Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery Read Online Free Page A

kill himself.”
    “What are you talking about?” I asked.
    “Jack didn’t kill himself,” she repeated.
    She was defiant now, but I could match her.
    “Look, I don’t have all day; you going to tell me how you know this?”
    She sobbed some more, and I thought for a second that maybe I had lost her.
    Jennings voice knifed through my earpiece. “Get ready, Sam. Now ,” he screamed.
    I yelled into the phone, “Look, lady, you got to tell me what you’re talking about. How the hell do you know Jack didn’t—”
    She cut me off, and her voice filled with anger. “Because I’m his wife,” she yelled.

Chapter Six
     
     
    At ten minutes before midnight I got out of a cab at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixty-eighth Street across from Central Park and looked up at the white brick apartment building in the middle of the block. It was home to Jack and Roberta “Robbie” Steele.
    I pushed through the revolving door and stepped into what felt like a walk-in freezer on the other side. A doorman stood in front me blocking my way, like he expected me to make a run for the elevators across the lobby.
    “May I help you?” he asked.
    “Geez, you could chill fish in here,” I said.
    That got me nothing. No response, no indication of a sense of humor. Just a blank expression from this guy. It was a toss-up as to which was colder, the doorman or the lobby.
    “I’m here to see Robbie Steele,” I said.
    I gave him my name and he walked to the little doorman’s desk, which was jammed in a corner by the door, picked up the phone, and punched a few buttons.
    “I have Mr. North here, ma’am,” he said.
    I was having a tough time thinking of Robbie Steele as a “ma’am.” Steele had been sixty-one, and she was thirty years younger. Most of the pictures I had seen of her were from a New York magazine spread on the most attractive yoga instructors in the city. She was right at the top of the list, dressed in a skintight outfit that would make it virtually impossible to focus on anything else in her class. There was nothing “ma’am” about her.
    “You can go up,” Mr. Serious said. “Apartment Ten D. Take a left off the elevator. Last door on the right.”
    “I’ll try not to break anything,” I said.
    I crossed the lobby and rode the elevator up to ten, wondering what I was about to walk into. I got out and went down the long hallway to the last door on the right and knocked lightly. After a few seconds I rapped a bit harder and heard the sound of shoes on a hardwood floor.
    Deadbolts were turned, the door was unlocked and opened, and Robbie Steele stood in front of me. Her sandy-blonde hair was long and straight and shiny and she wore it in a ponytail. She had a healthy tan, but her eyes were red and tired.
    “Robbie Steele,” she said, extending her hand.
    I grasped her hand and tried not to squeeze too firmly.
    “I’m sorry about your loss,” I said.
    She invited me in, and I followed her out of the foyer and down a short hallway. She was of medium height and had on low heels that still managed to show off her legs. She wore black leggings and a long button-down maroon top that I’m sure sold for five times more than I could guess at some Madison Avenue boutique.
    She led me into the living room, a big, open room with a wall of windows that looked out onto the black expanse that was Central Park. Across the park I saw the lights of the Time Warner Center and the buildings along Central Park West. Sliding-glass doors opened onto a terrace, and a baby grand piano was positioned in one corner, next to a few high bookcases that were packed with hardcovers.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
    I passed on the offer and she crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the couch with her back to the windows. I took a seat on a matching leather chair across from her, on the other side of a glass-and-chrome coffee table.
    “Thank you for coming to see me,” she said.
    She sat with perfectly