WE ARRIVE at the Precinct with Upton fully in charge as if Jimmy O’Neill never existed. In conference with Gabby and I, he doesn’t dispute our theory, in fact, he warms to it. “But knowing it and proving it are not the same thing.”
Coming from a superior officer, I’m not offended.
In the bullpen, it’s all-hands-on-deck. The team already talks about Jimmy in the past tense, knowing he won’t return. A dozen of us attend a meeting called by Upton for ten a.m.
We learn a man at the Yankees-Red Sox blowout is captured on video surveillance purchasing a hot dog and a beer from Kelly Plett; he matches our suspect description. He wears a Yankees ball-cap low over his eyes, is lean, athletic-looking, and stands approximately six-foot-tall.
Additional footage from cameras located throughout the stadium strongly suggests it is the same man we see with Miranda in the Porsche dealership video on the night she died.
The video is black and white, so it’s impossible to distinguish hair color. But the hair is long enough in the back to touch the man’s shirt-collar. Immediately, I think of Marcus Livingstone and his coiffed mane.
The Yankees front office tells us Livingstone purchased two tickets for the Red Sox game direct from the box office using a credit card in his own name. The tickets were not used. Unfortunate, but not demoralizing.
Marcus Livingstone is no longer a Person of Interest, he’s suspect Numero Uno. Even Upton concedes the possibility.
With photos of Marcus Livingstone scraped from his website in our possession and a new-found resolve, Gabby, Tony, Mel, and I decide to split the workload. Tony and Gabby head into Queens to learn more about Kelly Plett. Melissa stays downtown to investigate Miranda’s AA connections and to show Livingstone’s photo to employees and customers at Bumpers Tavern, the bar where Miranda was last seen alive.
Me? I’m off to show Marcus Livingstone’s photo to Miranda’s former employer, co-workers, and friends at the Persian Grille, and to Denieca Brown.
After that, the New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell downtown. I plan to catch Marcus Livingstone in a lie about the time he last saw his late ex-wife.
Finally, in the evening, a scheduled meeting at the Plaza Hotel with Stella Walker who is staying in the City overnight. I’m curious to know how she’ll respond to my accusation of a love triangle between herself, her daughter, and her ex-son-in-law.
It’s noon when I reconnect with Mel by phone. She’s discovered the neighborhood chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous attended by Miranda, where they meet, at what times. No security cameras on the block. No one recognizes Marcus Livingstone from the photo. Good work, I say. She’s yet to track down Miranda’s sponsor, but has a first name and a general description.
She’s heading to Bumpers. “I haven’t had lunch. I’ll grab a bite there.”
This creates an unwelcome image of Melissa and Simon canoodling in a back booth.
Having struck out with the employees at Persian Grille, I’m hoping Denieca Brown can shed light. A half hour later, I’m sitting outside her building on the front stoop inhaling a mooched Pall Mall.
“Maybe,” she says, finger-pointing to the photo of Livingstone.
I struggle to contain my enthusiasm. “This guy?”
“Could be, yeah?”
“Where?”
“The Grille, maybe a month back, maybe more? I can’t be certain. Came in for lunch once, maybe twice, maybe more often than that?”
“Did he speak with Miranda?”
Denieca screws up her face in concentration though it could be the sun, which is blazing. “Could have. Place is busy that time of day. If he did, I didn’t take much notice.”
“Did Miranda behave oddly on the days he showed up?”
“Miranda? Miranda behaved oddly most of the time.”
“Did you ever see them leave the restaurant together?”
“Why? Has someone said?”
Crushing my cigarette on the walk, I say, “You were the only one close enough to Miranda to care.”
Denieca offers a second cigarette. “Should I be flattered or worried?”
For the first time in a long time, I smoke back-to-back. “I’m not asking you to testify in court.”
Denieca puffs, tilts her chin upward, exhales like an actor in an old movie. “Yeah, I think I remember now. Guy kept checking-out my ass. Guy was hot. Normally, I’d be okay with that. If you got it, flaunt it, right? But with this guy, it was the way he stared.”
“How so?”
“Weird. Mostly, I have no problem a guy appreciates my assets. But this guy? Looked like he wanted to rape me.”
Nodding to the photo, I ask Denieca to confirm her identification of Livingstone as the man she recognizes from the Persian Grille. She does. Is she willing to make a sworn statement to this effect? She is, though less sure of her willingness to testify to it in court.