“It’s right, Sam. Ellissa, put the gun down.”
“No! Stay there!”
“Smith,” said Sam, ignoring Cromley, “did Leslie kill those other women, too? You said it was three people.”
“She didn’t. But we don’t know who did.” This seemed like the wrong time to shake up his world any further.
“That’s not true. You do know.” He looked at Lydia. “When you called, you said you knew. But now Smith doesn’t want to tell. Why?” He frowned in thought. “Because you think I’d be upset. So it must have been someone I like. It wasn’t Ellissa, because she would have said so. It wasn’t Tony, because he thought it was me.” His logic was unconvincing, but his conclusions were correct. “It wasn’t Peter, because I’m the crazy one.”
Sam stared at the floor another few moments, then turned to me. With that rare, unnerving clarity, he met my eyes. “It was Peter, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why?”
“He lost it, Sam. Like you thought you did.”
“He doesn’t even drink.”
“No.”
“He’s just crazy?”
“Yes.”
“Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Sam!” Cromley barked as the situation started to escape her control. “Go downstairs and wait.”
Sam turned to her. “But you killed Tony,” he said. “So you’re crazy, too. And you want me to go downstairs so you can kill Smith and Lydia and her mother.” He stepped forward, arms out, as if to hide Lydia and me behind him. “But I won’t.”
Cromley said, “Her mother? Where’s her mother?”
And Lydia’s mother came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with a teapot and little cups, took in the situation, stopped, and hefted the tray, with pot, cups and all, across the room and into Cromley’s face.
42
I expected it would take a lot of time and effort to get and keep Sam under control, but I was wrong. While Lydia tied Cromley’s hands and, as she had with Leslie, hauled her up and into a chair, and I called Grimaldi to tell her the case wasn’t as closed as she’d thought, Sam methodically went through the room, picking up every scrap of porcelain. He piled them piece by piece on the lacquer tray, Mrs. Chin following behind him, wiping the floor with paper towels. She kept up a stream of talk with Lydia, and when Sam lifted the fragment-laden tray and started to tell her how sorry he was, she took the tray from him and laughed. I didn’t know what she said to him in Chinese, and neither did he, but he laughed, too.
Then, sobering, Sam crossed the room to Lydia’s father’s chair, where he sat and stared at the floor.
Grimaldi arrived with Epstein, asked if we were really done now and, if not, could I give her more warning next time. She heard me out, and demanded that everyone—including Lydia’s mother—be at the precinct in an hour to give statements. She took Cromley’s gun, Epstein took Cromley, and they left. Sam didn’t look up, even when Cromley called his name, until the door shut behind them.
“She wasn’t my friend,” he said.
“No,” I answered.
“Tony, either. Or Leslie. Or even Peter.”
“No.”
“So,” he said slowly, “that means I don’t have to listen to any of them. I mean, I never listened to Leslie. But Ellissa, and Peter. They’re as crazy as I am.”
“Crazier,” said Lydia.
“So no one’s going to tell me what to do anymore. I can do what I want.”
“Pretty much.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So, for one thing, I don’t have to stay with Sherron.”
I glanced at Lydia. “No,” I said, “you don’t.”
“Other galleries wanted me. Maybe I can find someone I actually like. And a new studio in a different place. Smith, you know about art. Will you help?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
Mrs. Chin said something to Lydia and vanished into the kitchen once more, where I heard her running water into the plug-in kettle.
Sam spoke to Lydia. “Your mom’s making tea? What’s she going to put it in?”
“We have lots of teapots.”
“And cups?”
“And cups.”
“Okay,” he said again, and we all settled back to wait.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My agent, Josh Getzler
#TeamGetzler!
My publisher, Claiborne Hancock
My editor, Katie McGuire
All the fine people at Pegasus Books, such a pleasure to work with!
Charlotte Dobbs
Steven Blier, Hillary Brown, Susan Chin, Monty Freeman, Charles ‘McGyver’ McKinney, Max Rudin, James Russell, Amy Schatz
Sunday mornings and Monday nights at NTL, as was and as will be again
The Saloon at KSWS
Patricia Chao
Jonathan Santlofer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. J. ROZAN has won multiple awards for her fiction, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, Macavity, the Japanese Maltese Falcon, and the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the author of the Chin and Smith mystery series, including Paper Son, which is also available from Pegasus Crime. S. J. was born and raised in the Bronx and now lives in lower Manhattan.
ALSO BY S. J. ROZAN
Paper Son
China Trade
Concourse
Mandarin Plaid
No Colder Place
A Bitter Feast
Stone Quarry
Reflecting the Sky
Winter and Night
The Shanghai Moon
On the Line
Ghost Hero
Absent Friends
In This Rain
AS SAM CABOT
Blood of the Lamb
Skin of the Wolf
SHORT STORY COLLECTION
A Tale About a Tiger
THE ART OF VIOLENCE
Pegasus Crime is an imprint of
Pegasus Books, Ltd.
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Copyright © 2020 by S. J. Rozan
First Pegasus Books edition December 2020
Interior design by Sabrina Plomitallo-González, Pegasus Books
Front cover images courtesy of Getty Images
Author photograph by Charles Kreloff
Jacket design courtesy of Studio Gearbox
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-1-64313-531-1
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-532-8
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