mutual understanding.”
“I guess that’s good for you, then.”
“Good for us both. Hey, were you with Brad last Thursday night?”
“Thursday night?” She thought for a minute. “No. I was at his house, but he wasn’t there. He probably was in the city.”
Maybe at the place where Sara died.
“Do you know a Jennifer Stamos?”
“No.”
“Okay. Chilton said you were family friends. Since I know his family dates to the Mayflower and his blue-blood family comes from money, I guessed you did, too. But then you mentioned staying in a student hostel in Italy.”
“We’re not blue bloods and my family’s not rich. My father worked on the Chiltons’ Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, and my mother cleaned their house and took care of their kids. I was the wild and fun daughter of the hired help who lived on the premises.”
“Interesting. You have any siblings?”
“Two sisters. One younger and in college and thriving, and one older and married. To a doctor. And very happily.”
“Good for them. Do they look like you?”
“I think my younger sister is better-looking than I am.”
“Not what I meant, but that’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it. My older sister, Beth, is the one with the brains.”
He thought back to the disparaging remarks Cowl had made about her. “I don’t think you’re too shabby in that department, Michelle.”
“I couldn’t even make it through college.”
“You probably didn’t want to be bored with all the cookie-cutter courses in return for a boatload of student debt. And you wanted to see the world, like you said. And look where it landed you.”
She fingered her beer. “Yeah, I get paid to hang on the arm of a wealthy man and look wonderful. I like to think of it as living by my wits, but it’s not really that.” She looked down at herself. “I need this. Brad is not interested in my brain, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Use what you have. Guys do it, why not girls?”
She glanced at him. “Guys do it in a very different way. And I like you more when you’re less agreeable.” She stared off. “My mother wanted me to be a model. Pushed me from an early age. All the auditions, shooting local commercials when I was six, this pageant, that pageant, teeth fixed, lessons on how to walk a certain way and talk a certain way. I never got to have a normal childhood. She got mad when I tried to do my schoolwork. She told me my strength, unlike my older sister’s, was not my mind, but somewhat lower on my body. She was pissed off when I finally walked away from it all. Said I had betrayed her. Yeah, like it wasn’t my life, but her little vicarious fantasy.”
“My father rode me all the time, too. I was never good enough. Not like my brother and sister.”
She said suddenly, “How about giving me a foot rub?” She put her feet up in his lap. A little surprised by this, he put his beer down and started rubbing her feet.
“You have very strong hands. And I can feel the calluses.”
“What every guy wants to hear.”
“I am saving up,” she said abruptly. “Brad pays me and invests it for me. My portfolio is going gangbusters.”
“Good for you. I’ve got like ten bucks in my account.”
She took a sip of beer. “My goal is to retire when I’m thirty.”
He started grinding away at her heels, applying lots of pressure.
“Oh my God, this is like heaven. You should charge for that.”
“I just might, Miss Portfolio,” he said. “And then what would you do after you retire?”
“Maybe go back to college. Learn something that doesn’t require me to wear a bikini.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“It has to be. When my looks go, it’s over.”
“Come on, don’t sell yourself short. You seem damn astute to me, more than a lot of the so-called brainiacs I work with who can barely pack a lunch or cross the street safely.”
“You’re lying to make me feel better.”
“I don’t lie to make anyone feel better, including myself.”
She put a hand on his arm. “But you want to have sex with me, right? I am the fantasy train girl, right?”
The further they went in this direction, the less he liked it. Was Cowl paying her to do this, as some sort of chess move in the battle between them?
“I’m not on the train now. I’m rubbing your incredibly tense feet and enjoying the four-inch Hudson River view. And you’re flesh and blood, not a fantasy. And we’re having a nice conversation that is heading to pretty deep waters for some reason I’m not sure about.” He looked over at her. “And why would you want to have sex with me?”
She almost coughed up a mouthful of beer. “Okay, that’s a first. No guy’s ever asked me that before, especially when I’ve made the first move. I usually have to stop them from ripping my clothes off.” She eyed him appraisingly. “You’re a nice guy, or at least you seem to be. You’re certainly different. You don’t seem to care about what so many people care about in this city.”
“Meaning money? Prestige?”
“All of that. It’s a great town for culture and entertainment and I love the vibe, but it’s also hypercompetitive. Whatever folks have, it’s never enough. I hate that.”
“You mean like Brad Cowl?” he said.
She finished her beer and stared dully out at the gap to the water. He picked up his beer and asked, “If you went back to college, what would you get a degree in?”
“People,” she said slowly, drawing the two syllables out.
“So psychology, then?”
“No, I want to be a photographer. A picture can capture everything. No matter how much people lie to you, their true selves are always revealed in their pictures.”
“Always, even when they know you’re taking them?”
She looked at him. “Especially then, because they try so hard to hide who they really are, it comes out in some other way in their body language, their expression.” She slipped her phone from her pocket. “Say cheese.”
