“They didn’t arrest Holdstock?” Sandy said into his cell phone. He wanted to shout but this was an NYPD detective he was talking to. “Why not? I served him up to you on a silver platter.”
He’d called in his “tip” to McCann—the only NYPD detective he knew by name—who relayed it to the Queens precinct investigating the murder. Sandy had figured if the Savior’s info was true, Holdstock would be locked up in no time. But when he’d called the 108th Precinct to confirm the arrest, he was told Holdstock had been sent home and no more. Unbelievable. He’d been trying to get hold of McCann ever since. Finally McCann had returned his call.
“You should get stuff appraised before you buy,” Detective McCann said, his voice thin through Sandy’s cell phone. “That silver platter of yours was mostly tin.”
Sandy felt a twinge of nausea. Had he been set up?
He was seated in the dark in the front seat of a car he’d gone out and rented immediately after hearing the news. He was tempted to roll down a window for a breath of night air, but didn’t. After what he’d seen a few moments ago, he wanted the windows up and the doors locked.
“What do you mean?”
“Had an alibi,” McCann said. “Airtight, as they say on the tube.”
“Who?”
“The seven other members of his cancer support group say he was with them at a meeting at the time of the killing. Hard to argue with that.”
Cancer support group? What the—? Of course! The cult.
Sandy fumed. He should have foreseen they’d band together and cover for him.
“But the handprint—”
“Was just where you said it would be, and a perfect match.”
That was a relief. At least he knew the Savior had been telling the truth about that.
“Well? Doesn’t that prove he was there?”
“It does, but it doesn’t tell us when. Holdstock says he must have left it there when he visited Fielding last Thursday.”
“He’s lying. He was there last night.”
“He says different. It’s not like they didn’t know each other. Fielding treated Holdstock, and Holdstock says they struck up a friendly relationship.”
“Bullshit. When was the last time your doctor invited you over to his house? And that’s not a cancer support group Holdstock’s been meeting with, it’s a cult, and he’s their leader.”
McCann’s chuckle grated through the little speaker. “You’re a piece of work, Palmer. You come up with this interview with the Savior that says he’s a former SEAL—which we’re pretty sure now he’s not—and now you come up with this eyewitness to a murder who says it was done by a cult. Where do you find these people?”
“I don’t. They find me. And as for the cult, I’m sitting half a block from Holdstock’s place now and believe me, this is a cult.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Palmer.”
“Not me. I’m just watching.”
It was stuffy in the rental, the warm air tinged with the sour smell of old spilled coffee, but Sandy kept the windows up. His quick peek through one of Holdstock’s windows had sent him scurrying back here with a bad case of the creeps. All those people sitting around the living room, grinning and humming as they stared into space. He shook off a chill and took a tighter grip on the phone.
“Listen, detective, every member of that cult is a former patient of Fielding’s.” Sandy hoped the Savior had his facts straight because he was going out on a limb here. “My source says they developed some delusion that Fielding had caused their tumors just so he could experiment on them, and so they decided to kill him.”
“Let’s put the cult aside and talk about your source,” McCann said.
“The boys over at the One-Oh-Eight are still looking into Holdstock as a possible, but they’re very interested in your source. They’d like to speak to him.”
“Her,” Sandy said.
That should throw them off. Sandy had been expecting this and figured he’d cover himself the same way he had after the Savior interview.
“Okay…her. She knew about the handprint and the electrical wire. Only way she could know that was to be in the room when the murder went down.”
“She told me she was outside, looking through a window.”
“The One-Oh-Eight boys say you’d have to be nine feet tall to see through the dining room window.”
“Maybe she plays for the Liberty. I’ve never seen her, only spoken to her on the phone.” Sandy smiled, happy with the way he’d slipped that in there.
McCann sighed. “Gonna run that on me again, are you, Palmer? No personal contact, everything over the phone, right? Well, listen up. The guys at the One-Oh-Eight think your source knows too much, and might be the killer himself.”
“I told you she’s—”
“Yeah-yeah, I know what you told me. But the killer wasn’t a woman. It was a fairly strong guy. So if your source is really a guy, watch your back.”
And then McCann cut the connection.
Sandy hit END on his phone and considered McCann’s parting words. It had occurred to him before but now McCann had brought it up: could the Savior be the real killer and trying to use Sandy to divert attention from himself?
But why? Reading between the lines of his conversation with McCann he’d gathered that the cops in Queens had no suspects beyond what Sandy had provided. And Holdstock’s print was there, just as the Savior had said.
And as for watching his back, if the Savior had wanted to harm him, the perfect time and place would have been at Julio’s this morning: nobody had seen Sandy go in, and no one would have noticed if he never came out.
So far everything the Savior had told him about the murder had been dope. Still, you couldn’t be too careful…
What Sandy needed was a story beyond the crime itself. He needed to link Holdstock and his cult to the crime. And since the cops weren’t doing it, it was up to him.
That was why he was sitting here. In the dark. In the Bronx.
But hey, that was what investigative reporting was all about, right?
He stared at the lighted windows of Holdstock’s place, partially visible through the trees along the sidewalk. He’d watch, but from here. No way he was going back to that window and listen to that humming.
Maybe he’d be lucky. Maybe they’d kill someone else tonight.