Miles Ortiz had met Dr. Benedict Welch eight months earlier in a perfect example of Manhattan networking. It’d happened at a “separation shower” thrown for Kim Savitt by her girlfriends the night after she’d moved out of the five-story town house she’d shared with her mogul husband, Drew, and into her luxurious bachelorette apartment. The shower gifts tended toward La Perla lingerie and the latest designer meds displayed in carefully selected, jewel-encrusted pill cases. Miles attended in his capacity as Kim’s personal trainer and one of her many lovers of the moment. Dr. Welch was there as her plastic surgeon, and because he always got invited to everything. Welch had heard all the rumors about Miles; beyond hearing, he’d listened. He knew every flavor of drug Miles dispensed and every detail of his criminal record. Far from shying away from the man because of this, Welch had crossed a crowded room to seek him out.
Miles had been hovering awkwardly beside a table laden with caviar, sushi, and salmon in aspic. He felt out of place. The room was packed with gorgeous, rail-thin women getting smashed on Grey Goose martinis who wouldn’t dream of coming near the food table because they never ate in public. Miles would’ve been right at home if called upon to train them, fuck them, or sell them drugs, but he didn’t have a clue how to make jaded small talk with them over cocktails. He was quite alone when the good doctor approached.
Welch began by sampling an unagi roll. When he’d swallowed it, he turned to Miles nonchalantly, as if he were simply a random stranger standing within earshot.
“The eel is a bit dry, don’t you think?” Welch asked.
“What?”
“Did you try the sushi?”
“I can’t eat that shit. What the fuck is in it anyway?”
Welch laughed as if Miles had made a clever joke. “Touché.”
Welch smeared a blini with some black caviar, topped it with a dollop of sour cream, and shoved it into his mouth, contemplating Ortiz the whole time with the watchful gaze of a cat.
“So you’re the famous Miles Ortiz, are you?” he said eventually.
“What are you, a faggot?”
“No, although you’re not the first person to mistake me for one. As a well-dressed man with good manners, well…” He gave a worldly little shrug.
“Why you talking to me, then?”
“This is a party. Aren’t you here to talk to people?”
“Not to you I’m not.”
With his sunken dark eyes and ripped muscles, Miles looked utterly menacing, but Welch neither flinched nor retreated.
“The thing is, I understand from my dear friend Kim that you have a sideline beyond your employment with Flex Gym.”
“Huh?”
“I hear you sell drugs.”
“You a narc?”
“Not at all. I’m a doctor and a businessman, and I have a proposition that I think will interest you.”
So it was Welch who approached you? Not the other way around?”
Melanie asked Ortiz.
“That’s right. I did a stretch in Rikers a few years back that wasn’t no fun. My best shorty got shivved right before my eyes, died in my arms. After that, I clean up my act, throwed out my gang beads, and got my personal-trainer certification through this reentry assistance program the city got. You people should make more programs like that; they help put guys like me on their feet. Anyways, when Dr. Ben come to me, I was out of the life, just pitching small-time shit to my ladies at the gym. Club drugs, tranquilizers, maybe some reefer now and then, nothing that’s gonna bring la DEA down on my head. Flying below the radar, you feel me?”
“Give us the details on the offer Welch made to you that night,” Melanie said.
“He tell me he got girls at every pharmaceutical company in the U.S. willing to give him as much pseudo as he want for the right price.”
“Girls?”
“Like, sales associates. They all pretty girls be selling to the doctors. Ex-cheerleaders and such. Anyway, Ben realize what a gold mine he sitting on, how many Washingtons within his reach, but he ain’t got the connects to make it happen. That’s where I come in. He tell me, think of it like you an entrepreneur getting offered a partnership in a dot-com start-up. Don’t miss the boat.”
“And you went for it?”
“Fuck, yeah. I ain’t no loser,” Miles said, flaring his nostrils.
“So what’d you do?”
“I’m from Marcy Projects. I got my peoples there.”
“You contacted individuals you knew to be in the drug trade,” she translated.
“Exactly.”
“Like who? We need names,” Melanie said.
Miles hesitated and looked over at Siler, who’d been busy folding a discarded Egg McMuffin wrapper into an origami bird. Siler looked up, instantly grasping the situation.
“It never feels good to rat out your homies, Miles,” he said. “But the government won’t accept half-assed cooperation. If you don’t have the stomach for it, quit now and we can still get you arraigned today. The statements you’ve made here can’t be used against you because of the proffer agreement.”
“But my man Pierre got me on tape selling him sixty grams of meth.”
“Then your choices are simple,” Siler said. “Answer every question they ask, or step up and do your time.”
“I don’t mind the inside, but ten years?” Miles said.
“They got you by the balls, man, I can’t disagree,” Siler said. “So how do you want to play it?”
Miles shook his head. “I don’t know. Some a’ these dudes I been with from a shorty. I don’t think I can.”
Melanie wasn’t about to let this witness slip away over the names of a few meth dealers in Marcy Projects. She wasn’t here to make a drug case; the meth bust was just her leverage over Miles. What she needed was evidence on the murder.
“Miles, if this part is difficult for you, it can wait. We will eventually need those names, but there are other topics I’d just as soon cover first.”
They had to keep their eyes on the prize. If Welch and Ortiz had been mixed up in major narcotics trafficking, if that was the deep, dark secret Suzanne Shepard had unearthed about them, then it was looking more and more likely that one or both of them had a motive to kill.
“Getting back to Welch,” Melanie said, “does he use? His eyes looked funny to me when I met him.”
“Yeah, uh-huh,” Miles said nonchalantly.
“What drugs?”
“Little of this, little of that. But with the ice, he got a real habit. Like, he can’t be without it.”
“With the methamphetamine, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“New topic, okay?” she said.
“Sure thing,” Miles said.
Siler leaned back in his chair and resumed work on his origami. Dan picked up his pen.
“I hear you knew a woman named Suzanne Shepard,” Melanie said.
“Whoa, time-out. This comes out of left field,” Siler said, springing to life.
“I need to explore this area with him, Jerry.”
“This is the woman who was murdered in Central Park a few nights back. By the guy they’re calling the Butcher, right?”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“My client’s in here charged with a narcotics offense. That’s all I’ve discussed with him, and all he’s prepared to discuss with you. If you’re trying to put him with a murder, or even knowledge of a murder, we’ve got a problem.”
“I—” Miles began, but Siler clapped a hand over his client’s mouth.
“Shut up and let me do the talking here,” Siler said. “I assume from what you just said that you have evidence that my client knew this victim?”
“That’s correct.”
“What evidence?” Siler asked.
“I can’t go into it with you.”
The second you told a suspect what you knew, you were setting the parameters for what he’d confess to. Melanie had learned that the hard way on other cases. If Ortiz knew what Melanie had on him, he’d admit to exactly that much and not one iota more. But if he didn’t know, he’d be much more likely to tell her something approximating the truth about his involvement in Suzanne Shepard’s death.
“Do you have any evidence he was involved in the murder?” Siler asked.
“I have some evidence tending to suggest that, but now that he’s in custody, we can find out definitively. All he has to do is submit to a DNA swab.”
“You can get that whether we consent or not.”
“Yes, I can, and I intend to. But if he’s really innocent, let him submit voluntarily. Keeps things friendly,” Melanie said.
Siler looked troubled. “The swab isn’t a problem, but I need some time to speak to him. I can’t just let him start yapping about a murder without knowing what he plans to say.”
“Fair enough,” Melanie said, nodding.
Julian rehandcuffed Miles behind his back, and he, Dan, and Melanie stepped out into the hallway again, shutting the door. Melanie used the time to check in with Shekeya, who reported that her girls were having a tea party with Maya as guest of honor.
After a few minutes, Siler opened the door and beckoned them inside.
“We’re making progress,” he said. “My client is prepared to proffer on his involvement in the burglary of Suzanne Shepard’s apartment at the behest of this Dr. Welch. But he insists he had nothing to do with the murder.”
“Is he willing to submit a DNA sample for testing?” Melanie asked.
“Not only willing, enthusiastic,” Jerry said. “He’s confident the test will show he’s innocent.”
“All right, we’ll make arrangements to get the technicians over here. In the meantime, let’s hear what he has to say,” Melanie said.
They all resumed their seats. Siler nodded at Ortiz.
“Here’s how the burglary go down,” Ortiz began in his gruff voice. “We up and running on this meth operation. I get a small percentage and my man Ben get a handsome chunk of change outta every batch. Sales is good. Everything going nice and smooth. Then one day about three weeks ago, Ben come to me and say we got a problem. I say, ‘What?’ He say, somebody sniffing around, asking too many questions, and I need you should do something about it.”
“Did he tell you who was sniffing around?”
“He tell me straight up it Suzanne Shepard. I know exactly who she is because my friend Kim be friends with her. I met her a coupla times.”
“What did Dr. Welch want you to do?”
“First thing he want is, I should find out how much Suzanne know.”
“How did he want you to do that? Ask her?”
“No. He tell me she gots lots of information written down in files that she keeps in her house.”
“He wanted you to break into her apartment?”
“Right.”
“Why didn’t he do it himself? He’s the one who knew what to look for,” Melanie said.
“The man don’t like to get his hands dirty, you feel me? Ben know I’m hooking up with Kim. He know Kim live in that same building, and her husband own it, so he want me to have Kim help get me into Suzanne’s apartment. He don’t want no involvement. He don’t want me mentioning his name. None of that.”
“Did Kim Savitt actually agree to help you burglarize Suzanne’s apartment?” Melanie asked.
Miles sighed and looked over at his lawyer.
“Any chance we can finesse this point?” Siler asked.
Melanie looked at Miles pointedly. “For purposes of today’s interview, yes, but if Kim Savitt is involved, she doesn’t walk. You’ll need to give her up, because I’m not letting her off the hook.”
Custody battle or no, how much slack could Melanie cut the woman? Kim was a drug user. She consorted with serious criminals. And now it looked like she’d conspired to commit a burglary and lied to the feds about it.
“Look, the bitch ratted me out,” he said, “but I won’t tell on no woman.”
“Take the weekend to get comfortable with the idea, Miles, but it’s not negotiable. For now, let’s move on. With or without Kim’s assistance, you knew you were entering Suzanne Shepard’s apartment illegally?”
“For sure. I ain’t playing with you. I know this is a B and E on my record, straight up. I stole shit, too.”
“You mean you took more than just the files Welch asked for?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What did you take?”
Miles proceeded to recount the burglarized items so precisely that he might have been reading from the police report Lorraine Shepard had filed. He was being scrupulously truthful.
“What did you do with the proceeds of the robbery?” Melanie asked.
“The money I spent. The jewelry I sold to a fence I know and then I spent what he gave me for it.”
“Did you share the proceeds with Benedict Welch?”
“Hell, no. He just tell me take the files. The other stuff was my idea, my work, so it belong to me.”
“Okay, let’s focus on the files now. Exactly what did you take?” Melanie asked.
“One folder with Ben’s name on it. Another folder with my name on it. Got ’em off a desk in the back bedroom of Suzanne’s place, right in plain sight.”
“That’s what Dr. Welch had told you to take?”
“He say, take anything about him.”
“About him? About Welch himself? Not about you, or the methamphetamine?”
“Naw. He say about him. It was only once I got in there that I saw a file with my name on it. Naturally I took that, too.”
“Did you open the files after you found them?”
“Yes, I did. Once I made it back to my crib, I read ’em cover to cover.”
“And did it appear that Suzanne Shepard was onto your methamphetamine operation?”
“No.”
“No? She didn’t know about the meth?”
“That’s what so weird. She ain’t know nothing about it, not as far as I could tell from the files.”
“So what was in the files, then?”
“In mine, it was like, what clients I’m hooking up with, and a rumor Suzanne heard that I was selling Ecstasy last year at a party. Bitch be paying attention, looking for dirt on me.”
A flash of anger in Ortiz’s eyes when he said that made Melanie study him more closely. It was hard to read people sometimes. She generally bought what Miles was saying. That Welch was the instigator. That Miles was small-time. That he didn’t have the motive or even the imagination to have murdered Suzanne. Yet Melanie couldn’t help wondering whether she was getting suckered. It would hardly be the first time a cooperator had lied.
“What did you do with the information in the file about you?” she asked.
“Burned it.”
Melanie looked Miles dead in the eye. “Burning the notes didn’t change what Suzanne knew. She could still have made trouble for you.”
Jerry Siler, who’d been using a pen cap to clean his fingernails, stopped and zeroed in on Miles’s face, listening attentively. But Miles kept his cool.
“If you asking whether I killed her, I didn’t,” Miles said. “Test my DNA and you’ll see. Why would I? Just because she knew I hooked up with a few clients or sold a couple tabs of X? Big deal. That can’t hurt me.”
Miles was so matter-of-fact that Melanie couldn’t help believing him. “What about Dr. Welch?” she asked Miles. “If Suzanne didn’t know about the meth operation, then what did she have on him?”
“His file was interesting,” Ortiz said. “It was a bunch of articles and court transcripts and shit from way back, about a murder. Some girl got raped and stabbed. The strange thing was, the stuff wasn’t about him. Didn’t talk about him at all.”
“The articles didn’t mention Benedict Welch?” Melanie asked.
“No. They caught the guy that did the murder, and it wasn’t Welch. Whoever it was got locked up.”
“What was the killer’s name?”
Miles shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“What about the girl? The victim? What was her name?”
“I don’t remember that either. Just some girl. A stripper.”
“Well, try. This is important,” Melanie said, glancing at Dan and confirming that he was getting all this information down.
“Uh, lemme see. Her name was maybe April. Or Sheri. Something girlie.”
“April or Sheri?” Melanie repeated. “That’s the best you can do?”
“I said, I can’t remember. Maybe it’ll come to me.”
“How long ago did you say this happened?” Melanie asked.
“Like twelve, fifteen years, something like that.”
“Here in New York?”
“No. In California. In L.A. That part I remember.”
“What did you do with the file on Welch after you read it?”
“I gave it to him.”
“Did he say anything about it?”
“He say, good work.”
“No, I mean did he say anything about the newspaper articles or the transcripts? Did he explain what connection he had to that murder?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Miles snorted. “Why I’m gonna mess in his business like that? As far as he concern, I never look inside the file, so he not gonna start explaining some shit about some old murder. Either it ain’t got nothing to do with him, or if it do, he don’t want me to know.”
“Did he look at the file while you were there?”
“Yeah, he checked to make sure I got what he wanted,” Miles said.
“And? Did he seem surprised about what was in there?”
“No. He seemed like that was what he was expecting. He looked through it and he nodded, like.”
“Did he say anything at all about the files, or what was in them?” Melanie asked.
“He just say one thing. He say, Miles, if anybody ask you, none of this ever happened.”