Black Midnight Page 12

  “Sally and I only had each other.” Ellen spoke emphatically. “We were happy that way. I don’t know anybody like you mean. Sally was the quiet type. Enjoyed a quiet life. She loved nature. All animals, especially cats. She wouldn’t hurt anything or anybody. Same as me. I’m not a troublemaker. Neither was Sally.”

  “Was she active in anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything at all. Causes, for instance. Was she political?” Yvonne met her gaze. “How about lesbian rights?”

  Ellen sat straighter. “We minded our own business. Both of us. No, I never heard Sally say a word about politics, either way, left or right. As for your other question, we lived our own lifestyle quietly. Never bothered anyone. And no one bothered us.” She seemed to know nothing about Sally Cooperman’s former activities.

  “Are you sure? Think. Take your time. Maybe you’ve overlooked something in the past.”

  “Sally wasn’t the kind of girl who got involved in things. Sure, she had opinions — who doesn’t? But she never expressed them publicly. Never.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “How about any strange or threatening phone calls? Letters, perhaps?”

  Ellen drew deep drags on her cigarette. “A crank or yo-yo, once in a while. Same as everybody else. Nothing unusual.”

  “What about her friends?”

  “We have a few — hey, you don’t think our friends — ”

  “No, of course not.” Yvonne clasped her hands together, leaned forward. “Was there ever anyone you didn’t know very well who dropped by in recent weeks.”

  “Not a soul.” Ellen seemed drained. Too physically exhausted to go on with this much longer.

  “Ever hear the name Ruben Pulido?”

  She shrugged. “Means nothing to me.”

  “Vanessa Santiago?”

  Ellen shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Try as hard as you can, Ellen. Start with the last few days or weeks. Was there anything, anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  It was a few moments before Ellen said, “There had been a couple of phone calls,” she said it as an afterthought.

  “Oh? Do you know from whom?”

  “Yeah. Some friend of hers from college. Upstate.”

  “Albany?”

  “That’s it. Yeah … ”

  “Did she give any names?” Warren wanted to know, speaking for the first time.

  “Gloria. She said it was someone named Gloria. Sure. They’d once been close. Together … ” She was uneasy.

  “You mean they’d been lovers?” asked Yvonne.

  Embarrassed, Ellen nodded without speaking.

  “Please say yes or no for the tape recorder.”

  “Yes.” She glanced at the machine. “Do I have to speak into that thing?”

  “It’s helpful for us, Ellen. We can’t force you, but we’d appreciate it.”

  “Did you ever meet this Gloria?” said Warren.

  “We were supposed to get together. Probably this weekend, over Halloween. At the festival. Gloria said she was in New York visiting. I guess now we’ll never — ” She tensed, suddenly gasped, and finally broke down, wracked with sobs. It had been expected. Yvonne was surprised it had taken this long. Yvonne got up and turned off the tape. She and Warren exchanged furtive glances.

  Yvonne walked over and put her hand on Ellen’s shoulder. “We can talk another time, Ellen, It’s all right. You’ve been through enough.” She looked at her watch. It was past 1 AM. “Have you got someone you can stay with at least for tonight?”

  Ellen shook her head.

  “We can put you up at a hotel, if you like. With protection. We’d rather not leave you by yourself. Or if you want you can stay at my place. I have enough space.”

  “I don’t think I want to be alone,” Ellen said. She was shaken and scared. “If it’s really okay, I’d prefer to stay with you than a hotel.”

  “No problem. You’ll stay with me. Tomorrow morning, hopefully, we can wrap things up.”

  Warren jumped up, pulled Yvonne aside. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I do. Believe me, I do.” She smiled at him, gave him a thumbs-up sign. “Better if one of us keeps an eye on her for now.”

  “Yvonne, don’t. We can hold her in protective custody.”

  “No. Let’s handle it my way. She’s frightened enough as it is. Please Warren, don’t interfere. I have my reasons.” Reluctantly, he agreed.

  She returned her attention to the crying woman. “It will only take a while to get you out of here,” she assured. “Warren, can you get us a lift to my house?”

  He still had serious doubts. “I’ll sign out a car. Shouldn’t be a problem. Just give me a few minutes, I’ll drive you myself.”

  As he left the room he was painfully aware of why Yvonne had made the offer. If his suspicions were the same as hers, they both knew that Ellen Booker very likely was in danger herself.

  The web was beginning to tighten, the mystery of Armageddon unfolding. Bit by bit, circumstantial evidence was falling into place. Sally Cooperman had been brutally murdered — for an unknown specific reason. But why? In his mind he was convinced this had not been a random attack of robbery or rape leading to a death. It had been willful. And by association with Sally, Ellen Booker was a potential target for the killer as well. But the real nagging question running through his mind was: To what extent was Yvonne DiPalma knowingly putting her own life in danger?

  XV

  The phone rang, shaking her out of an uneasy sleep. “I’ve got to talk to you, Yvonne.”

  She groggily tried to clear her head. “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  It was dark outside, she realized. Still the middle of the night. The only sound was that of a sanitation truck, disposer churning in the distance. She turned on a lamp, shaded her eyes from the painful brightness. “What time is it?”

  “About four-thirty.”

  “Oh God, Link,” she said with a woeful sigh. “I’ve barely gotten to sleep. I’m keeping Ellen Booker in my bedroom and — ” She felt a wave of nausea after she lighted a cigarette. She snubbed it out, waved away the smoke.

  “I know about all that. Warren wanted to play double safe. There’s an undercover cop across from your house.”

  “Jesus, that wasn’t necessary.”

  “I’m coming over. Make us some coffee.”

  She groaned. “How soon?”

  “Soon as I can.”

  Yvonne swung her feet off the couch and cradled the telephone between her ear and shoulder. “Link, can’t it wait a few hours? I’ve got to get some rest. I’m exhausted.”

  “Sleep later, DiPalma. Be there in twenty minutes.”

  She weaved to the door at the sound of the rap, opened it for him. She was dressed in a nightgown with a robe thrown over it. Slippers. Link entered self-consciously. “Sorry to barge in like this, sexy,” he said with a wink. “I wouldn’t have done it if I felt it could wait.”

  She stood fatigued, barely able to clear the thick fog from her mind. She put a finger to her lips, hushing him from speaking. “This better be good. Come into the kitchen. Talk quietly. I don’t want Ellen waking and hearing us.”

  The smell of the brewing coffee was strong and good. Yawning, trying to pull herself together, she poured two mugs to the brim. Black. Link took his appreciatively and sat at the table.

  “I decided to stay the night in the office,” he told her. “Too many things to wade through, and it didn’t pay to go home. About two o’clock I was dozing at my desk. One of the night clerks woke me. Told me that something was coming in over the computer from Albany on an urgent request.”

  “At two AM?”

  “Cops never sleep,” he chided. “Even in Albany, apparently. Anyway, we’d instructed them to alert us anytime day or night, remember? Guess they took us seriously. Their graveyard shift people must have received the r
eports late, read them and passed them on.”

  “Very expedient of them.” Yvonne slumped in her chair, depleted. She held the mug close to her mouth with both hands, and sipped. Her throat was still sore; it wouldn’t go away. “Which reports?”

  “The autopsy of Vanessa Santiago.”

  Life twinkled back into her lackluster eyes.

  Link wiped his brow with a tissue. He was hot and sweaty. It wasn’t warm outside, but it was humid. New York humid. A sticky and damp thickness that hung heavy in the air. He was as drained as Yvonne, but pumped up now with the rush of events and new developments. A speed high, without the speed.

  Speaking in an excited but very low tone, he said, “They exhumed the body as soon as they received the court order. The coroner’s office put a special team on it. And the findings … ” Here he paused to catch his breath. “Well, you draw your own conclusions.”

  Yvonne went for her cigarettes, put on her glasses. When she returned Link had already spread out the computer readout on the table for her.

  “You tell me,” she said, thumbing through the pages of dot matrix type.

  “They began with the dental records. Vanessa had been regularly seeing a dentist in Albany for several years. Had quite a bit of work done, too. His work proved conclusively that the mouths of the victim and his patient were identical. No mistakes made. Caps, fillings, extracted wisdom tooth. Complete set of X-rays. Checked them with the inquest copies. Perfect.”

  “I suppose I blew this one,” muttered Yvonne.

  Link held up his hand. “Wait. That isn’t all. Then the coroner’s team went to work with blood sample residuals, just in case. Tested them against Vanessa’s records from school. First hitch. Guess what? They didn’t match. Different types.”

  Yvonne fumbled to strike a light for her cigarette. She held her breath.

  “So they checked it out again, this time also calling down to New York to try and get information from the blood bank computers here. Lo and behold, something showed. Records from City Hall. Quite interesting. Seems that three years ago Vanessa Santiago applied for a marriage license, taken the obligatory blood test. Yeah, that’s right. A marriage license. And don’t interrupt, because it gets a little tricky, and a lot more crazy.

  “The husband-to-be had an ID naming himself as William Torres. A common enough name, I guess, only that William Torres happens to be one of the aliases used by our Attica friend, Ruben Pulido. So his blood was checked, too. The Torres blood type matches perfectly with the tests given after Ruben Pulido’s arrest.”

  Yvonne’s astonishment made her question if she were dreaming. “They were married?”

  “Surprise, huh?”

  “More like I’ve been hit by a brick.”

  “June twenty-first, at City Hall, almost three years back. Got it all. Here’s a copy of the certificate. Court clerk served as the only witness. They never told anyone, as far as we know.”

  Yvonne could feel her temper beginning to simmer. Ruben Pulido had lied to her. He’d convinced her they were no more than casual lovers. In reality, Vanessa had been his wife. She’d accepted his testimony on faith, on a blind gut feeling he was being forthright. Now everything he told her was suspect; it might as well be tossed out the window. Her anger left her distracted. Why, though, had he lied?

  “Stay with me, Yvonne. Don’t get too disjointed ’cause I’m not finished yet. Let’s get back to the medical records. As far as the coroner upstate is concerned, the test results between New York City and Albany don’t correspond. They no longer have a clear identity on the corpse. Which means — ”

  “Which means the suicide victim in Albany was two different people at the same time — or had a very split personality disorder,” Yvonne said sardonically. “Dental records prove it to be the body of Vanessa Santiago. Blood samples prove otherwise.” She made a sour face. “Why wasn’t this information known before?”

  “Probably because the coroner up there had no reason to delve outside of Albany. It seemed straightforward enough. Woman drives over a cliff, gets burnt until there’s nothing left. No fingerprints, scars, records of medical operations. They check out the dental records. Fail-safe method, right? Records come up with a perfect match. Bang. Case closed. Body duly buried, inquest over and forgotten. Everyone is satisfied.”

  “Only now they’re not so sure it wasn’t a horrendous blunder.”

  He smiled darkly. “Now they’re really going crazy trying to sort things out. One piece of evidence says it’s definitely Vanessa buried up there. Another proves it isn’t. Medical mayhem. They’ll fall all over themselves throwing the blame at each other. Beginning to feel like you’re in Alice in Wonderland?”

  She pushed her mug across the table. A little of it spilled. “I feel like I am Alice.”

  Yvonne sat in stony silence. Her head was spinning. So many holes to be plugged. Answers to things that defied logic. Ruben’s help had been one of her best leads — still was. What was he hiding? Why didn’t he want her to know about the wedding?

  Son of a bitch.

  It was a long while before she said anything. Long enough for the first cracks of dawn to grayly brighten up the sky.

  “Link, suppose I found myself a new dentist tomorrow. Out of town. Let’s say I give my name as, oh, Ellen Booker. He takes X-rays, sees me regularly, does his work. A year or two passes. A badly burned body is found. The only way to get a positive ID is to go to my dentist, check his records of my work against their moldings. What do you have?”

  His eyes met hers. “One dead woman presumed to be Ellen Booker.”

  “Only the real Ellen Booker isn’t dead at all, is she? Only an imposter using her name.” Yvonne paced restlessly. “Vanessa must have had another dentist in New York City at one time or another, wouldn’t you think?”

  “She did. We checked out her high school records. We’ll have those available in a couple of days.”

  “And I’ll bet you your wisdom teeth his X-rays won’t match those taken by the Albany coroner, either.” She rubbed her arms, feeling suddenly chilly. “Link, you know what I’m thinking?”

  “I know exactly the way you think, DiPalma. You’re beginning to wonder if Vanessa Santiago is still alive. But if she is, who drove that car off a cliff? Vanessa’s car. Carrying Vanessa’s IDs. And why had this person been using Vanessa’s name?”

  It didn’t appear to make much sense, she knew. “That I can’t answer — yet. But we do know this: Gloria Popolos disappears off the face of the earth, and a missing Sally Cooperman is found murdered. I’d be very interested to know who’s been lying in that Albany cemetery.” She shuddered. “My darkest dreams are like this, Link. I wake up thinking, what if we can’t stop it? What if the terror goes on and on? What if it slips through my fingers — ”

  “Hey, don’t lose your perspective, Yvonne.”

  “No. I’m not. That’s the problem. My intuition keeps proving out. Hauntingly.”

  “Not intuition,” he scoffed. “You do your homework, and you’re one of the best damned police I’ve ever seen. Don’t get carried away, though. You’re just doing your job. Your clues didn’t come from telepathy. You sought them out. We all did. With this kind of pressure it must look hopeless to everyone.”

  She wondered.

  “If I were making book I’d give even money the corpse in Albany could turn out to be our friend, Gloria Popolos.”

  “Gloria’s been accounted for until recently. Worked in a nursery, attended night classes. Remember?”

  “I haven’t forgotten. Or at least someone calling herself Gloria Popolos did all those things. People impersonate other people all the time.”

  Link mulled it over. Had no logic, but then nothing involved with this case ever did. Yvonne was too good a cop to give in to wild speculation, he knew. Now, he was finding himself starting to think her way.

  “I hear you,” he said. “It’s bizarre. But we can clear it up fast if there are also dental records available for G
loria Popolos. That’ll prove it one way or another.” He paused. “Because if you’re right, it’ll mean these two women virtually switched identities.”

  “Take a good look at their photos. They’re not unsimilar. About the same height, weight, bone structure. Think about it. One could easily pass as the other.”

  “Man, that’s a bad-ass dream.”

  “Worse. It’s a nightmare.”

  XVI

  Yvonne sat in the office feeling uneasy. She looked around at the paintings on the wall, panoramas of city skylines, neat vases overflowing with flowers. Several Picasso prints. It had been a very long time since she’d last seen Ben Altman. During her years as a psych major the psychologist had been her professor. After a while they became friends. He’d taken a liking to the energetic young student who seemed to never cease asking him questions. She had the kind of intuitive mind and zeal that always impressed him. After her graduation they’d kept in touch. From time to time having dinner, occasionally spending an evening just rapping at his West Village office. Ben still played the fatherly mentor role. In recent years, however, they saw each other less and less as Yvonne grew more wrapped in her professional life. Ben had been a great friend and counselor during the months after her marital breakup. During those difficult days it was he alone whose strength she could draw on. Since that time she had hardly seen him at all. She missed him. His wit, his insights, and mostly just his company. He made a great friend.

  Today, though, she was here for a different reason.

  She looked from the window. Across the street front his office was a church. Yvonne stared at the gray steeples. It had been how long since she’d last attended church? She couldn’t count the years. The memories of mass and the confessional were all mostly a blur now. She still remembered her strict parochial upbringing; the faith and belief in good instilled inside her not just by the sisters but by her family as well. Now it all seemed so curiously distant. An anachronism. Looking at the church doors she felt as if stepping through them she’d be stepping backward in time. Another place, another century. Another life that no longer existed. She hadn’t given up her religion, not entirely anyway, but a large dose of cynicism had entered her life. She’d seen, been through too much. The church had become something alien. There was no turning back.