“Jamie’s notebook!” Veronica exclaimed.
“Yes. It has her name on it and is clearly the one she was using when she did the interviews of homeless people for the project she was working on. We were able to trace the identity of the homeless man who was living in the van through a family picture we found there. You may have seen it on the news. It showed a young couple with a baby.”
“We both saw it,” Veronica said numbly. “Did that man kill our daughter, and if so, have you arrested him?”
“His name was Clyde Hotchkiss. I must first tell you that he died yesterday morning at Bellevue Hospital.”
Lawrence and Veronica gasped and reached for each other’s hand.
Ramsey waited for a moment, then said, “He had been brought to the hospital when a passerby saw him collapsed on the street near the West Side Highway. He was dying of pneumonia and lived only a few more hours. We were notified because hospital personnel recognized him from the newscasts and contacted us. We were able to speak with him briefly.”
“What did he say?” Lawrence demanded. “What did he say?”
“We asked him about Jamie. He admitted that she got into the van and kept bothering him with questions. He admitted punching her once but claims she jumped out of the van and then he heard her cry, ‘Help me, help me!’ ”
“Did he try to help her?” Lawrence Gordon’s face was pale, his eyes glistening with tears.
“No, he did not. He died admitting only that he had punched her, and swearing that he did not kill her.”
“Do you believe him?”
The marshals looked at each other. “I’m not sure,” Frank Ramsey said.
“I don’t believe him,” Nathan Klein said flatly. “His wife and son, who had not seen him since he walked out on them nearly forty years ago, had also been contacted and had come to the hospital. They were there when we talked to him. His wife begged him to answer our questions, but I think he couldn’t admit to killing Jamie in front of her and his son. The information that we are giving you will be released at a police press conference at noon today.”
“Then he either killed her or ignored her cries for help. God damn his rotten soul to hell!” Lawrence Gordon’s face was contorted with grief and rage.
It was Jamie’s mother who said quietly, “The other day that psychic told me that we would have an answer about what happened to Jamie soon. Somehow I knew she was right. Well, we have an answer, I guess.”
Then, as Lawrence wrapped his arms around her, Veronica began to sob, “Oh, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie!”
79
On Thursday morning, Hannah stopped at the hospital at eight o’clock on her way to work. It had become part of her daily routine to start her day sitting by Kate’s bedside and talking to her, hoping and praying that maybe she was getting through to her.
She again thought about the book that she had read that had been written by the neurosurgeon who had supposedly been in a deep coma but had heard everything that was going on around him.
Maybe it’s like that for Kate, she thought, as, holding Kate’s hand in hers, she told her about Justin Kramer bringing dinner in from Shun Lee West last night, and how he wanted her to know that her bromeliad plant was thriving. “He’s kind of special, Kate,” she said. “I really like him. Before I met him, he told me how he brought the plant to you as a housewarming gift.”
Then, as she spoke, for the first time she felt Kate squeeze her hand for a brief moment.
When Dr. Patel came in to see Kate, and Hannah told him what had happened, he answered, “I’m not surprised. Since that fever broke, Kate is making a remarkable recovery. The brain swelling is completely gone. There is no sign of further bleeding. We will be gradually taking her off heavy sedation starting today. If all goes well, by tomorrow or Saturday at the latest, she’ll be in a private room. I have every hope that she will regain consciousness. Even if she does not remember the immediate past, and by that I mean the explosion. I believe she will make a full recovery.”
As he spoke, Kate again squeezed her hand. “Doctor, Kate is trying to let me know that she is aware that I’m here,” Hannah exclaimed. “I’m sure she is. I’ve got to leave her now and get to work but you couldn’t have given me better news. Thank you. Thank you so much!”
Kate tried to move her lips. Hannah, stay with me please, she wanted to say. I keep having the nightmare. I don’t want to have it anymore. I don’t want to be alone.
80
At seven o’clock on Thursday morning, after being questioned all night at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Jack Worth was told he was free to go home. When he had first arrived, he had been read the Miranda warnings. He had originally told the detectives that he didn’t need a lawyer and would gladly cooperate with them. After the initial shock of being taken in for questioning, he had decided that he had a straight story, there were no holes in it, and that a rush to get a lawyer might make him look guilty.
Over and over as the hours passed, he had answered the increasingly scornful questions the detectives had thrown at him. “When you were at the complex, for whatever reason, very early in the morning, and you looked down into that sinkhole and saw that girl wearing your medallion, why did you run away? Why didn’t you dial nine-one-one right away?”
“Look, I never forgot the grilling I got twenty-eight years ago just because I bought that damn eight-dollar medallion with Tracey’s name on it and tried to give it to her,” he said. “She wouldn’t take it as a gift, but she liked it and gave me the money for it. I never went out with her alone. I never saw her wear the necklace. I got scared because I knew just what you cops would be thinking. Come on. Give me a lie detector test. I’m not worried.”
Jack’s attitude had changed when they began to question him about Jamie Gordon. “I read about that poor kid. You’re telling me that two years ago she was in that van in the parking lot sometime between midnight and six in the morning and you’re asking me what I know about it! I was the plant manager, not the night watchman. Listen, I’ve tried to be on the level with you guys, but I’m tired and I want to leave now.” He stood up. “Anyone stopping me? Am I under arrest?”
“You are not under arrest and you are free to go, Jack,” he was told. “We may want to talk to you again, but now you can go home.”
A terrified Jack Worth, knowing that he would undoubtedly hear from them again soon, walked quickly out of the room.
81
Attorney Noah Green was thoroughly repulsed by his new client, Harry Simon. “Well, he’s not really new. Do you remember that I got him off on a speeding ticket a couple of years ago?” he asked his wife, Helen, on Thursday morning over their usual breakfast of coffee and a bagel at their small law office in lower Manhattan.
They had met in law school and were married the day after they were sworn in to the New York State Bar twenty-six years ago. Optimistically, they had opened a law office with the money that they had suggested their relatives and friends give to them in lieu of other wedding presents. To their deep disappointment, Helen had had several miscarriages and they had never had children.
They had both developed good reputations in the legal community and their practice had thrived. Helen Green concentrated on family law, and most of her clients were women. Many of them had been victims of domestic violence or were seeking child support from their ex-husbands or boyfriends. Noah’s clients were usually people buying or selling their condos, writing their wills, or trying to fight expensive motor vehicle violations. Their private joke was that Helen’s practice often ended up being pro bono and that Noah’s clients paid the bills.
While Noah and Helen had a standing agreement that they would try hard to avoid discussing their cases at the dinner table, Noah had told her the night before about his visit to see Harry Simon, and that now he had to decide whether to approach the police with the information that Simon claimed to have about the night Tracey Sloane had disappeared.
Helen had been initially app
alled at the idea that her husband was representing a murderer whose crime had been indisputably captured by a security camera. “Noah, I want you to withdraw,” she pleaded. “We don’t need this. If Simon told you to give this information to the police, then do it and get out.”
“Helen, I don’t like him any more than you do. I didn’t even feel good about getting him off on that speeding ticket. Maybe the radar gun wasn’t working properly, but I did believe that young state trooper when he testified that Harry was driving like a bat out of hell that day and almost cut off a family with a bunch of kids in a station wagon. But, you know, Helen, this is a very high-profile case. Simon can’t really pay much, but he is entitled to an advocate and the publicity could draw in a lot of new clients for me, especially if I’m able to get him a better deal with the information about Sloane.”
Noah and Helen both remembered that they had been students at New York University School of Law when Tracey Sloane vanished. They had occasionally gone to Tommy’s Bistro, where Tracey had worked at the time of her disappearance, and had even talked between themselves about whether she had ever been their waitress. They had concluded that, on the few occasions they had been there, their waitress had been an older woman with a strong Italian accent.
“All right, Noah,” Helen said, reluctantly. “It’s okay with me if you want to represent him.” She added wryly, “But I don’t have to be thrilled about it.”
Noah had spent a restless night, still not sure that it was a good idea to go to the police with Simon’s story about Tracey Sloane getting into some kind of furniture van. But then on Thursday morning, as he finished his bagel and coffee, he decided that Simon really didn’t have anything to lose. The Lower East Side case by itself would put him in prison for the rest of his life. Simon’s only shot at doing less than life without parole was the Sloane information.
“Helen, I’m going to call the DA’s office this afternoon about what Simon knows. I just want to finish up a few things here before I make the call.”
At two minutes of twelve, Helen came rushing into Noah’s office. “Noah, turn on the television, quick. There’s a police press conference that you have to see. The lead-in said that it’s going to be about Tracey Sloane.”
Noah grabbed the remote and clicked it. The small television on the wall of his office went on. The press conference was just about to begin. He heard the solemn voice of the police spokesman announcing it had been confirmed by the medical examiner’s office that the remains of the long-missing Tracey Sloane had been found at the Connelly furniture complex in Long Island City. “The explosion last week created a deep sinkhole in the back of the property and a member of the cleanup crew removing the rubble discovered the remains at five o’clock yesterday evening.”
The spokesman continued: “As of this point, we can release the following limited information. Our investigation has revealed that a homeless man, Clyde Hotchkiss, who had been a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, had been living for a number of years in a disabled van at the rear of the Connelly property. Before his death at Bellevue Hospital yesterday, which preceded the discovery last night of Tracey Sloane’s remains, Hotchkiss was questioned about the disappearance of Barnard College student Jamie Gordon, whose body was found in the East River a year and a half ago. A notebook with her name on it had been discovered in his van following the explosion. Ms. Gordon had been interviewing homeless people as part of an academic project that she had been working on at the time she went missing.”
“Is there any connection between the two cases?” a reporter shouted.
“Please let me finish,” he responded. “Mr. Hotchkiss acknowledged that Ms. Gordon had climbed into the van and tried to talk to him. He admitted that he became very angry and that he punched her in the face. He claimed that she had then fled the van and moments later, he had heard her cry for help. Before his death, he consistently denied that he had followed her or caused her any other injury.”
The spokesman looked directly at the reporter who had called out the question. “At this point, we have no idea if Mr. Hotchkiss was involved in the disappearance of Tracey Sloane. We do not know where he was living twenty-eight years ago. The fact that her remains were found only yards from where he had been recently living in the van may or may not be significant. At the present time, we do not know. We can state, however, that Clyde Hotchkiss is strongly suspected to be responsible for the death of Jamie Gordon.”
“Helen, they just said that Tracey Sloane’s remains were found at the Connelly Fine Antique Reproductions complex!” Noah exclaimed.
“Yes, they did. I can hear. I know what you’re thinking.”
In his mind, Noah Green was again seeing the furtive expression in Harry Simon’s eyes as he told him that Tracey Sloane had willingly gotten into a black furniture van with gold lettering on the side panel that had the word “antique” on it.
That creep was telling the truth, Noah thought. None of this was public information until two minutes ago. Noah took out his cell phone and called Detective Matt Stevens, who had questioned Simon the previous day. “What’s up, Noah?” he asked.
“What’s up is that I’m on my way in to talk to you. I can represent to you that Harry Simon might have useful information regarding Tracey Sloane’s disappearance, and it’s not what you’re thinking. He didn’t do it but he could end up being a valuable witness. When I was with him yesterday, he told me that he can describe the type of vehicle that she willingly got into the night she disappeared. But he won’t talk unless he has assurance that it will help him in a plea agreement on the Lower East Side case. He’s no fool. He knows the kind of proof that you have with that tape.”
“The thought of giving that creep one day less in prison makes me sick,” Stevens replied. “And, anyhow, I don’t have that kind of authority. That would have to come from the DA himself or one of his top assistants.”
“Well, talk to one of them now. But I’m telling you that what Simon told me was before that press conference, so it’s legit. And if anyone doubts about the timing of his information, I will withdraw as his attorney and become a witness. He may be a useless piece of garbage but in this case I can swear, as an officer of the court, that he talked to me yesterday. And particularly after watching that press conference, I think that what he said is going to help you. I’ll be there in a little while.”
Noah Green put his cell phone in his pocket and looked at his wife. “Wish me luck,” he said.
An hour later, Noah was seated in the impressive private office of Ted Carlyle, the district attorney of Manhattan. Detective Matt Stevens, his expression inscrutable, was next to Carlyle. After expressing his own repulsion at giving Harry Simon anything, DA Carlyle agreed to offer Simon twenty years without parole on the Lower East Side murder of Betsy Trainer if the information about Tracey Sloane proved to be of substantial value.
“If it doesn’t completely pan out, we’re back to life without parole,” Carlyle stated emphatically. “I’ll bury him.”
Green responded, “He will certainly understand that.”
“All right,” Carlyle replied. “Now what are the details that he claims he has?”
“He followed Tracey Sloane from the restaurant the night she disappeared. He saw her get into a furniture van a couple of blocks away.”
Noah could not help savoring the look of astonishment on the faces of the two men. “The van was stopped at a light. Somebody inside it called out to her. The door opened and she willingly got into the van. From where he was a short distance behind her, Simon couldn’t see the driver, but he could see that it was a black furniture van with gold lettering on the side panel that had the word ‘antique’ on it.”
Noah’s voice became firm. “As I said before, I want you to check the time I was with Simon yesterday afternoon. I left him just before five o’clock. It was a few minutes later that Tracey Sloane’s remains were discovered in a sinkhole in the parking lot of the esteemed Connelly Fine Antique Repro
ductions complex.”
“Why didn’t he tell this to Nick Greco when he was first questioned right after Sloane went missing?” Carlyle demanded.
“I asked him exactly the same question,” Noah replied. “He said that he was afraid about something in his background and that he would end up making himself a suspect.”
“He’s right about that,” Carlyle snapped.
82
Sammy was one of the many street people who was questioned by the police as to whether he knew the homeless man who called himself Clyde. At first he had said that he had never heard of him. He didn’t want to get in trouble. But when one of his friends tipped him off that it had been on television that maybe Clyde had killed a couple of girls, Sammy was seized with a sense of civic duty.
Tony Bovaro was a young cop in the Chelsea district who would wake him up in the morning if he was squatting outside a building or near a townhouse and say, “Okay, Sammy, you know you’re not supposed to be here. Get moving before I have to take you in.”
This time, it was Sammy who went looking for the officer. On Thursday afternoon, he caught up with Officer Bovaro, who was seated, with his partner, in a squad car. “I got something to tell you, Officer,” he said, trying to conceal the fact that he had a pretty good buzz on.
“Hi, Sammy. Haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” Bovaro said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is that you should take a look at the black-and-blue mark on my chin.”