Read In the Midst of Death for Free Online Page B

there. The phone's not listed. I figured it was you."

    But it was a voice he didn't recognize. A malevoice, and it sounded as though it was being purposely disguised. The caller said he could get Portia Carr to change her mind and drop her charges. Broadfield was to go immediately to a bar onOvingtonAvenue in the Bay Ridge section ofBrooklyn . He was to sit at the bar and drink beer until somebody got in touch with him.

    "To get you away from the apartment," I said. "Maybe they were too cute. If you can prove you were at the bar, and if the timing's right- "

    "There was no bar, Matt."

    "Huh?"

    "Ishoulda known better than to go in the first place. But I figured what could I lose, right? If someone wants to arrest me and they already know about my apartment, they don't have to get cute like that, right? So I took a subway out to Bay Ridge and I foundOvingtonAvenue . You knowBrooklyn at all?"

    "Not very well."

    "Neither doI . I foundOvington , and this bar's not where it's supposed to be, so I figured I must of fucked up, and I looked in the Brooklyn Yellow Pages and it's not listed, but I keep scouting around, you know, and I finally give up and head back home. At this point I figured I was being set up for something or other, but I still can't spot the angle. Then I walk into my apartment andthere's cops all over the place, and then I find out Portia's in the corner with a sheet over her, and that's why some son of a bitch wanted me chasing my tail in Bay Ridge. But there's no bartender could swear I was there because there was no bar called the High Pocket Lounge. There were a couple other bars I hit while I was there, but I couldn't tell you the names. And it wouldn't prove a thing."

    "Maybe one of the bartenders could recognize you."

    "And be positive about the time? And even so, it doesn't prove anything, Matt. I took the subway both ways, and the trains ran slow.
    Say I took a cab to try and set an alibi. Hell, even with the way the trains ran I could have killed Portia in my apartment around eleven-thirty before I even left for Bay Ridge.Except that she wasn't there when I left.
    Except that I didn't kill her."

    "Who did?"

    "It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Somebody who wants to see me locked up for murder where I can't slip the shaft to the good old NYPD. Now who would want to see that happen? Who'd have a reason?"

    I looked at him for a minute,then let my eyes slide off to the side. I asked him who knew about the apartment.

    "Nobody."

    "That's crap. DougFuhrmann knew- he took me there. I knew. I also knew the phone number because you gave it to me. DidFuhrmann know the number?"

    "I think so. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did."

    "Where did you and Doug get to be such good friends?"

    "He interviewed me one time, background for a book he was writing. We got to be good drinking buddies. Why?"

    "I just wondered. Who else knew about the apartment?Your wife?"

    "Diana? Hell, no. She knew I had to stay over in the city from time to time, but I told her I stayed at hotels. She's the last person I'd tell about the apartment. A man tells his wife he's taking an apartment, it's onlygonna mean one thing to her." He grinned again, as abruptly as always. "The funny thing is I took the fucking apartment primarily so I'd have a place to catch a little sleep when I wanteD.A.place to keep a change of clothes and like that. As far as taking broads to the apartment, I hardly ever did that.

    They'd generally have a place of their own."

    "But you took some women there."

    "Now and then.Meet a married woman in a bar, that sort of thing.
    Most of the time they'd never know my name."

    "Who else did you take there that might know your name? Portia Carr?"

    He hesitated, which was as good as an answer. "She had a place of her own."

    "But you also took her to the place onBarrow Street ."

    "Just once or twice.But she wouldn't get me out of there and then sneak in and knock herself off, would she?"

    I let it go. He tried to think of