The Girl in Times Square Read online

  Lily shouldn’t have spoken so quickly because after Tuesday’s two bags, she quickly deteriorated. Days went by without food. She didn’t want to eat. Joy insisted. Her grandmother with her chicken soup insisted. Amanda, as ever a mother, with her brownies insisted. Anne with her take-out Thai, paid for by Lily, insisted. Spencer with pizza insisted, and Lily had a piece of what he was offering before she went to the bathroom to throw it up. In front of the bathroom stood Joy. “You can’t throw up the only bite of food you’ve had all day.” She did not move from the door. Lily had no choice but to lean forward and throw up at Joy’s feet onto the wide plank wood floor as Spencer turned his head. After that Joy no longer blocked the bathroom, but tried to find and make food that Lily would keep. Harder realized than imagined. After the second week, Lily couldn’t keep anything down at all Mondays and Tuesdays. By Wednesday she would have some chicken soup. Spencer brought the soup from Odessa. “Lily, you have to eat. You understand? You can’t not eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care what you are. It’s not about the hunger, it’s about the food. Your strength comes from food.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care. Eat.”

  “Talk to me. Any news?”

  “I won’t tell you unless you eat.”

  So Lily, because she was curious, would have some liquid, some crackers, and then listen to Spencer, all the while fighting with herself not to retch. If she lay very quietly on the futon and did not speak or nod her head, she felt in balance.

  What can I do to make you feel better? What can I do to help?

  Rachel. Paul. Dennis, Rick the manager, Grandma, Amanda, Anne, Spencer all in unison now, WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?

  Stop talking to me about Andrew. Stop. I can’t hear another word of it. I’m sick, can’t you see? But sometimes, Lily had to turn away from the cancer, too.

  Where to turn to?

  31

  Advanced Interrogation

  A week after Andrew got home, Spencer drove out to Port Jefferson to talk to him. Harkman came along, but extremely reluctantly, suddenly mumbling about other cases, other leads, other investigations, things piling up on his desk, but mostly about not feeling well. Spencer started to argue, then stopped. There was no point. Something had to be done about Harkman. Spencer needed a new partner. He needed his friend Gabe from homicide. They drove to Port Jefferson in stony silence.

  Spencer knew he might have to bring Andrew in for questioning, and to do that, Andrew would have to be formally detained and then formally charged. But with what?

  “Have you no decency?” said Andrew. “I can’t believe you’re here. I told you last time, I know nothing about Amy’s disappearance, and nothing’s changed since then. Have you any idea what this is doing to my wife?”

  “Would you like to come with us then and speak privately at the station?”

  “Why are you here?” Andrew swung open the door.

  “Because I have new information. Believe me, if I had nothing new to ask you, I wouldn’t be here.” Spencer walked through.

  “You’ve got something against me,” Andrew said. “You’ve had it from the start. You sit on your bar stool and you moralize about me—”

  Spencer’s eyes darkened. “Whoa,” he said. “This has nothing to do with me. No matter how flattering it is to talk about myself with a United States Congressman, we are going to talk about you. Here or at the station? Your pick.”

  “Here, but I’m telling you, detective, for the last time.”

  Spencer took a step toward a bigger, bulkier Andrew. “I’m telling you, Congressman,” he said, nearly cornering Andrew into the hall. “I will talk to you as many times as I need to, and when you stop talking to me, I will book you for obstructing justice, is that clear? I don’t give a damn how many friends you have on the police force.”

  Andrew didn’t respond. Spencer and Harkman followed him into his office. He slammed the door and bounded to his desk. “What?” he said loudly. “What is it now?”

  Harkman was standing next to Spencer with an expression almost as sour and angry as Andrew’s.

  “Did you buy Amy a $195 belt from Ferragamo on 5th Avenue back in March?” Spencer asked.

  Andrew laughed. “Are you honestly asking me if I remember buying a belt six months ago?”

  “No. I’m asking you if you remember paying cash for a $200 belt six months ago.”

  “Detective, I can honestly say, I don’t recall.”

  “Is that honestly to contrast with all the other times you said you didn’t recall?”

  Andrew’s face grew swiftly colder. “Have you got anything else besides the belt?”

  “Yes. Tiffany’s, Prada, Guess, Gucci, Versace, Mont Blanc, Louis Vuitton. All gifts from you?”

  “I don’t know. Some possibly. Not all.”

  “My point is, you treated her rather well, didn’t you?”

  “Detective, what in the world does this have to do with your business?”

  “I’m going to explain. Now, I don’t mean to be indelicate, and I’m going to ask this as politely as I can, but surely you and Amy didn’t just go shopping when you got together?”

  Andrew said nothing.

  “Your train from D.C. drops you off, you two meet, you have lunch, and then? Where did you go when you weren’t having drinks at 57/57, or buying pens at Mont Blanc?”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “I have to be more blunt?” Spencer shook his exasperated head. “Where did you go when you—”

  “Here, there. A hotel.”

  “The Sheraton? The Grand Hyatt? The Marriott? The Hilton? The Holiday Inn?” Spencer said that disparagingly.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No,” Andrew returned defiantly.

  Such intransigence. Spencer had to take a chance here. But Andrew was being so evasive, leaving Spencer no choice. “I see. Well, Amy has quite a stash of little shampoo and lotion bottles from a certain hotel. Would looking at them perhaps help you remember?”

  Andrew heaved out a breath. “The Four Seasons, if you must know.”

  Aha. So the congressman answered truthfully only when his back was to the wall. “The Four Seasons.” Spencer whistled. “I didn’t know the Four Seasons was the kind of establishment that rented rooms by the hour.”

  “Oh, enough already!”

  They were all standing. Andrew stood with his arms crossed. Harkman was sweating. It was difficult for him to stand so long: his legs became swollen and numb. His sour smell filled Andrew’s office.

  Spencer glared at Andrew. “You obviously knew where you used to stay. Why not just say so?” he said quietly. “What you’re doing is the definition of obstructing justice. You’re giving me ample reason to believe that you are hiding a great deal more than I’m asking you.”

  “Detective, you’re being remarkably obtuse for an investigator. I’ve got a wife whom I have not taken to the Four Seasons! I feel extremely uncomfortable talking to you about this, now do you understand why perhaps I’m not being as forthcoming as I might be if we were talking about sports or politics?”

  “Indeed, you treated Amy McFadden extremely well.” Spencer was studying him. There seemed to be plenty of reason for Andrew not to be honest. $600 a day hotel rooms with his wife’s old Hartford money.

  “Under what name did you register at the Four Seasons?”

  “You know what?” said Andrew. “I refuse to answer that question. I simply refuse.”

  “Why?”

  “Detective!” Andrew exhaled. “Can’t you see how this is going to look? I’ve already ended my senatorial bid. I’m desperately trying to save my job and my marriage. Your questions are not going to help you find Amy, but they are going to cost my wife and me a great deal.”

  Spencer noted the absence of an answer. “Under what name?” he repeated.

  “Under my wife�
��s maiden name,” Andrew said through his teeth. “Happy now?”

  “Not happy, no. But I understand things just a little bit better. Congressman, what did you do on Friday, May 14? You took your customary train that dropped you at Penn at 10:45 in the morning. But you weren’t at your Port Jeff office until seven o’clock. What happened to you between the hours of eleven, when you took two thousand dollars out of an ATM machine at Penn Station, and five-thirty, when you took the ride to Port Jeff?”

  “What happened to me between the hours of eleven and five-thirty?”

  “Why do you keep repeating my questions, Congressman?”

  “Because I don’t understand what you’re asking me. What hours?”

  “The afternoon hours of Friday, May 14, 1999. The hours you usually spent at the Four Seasons, but you have told us yourself you and Amy had ended your relationship in April.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, then, where were you, Congressman, on May 14?”

  Andrew nearly stammered. “Frankly, I don’t remember. I don’t understand what the afternoon of May 14 has to do with anything.”

  “Six hours in the middle of the last Friday that anyone has seen Amy alive, is what it has to do with.”

  “I don’t think you’re listening to me, detective.”

  “I hear you loud and clear. If you weren’t with her, where were you?”

  “I was—nowhere. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought you had no idea when she disappeared?”

  “We know when she was last seen alive. You got off the train at eleven, took out two thousand dollars and didn’t show up in Port Jefferson until seven. Where were you?”

  “I was nowhere, I tell you. I may have gone shopping.”

  “Where you used to go shopping with Amy?”

  “Around there.”

  “This time did you go shopping with her?”

  “Is English your second language? I told you a thousand times, I didn’t see her that Friday!”

  “So what did you buy?”

  “What did I buy?” Andrew was incredulous. “I don’t remember.”

  “You must have bought something.”

  “I must have, but it was four months ago. I don’t remember.”

  “Do you have receipts for your purchases? You kept an ATM receipt from that day when you took money out in Port Jeff. Did you keep receipts for what you bought that Friday? Perhaps next to the ATM receipt?”

  “I don’t have receipts for the things you’re asking. I can’t remember what stores I went to.”

  Harkman and Spencer shook their heads. Harkman spoke his first words of the interview. “Congressman, I have never met a man who remembered so little about so much. I don’t think you’re fit to make laws for our country.”

  “Give me a fucking break.”

  “Will us booking you on suspicion of a capital crime help you remember?”

  “How many times do I have to repeat myself? I hadn’t seen her since April when she—when she and I ended it! I didn’t see her that Friday, I tell you!”

  “Then why did you take two grand from an ATM at Penn Station?”

  “I have no idea! That’s the money I probably spent shopping.”

  “Shopping you don’t remember, buying things you can’t recall, in stores you can’t name?”

  “Detective, I’m calling my lawyer and your captain because this constitutes nothing but blatant harassment!”

  “And you know what else?” said Spencer. “I don’t believe that a man who buys his lover at least four lots of jewelry from Tiffany’s and takes her to the Four Seasons is the same man who can’t remember the first time he met her, the first time they got together, how long the affair lasted, what he bought her and how often he saw her. Either one is true, or the other, but both cannot be true, they don’t make sense. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “I get nothing you’re saying. I’ve stopped listening.”

  Harkman struggled up. “Spencer, let’s go,” he said. “Let’s just go.”

  “One more thing,” said Spencer. He asked if Andrew knew that Amy volunteered at the shelter.

  “Vaguely. Superficially. So what? I’m sure there are a number of things about her I did not know.” Ice was in his voice when he spoke.

  “Do you know who Milo is?”

  The congressman blinked before he answered. “No.”

  “Never heard of him?” Spencer didn’t blink so as not to miss a single thing.

  “I can’t recall. I don’t think so. Who is he?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Did Andrew know who Milo was and wasn’t saying? Spencer didn’t understand anything.

  “Congressman, if you know who this Milo is and we can find him, perhaps he knows where Amy is, and if that’s the case, we don’t come here to bother you again. I’m sure this is something you’d like, no? But as things look now, I’m coming back,” Spencer said. “I’m coming back with a warrant for your arrest.”

  And in the car, an exhausted Harkman, his eyes closed, said to Spencer, “I don’t remember any empty shampoo bottles from the Four Seasons in the evidence room.”

  “Ah,” said Spencer. “That’s because there weren’t any.”

  Harkman’s whole body shook in disbelief. “Man, you got some fucking balls.”

  Next day’s headlines were full of the congresssman, and the rest.

  32

  Andrew’s Alibi

  Chief Colin Whittaker called Spencer into his office and asked him to close the door. “O’Malley, are you nucking futs?”

  Spencer could see Harkman through the glass windows, sitting, sweating, a satisfied smirk on his fat face. “What’s going on, Chief?”

  Whittaker was tall, rumpled, gray-haired, carrying two weapons strapped to him, not wearing a jacket, already perspiring even though it was early morning and cold. “Our honorable congressman is fit to be tied.”

  “Yes, tied up in jail.”

  “He said you came into his home and completely overstepped your bounds. Says you harassed him. He is ready to sue the NYPD.”

  “I didn’t harass him,” rejoined Spencer. “I asked him some routine questions, which he was slow in answering, by the way. Cagey, stalling for time, stammering, evasive, quick to anger, repeating my questions back to me. Slow. Hiding something. Lying, Chief.”

  “Did you get him to cough up information based on evidence you didn’t have?”

  “I got him to tell me the truth about one fucking thing, yes.” Harkman was such a bastard.

  Whittaker pressed his hands together and when he spoke he used a placating, deliberate, through-the-teeth tone one uses with wayward children. “Spencer, I have been so good to you. I never second guess you, I let you do what you want, I watch your back, I stick up for you, sometimes I cover for you. You’ve been worth it. But I’m afraid I have to put my foot down on this one. Do you know who Bill Bryant is?”

  “No.”

  “He is a retired New York City councilman, turned businessman, philanthropist, charitable contributor to historical landmarks in New York City, and a very generous contributor to the NYPD. Most of the new Kevlar vests we have, including yours, we have because of his generosity.”

  “Bully for him. What does he have to do with anything?”

  “He has an office in the Carnegie Hall Tower. On 57th Street.”

  “All right…” Spencer drew out.

  “Bryant called his good friend the police commissioner late last night—the police commissioner!—and said that Andrew Quinn came to see him on the afternoon of May 14, around one or two p.m. They spent two or three hours together, went out for a drink at the 57/57 bar, and then Quinn went to Penn Station to catch a train home. Our councilman, who’s been in public life for fifty years and is a revered member of the community, is willing to swear an oath to this. This morning he sent us the original copy of his private planner, where Andrew Quinn’s name in Bryant’s own handwriting is penciled
in from the hours of one to four in the afternoon.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why didn’t Quinn remember this yesterday when I spoke to him?”

  “I don’t know why. I’m not privy to everything that goes on in his sleazoid, adulterous brain. However, if he needed an alibi for that Friday afternoon because of some cockamamie theory you dreamed up, he’s got one.”

  “Conveniently he got one the day after I came to speak to him when he didn’t have one.”

  “He didn’t remember. He said he was flustered, there was a social gathering at his house, he was feeling extremely stressed and harassed by you.”

  “Oh, bullshit.”

  “Spencer, you know what, how about if you and I make a little deal? Until you find the body, parts of the body, bloodied clothing, or photographs of the deceased in the congressman’s wallet, you don’t bother the congressman, the councilman, the senators, the governor, or the frigging president. You simply leave all politicians out of it until you have a scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing. How would that be for you?”

  “Chief, come on. Quinn has a lot at stake. How do you know he didn’t kill her because she was going to go public with the affair? Perhaps she was pregnant. He’s going to run for the Senate again, you’ll see. He’s completely shameless. And you know he is, look, he used his wife’s name to register in a hotel so he could pop his mistress! I mean, this is the kind of man we’re dealing with.”

  “I hope you’re using pop in the one sense and not in the other, O’Malley. Yes, he is a son of a bitch to his wife. That’s what divorce is for. The rest of what you’re telling me is nothing but conjecture, supposition, assumption, guesswork. It’s not police-work. Speculative motive, yes, but no evidence, not even circumstantial evidence! And he’s got an alibi now.”

  “Well, then perhaps she wasn’t killed that Friday. Perhaps she was killed on Saturday, or the following Monday when the congressman was heading back to DC.”

  Whittaker banged his head several times on his desk before he spoke again.

  “Spencer, I’m serious. This isn’t homicide. It’s missing persons. You’re making half of New York law enforcement furious and you don’t even know if a crime has been committed. Leave the congressman the fuck alone. Do you hear?”