Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(52)

“No problem,” Kylie said. “I heard you’re the man to see if a girl wants to lose her drone virginity.”

I jumped in. “Before we get to the fun and games, can we focus on the mission at hand?”

Jerry Brainard has the unflappable temperament of a man who sits at a console fielding emergency calls all day. “Actually, a short lesson couldn’t hurt.” He showed Kylie his iPhone. “Your controls are all on your phone or your iPad.”

Thirty seconds into the tutorial she grabbed his phone. “Got it,” she said.

Kylie flew like she drove. Total cowgirl.

“Pretty good,” Brainard said. “But aren’t you the same cop who ran a million-dollar Mercedes into a—”

“Exigent circumstances,” she yelled. “I was completely exonerated.”

He gave her another few minutes in the air, then had her bring it in.

Brainard took the phone, tapped on the glass a few times, and handed it back to her. “What does this tell you?” he said.

“Holy shit,” Kylie said, staring at the screen. “It tells me we’re about to make the DA a very happy man.”





CHAPTER 49



“So what do you think?” Kylie said on the way back to the precinct. “Did Marschand and Freemont murder Aubrey Davenport?”

“I know Cates told us not to rule them out,” I said, “but what’s their motive?”

“That sex tape of her and the judge is probably the tip of the iceberg,” Kylie said. “Who knows how many there are? Troy Marschand found them, told his boyfriend, and they decided to go into the extortion business. But first they had to kill her.”

“Oh, I can picture that conversation,” Danny said. “Troy says, ‘Hey Dylan, let’s get a gun and whack my boss.’ And Dylan says, ‘No, I have a better idea. First we convince her that the two of us want to have autoerotic sex with her, then we take her out to this deserted smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island, where she and Janek go to do all their kinky—’”

“Stop,” Kylie said. “I get your point.”

“I think Danny’s right,” I said. “Janek Hoffmann killed her. Troy and Dylan found the sex tapes on Aubrey’s computer after the fact. Like Cates said: the blackmail was most likely a crime of opportunity.”

“Fine. We’ll nail them on extortion and see where we can take it from there,” Kylie said. “All I know is that these two assholes think they’re smarter than we are, and we’re about to show them they’re not.”

“Technically, they are smarter than we are,” Tommy Fischer said. “They’re just not smarter than Jerry Brainard.”

Danny dropped us off at the precinct, and we stayed just long enough to pick up a car. Then we headed downtown to ADA Selma Kaplan’s office to tell her what we had on Marschand and Freemont.

“Do we have a case?” I asked.

“If you find what you think you’re going to find, you’ll have a slam dunk,” she said. “But I doubt if it’ll ever come to trial. Judge Rafferty would be crazy to go public with his sexual hijinks, and the perps would be even crazier not to plead out.”

“We need a couple of warrants,” I said.

“There’s not a judge in the building who wouldn’t be happy to sign off,” Kaplan said. “The only one who can’t is the aggrieved party, the Honorable Michael J. Rafferty.”

It was the fastest warrant we’d ever gotten.

Troy and Dylan lived on Franklin Street in Tribeca, which was only a five-minute drive from the courthouse. Corcoran and Fischer were parked outside their building.

“Marschand did a Starbucks run about twenty minutes ago,” Danny said. “Right now they’re both in the apartment sipping lattes and thinking about where to spend the DA’s money next.”

“Let’s go upstairs and ruin their day,” Kylie said.

We instructed the doorman not to ring up, and the four of us took the elevator to the fifth floor. Kylie knocked on the door, and Troy opened it.

“Remember me?” she said. “Detective MacDonald. My partner and I are working on the Davenport murder.”

“Of course I remember. But I thought you arrested Janek Hoffmann.”

“We did. You’ve been so helpful already. Sorry to keep bothering you. We just have some loose ends to tie up. Can we come in?”

“Sure.” He gave a yell. “Dylan, the two homicide detectives are here.”

We walked in, followed by Corcoran and Fischer.

“And they brought reinforcements,” Troy said with a laugh.

Dylan Freemont joined us, and once again I was weirded out by how much alike they looked. More like brothers than lovers. They were both wearing jeans and T-shirts. Dylan’s was black; Troy’s was lavender.

I nodded at Corcoran and Fischer, and they took out their cell phones.

“How can we help?” Troy asked.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Kylie said. She stopped, interrupted by the familiar thrum of the bass and the doot-didoot-didoot beat of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” It was the ringtone on Troy’s cell.

Seconds later, another phone rang. The ringtone on this one was Madonna singing “Vogue.” Dylan answered his phone.