He shook his head. “Nope. She just hopped in the back.”
“But you’re absolutely sure there were two men in the car,” I said. Eyewitnesses who have been drinking are not that reliable, and I was pushing Romeo to see if he stuck with his story.
“No,” he said. “I’m not sure there were two men. I never saw the driver. It could have been a woman or a trained monkey.”
“Can you describe the man in the backseat?”
“He was white.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. I never saw his face, but his hand was resting on the window. Hey, don’t try to beat me out of the reward just because I couldn’t see faces. I gave you the black car and a white guy. That’s gotta be worth something.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. Thank you for calling it in.”
Romeo stubbed out his cigarette, handed Kylie his business card, and waddled into the bar.
“He described the clothes she was wearing,” Kylie said. “And the fact that he saw Evelyn get into a car backs up Matt’s theory that she drove down Second and onto the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge toward Queens before her cell signal went dead.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s recap. We’ve got two suspects, one male, one gender undetermined, in a black SUV headed for Queens—and the male suspect definitely has a white hand.”
Kylie couldn’t help grinning. “Narrows it right down,” she said.
Chapter 29
Kylie and I wrapped it up by 10:15. At 10:16, I called Cheryl at home. No answer. I didn’t leave a message.
By 6:00 the next morning, I got to Gerri’s Diner and sat at my usual table. Much to my surprise, Gerri herself waved off the waitress and was there in seconds, pouring me hot coffee.
“So, Zach,” she said, “how’s it going with the lady shrink?”
The diner is around the corner from the precinct, and Gerri Gomperts, who is a cross between a den mother and Dear Abby, makes it her business to know everybody else’s business. The running joke at the One Nine is that if Internal Affairs needs to know anything about any of our cops, they walk straight past the precinct house and go directly to the diner.
Gerri had been following my relationship with Cheryl since before I even knew there was a relationship.
“It’s going okay, I guess,” I said, faking a smile.
Gerri faked a smile back. “That’s so romantic. And yet you hardly ever hear any love songs with the lyrics ‘It’s going okay, I guess.’”
Cheryl showed up five minutes later and joined me. Gerri was right on her heels. “Good morning, Dr. Robinson,” she said, pouring Cheryl some coffee.
“What?” I said. “No soy latte?”
They both gave me a look that let me know the dig had fallen flat on its face.
“I didn’t get to those files before I left last night,” Cheryl said as soon as Gerri left. “Can it wait till this afternoon?”
“Kylie and I are bouncing all over the city today. How about after five? And maybe dinner after that?”
“Good morning,” said a familiar baritone voice before she could answer. It was Matt Smith, star of my soap opera fantasies. “Sorry I can’t join you. I’m just grabbing a coffee. Captain Cates’s email keeps crashing, and she wants it fixed first thing. How’d it go last night?”
“Fantastic,” Cheryl said. “It was everything you said it would be.”
“Actually, I was asking Zach,” Matt said. “How did your barhopping go?”
“We got a lead,” I said. “It looks like somebody—make that two somebodies—picked Parker-Steele up in a black SUV exactly in that spot where you said she dropped off the radar.”
“Good show. That explains her quick trip to the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge. I have her cell records. I’ll check if anyone she called in the past six months owns a black SUV. I’ll get on it as soon as I solve the captain’s email issue. Still looking for the source of the choke pear.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t thank me, mate. It’s a pleasure to be on the team with you. As for you, Doctor,” he said to Cheryl, “pop round my office at lunch. We can grab a bite, and you can fill me in on last night.”
“Will do,” she said.
I waited for Matt to go out the front door. “So, Doctor,” I said, “what went so fantastic for you last night?”
“The play. I told you I was taking my parents to the theater for their anniversary. It’s a new Off Broadway play that Matt recommended.”
“Sorry. I’ve been busy. I guess I forgot. Glad it went well.”