Free Cold Day in Hell by Richard Hawke Page B

shoulder then turned back to Robin. His voice lowered, as did his manic energy. He leaned closer. “Whatever you’ve heard about me, New Hope, I want you to know that only half of it’s true. Swear to God.”
    In the wee hours of the morning, as Robin bunched her pillow under her chin and opened herself to the oncoming sleep, a voice in the deep recesses of her mind thought to ask the right question.
    Which half?
     

9
     
    THE COFFEE WAS COLD long before it was gone. I poured the final inch onto the snow. A squirrel that had been clinging stock-still to a nearby tree scampered down to investigate. He sniffed at the mocha snow then looked up sharply at me. With attitude. That’s your New York squirrel.
    A light snow had started to fall. I was halfway across the park when my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket.
    “Where are you?” It was Charlie Burke.
    “You’ll never guess. You caught me on a beach in Tahiti. I wish the girls back home would take up this whole grass-skirt thing. It’s a winner.”
    “You wish. Come on, where are you?” He sounded urgent.
    “I’m in Bryant Park.”
    “Well, you want to get up to Central Park right away. To the Boathouse.”
    “And why do I want to do this, Charlie?”
    “I spoke with Margo earlier today. She told me you’ve been helping that girl that got killed last night.” He paused, and I expected him to say that Margo had also told him we’d had an argument about it, but he didn’t go there. “She says you’re nosing around in the girl’s murder.”
    “I never said that.”
    “Right. Margo mentioned that, too. But she can tell. My kid’s got good instincts, Fritz. Besides, you don’t always hide things too good.”
    “There are people who might consider that a virtue,” I said. “So what’s happening at the park?”
    “I’ve been monitoring.” Ever since losing the use of his legs, Charlie had transformed the office in his house into what his wife called the House of Wires. Charlie was more up to speed on computers and the Internet than I’d ever be. He also had two television sets; he kept one tuned to NY1 and used the other for channel surfing. Plus, he monitored the police and fire department frequencies religiously. He went on, “Your girl with the cut throat? Looks like she’s got company.”
    I stopped in my tracks. Literally. “There’s been another murder?”
    “Somebody out there is a very busy boy,” he said dryly. “Not to mention a very angry one. This doesn’t look good, Fritz.”
    “Who says it’s related to Robin Burrell?”
    “First officer on the scene got a little too excited just now. Called in a thirty-c then started blabbing, ‘Same as last night, same as last night.’”
    Thirty-c is police code for homicide by cutting. I switched directions and angled toward Sixth Avenue. “You said the Boathouse?”
    “That’s what I’m hearing.”
    “And you got this when?”
    “It’s fresh, buddy. Not two minutes ago. You hurry, you’ll beat the mobs.”
    I pocketed the phone and took off running.
     
     
    THEY WERE STILL STRETCHING the tape when I arrived. A crime-scene photographer was leaning against a police van, fiddling with his camera. The snow was coming down a bit harder, and he was shading the camera from getting wet. The body was just off the trail leading up from the small parking area of the Boathouse Café into what’s called the Ramble. If you want to take a curvy path through the woods of Central Park, or if you want to go see rats the size of small dogs, or if having sex with a fellow anonymous adventurer of the same sex is your bag, then the Ramble is your place. The person who had happened upon the body and phoned it in was a pasty-faced blond man with a walrus mustache, a faded Greek fisherman’s cap and leather chaps. I don’t know, maybe he was looking at the rats.
    Joseph Gallo was conferring with one of his officers. His long camel coat hung on him beautifully. Of course. He and his