One Cold Night

pink. “Lemme get you up to speed.”

Chapter 23
    Wednesday, 5:10 p.m.
    “The local cops’ve been in and out,” Ramos said in the rapid clip Dave was getting used to. He could just barely make out her words under the roar of the helicopter. “Adkins’s car’s parked at the house and they found traces of yellow paint and —” She stopped herself.
    “And?”
    “No one was at the house when they got there, Dave. But there was some blood on one of the beds. It looks like he had her tied up.”
    Dave’s stomach turned as the color red spilled through his mind, oozing through mental byways he preferred not to visit. If he didn’t find her, he thought, if he didn’t find her in time...
    “Doesn’t mean—”
    “Yup, I know what it means and what it doesn’t mean. Someone’s meeting us when we land?”
    “Officer Bob Andrews, I was told.”
    “Good.”
    “Dave, before you go, I’ve got a coupla things to run by you.”
    “Shoot.”
    “We found the handset from the café.”
    Dave sat forward, his seat belt cinching his hips. Outside, a horizon of pale blue sky blended with green countryside.
    “Where?”
    “In the playground by your building. In the sandbox.”
    So close to his home, Dave thought, so close. “But the call was made at seven in the morning; the whole area was already searched; it doesn’t make sense.”
    “It makes sense if Adkins has Lisa upstate and someone else made the call in Brooklyn. Get this: Adkins’s prints were not on the phone, but someone else’s were, someone Forensics can’t identify. Listen to me, Dave: Unless Adkins wore gloves, it wasn’t him. And another thing: FedEx never delivered any letter to your apartment this morning.”
    The helicopter began its descent over Gardiner.
    “Someone else,” Dave said.
    “That’s what I’m thinking.” She paused, then added, “The face.”
    “The face,” Dave echoed, remembering the ghostly visage that had pulled away from the window before he was certain he’d really seen it. A pale, humorless, watching face.
    “He was in the apartment, Strauss. He wrote the letter. Borrowed Adkins’s pad.”
    “The roof hatch,” Dave said, his mind’s eye following the face, or the groom, or whoever he was, onto the connected rooftops of Water Street, watching him snake through the darkness above while, below, their attention was glued to the front door. “Why the hell didn’t we station someone on the roof?”
    “We can beat our idiot selves up later, Strauss. I gotone more thing for you to chew over.” She must have walked outside, because suddenly Dave heard city traffic noises. “Marie Rothka remembered something the groom said to her a coupla times on the phone: ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’”
    “A cliché,” Dave murmured. Easy to remember and also to forget. “It has to mean something. But if Adkins isn’t the groom—”
    “Know what I’m thinking, Dave?”
    He realized it suddenly: cider mills, fresh donuts, apple picking. “It’s leaf-peeping season up here.”
    “That’s right. We don’t know who’s who, so we’d better follow any lead that might work in both places.”
    “I’ll ask the locals about the apple trade,” Dave said. “Looks like we’re about to land.”
    “Stay in touch, baby.”
    Dave was about to hang up when he hesitated. “How’s Susan doing?”
    “She’s doing,” was all Ramos said.
    The pilot gradually circled them toward a clearing below. As they descended, what from above had been an abstract mosaic of colors and shapes began to congeal into fields, trees bursting with autumn hues, clusters of houses and long, snaking roads. The helicopter rattled to a landing in a whir of propellers and finally made purchase with the ground in what appeared to be an abandoned field. Long, dry grass whipped and swayed dramatically in the artificial wind. Bruno got out first, followed by Dave, and together they pushed through the still-churning air to the two cops who were waiting for them, standing near a squad car.
    “I’ll be here,” the pilot told them.
    Dave turned, saluted his thanks and then approachedthe waiting police. The older officer stepped forward first, hoisting his belt above a hanging gut.
    “Officer Bob Andrews, Gardiner Police,” he introduced himself.
    “Detective Dave Strauss.” He offered a hand and they shook. The chunky high school ring Andrews wore dug into Dave’s skin. He pretended not to notice.
    “This is Detective