“Thanks.”

  “Was it a Detective Hancock who told you that Sara had been murdered? Black guy in his forties?”

  “No. I heard it on the news, I guess along with everybody else.”

  He stopped at a point in the hall and he and Devine set up his ladder. Devine held the ladder steady for him, took the old light from him when he handed it down, and passed him a new light. Myers put it in, clambered back down, and they moved on.

  “Was there anyone around when you found her? I mean, in the other offices near the storage room?”

  “None of the secretaries were in, least that I saw. Little bit too early for them. I can’t say one way or another for anybody in their offices. Can’t remember hearing or seeing anybody. Told the cops that, too.” He shook his head. “Stupid me, I coulda called down to the security desk from my phone, or any of the other phones up there. But I was so . . . ” He shook his head again and glanced up at Devine. “You ever find a dead body?”

  “No,” Devine lied.

  “Well, I hope you never do.”

  “So you came back up here with Sam, and then what?”

  “He took a look-see in the room, probably just to make sure I was telling the truth.”

  “And did you notice anyone around then?”

  Myers stopped and looked suspiciously at him. “Come on, I know you said you were friends, but why all these questions, buddy? You sound like a cop.”

  Devine was now ready for this. “I was in the military. Army Ranger. I have experience with the Army CID.”

  “Oh, okay. Hey, thank you for your service.”

  “You look like you might have worn the uniform.”

  “Wanted to, but my eyesight and hearing weren’t good enough. Failed the physical. Wear a hearing aid and contacts, but they got minimums even with that.”

  “Yeah, I know. So anyone else around?”

  “Not that I could see. Quiet as a . . .”

  “ . . . tomb?” said Devine.

  Myers visibly shuddered. “Yeah. About the time the cops got here some of the secretaries were arriving.”

  “How about the suits, meaning nonadmin people?”

  “Nope, don’t remember seeing any of them.”

  “But isn’t that strange? They all get in before the staff.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you.” He glanced at Devine. “Is that what you do here?”

  “Yeah. But I work on another floor. Then the cops secured the room and started clearing the space?”

  “Yeah, but only after the detectives showed up, you know, those guys in suits. Until then, they wouldn’t let anyone off the floor, including me. Later, they took folks down to a conference room on another floor. I guess to take statements and such. That’s where the cops took my statement and then cut me loose. I went outside and just walked around. I couldn’t get her image out of my head.”

  “How long do you think it was between the time you left the body and then returned?”

  Myers knitted his brows and then said, “I had to explain things to Sam, and I was all tongue-tied, so that took a bit. Then he had to call the cops, then he had to get another guy to cover the lobby. Mighta been like six, eight minutes, something like that. Maybe a little longer. I wasn’t looking at my watch. I do know after we got back up no one went near that door other than me and Sam.”

  “Okay, look, I appreciate your time.”

  Myers studied him for an uncomfortably long moment. “You two must’ve been really good friends.”

  “We were.”

  He left Myers and walked back out into one of the main areas for the secretarial staff. Grunts like him were sequestered in large interior, windowless offices separated into cubicles, so their focus would be total. The company executives had the corner offices with views outside. He walked through the staff slots until he spied an empty space. No photos, flowers, other personal touches. But it did have a computer. With the log-in information for the computer helpfully printed on a Post-it note stuck to the screen. Decent security defeated by a tiny slip of yellow paper and a lazy or forgetful employee.

  He sat down and used the information Valentine had sent him to get into the security logging database.

  He typed in the search. Who had accessed the fifty-second floor on Friday morning? Because it would all be in there, and at least that would tell him who was around. It was likely that whoever had sent him the email had killed Ewes. And the person would have been in the building the previous night between midnight and four. But there was still a chance that someone else had killed Ewes, and the email sender had simply seen Ewes’s body between the time Myers had found it and when he and Sam had returned to the fifty-second floor. If so, Devine wanted to find that person. And ask them why Devine had been sent the email.

  Did they know about me and Sara?

  He waited for the names associated with the swipe cards to cascade down the screen. At that time in the morning, the floor should have been filled with stiffs like him.

  He was thus stunned when not a single name, other than Jerry Myers, appeared on the screen as having accessed that floor on Friday morning. How was that possible? He did another search and then popped his head up for a moment to make sure the coast was still clear. He checked his watch. He still had time.

  Okay, now he was going for the big fish as he put in his search parameters. Who had not left the building the night Ewes was killed? Before he hit the Return key to initiate the search he recognized there was a flaw in this methodology. If people had left in a group at night, which they often did, it would only take one of their security swipe cards to send all of them down to the lobby. And you didn’t need your card to leave the building after hours; you just hit an exit button set next to the doors. You also didn’t need your card to enter the building during normal business hours, but you did need it to access the elevators. So the electronic count of the people coming and going really wouldn’t be accurate. But the record of anyone’s coming into the building within the time frame the cops were looking at would clearly be relevant, since no group would be coming in between midnight and four o’clock.

  He also checked the log and saw that Ewes had used her security card and arrived on Thursday morning at seven thirty. However, there was no record of her taking the elevator down that evening. That could have been because she left with a group, so he checked to see if Ewes had returned later that night. But there was no record of that, either. She had probably never left because someone had prevented her from doing so by killing her. But why had she been there that late in the first place? Was she working, or maybe meeting someone? Like Brad Cowl? Like Jennifer Stamos had?

  He modified his search and hit the Return key. And waited.

  It didn’t take long. Only one name came up. Logged in at midnight and logged out at one ten on Friday morning. Perfect window to kill Sara Ewes.

  He looked at the name, both seeing it and trying to unsee it.

  Travis R. Devine.

  CHAPTER

  28

  DEVINE LEFT THE FLOOR AND headed to another using his security card. Right now he needed to answer a question, and he thought he knew who might be able to help him. When the cops saw that entry log, things were going to go from bad to infinitely worse for him. He was surprised they hadn’t already seen it and arrested him.

  He got off on the forty-first floor and found Wanda Simms about a minute later. She normally got in early, he knew, and she had her office on this floor. She was striding through the halls making sure that everything in her domain was ready to go for when everyone arrived. He imagined her home would be spotless and well organized right down to the kitchen cutlery drawers and the kitty litter box.

  “Hey, Wanda.”

  She saw him, and her expression changed to a look of terror, all professionalism ripped right from the woman. She rushed forward and gripped his arm.

  “Did you hear about Sara?”

  “Yeah, I did,” he said grimly.

  “I can’t believe it. There’s a killer somewhere around here.”

  “I’m sure the police are doing all they can.”

  “I just wish they’d do it faster.”

  “I had a question about something here at the office.”

  “What?” she said, all efficiency again.

  “I talked to some folks who said there was no one on the fifty-second floor the morning Sara was found. You said you were up there looking for people, but I don’t think anyone was there. At least that’s what I heard.”

  She was already nodding. “There was a seminar for the M and A Division that morning. They were all over at the Ritz, well, all except the support staff, of course. The police found me and asked me to make sure the floor was clear. I told them about the seminar, but they still insisted I go office to office with two police officers. But I wasn’t surprised when no one was there. It was an all-hands seminar, you see, no exceptions.” Her expression grew sad. “Sara didn’t deserve to be killed like that.”

  “No one does,” said Devine.

  * * *

  The cascade of financial data washed across his computer screen, but Devine wasn’t really focused on it. He was just treading water in a shark tank. It couldn’t be long now, could it?

  He still flinched when the knock came. The door opened and a woman’s face appeared. She was one of the staff here. He couldn’t recall her name at the moment. His mind was already moving past her.

  He started to rise even before she spoke. “Mr. Devine? Someone wants to speak to you.”

  He slipped past the other cubicles. Several heads lifted to glimpse him for a moment before falling back to their screens and the pursuit of vast wealth thereon.

  He followed her down the hall toward the elevators. There were two men there, both in suits that looked more like his than most of the other suits here, meaning rumpled and cheap.

  One was a little taller than him, about six two, beefy, around fifty with grayish hair parted on the side. His partner was in his forties, balding, five ten and lean, with an expression that gave away nothing. The woman didn’t make introductions. She just scurried off while the men showed Devine their badges and identified themselves.

  The tall one was Ralph Shoemaker, the shorter one Paul Ekman. They were assigned to the NYPD’s Homicide Squad and were investigating Sara Ewes’s death, Shoemaker said. His voice was low but sharp. Ekman’s was even sharper, with a helping of falsetto on certain words. Whether that was for effect or had something to do with his vocal cords, Devine didn’t know or care.

  “We’d like to talk to you, Mr. Devine,” said Ekman.

  “Okay. Seems like lots of people want to talk to me lately.”

  “We have a room. This way.”

  He followed them down the hall and into a space not much larger than the storage closet Ewes had been found hanging in. There were three chairs. Ekman told Devine to sit and he did. Both men sat across from him. There was no table separating them. They were nearly knee to knee. Devine knew this was intentional. Take away personal space and you got your target on edge from the get-go. He had done this very same thing interrogating Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters they had captured. Even with a translator present, you could still put the screws to people. And they were doing it to Devine right now, or at least trying to.

  Ekman took out a notebook, while Shoemaker leveled his gaze at Devine.

  Shoemaker said, “Ranger, huh? My son’s in the Army. Infantry. He’s in South Korea.”

  “Yeah, I did a stint there, too.”

  “You earned lots of medals. Wounded. Twice. Served your country well. Helluva soldier.”

  “I did my job.”

  “You were friends with Sara Ewes?”

  “I knew her.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” The man’s expression didn’t change, though the tone of his words had. It was neatly done, thought Devine. He had sat through these sorts of interrogations before, when he was having his security clearances updated, and was being grilled on whether he’d ever had sex with animals. He could appreciate skill when he saw it.

  “We went out to mixers. I saw her at group events. I liked her. I think she liked me. If that’s being her friend, then I was her friend. But so were other people.”

  “You went to her place. Visited with her parents. Out of all the people here, you’re the only one who did that.” Shoemaker sat back and unbuttoned his jacket. Clipped on his belt was a holster with a Glock riding in it and his shiny badge on the other side of the belt clasp. He looked like he was ready to stay here all day, if need be, and just let Devine stare at that gun and that badge, two powerful symbols for sure.

  “I was walking past her place and saw them—”

  “How’d you know where she lived?” interjected Ekman, the falsetto notes boomeranging around Devine’s head.

  “As I told her parents, I walked her home one night from a nearby bar to make sure she got there safe.”

  “Go on,” said Shoemaker.

  “I saw them, figured they were her parents. She took after them in appearance, and on the spur of the moment I knocked on the door and things went from there. I just wanted them to know I was sorry about what had happened and if they needed anything to call me. I left them my card.”

  Shoemaker reached in his pocket and pulled a card out. “Mrs. Ewes gave this to us this morning when we saw her. She called and told us about your visit. That’s why we’re here to talk to you.”

  “Why did she do that?” asked Devine, who was relieved they weren’t here because of the electronic log showing him entering the building in time to kill Ewes.

  Ekman leaned forward. “Let’s just say that she felt you weren’t being entirely forthcoming about your relationship with her daughter.”

  “In what way?”

  “Why don’t you tell us?” replied Ekman.

  “How? I can’t read minds.”

  “Just read your own, then.”

  “I knew Sara and liked her, just like other people here did. Have you talked to any of them?”

  “Quite a few,” replied Shoemaker. “But now we’re talking to you.”

  “Okay, and I’m answering your questions.”

  “Ewes kept a diary, did you know that?”

  “Her mother told me she kept one ever since she was young, but that the police apparently didn’t find one at her house. Were her phone and laptop at the office or her home?”

  Shoemaker said, “We’ve gone through her emails and other communications and calendar entries on her electronics. And do you know what we found?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Ms. Ewes had had an abortion.”

  Devine sat up straighter and leaned forward. “What? Sara was pregnant?”

  “Abortions are not performed on women who aren’t pregnant,” pointed out Ekman sarcastically.

  “Where did she have it done?”

  “It was a calendar entry with the procedure listed. We’ll run down who performed it.”

  “Did she say who the father was?”

  Shoemaker crossed one leg over the other and tapped his wingtips with his index finger. “Was it you?” he said, staring off before swinging his gaze around to Devine’s. It was clearly done for dramatic effect, and Devine had to admit the cop pulled it off nicely.

  “I know nothing about any of this.”

  “Again, not really my question. Did you have sex with Sara Ewes?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  Ekman interjected, “No, but your refusal comes with consequences. And she did name you as the father, just so you know.”

  Devine now swiveled his gaze in the man’s direction. “And it’s totally legal for cops to lie to suspects to trick them into saying something. So that could be a load of bullshit. Show me where she says that.”

  Shoemaker said, “Paul, this guy sounds like a lawyer. Who woulda thought that about a fine Army lad.”

  Devine knew all about this because the CID had interrogated him after Hawkins’s death, tried to screw with his head, lied to him, tried to get him to confess, pounded him with everything they had. Only the body had been so torn up by animals that the forensics were of no use in assigning legal blame to Devine, and the injuries he had incurred in his fight with Hawkins were minimal and inconclusive. All soldiers had bumps and bruises and cuts. And any DNA of one man found on the other was also inconclusive, since they served in close proximity to one another. No witnesses, no other evidence, and a time of death that was all over the place allowed Devine to reasonably argue that he had an alibi for the broad time window in question. The CID had finally given up. Devine also assumed that they didn’t want to pursue it more thoroughly because doing so might open up for scrutiny the whitewash investigation they had done of Blankenship’s supposed suicide.

  “You can take my prints and my DNA. I did not kill her.”

  “How about a polygraph? Will you take one of those?”

  Devine sat back. “Which means you found no DNA and no prints at the murder scene. Or maybe you just didn’t find any of mine. And you’re trying to railroad me into a confession so you can clear this one off your list and make your boss happy and Wall Street rest easy. Only if you did pin it on me, the killer would still be out there. But I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “I don’t remember asking for a deal,” said Ekman.

  “I’ll take a polygraph if you show me where Sara names me as the father and you swear in an affidavit that it’s legit and not made up to get me to confess to something I didn’t do.”

  “You watch too many cop shows,” said Shoemaker. “But while we can make deceptive statements to you in an interrogation, we can’t manufacture evidence. That would be a crime.”

  “Do I take that as a no-go on my offer, then?”

  “Where were you between the hours of midnight and four a.m. on Friday?”

  Devine grimaced impatiently. “Come on, I already told the other guy all that.”

  “What other guy?” said Shoemaker sharply.

  “Hancock.”

  “Hancock?” parroted Ekman.

  “Detective Karl Hancock with NYPD. I guess he’s working the case with you two.”