Have You Seen Me?(68)

There’s no sign of Mulroney here either. Did I honestly think I’d simply bump into him as he was headed home?

I try him one more time and hear the same message about the mailbox being full. If he’s ridiculously tied up, why not have his partner cover for him?

His partner. He must have a phone as well. As I reverse course and hurry back toward Broadway, I pull up the company website and see that a second number is listed. Maybe it belongs to Williams. I pause just long enough to tap the hyperlink.

Two rings. And then a deep male voice.

“Jay Williams,” he answers without enthusiasm.

“Thank god,” I blurt out. “Jay, it’s Ally Linden, your client. We met at the diner.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been trying to reach Kurt all day, but he hasn’t returned my calls. Do you have any idea why?”

“Where are you at the moment?” he asks. His voice sounds hoarse, constricted actually.

“I’m not far from Broadway Diner. I went there looking for him.”

“Go back to the diner and I’ll meet you there.”

“What’s going on?”

“Let’s talk in person, okay?” he says.

I feel like I’m getting the runaround yet again.

“Jay, I need to know what’s happening. Where’s your partner?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” he says. “But Kurt’s been killed. He died yesterday evening.”

The news nearly knocks me off my feet.

“No, it can’t be,” I say in stupid protest. “I spoke to him last night.”

“What time?” Williams says.

“Uh, around seven or so. He was in his car. Driving.”

“He died around eight or nine o’clock.”

I can hear Mulroney’s voice in my head, see his face as he sat across from me, scribbling notes with his big hands. How horribly sad.

“What happened to him?” I plead, the words catching in my throat. “Was it an accident?”

“No, that’s not it. Kurt was shot to death.”





26


A low, guttural sound escapes my mouth. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“Please, it’s better if we do this in person,” Williams says. “I’m at Kurt’s apartment, and if you head to the diner, I can be there in under fifteen minutes.”

“Okay,” I mutter.

I drop the phone in my purse and tear up the street, nearly at a jog. A few minutes later I burst, breathless, through the door of the diner, into a cacophony of clanking plates and chattering voices. It’s nearly packed, but I find one free booth and slip into it. The smell is as overwhelming as the noise, a mix of sizzling ground chuck and burnt cheese.

In less time than I expect, Williams emerges through the doorway. Spotting me instantly, he hurries to the booth and slides in across from me. He’s in jeans and a black leather jacket, his face pinched in grief.

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t able to call all our clients with the news today,” he says. “I had to give the cops access to Kurt’s place today and then deal with the mess they left behind.”

“Where was he killed?”

“In his car. At the edge of a park about thirty miles out of the city in Westchester County, not far from White Plains. He’d been shot twice in the head, at close range.”

I try to prevent my mind from going there, but it does anyway. Mulroney’s face blown off. Blood sprayed all over the interior of the car.

“Does it have something to do with one of his cases?” I asked, chilled by the thought.

“The cops think not.”

A robbery, then? I wonder.

The waitress appears, ready to drop two plastic-coated menus on the table, but Williams holds up his hand.

“Coffee?” he asks me, his voice grim. “Or should we have an actual drink instead?”

“Yes, wine,” I say. We order two glasses of red and as soon as the waitress moves off, I glance back at Williams.

“But what would he be doing in a park up there—at nine o’clock at night?” I ask. “When I spoke to him, he said he had an appointment.”

Williams cups a hand over his mouth and then pulls it away. “Okay, I’m going to be perfectly blunt,” he says. “His car was found in a spot known for anonymous gay sex. He might have been targeted by a predator. Or there’s even a chance it was a hate crime.”

“Kurt was gay?”

Williams shrugs. “Maybe bisexual. He certainly wasn’t out, and I know he was married to a woman briefly in his thirties. He told me a few months ago that he was struggling with something and at the time I thought he was referring to depression. I tried to encourage him to open up, but I didn’t have any luck. Now I’m wondering if he was trying to work out his sexuality.”

It’s not making any sense to me.

“But if he was gay and looking for casual sex, there are easier ways to do it. Why not go on an app like Grindr, instead of traveling to a deserted site miles out of town?”

“If he was feeling as conflicted as I think, the internet might not have felt anonymous enough for him,” he says. “This is a spot for someone who is really on the down low. There are married guys who pull up there in their SUVs on their way back to the burbs at the end of the workday. And Jay would have been familiar with it from a job he did a year or two ago. The wife thought the husband was seeing a woman at work, but Kurt tailed him to several parking lots north of the city and discovered he was hooking up with other men.”