“Can you think of anything that might have connected Evelyn to the three previous victims?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” Sykes said. “The killer didn’t know her either. He killed those three scumbags, but the mayor didn’t give him what he wanted. Attention. So he targeted someone in power, beat a false confession out of her, and now he’s an international media sensation. If I were mayor, he’d have been locked up before he ever laid a hand on Evelyn.”
She stubbed out her cigarette and popped an Altoids. “Now let me get back to Leonard,” she said, yanking the handle on the glass door. “You’re free to look around all you want.”
Kylie and I expected to find nothing, but we went from room to room, going through the motions.
“This is interesting,” I said when we got to Evelyn’s work space. “No computer, no modem.”
“Maybe she was Amish,” Kylie said. “Good thing we know Sykes was a former U.S. attorney, otherwise I might suspect her of tampering with evidence.”
We went back to the living room, where Leonard was pacing and yelling into his cell phone. “Hold on, Vernon,” he said when he saw us. “I’ll ask the cops.”
“Hey, lady detective—is this a crime scene?” he asked, twirling a bony finger around the room. “The apartment? Is it a crime scene?”
“Technically,” Kylie said, “there’s no current evidence—”
“Just yes or no. Crime scene? Not a crime scene?”
Nobody, no matter how old or how rich, steamrolls Kylie MacDonald. “Mr. Parker,” she said slowly, deliberately, “to answer your question, the New York City Police Department does not currently consider your late daughter’s apartment as a crime scene.”
“We’re good to go, Vern,” Parker said into the phone. “List it at one point nine five and see if anyone bites.”
And with that, the grieving father hung up, brushed past us, and strode out the front door.
Chapter 19
“Well, that went swimmingly,” I said when we were back in the elevator. “I practically accused a former U.S. attorney of tampering with evidence, you came this close to telling the victim’s father to take a flying leap off the balcony, and Evelyn’s computer, which is probably our best link to finding the killer, is mysteriously missing.”
“There’s nothing mysterious about it,” Kylie said. “Plain and simple. Muriel Sykes took it.”
“Try proving that one,” I said.
“You think I can’t?” she said as the elevator door opened. “Watch this.”
She headed straight for the doorman.
“How’d it go up there?” he said, all cheery, as though Christmas were right around the corner and she was the heavy tipper who lived in the penthouse.
“What’s your name?” she demanded, all badass cop, no charm.
“Nestor,” he said meekly.
“You have video surveillance in this building, Nestor?”
“Just closed-circuit,” he said, pointing to the eight tiny monitors on his console. “It doesn’t tape anything. It just lets me keep an eye on things as they happen.”
“So you’re pretty alert,” Kylie said.
“That’s my job.”
“Then you’d remember if you saw Mrs. Sykes go upstairs to Mrs. Parker-Steele’s apartment early this morning.”
“If she did, I didn’t see her,” he said all too quickly.
“Nestor, do you know why we’re here?” Kylie demanded.
“Mrs. Parker-Steele,” he said. “Somebody killed her.”
“Correct. We’re investigating a murder. So if I ask you a question and you lie to me, you are guilty of obstructing justice, which is a felony. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Then let me restate the question,” she said. “Did you see Mrs. Sykes go upstairs to Mrs. Parker-Steele’s apartment early this morning? And before you answer, ask yourself if whatever she tipped you to keep it quiet is enough to get you through the next two years, because that’s the minimum you’d pull for lying to a homicide investigator.”
“Mrs. Sykes came by this morning,” he said. “A little after seven. I know the time because I start my shift at seven, and I was still drinking my coffee. She pulled up in a town car, and she told the driver to wait for her. She went upstairs—she didn’t have anything with her when she went up, but when she came down five minutes later, she had Mrs. Parker-Steele’s laptop. I recognized the carrying case. It has one of those Apple stickers on it. She gave me a hundred bucks.”