Free Killer Look by Linda Fairstein Page A

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 that’s on the verge of killing him—and if the same physician had the scans and images to support the diagnosis—I might bend to the request of relatives on a religious basis to just let the body go.”
    â€œSo how do you help Emma resolve this, Mike?” I asked.
    â€œShe doesn’t have any info from a doctor yet about Wolf’s health, for one thing,” Mike said. “I’m 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. Everything’s still in place, except for the body. I get to study the scene.”
    â€œHow did you break the other case you two had that was like this?”
    â€œOne witness too many, Coop. The dead guy’s 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 dealer’s girl. She snitched on him and set him up.”
    â€œUgly.”
    â€œShe thought she could handle watching him die after she got him high for the last time, but she was the weakest link,” Mike said. “We broke her on the second interview.”
    â€œThat was luck, having a witness to the murder.”
    â€œThis time, I know the helium got into Wolf’s hotel room concealed in the bottom of a hand truck that came right out of 520 Seventh Avenue, where his main office is.”
    â€œYou mean those carts that have clothes hanging on them—the ones that are all over the streets and sidewalks throughout the Garment District?”
    â€œYeah. 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 helium—or the hand truck—back to its source within the office building.”
    â€œSomeone must have seen who delivered the cart,” I said.
    â€œAll I got, Coop, is that it was two young men. One tall, one medium height. Nothing remarkable about them,” Mike said.
    â€œJust so we’re clear,” Emma Parker said, pushing back from the table. “I’ll stay in touch with you, Mike. The minute the family comes up with medical information, I’ll give you a call.”
    â€œI’ll let you know if I get lucky at the hotel,” Mike said. “And tomorrow I’ll knock on doors at the Savage offices.”
    â€œForty-eight hours, right? Is that a deal?”
    â€œDeal,” Mike said.
    â€œStay close to him this time, Alex,” Emma said, winking at me as she headed for the door. “We don’t need you disappearing again.”
    â€œI think she’s had her outing for the day, Doc. Might be time to put her back in her cage,” Mike said, tousling my hair as he walked behind me.
    I didn’t like that image. I flashed back to the dark, dank space in which I’d been held. But I was learning to keep my reactions—or as Mike would call them,
over
reactions—to myself.
    â€œShe knows more about the fashion world than you do, Mike. Alex might come in handy while you try to sort this out,” Emma said. “She asks good questions.”
    â€œYeah, like I’m supposed to be the answer man?”
    â€œSeems to be working for you just fine, Detective Chapman.”
    â€œHere’s a question for you, Emma,” I said. “Has 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€œActually, Alex, it’s been done. Maybe not the smartest tack to take, but perhaps these two relatives didn’t know Wolf’s