The Helper cd-2 Page 14

  ‘Good job I went, though, huh?’

  Holden wags a finger in front of his face. ‘Uh-uh. No. Not good. Simple is good. Straightforward is good. This is complicated. This piece of information that you had no right uncovering connects my DOA with a completely different DOA, whereas what I would prefer is if the two DOAs were completely unrelated. That’s what I would like ’stead of this heart-attack item of news you feel you have to land on me.’

  Doyle waits patiently. Then: ‘So what do you want to do about Vasey?’

  Holden looks back at him.

  ‘Let’s haul that motherfucker’s ass in here.’

  Vasey doesn’t take kindly to having his ass hauled anywhere. He doesn’t like having to cancel his afternoon consultations at such short notice. He objects to being marched past his secretary and out of his office building like a common criminal. And he especially resents being cooped up for ages in a cramped uncomfortable room with only file cabinets for company.

  In retaliation, he lawyers up.

  It has to be said that cops don’t like it when suspects bring in their lawyers, even though the participants on both sides are, ostensibly, engaged in the search for truth insofar as it can be established in law. The problem is not so much that it prevents the boys in blue from judicious employment of the rubber hose or the nightstick, although there are some who still lament the passing of those more robust techniques of yesteryear. It’s more that experienced lawyers know every trick in the book when it comes to eliciting, cajoling and conning information out of interviewees. They will leap on every question that smacks of an attempt to smear their client with the perfume of guilt, and will advise the client to claim the Fifth in response to any question for which the answer has not already been rehearsed. A good lawyer can cause an interview to degenerate into little more than a mud-slinging match between the lawyer and the cops, with the suspect silently twiddling his thumbs and waiting to go home.

  Anna Friedrich is a good lawyer.

  At least, that’s Doyle’s impression of her, even before the interview has properly begun. There is an air of professionalism, efficiency and punctiliousness about her. From her perfectly sculpted bob of black hair to her Jimmy Choo high-heeled shoes, she exudes confidence and authority. Doyle knows she will accept no nonsense, brook no challenge to her legal standing. She is going to be one tough bitch.

  Doyle finds Anna Friedrich sexy as hell.

  At least he would if he wasn’t happily married. But since he is, such thoughts would never enter his head. He is certain that Holden is attracted to her, though. Holden is a single, red-blooded male. He will be imagining that beneath that clinging red sweater and that tight, short skirt, Anna Friedrich is wearing a brassiere-and-garter matched set. In black. With decorative flame-red stitching. Holden will be picturing her in the bedroom, still in those heels, and with all manner of instruments of discipline hidden in her closet. He will be guessing that any man who enters her boudoir leaves as a quivering shadow of his former self, but wearing the biggest fucking smile he’s ever had.

  Holden’s mind will be working like this because he is unattached. Whereas Doyle is married. Happily. Yes-sireee.

  A curse on Holden for not keeping his mind on the job. Doesn’t he realize there’s important work to be done here? To wit, getting Vasey to admit his guilt.

  It occurs to Doyle that asking a doctor to cough is a nice reversal of the usual run of things.

  They get the preliminaries over with, and then Doyle kicks off the Q amp;A.

  ‘Dr Vasey, the last time we met, we asked you about a patient of yours named-’

  He stops because Anna Friedrich has raised a finger. Already. Before Doyle has even finished his first question. She has erected a slim index finger with a perfectly manicured nail painted in red.

  ‘Client,’ she says.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Client. Dr Vasey would prefer it if you would refer to them as clients, not patients.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  ‘It’s a nuance. In the same way you prefer to call this an interview rather than an interrogation.’

  Doyle glares at her. She reflects it right back at him.

  ‘All right, then. Dr Vasey, we asked you about a client of yours named Cindy Mellish. Do you-’

  There it is again. The finger. At this rate, Vasey will die of old age before they finish the fucking interview. Doyle is tempted to show a finger of his own, and it’s not the index finger.

  ‘No,’ says Friedrich, ‘you did not ask Dr Vasey about a client of his. You asked him about a woman named Cindy Mellish. She was never his client.’

  ‘We have information to the contrary.’

  ‘And my horoscope this morning told me I was going to meet a highly intelligent man today. Go figure.’

  Doyle shuffles in his seat and tries again. ‘All right, let me give you another name. Sean Hanrahan. Does that ring any bells?’

  Vasey looks to his lawyer before answering, and only opens his mouth once she gives him the nod.

  Great, thinks Doyle. A ventriloquist act.

  ‘I don’t recall that name,’ says Vasey.

  ‘No? Before he retired, Sean Hanrahan was a sergeant with the NYPD. When he was on patrol his partner was killed in a liquor store holdup that went wrong. Still not remember him?’

  Vasey hesitates and clears his throat. ‘Now that you have supplied the additional details, he does sound familiar.’

  ‘So was he a client of yours?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Possibly? What does that mean, Doctor? Was Sean Hanrahan a client of yours, yes or no?’

  ‘If it’s the man I’m thinking of, then yes, he was a client. For a short while.’

  ‘How short?’

  ‘I’d have to check. One or two sessions at the most.’

  ‘And when’s the last time you saw him?’

  ‘The consultations? I believe they were over a year ago.’

  ‘And since the consultations?’

  ‘I. . I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Sean Hanrahan after the consultations?’

  ‘I don’t understand. I’ve never seen him since then. What is this?’

  ‘Yes, Detective,’ says Friedrich. ‘Where exactly are you going with this?’

  Doyle looks at her. Sees her half-open mouth with its glossy lipstick. Flame-red again.

  ‘Sean Hanrahan was killed last night in his apartment. Someone took his face off with a shotgun.’

  She blinks. Once. Twice. Then, without further breaks in her eye contact with Doyle she says, ‘All right, Andrew, let’s go. This meeting is over.’

  Doyle turns his gaze on Vasey. ‘You can go if you want, Doctor, but if you want my advice, you should stay. This isn’t looking good for you at the moment. Two people are dead, and you’re the only thing we can find that connects them. Maybe it’s just coincidence. Maybe somebody’s trying to set you up. Who knows? But if you’re innocent, then I’m sure you’ll want to get to the bottom of this as much as we do. This is your chance to do that.’

  Friedrich now also turns to Vasey. ‘Andrew, the only people trying to set you up here are the police. That means any advice they offer you is less than worthless. If they had anything on you, they would have charged you by now. Let’s get out of here.’

  She waits. Doyle and Holden wait. Vasey wavers, his mouth opening and closing.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ he says.

  Friedrich stares at him in disbelief. When she twists back in her chair, she folds her arms in what seems a petulant gesture, the action pushing up her breasts.

  ‘So,’ says Doyle, ‘do you still want to deny that you ever met Cindy Mellish in your office, whether she was officially registered as a client or not?’

  ‘I never met that girl,’ says Vasey. ‘And I also want to put on record that I have never acted in anything other than a professional manner in my consultations. The idea that I would physicall
y assault somebody is. . it’s abhorrent.’

  Doyle thinks the good doctor is starting to sound a little melodramatic. He wants to ramp up the pressure. In particular, he wants to ask about Lorna Bonnow, but he knows that if he throws that in he’ll have a lot of explaining to do to Holden.

  ‘What would you say if I asked you to open up your client files to us, Dr Vasey?’

  It’s Friedrich who answers. ‘He’d tell you to take a hike. Those files are confidential. A psychologist’s reputation is built on trust. A lot of people tell Andrew a lot of things. Very intimate things. They do so in the knowledge that he won’t go divulging their personal details to everybody that asks for them. Next question.’

  ‘We could get a court order.’

  ‘You think? On what grounds? That one of Dr Vasey’s former clients was murdered? Big deal.’

  ‘On the grounds that Dr Vasey is the common factor in two homicide cases currently under investigation.’

  ‘Hello? Didn’t we cover this already? You’ve got one guy who Andrew saw twice, and you’ve got a woman he never met even once, despite your continued insistence that he did. What kind of common factor is that? I bet I could find two dead people who both ate at Katz’s at some point in their lives. Wouldn’t mean that the owner poisoned them. But if you think you can get a lame duck like that to fly in front of a judge, then good luck to you, Detective.’

  Doyle is starting to feel more than a little pissed now. Not least because he knows that she is correct. He tries to appear as though she hasn’t rattled him, although he suspects she already scents triumph.

  ‘Doctor, where were you last night, around midnight?’

  ‘Here we go,’ Friedrich mutters.

  Vasey says, ‘I was at home. Where else would I be?’

  ‘At home. Are you sure?’

  ‘What do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘And what were you doing?’

  ‘At midnight? I was in bed.’

  ‘You were in bed.’

  Doyle goes silent then. He gives Vasey his best withering stare. Any second now, he thinks. The beads of sweat, the loosening of the collar, and then he’ll break.

  ‘All right, Detective,’ says Friedrich. ‘Now that we’ve established my client’s nocturnal habits and found them to be completely mundane, can we bring this interview to a close? Dr Vasey is a very busy man, and I am sure you are too when you’re not going on fishing expeditions like this one.’

  Any second now.

  ‘Dr Vasey, would you like to reconsider your previous answer?’

  All eyes are on Doyle now, and he knows they’re all wondering what’s gotten into him. He figures that Holden in particular will think he’s flipped.

  ‘I, uhm. . I went out. For a short while.’

  Gotcha, thinks Doyle. But now he knows the others are all trying to work out what made him push it.

  ‘You went out. At what time?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly. Eleven-fifteen. Eleven-thirty. In there somewhere.’

  ‘And what time did you get back to the apartment?’

  ‘About two.’

  ‘Two o’clock in the morning. You were out of your apartment from eleven-fifteen or thereabouts until two o’clock.’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  ‘Did you go out in your car?’

  ‘No. I walked.’

  ‘You don’t mind me saying, that’s a strange time to be going for a stroll. Where did you go?’

  ‘Park Avenue.’

  ‘Where on Park Avenue?’

  ‘Corner of Sixty-second Street.’

  Exactly where Gonzo lost him, thinks Doyle.

  ‘And what was so fascinating about that location that made you schlep all the way over there so late in the day?’

  ‘It’s not so far. Just a couple of blocks.’

  ‘Dr Vasey, I don’t care if you only went as far as your closet.

  What I want to know is why you felt the sudden urge to go there at that time of night.’

  He looks to Friedrich again. She gives him the green light.

  ‘I, uhm, I got a call.’

  ‘A call? You mean on the telephone? Who from?’

  ‘Well, the thing is, I’m not sure any longer. It was kind of weird.’

  Doyle feels something inside his abdomen do a back-flip. Oh shit, he thinks. I know what’s coming.

  For the first time in the interview, Holden puts a question. Because he’s intrigued, whereas Doyle’s interest has suddenly waned.

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘The guy on the phone said his name was Waxman, and that he was a neighbor of my ex-wife’s. She’s the one who lives at the Park Avenue address, by the way. Now, I happen to know that her neighbor is called Waxman, so I had no reason to doubt him. He told me that he’d heard some weird noises and then a scream coming from her apartment, and that he’d been ringing her doorbell for the past fifteen minutes and couldn’t get an answer. He also told me he couldn’t get hold of the building superintendent to open her door, so that’s why he was calling me, to see if I had a key.’

  Doyle nods along with Holden. Trying to pretend that this is a weird one, all right. Preparing himself to look suitably surprised when the punchline gets delivered.

  Holden says, ‘So you went over there. What happened next?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, it was business as usual. The doorman had no idea what I was talking about, and when I got upstairs there was no sign of Waxman. The hallway was empty. No signs of any problems whatsoever. So I rang my ex’s doorbell. A minute later she opened the door. She was fine. Said she also had no idea what was going on.’

  Doyle sees how puzzled Holden looks, and he can imagine the thought processes going on in his mind. The story is too crazy not to be believed. And yet why would anyone choose to pull a stunt like that? If they were trying to set Vasey up, why not just leave him in bed, with no alibi for the time Hanrahan was being murdered, instead of moving him somewhere where presumably his location could be verified?

  Because, my dear Watson, Doyle wants to say, the caller somehow knew that Vasey was being watched, and saw his opportunity to add a little more fun to his game. He was playing me. Again.

  Holden says, ‘Do you know anyone who would make a prank call like that?’

  ‘No. I’d never heard this voice before. It sounded almost British. A little like that actor, whatshisname. .’

  Cary Grant, thinks Doyle.

  ‘Cary Grant,’ says Vasey.

  Holden rubs his hand across his chin. ‘With all due respect, Doctor, don’t you think this sounds too convenient? My guess is that the doorman at your apartment building saw you leave at around eleven-fifteen. You don’t come back until two. Between those times, Mr Hanrahan, a previous client of yours, is murdered. And then you come up with this story about a mystery phone call that caused you to go over to your ex-wife’s place. Can you see how that might sound to us, Dr Vasey?’

  Vasey leans across the table. Doyle thinks he’s starting to look a little flustered now.

  ‘Yes, I can see that. But it’s exactly what happened, I swear to you. My ex-wife will confirm it.’

  ‘She might confirm you came knocking on her door at about eleven-thirty, maybe a few minutes earlier. That says nothing about what you did after that. Doesn’t say why you didn’t get home until two.’

  ‘I. . I. . Look, if you must know, she invited me in. She was touched that I seemed so concerned for her welfare. She. . she was grateful.’

  There is a huge nod and a wink contained in that emphasis, and everybody understands it for what it is. Even Anna Friedrich is looking up at the ceiling for distractions.

  ‘You mean you had sex?’

  ‘Uhm, yes.’

  ‘Until what time?’ Holden asks. Then, seeing the expression on Vasey’s face, he says, ‘Scratch that. What time did you leave your ex-wife’s apartment?’

  ‘Just before two. Then I went straight home.’

  Holden
sighs. ‘If that’s so, why didn’t you just give it up a coupla minutes ago? Why did you lie when Detective Doyle asked you where you were around midnight?’

  ‘Because. . because for one thing I didn’t think it was necessary. I thought you were trying to pin the murder of Mr Hanrahan on me, and I didn’t see the point in giving you extra ammunition to do just that.’

  ‘But you just said that your ex-wife could give you an alibi. Why not say that from the start and save yourself all this trouble?’

  ‘Because. . she has a boyfriend now. A very rich and very powerful boyfriend. I was trying to protect her.’

  Holden sighs again. ‘All right, Dr Vasey. We’ll still have to talk to her. Don’t worry, we’ll be discreet.’ He flips open a notepad. ‘What’s her name and full address?’

  Vasey checks in with his lawyer again. This time she doesn’t nod. Doesn’t give him a word or a gesture.

  ‘Dr Vasey?’

  The lawyer turns her beautiful dark eyes on the detectives.

  ‘Her name is Anna Friedrich,’ she says. ‘I reverted to my maiden name.’

  FOURTEEN

  Bitch.

  Is what Doyle thinks.

  His view is that she was planning to spring this on them all along. That story about covering up her infidelity was a crock of shit. She wanted to watch the detectives dig themselves into a hole and then, at the last possible moment, she would bury them under a truckload of dirt.

  And now she’s the one who’s acting as the injured party. Unfucking-believable.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ she demands of the detectives when Vasey is out of earshot. They have left the interview room, and Vasey has walked ahead of them.

  ‘What?’ says Doyle.

  ‘That question about where Andrew was at midnight.’ Doyle shrugs. ‘It was routine.’

  ‘Oh no. Not the way you asked it. Not the way you kept pressing him to alter his answer. You knew something.’

  ‘I know a lot of things. Most of all, I know when someone is lying to me or holding back. My spidey sense told me your hubby was holding back.’