Sam had been speaking to all three men, but she directed her last question specifically to McCord. “You said Valente was ‘calculating,’ yet he’s been visiting her openly at her apartment. Last night, he took her out to dinner—very publicly—and then he spent the night with her, even though he obviously knows he’s under surveillance.” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Why would a cold, calculating man do such reckless things?”
“Based on my firsthand knowledge of man’s basest nature,” McCord said with a mocking smile, “I would have to assume that Leigh Manning offered herself to Valente as part of the bargain, and he’s extremely eager to start collecting payment.”
“You mean,” Sam paraphrased with a smile, “he has the hots for her?”
“Obviously.”
“I see,” Sam said wryly. “So—apparently the ‘Ice Man’ is actually so ‘hot’ that he’s willing to risk a death sentence to be with her?”
McCord sighed, but he didn’t argue. He couldn’t.
“I’m not saying Valente didn’t murder Logan Manning,” Sam added, “but I’ve met him, and I don’t think he’s as inhumanly cold and emotionless as you’ve been told. I was watching him when he got his first look at Mrs. Manning’s Mercedes as it was being winched up to the road. He looked completely shaken and almost ill when he saw it. I also saw him carry her in his arms—up a steep hill, through deep snow—from the cabin to the main road. I’ll be interested in hearing what you think of him,” Sam finished.
McCord glanced at his watch. “Then let’s go have a talk with him, so I can decide for myself.” He phoned Holland’s clerk and told him the interview was about to begin; then he pushed back his chair.
“If you ask me,” Womack said as they all stood up to head toward the interview rooms, “Detective Littleton thinks the Ice Man is hot stuff.”
Sam made a joke of it as she picked up her pad and pencil, though what she said was what she thought. “I think he’s very attractive—in a dangerous, unfriendly sort of way.”
As she finished speaking, she happened to glance at McCord, who was walking around his desk toward her, and she found herself momentarily impaled by a pair of blue eyes as sharp as daggers. “Is that right?” he inquired in a deliberately offhand tone that completely belied the expression in his eyes.
“Nope, not really,” Sam said unhesitatingly . . . untruthfully . . . and completely unintentionally. Stunned by her involuntary reply, she started across the squad room toward the interview rooms, with Shrader and Womack in the lead, while she tried to understand what had just happened. That look on McCord’s face had been there either because he thought she was biased in favor of a suspect—and a criminal, to boot. Or because he had been jealous. No, it couldn’t have been jealousy, Sam decided. No way. Not McCord. Not possible.
After momentarily examining the reasons for her own reaction, Sam concluded that she’d denied her stated opinion of Valente either because she didn’t want McCord to think her professional opinions could be influenced by any man, no matter how attractive he might be. Or—and she didn’t like this possibility—because jealousy was an uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling and she didn’t want to do anything, ever, to make that amazing man feel an unnecessary moment of unpleasantness. If so, that would indicate her feelings for him were very tender, and that he already meant a great deal more to her than she realized. But he didn’t. She would never be foolish enough to let that happen.
Beside her, McCord sent her a slanted little smile and lowered his voice. “I think we got through our first lovers’ quarrel pretty well, don’t you?”
Sam turned the corner too sharply, and nearly hit the wall.
He spared her the need to reply by abruptly switching to the matter ahead as they neared the interview rooms at the end of the next hallway. “Shrader, do you want to sit in, or do you want to watch it from the other side of the mirror?”
“Since I’m not going to participate, I’d rather watch from outside. The view’s broader from further away.”
When Womack said virtually the same thing, McCord looked at Sam.
“I’d like to sit in on it,” she said instantly. “I wish you’d ask him about his relationship with Mrs. Manning while he’s here.”
“If he’s come here to hand me a solid alibi, there’s no point in asking him about her, or anything else, because he’ll tell me to fuck off. Mr. Valente,” McCord continued snidely, “doesn’t like us to ‘pry’ into his affairs. He once made the State’s prosecutors spend months trying to force him to hand over some records they wanted to see in connection with their fraud case against him. First his lawyers stalled, then they argued, then they fought against it all the way to the New York Supreme Court. Do you know what happened when the Supreme Court finally made him turn over the files the prosecutors wanted?”
“No, what?”
“The records completely exonerated him. Valente knew they would. If he’s actually got an ironclad alibi today, he’s not going to give me one molecule of additional information. In fact, I still can’t believe he’s planning to volunteer anything. It’s a real first for him.”
Chapter 55
* * *
Formerly called “interrogation rooms,” the interview rooms were located on the far side of the third floor, diagonally opposite McCord’s office, between two short, busy hallways at the rear of the building. The front hallway had entrance doors into the rooms and large glass windows where passersby could see, and be seen. The rear hallway had one-way mirrors where detectives and police officers could gather to observe and hear what was taking place in each room without being observed themselves.
Instead of waiting inside the interview room as they’d been instructed to do, Michael Valente and his attorney were standing outside it in the hall, drinking coffee. It was, Sam decided, a small but deliberate defiance designed to subtly wrest control from McCord.
McCord took it as such and retaliated by stalking past both men without a glance. He opened the door to the interview room, and with a rude jerk of his head, he snapped an order at them. “Inside!”
Shrader and Womack were already making the turn to the back hall as Captain Holland strode past Sam with four other men, all headed in the same direction. Valente’s voluntary appearance at the precinct was evidently drawing a crowd, Sam realized, wondering how many people were already gathered back there to watch the proceedings through the one-way mirror.
She waited for Buchanan and Valente to precede her into the room; then she followed them inside and closed the door.
McCord went to the right side of the oblong table in the center of the room. “Sit down,” he ordered his adversaries, nodding toward the chairs on the left of the table.
Valente unhurriedly sat down; then he opened his topcoat, leaned back in his chair, and casually propped his right ankle atop his opposite knee—a deliberately indolent posture that conveyed his utter lack of respect for the occasion, and for the detectives present.
McCord angled his chair sideways, put his yellow tablet in his lap, and looked over his right shoulder at Valente, impatiently tapping the end of his pencil on the table. Waiting.
Sam made a mental snapshot of the two silent men and subtitled it: “If I can’t win, I won’t play.”
Buchanan sat down, opened his briefcase, and broke the electrified silence by saying, “It’s our belief that Mr. Valente is a suspect in the murder of Logan Manning.”
McCord’s gaze shifted to Buchanan, and he shrugged. “No one has accused him of that.”
“That’s true. In fact, no one’s even questioned him. Why is that, Lieutenant?”
“I’m the one who asks the questions,” McCord explained as if he were reprimanding a rude fourth grader on a field trip at the precinct, “and you’re the one who gives the answers. Now, you asked for this meeting. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise,” McCord added acidly, “there’s the door. Use it.”
Gordon Buchanan’s aristocratic face remained perfectly
composed, but Sam saw a muscle begin to tick in the side of Valente’s clamped jaw. “For the record,” Buchanan said smoothly and unemotionally, “Mr. Valente could not possibly be your murderer. Here is a schedule of his whereabouts on that Sunday, along with names and phone numbers of witnesses who can verify his presence. As you will discover when you read this, my client was at lunch and then a Knicks game with three business associates. After the game, the men went to the Century Club, where they discussed business until six. At nine P.M., he had dinner in a public restaurant where he is known and recognized, with a woman whose name is on that list. At one A.M., he returned home, where he made several lengthy telephone calls to business associates in Asia. His chauffeur, his doorman, and his telephone records will all verify the last part of that.”
McCord reached for the paper and then deliberately ignored it once it was in his hand. “I’m told Mr. Valente doesn’t like to volunteer information. One might even say that he always goes out of his way to be uncooperative. I’m curious about his motives for coming here today and offering information to assist us in this particular case.”
Buchanan closed his briefcase. “My client’s motives are none of your business. Your business is—presumably—to find Logan Manning’s real murderer.”
“Suppose I were to tell you that Mrs. Manning is our primary suspect,” McCord drawled. “What would you say to that?”