called me tonight and told me that there was a diagnosis given to the man a month ago, or a week ago, that he was facing down a terminal cancer or heart disease thatâs on the verge of killing himâand if the same physician had the scans and images to support the diagnosisâI might bend to the request of relatives on a religious basis to just let the body go.â
âSo how do you help Emma resolve this, Mike?â I asked.
âShe doesnât have any info from a doctor yet about Wolfâs health, for one thing,â Mike said. âIâm not the only one looking for a guy to have a reason to kill himself. And I get to go back to the Silver Needle. Everythingâs still in place, except for the body. I get to study the scene.â
âHow did you break the other case you two had that was like this?â
âOne witness too many, Coop. The dead guyâs girlfriend betrayed him. The kid was a student at NYU, but a full-on heroin addict. He was into the dealer for thousands of dollars, and sleeping with the dealerâs girl. She snitched on him and set him up.â
âUgly.â
âShe thought she could handle watching him die after she got him high for the last time, but she was the weakest link,â Mike said. âWe broke her on the second interview.â
âThat was luck, having a witness to the murder.â
âThis time, I know the helium got into Wolfâs hotel room concealed in the bottom of a hand truck that came right out of 520 Seventh Avenue, where his main office is.â
âYou mean those carts that have clothes hanging on themâthe ones that are all over the streets and sidewalks throughout the Garment District?â
âYeah. There were dresses hanging from the rack, so it looked like every other cart. The canisters were in the well on the bottom. That was one of the first things the cops checked out yesterday. But nobody bothered to track the heliumâor the hand truckâback to its source within the office building.â
âSomeone must have seen who delivered the cart,â I said.
âAll I got, Coop, is that it was two young men. One tall, one medium height. Nothing remarkable about them,â Mike said.
âJust so weâre clear,â Emma Parker said, pushing back from the table. âIâll stay in touch with you, Mike. The minute the family comes up with medical information, Iâll give you a call.â
âIâll let you know if I get lucky at the hotel,â Mike said. âAnd tomorrow Iâll knock on doors at the Savage offices.â
âForty-eight hours, right? Is that a deal?â
âDeal,â Mike said.
âStay close to him this time, Alex,â Emma said, winking at me as she headed for the door. âWe donât need you disappearing again.â
âI think sheâs had her outing for the day, Doc. Might be time to put her back in her cage,â Mike said, tousling my hair as he walked behind me.
I didnât like that image. I flashed back to the dark, dank space in which Iâd been held. But I was learning to keep my reactionsâor as Mike would call them,
over
reactionsâto myself.
âShe knows more about the fashion world than you do, Mike. Alex might come in handy while you try to sort this out,â Emma said. âShe asks good questions.â
âYeah, like Iâm supposed to be the answer man?â
âSeems to be working for you just fine, Detective Chapman.â
âHereâs a question for you, Emma,â I said. âHas it ever happened, in your experience, that somebody walks in here to actually try to prevent you from doing an autopsy of the deceased, and thenturns out to be the murderer? I mean, it just seems so over-the-top obvious.â
âActually, Alex, itâs been done. Maybe not the smartest tack to take, but perhaps these two relatives didnât know Wolfâs