City of Lies
Alafair Burke
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
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First published in the U.S.A as 212 by HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, NY, 2010
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Alafair Burke 2010
Alafair Burke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847561107
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007363025
Version: 2016-10-04
For Philip, Mary, and Anne-Lise Spitzer
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Part I You Cant Let This Get to You.
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part II Go Ahead. Lie to Me.
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part III It Was All About May 27.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Part IV Easy Money
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Part V Secrets
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Keep Reading
Authors Note
About the Author
Other books by
Guide To New York
About the Publisher
Chapter One
May 27
Tanya Abbott noticed the quiver in her index finger as it pressed the three silver buttons in the rain 911. Listening to the ring, she found herself mentally calculating the number of days that had passed since she had first arrived in New York City.
Tanya had put the number at twenty-six by the time the dispatcher answered the call. It had been three full weeks and another five days.
Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?
Shed taken the Amtrak to Penn Station three Thursdays ago, and now it was Tuesday night. Twenty-six days in New York. Twenty-six days since she had started over again. Twenty-six days, and already she was calling 911.
Hello? Is anyone there? What is your emergency?
Tanya cleared her throat. The penthouse apartment at Lafayette and Kenmare.
Thats your location, maam? Tell me whats going on there.
The corner of Lafayette and Kenmare was no longer Tanyas location, but twenty minutes earlier, she had been inside the luxury penthouse perched on top of the white brick building on the corner. Shed sipped Veuve Clicquot from a crystal flute while leaning against the black granite bar. She had lounged on the low white-leather sectional sofa with her legs crossed modestly as her host pointed out the panoramic SoHo views of the Hudson River, temporarily obscured by cascading sheets of rain. She had followed him into the master suite. She had cleaned herself up with a washcloth in the gleaming marble bathroom when it was all over.
A shooting. Theres been a shooting. Tanya used her palm to wipe away the drops of water from her eyes, tears mixed with rain. Her attempts were futile, serving only to smear mascara across her clammy cheeks.
You heard gunshots?
Inside the apartment.
Maam. I need you to use your words. You heard gunshots from inside the apartment? Could you tell what direction they were coming from?
There was a shooting. Inside the apartment at Lafayette and Kenmare.
Ive got your location as Lafayette and Bond, maam. Did you mean to say Lafayette and Bond?I need you to speak to me, maam. Can you tell me if youre okay? Are you hurt?
Tanya hadnt realized that she had run five full blocks before finding a pay phone. She couldnt even remember crossing Houston. Maybe her heart was pounding because of the running. She found comfort in the thought of some distance between her and the apartment.
Lafayette and Kenmare. The penthouse.
Can you tell me your name, maam? Ive got an ambulance on the way. Just keep talking to me. My names Tina Brooks. Can you tell me your name?
Tanya returned the handset to its cradle and sprinted south on Lafayette toward the subway station at Bleecker. She hadnt given her name to the dispatcher, and she hadnt used her cell phone. She could move swiftly without prompting attention from the other pedestrians who were also rushing for shelter.
At the same moment Tina Brooks had dispatched an ambulance to the penthouse, she had no doubt sent a police car to the pay phone on the corner of Lafayette and Bond to search for the anonymous caller who had dialed 911. But before either vehicle reached its intended destination, Tanya Abbott would be long gone, drying her face against her damp sleeve and catching her breath on the 6 train.
Chapter Two
Detective Ellie Hatcher and her partner, J. J. Rogan, were soaked. Not damp. Not soggy. Soaked. The rainfall that poured onto Manhattans streets that night felt like the kind that meteorologists might measure in buckets per second.
Ellie should have been grateful for the storm. It was the first break in a week-long, record-setting late-May heat wave. For seven consecutive days, the mercury had approached triple digits. Those kinds of oppressive temperatures were never cause to celebrate, but in New York City, atmospheric heat led to an altogether different kind of swelter. Thanks to the combination of heat-retaining concrete and still, breezeless air, the entire city reeked of a unique potpourri of body odor, garbage, and urine. The streets and subways were crowded. People were sticky. People were cranky. People drank more. They stayed out later. And people got dangerous.
In New York City, heat begets violence.
Ellie and Rogan had hoped that the rainfall might wash in their first quiet night of what had been a hectic week. They should have known better.
Their first callout was to the scene of a reported homicide in SoHo. A couple huddled beneath a restaurant awning had made out the image of a mans prone body in the backseat of a BMW 325 parked on Grand. By the time EMTs found the track marks and Ellie pulled the eighteen inches of rubber tubing from the back passenger footwell, Ellie and her partner were soaked.
They had just reported clear and were looking forward to drying out back in the squad room when the second call came in, this time to a penthouse apartment at Lafayette and Kenmare. As they drove up Crosby, Ellie noticed a small pile of flowers propped up against a stoop at the corner of Broome, a rain-battered memorial to the late Heath Ledger. It had been more than four months since the actors accidental overdose; today, the media had announced the death of Sydney Pollack from stomach cancer. When celebrities died, everyone cared, even though the public knew those stars no better than whatever sad sack Ellie and Rogan were about to open a new case file for.