know it, and I know it, but knowing isn’t proving. Unlike, say, the crusading members of the fourth estate, I’m legally limited in the kind of pressure I can bring to bear.”
He paused, eyeing her.
“What?” she said.
“You did the city a solid,” he said. “With that Noah Sellers thing. Saved the cost of a trial and a cell.”
She felt a spider crawling up her spine. Suddenly she wanted to be anywhere but here. Or maybe she just wanted to slap that look off his face.
“I didn’t do it for you,” she said. She shifted gears. “You talk to the wife?”
“We’d like to know where she is.”
“Try Singapore.”
Jordan tilted his head. He glanced back into the condo, at the silk sheets, the twin glasses of wine, and caught up to where Nell had arrived five minutes ago.
“That changes things,” he said.
“It does,” she said. “That helpful?”
“Highly.”
“Like I said, the dearly departed had promised me some information. You find anything in there like a laptop, USB sticks—”
Detective Jordan became a wall, pushing his shoulders back and filling the doorway.
“Not letting you poke your nose around an active crime scene, Bluth. Anything in that condo is evidence.”
She held up her open palms. “Just asking questions about hypotheticals.”
“That, I can tell you. Nada. No computer, no nothing. Try his office maybe.”
Doubtful. No chance he’d keep the documents that could burn his employer anywhere that said employer could stumble across them.
“How about a phone? You find a cell on him?”
Jordan shook his head. “He has a company-issued phone, but his admin said he forgot it at the office when he left work yesterday afternoon. I sent a car over to pick it up, so we can take a look.”
Not the burner he used for talking to Nell, then. An idea crept in, sneaking around the shady corners of her mind.
“You’ll keep an eye out for me?” she asked.
He gave her a noncommittal don’t call me, I’ll call you wave, turned, and tromped back to the crime scene. She fished out her phone, lingering on the threshold, and dialed Arthur’s number.
The line trilled. Nell perked her ears and listened for a corresponding ring inside the condo, betraying any hint of where the burner might have been hidden. Silence.
On the fifth ring, just as she was about to hang up, someone answered the phone. They didn’t say anything, but their breath gave them away. High-pitched, tight, nervous.
“Hello,” Nell said. “May I speak to Arthur Wendt, please?”
They hung up.
She clutched her phone tight and marched back to the elevators, keeping her lips sealed until she got on and the doors glided shut. This time, the line only rang twice.
“Brooklyn Standard, city desk speaking.”
“Ty? Good news and bad news.”
“Bad news first,” he said.
“Arthur Wendt is dead. Someone killed him last night in his condo.”
She heard a rattle as Tyler shot bolt upright in his chair. “Jesus, Nell. Are you okay? Did they catch the guy?”
“No, but here’s the thing: there was a witness.”
“To the killing?”
“Arthur had female company last night. Not-his-wife company. Company that left in a very big hurry. And whoever she is, she has Arthur’s phone.”
“Or,” Tyler said, “and hey, just spit-balling here, tossing this out for your consideration, has it occurred to you that she might have been the one who killed him?”
“The watchman downstairs got paid to take a hike. Meanwhile, Arthur’s lady friend made absolutely no effort to hide the fact that she’d been there. Sexy-time bedsheets, multiple glasses of wine, probably left her fingerprints everywhere…it doesn’t add up. If she had the foresight to cover her tracks in the lobby, she sure as hell wouldn’t have left big neon signs plastered all around Arthur’s dead body.”
“What’s your take, then?”
“I think the killer knew Arthur’s wife was out of town,” Nell said. “He showed up, expecting to find him alone, and got a surprise. He killed Arthur and she ran in the confusion. She’s a witness, Tyler. She saw everything.”
“And you shared this information with the police.”
The elevator door chimed and rumbled open. She crossed the lobby, ducking her head as she skirted past a pair of officers on their way upstairs.
“I shared the most relevant details.”
“Nell.”
She knew that tone. “The witness has his phone. And considering the cops didn’t find any laptops or data-storage devices in the condo, there’s a very good chance he was using it for more than calling me.”
“Nell,” he said.
“He was going to bring us the receipts. The receipts. Absolute, hard proof that Barron Equity and the Weaver Group