Free Stranglehold by Robert Rotenberg Page A

“She was having an affair.”
    DiPaulo shook his head. “Oh. I know she and Howard had some problems and she moved out for a while, but . . . ” He stopped.
    Greene could see DiPaulo’s brain clicking into gear. The initial shock wearing off. He looked down at the hundred-dollar bill under the paperweight on his desk. “Ari. You said this was personal.” He balled his hands in front of his chest. “How do you know she was having an affair?”
    Greene looked up at his old friend. DiPaulo’s chair was deep and comfortable. This was probably the first time he’d sat down all day. A wave of fatigue hit him.
    “Tell me, Ari,” DiPaulo said.
    “Mondays. Six weeks ago Jennifer started taking them off. She wanted to run a marathon, and she told everyone she was using the mornings for long training runs.”
    “But she wasn’t running, was she?” DiPaulo asked. His large, energetic body was as still as a statue.
    Greene’s gaze drifted out the window, across the street to the plaza in front of City Hall. Normal people were going about their normal workday. For them this was just another Monday in September. They had no idea how lucky they were.
    He turned back, determined to meet DiPaulo’s stare.
    “When I got there today she was dead. Someone strangled her.”
    DiPaulo’s whole body rocked forward and back, like a religious man in prayer. He frowned. “What did you do?”
    “I was about to call 911, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “But then I heard someone outside the room. I ran into the courtyard and down the street to this cheap little strip mall. I’d driven there on a scooter and had parked it there. Whoever it was got away. I took out my cell again and was going to call it in and . . . ”
    Again he couldn’t speak.
    “What?” DiPaulo demanded. The old prosecutor in him coming to the fore.
    “A squad car and an ambulance came screaming past me. They turned right into the motel. I jumped on the scooter and raced around the side streets in back. I was sure the killer was Jennifer’s husband and that he’d be suicidal. I wanted to find him.”
    He told DiPaulo how he hadn’t found anyone, about how he was about to call in when Kennicott called him and insisted he not come to the scene and how they didn’t have a chance to talk. “He’s going to meet me later tonight.”
    “Okay,” DiPaulo said. “Who did you tell about this back at Homicide?”
    “No one.”
    “No one? Are you crazy? No one knows you were having this affair?
    “No.”
    “That you were in the motel room and saw Jennifer’s dead body?”
    “No.”
    “And that you left?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Christ almighty.”
    “I was about to call when everything happened,” Greene said.
    “Instead you took off from the scene of the crime.”
    “I didn’t take off. I chased a suspect.” Greene could hear how defensive his voice had become. How bad it sounded.
    “Don’t split hairs,” DiPaulo said. He was in full cross-examination mode now. Very effective. “Are you telling me that right at this moment” – he checked his watch – “at 4:10 P.M. on September tenth, no one knows that you were there.”
    “No one but you.” Greene pointed at the hundred-dollar bill.
    “Yes, and you shut me up by hiring me.” DiPaulo shook his head. “Ari, what were you thinking?”
    “I wanted to find her husband. I thought he was suicidal.”
    “But no one knows where he is?” DiPaulo asked.
    “Not as of half an hour ago.”
    Greene lowered his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. The timing. What I saw in the room. You’ll think I’m crazy, but it all felt wrong. Like someone was trying to set me up.”
    Greene told him about where he’d parked his scooter and how he’d gotten rid of his helmet and gloves.
    “In other words, you disguised yourself before you went to the motel. Took off after she’d been killed, hid your clothes and vehicle, and then went to a lawyer.” DiPaulo put a hand over his