Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

a bulky, patterned sweater too waterlogged to show its colors, long dark hair matted, wet and entangled with refuse from the reflecting pool, her fists clenched. Her neck had ballooned grotesquely, almost hiding the small red hole in her throat.
    Strangling, Wetzon clawed at the legwarmer imprisoning her own throat and tore it away. Saliva choked her. Don’t throw up, don’t  ... She pressed the legwarmer to her mouth, but wrenching dry heaves racked her. She staggered over to a marble bench and crashed.
    Another squad car added its harsh shaft to the rest, making the plaza a bizarre night shoot on a movie set. Dispatcher voices free-floated incomprehensibly, crackling static. More cars, brakes screeching, doors opening, slamming shut. The plaza was dense with uniforms and detectives. The medics stopped working on Tabitha. They waited a few minutes, as if there might be some mistake, then packed everything up and took off into the night. The police took over.
    Wetzon sat huddled on the marble bench, shivering. She drew an uneven breath, filling her lungs with air as cool and crisp as an ice-cold beer. Around her, the ethereal October night; above her in the velvety sky, stars, the Big Dipper. A tiny airplane, lights blinking, silently crawled across the heavens. She was alive. So alive she could hear her blood coursing through her veins and arteries, follow the amazing brain mechanism, the winding serpentine of her spine. She was breathing with her heart.
    The Crime Scene Unit arrived and began the tedious work of going over the area, inch by inch. They would most certainly have to dredge the reflecting pool.
    How long had she sat here? Long enough for the marble to turn her to ice, until she was numb. She’d never get up again. On the other hand, if she could get herself up, she could walk away.... No! What was she thinking? She was a good citizen. She— Someone blocked out the lights.
    “You’re the witness, miss?” The man who spoke was big and black, his belly spilled over his belt and, with each word, a wheezing whistle. He rubbed his nose and straightened his tie, giving her a puzzled look. “Hey, don’t I know you?”
    Wetzon squinted up at him. She recognized him, too. The detective from the Twentieth Precinct, was it four years ago? When she was drawn into the mess after Barry Stark was murdered. What was his name?
    “Walters.” He answered her unspoken question. “I do know you. You’re Silvestri’s lady, right?”
    She stared at him for a moment. Was she? Then she nodded. “Leslie Wetzon.”
    “Yeah. I never forget a face,” Walters said, congratulating himself. He took a handkerchief from his pocket in time to catch a mighty “Cachew!” He blew his nose. “Goddam allergies hang around all year now.” He stuck his hand up in the air and yelled, “Over here, Conley,” without looking around. Despite the chill in the air, sweat beaded his crown and upper lip.
    The worker ants from the Crime Scene Unit toiled on, and Tabitha Ann Boyd lay a wet lifeless lump on the cold stone. Wetzon shivered violently. Behind her, she saw the curious and the thrill-seekers clustered along a barricade of wooden horses, distance set by some of the uniforms. How, she wondered, do they find out? Was it some underground signal through a modem, or a designated listener to police transmissions? “Your turn to tune in tonight, and if it’s a real juicy murder, call me and I’ll get the chain going”? Is that how it was?
    Conley detached himself from the men and women of New York’s Finest around the reflecting pool and came toward them, a tall pale stalk of a man with very fine baby hair in a pinkish-blond color. Small features, gangly in clothes too big for his build. He stopped to greet a smart-looking woman in a slouch hat and black leather coat, carrying a doctor’s case. The medical examiner was a woman. Hooray for our side , Wetzon thought.
    Walters waved to her. “ASAP, Riccardi.”
    “Tell me something new, Al,” Riccardi said.
    “Excuse me a minute.” Walters left Wetzon and spoke to Riccardi and Conley briefly. They looked over at Wetzon. Riccardi left them, and Conley and Walters came back to Wetzon.
    “Yeah.” Walters nodded. “I remember you now.”
    “You look cold,” Conley said.
    “I am.” She hugged herself, but couldn’t stop shaking.
    Walters took off his tweed sports jacket and put it around her shoulders. He wore a shoulder holster just like Silvestri’s. Wetzon felt