Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III #1)(26)

I do not.

I scan through the file and jot down the names of close relatives I could potentially question. Ry Strauss had a quasi-famous brother, Saul, a progressive attorney who represents the downtrodden. He’s a television talking head, but then again who isn’t nowadays? Did Ry never contact his brother Saul, even though they lived in the same city for perhaps forty years? It’s worth an ask. Saul Strauss, I know, has been on Hester Crimstein’s news program, ridiculously named Crimstein on Crime. Perhaps Hester could offer an introduction.

The Strauss parents are deceased. In fact, of the Jane Street Six’s potential twelve parents, only two are still alive—Billy Rowan’s father, Edie Parker’s mother. I write their names down. Next I go through surviving siblings besides Saul Strauss. That adds another nine people, though two of those belong to Lake Davies, so I won’t need them. I add those names to my list. If I have more time or help, I might spread my family tree out—uncles, aunts, cousins—but I doubt that I will.

There are a lot of names here. I will need help.

My thoughts naturally gravitate to Myron.

He is down in Florida, taking care of his parents and helping his wife settle into a new job. I don’t want to take him away from that. Those who know us well would note that I always came through when Myron would engage in similar quixotic quests and ask for my help—that in fact, after all the times I marched into battle for him without question or pause, Myron “owes” me.

Those folks would be wrong.

Let me clue you in on the advice Myron’s father, one of the wisest men I know, gave his son and his son’s best man—that would be yours truly—on Myron’s wedding day: “Relationships are never fifty-fifty. Sometimes they are sixty-forty, sometimes eighty-twenty. You’ll be the eighty sometimes, you’ll be the twenty others. The key is to accept and be okay with that.”

I believe this simple wisdom is true for all great relationships, not just marriages, so if you add it up, how my friendship with Myron has improved and enhanced my life, no, Myron owes me nothing.

My phone pings a reminder that I have not yet responded to my rendezvous app. I doubt there will be time tonight, but it would be rude to not reply. When I click the notification and scan the request, my eyes widen. I quickly change my mind and set up a meet for eight p.m. tonight.

Let me explain why.

The rendezvous app has a rather unusual “bio” page. No, it’s not like the dating apps where you spew out exaggerated nonsense about how you like pi?a coladas and getting caught in the rain. This page starts about akin to ratings one might give an Uber, but because most members use the app on rare occasions (unlike yours truly), the developers have supplemented personal ratings with what could crudely be called an appearance ranking. It’s a far more complicated algorithm than that, scoring in many specific physical fields and on many levels. One of the app rules states that if you ask another client about your ranking—or if that client tells you—you are both immediately forced to relinquish your membership. I, for example, do not know what my rankings are.

I am confident that they are high. No need for false modesty, is there?

To give you an idea, Bitsy Cabot’s aggregate ranking was an accurate 7.8 out of ten. The lowest I would go for is a 6.5. Well, okay, once I went with a 6.0, but nothing else was available. The app’s scoring is very tough. A six on this app would be considered at least an eight anywhere else.

The highest ranking I’ve seen on the app? I was once with a 9.1. She’d been a renowned supermodel before she married a famous rock star. You know her name. That was the only woman above a nine I’d ever seen.

The woman who had currently pinged me for a rendezvous?

Her ranking was a 9.85.

There is no way I was passing that up.

PT calls me. “How did it go with Lake Davies?”

I start with the obvious: “She lied about Strauss being dead.” I then fill him in on the rest of our conversation.

“So what’s your next step?”

“Go to Malachy’s Pub.”

“Forty years later?”

“Yes.”

“Long shot.”

“Is there any other kind?” I counter.

“What else?”

“I have compiled a list of people I may want to interrogate. I need your people to get me current addresses.”

“Email me the list.”

I know how PT works. He gets the information before he gives the information. Now that I’ve done my part, I prompt him: “Anything new on your end?”

“We got week-old CCTV footage from the Beresford. We think it’s from the day of the murder but…”

I wait.

“We don’t know how helpful it will be,” he says.

“Is the killer on it?”

“Likely, yeah. But we can’t really see much.”

“I’d like to view it.”

“I can email you a link in an hour.”

I mull this over for a moment. “I’d rather stop by the Beresford and have one of the doormen show it to me.”

“I’ll set it up.”

“I will go to Malachy’s first.”

“One more thing, Win.”

I wait.

“We can’t keep the ID quiet any longer. Tomorrow morning, the Director is going to announce the body belongs to Ry Strauss.”