Harvest

by Robert Pobi

  Phelps’s voice brought her back to the present. “There. Up ahead on the left. Green awning.”

  She glanced in her mirror, then over her shoulder, and cut across three lanes, pulling the truck into the fifteen-minute loading zone in front of the Fifth Avenue apartment.

  After what felt like their hundredth ride of the day in a lushly appointed elevator, the apartment door was opened by a small woman in a perfectly tailored Chanel suit. She introduced herself as Carmen, said she was the Morgans’ personal assistant, and that she would be happy to take their drinks request.

  They thanked Carmen, told her that coffee would be fine and that they had very little time.

  Lincoln hadn’t been far off with his Keith Richards bedroom crack—the place looked like Donald Trump’s with less restraint. Everything was animal print, gold leaf, and sparkled.

  Carmen led them through a wall of floor-to-ceiling bronze-framed doors, out onto a stone terrace that wrapped around the corner of the building. The haze of Manhattan spread out like the world’s largest canvas—the Morgans owned at least half of the top floor. They rounded the corner and Mr. and Mrs. Morgan were at a wrought iron table, wearing matching robes and having breakfast even though it was coming up on eleven o’clock.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, I’m Detective Alexandra Hemingway. This is my partner, Detective Jon Phelps. Thank you for making the time to see us.”

  Everything about Mr. Morgan said self-made. He was a heavyset man who sported a pair of floral swim trunks and a diamond-encrusted Rolex that pinched his pink wrist. He stood up and shook hands. When he was standing he wasn’t much taller than when he was sitting. “Glad to do it, detectives. Glad to do it. Call me Ace. The little lady’s Cindy.”

  Mrs. Morgan was in her thirties and had the tight toned body of a gym bunny. Her skin was tanned the color of maple syrup and her blond locks were the best weaves that Hemingway had seen outside of Charlie’s Angels. She giggled when she shook hands, and a good sixty carats of stones jingled on her wrist in a coil of tennis bracelets. Every movement she made seemed to be done with the intention of jiggling her breasts and it was obvious that even the Iron Giant had a hard time keeping his eyes off of them.

  “You guys want some food? Bacon’s flown in from Texas—double smoked. And we got some great cheese—smells like turds—but it’s the best there is.”

  Phelps shook his head and gestured to Hemingway. “Detective Hemingway, are you hungry?”

  She ignored him. “Thanks. No.”

  “Well, it’s there if you change your mind. What’s this shit with the kid?” Ace asked, and went back to eating.

  The table was set with gold-plated flatware and water lilies floated in a low crystal bowl shaped like a woman’s face. There were bagels and rolls and an assortment of fruit and cheeses that seemed to be there purely for presentation; Ace’s attention was nailed to a plate piled high with bacon. A big cigar smoldered in an ashtray at the edge of the table.

  Phelps smiled. It seemed like the Morgans were his kind of people. “As we went over on the phone, the boys who have been killed share the same biological father as your son. We think that Miles might be in danger.”

  At that Ace threw his head back and guffawed. “Shit, you haven’t met little Miles.” Mr. Morgan reached over and picked up his wife’s cell phone in the rhinestone case on the table. He tapped the screen and said, “Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Cindy, what’s with this password bullshit? I can’t ever find my phone and you know I don’t give a sweet flying fuck if you have a boyfriend just as long as he ain’t got some disease that I can catch from your coochy-poochy. What’s the fucking password?”

  Cindy’s nose crinkled up. “Don’t swear so much, Daddy. It’s two-two-two-two.”

  Ace smiled. “Sure you can remember that?” He punched it in.

  “I think so.”

  A man in a black suit and tie showed up carrying a silver service of coffee. He laid it down on an iron server and filled two cups for the detectives. Then he disappeared as silently as he had come.

  Ace tapped around on the screen and returned the phone to the table. “Just don’t sleep with any Democrats—I hate those fucking pussies. Fuck a real man, for Chrissake.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” she said, and went back to picking at her low-fat cottage cheese.

  Ace turned back to Phelps who had lost the look of comfort from a few minutes earlier. “All right, so we disagree that my son’s in danger. I texted him—he should be here in a minute. What next?”

  “Mr. Morgan—”

  “Ace! I told you to call me Ace!”

  “Ace. Yeah. Sure. We’ll need a list of anyone your son knows—everyone from his hairdresser to—”

  “Barber,” Ace interrupted. “My kid does not go to a hairdresser, detective. He ain’t no fag.”

  “We’d be grateful for a list of everyone in his life: his teachers; tutors; anyone who drives him around; friends he sees on a regular basis; parents of friends where he does sleepovers or playdates; stores you take him to; tradespeople you may have had in the house.”

  “Goin’ back how far?”

  “Three years would be good. Can you think of anyone who seems odd or suspicious?”

  “All of her friends,” Ace said, nodding at his wife. “They’re a bunch of freaks.”

  Cindy slapped him on the arm. “Don’t be mean, Daddy. You like Jezebel.”

  At that Ace nodded with the corners of his mouth turned down. “You got a point. I do like her.” And he winked at Phelps.

  Hemingway was about to stand up, to tell Phelps that they had to leave, when a little boy appeared at the edge of the table. He had come silently up on them and was standing there, arms crossed, staring at Ace. “You texted me, Father?”

  She had yet to see one of Selmer’s boys alive. Lincoln’s comment about him being a goof was pushing it, but it was obvious that the kid wasn’t like the other children on the list. He was heavy, stood with his mouth open, and had a dull expression on his face. Other than the brown hair and eyes, he didn’t look like he had anything to do with Dr. Brayton’s Boys of Brazil program.

  Ace put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Detective Phelps and his partner, Detective Hemingway.”

  The boy turned and extended his hand, first to Phelps, then to Hemingway. “Miles Morgan, a pleasure to meet you both.” He had a good handshake but looked like he would rather be somewhere else.

  Ace went on. “They tell me that there’s a bad man out there running around killing little kids and that you might be in danger. Does that frighten you, son?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “And why not?”

  With the speed of an adder, Miles Morgan’s hand flashed up and he had a knife to Phelps’s throat. It was an airframe knife with a black carbon blade that dented Phelps’s skin. The boy backed up, flicked his wrist, and the knife was gone. “Though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil because I am the meanest motherfucker in the valley, sir.”

  Phelps stared at the child.

  Hemingway’s hand was on her pistol. “Don’t you ever draw a weapon on a police officer, Miles.”

  Miles looked her in the eyes. “I was answering his question.”

  “I don’t care. You do that to a police officer and you can end up dead.”

  The boy looked over at his father, searching for some kind of qualifier to Hemingway’s lesson.

  “She might have a point, son.”

  And with that the boy smiled. “Is that all?”

  “You ever get into any kind of trouble at school, Miles? Fighting?” she asked, looking at the bandage over his nose, his two black eyes.

  “Fighting isn’t trouble. Fighting’s fun.”

  After Miles had walked away, Ace threw a few more strips of bacon down his throat, then opened up his hands. “When you want that list?”

  Hemingway pulled out her three-by-five and a pen. “We can go over it right now. If you think of anythin
g later, we can add it.”

  Ace eyed her for a second. “You know, you’re pretty hot for a cop.”

  At that, Mrs. Morgan dropped her head and stared over the top of her sunglasses. She nodded. “You are.”

  Hemingway didn’t bother smiling. “I get that a lot.”

  ||| EIGHTY

  THEY SPENT the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon running down the balance of Brayton’s patients. The ones who had moved away were interviewed on the phone and local PDs were sent out to do a formal report—if Tanya Everett hadn’t been safe in Greece, this guy could go anywhere, even if the brunt of his focus seemed to be aimed on New York right now. Lots of new information came their way. More teachers. More tutors and drivers and butlers. More dead ends.

  The last patient they saw was Dr. Neal Winslow, father of ten-year-old Benjamin. Benjamin was the oldest of Brayton’s children by five days, and by all reports an exceptional child.

  Dr. Winslow and his son lived in the Dakota facing Central Park. Signing in—even for the two detectives—was like going through airport security on Kentucky Derby weekend.

  In the ride up in the elevator, a little old lady cradling a Pomeranian in one arm and a crocodile bag in the other eyed the two detectives warily, as if they might try to squeegee her dog. She got out on the third floor. They rode on to the seventh.

  When they stepped out of the elevator Phelps looked around and whistled, taking in the unique architecture. “Who designed this place, Gomez Addams?”

  Hemingway had been in the building before; she had dated a boy whose parents lived here back when she was in college—still did, as far as she knew—and the place hadn’t changed at all. She rang the bell.

  A thin man in a good English suit answered the door. He could have passed for a butler in an old Lon Chaney film. He stood in the doorway, leaning slightly forward as if he were caught in the midst of a bow. This had to be Dr. Wins-low.

  “I am Detective Alexandra Hemingway and this is my partner, Detective Jon Phelps. We called you earlier.”

  “Yes, you did,” the man said. After a moment of what appeared to be indecision, he said, “Please come in.”

  As Phelps stepped over the threshold his mouth fell open. The apartment looked like a professionally curated museum. A pair of taxidermied birds the size of German shepherds flanked the door, glass eyeballs focused on infinity. And instead of the usual center table prescribed by most decorators, the entry was taken up with an Edwardian display case where six massive birds sat regally—and permanently—watching the door with imposed disinterest. They looked like a race of ancient penguins bred for fighting. Phelps paused in front of the case and it was obvious that he was wondering just what the hell he was looking at.

  “Pinguinus impennis—the Great Auk,” Dr. Winslow said lovingly. “The largest collection on the planet. Under one roof, at any extent. Declared extinct in 1844 but with unverified sightings up until 1852. Overpredated by man, of course.”

  He closed the door and walked past them, as if he had somewhere else to be. He moved deeper into the apartment. The two detectives followed but Hemingway had a hard time not stopping to admire the birds that were everywhere.

  Unusual taxidermied specimens filled most of the available space but somehow it didn’t feel cluttered; the display cases were tastefully arranged as if at a good gallery, and the effect was mesmerizing. The hallway was lined with custom-made bronze and iron shelving filled with books on ornithology, mostly large leather-bound volumes.

  On one of the shelves sat a common dove in a display case, a stained baseball beside it under the glass. The brass plaque read: MARCH 24TH, 2001—THROWN BY RANDY JOHNSON OF THE ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS. THE ONLY FASTBALL TO KILL A BIRD. The piece hinted at a sense of humor lacking in the rest of the space.

  They passed a King Island Emu, an ivory label stating that it was the last known member of its species—it had died in Paris in 1822. Most of the cases had similar labels, either LAST KNOWN OF ITS SPECIES or the more chilling, ONLY KNOWN OF ITS SPECIES, POSSIBLY A SUBSPECIES OR HYBRID. There was education and dedication behind the collection; this was a major passion that had taken generations to build.

  There were none of the hand-tinted Audubon prints Hemingway expected. Instead, the walls were decorated with antique oil paintings of birds in atypical poses—cockfights and still lifes of hunting trophies. They passed a large canvas in a rocaille frame that depicted a sideboard piled high with dead pheasants. As they moved by, Phelps’s body language became less fluid and Hemingway recognized the unease—this was not his kind of place.

  A few of the smaller walls were decorated with framed photographs and Hemingway paused in front of a color print depicting a great blue heron with a frog in its beak, a duck decoy behind it, sun-bleached and weed-covered, riding the swirl between two rocks.

  Dr. Winslow brought them to the living room, tastefully decorated with period Arts and Crafts furniture. The room was surprisingly dark for a building where properties started at twenty million a crack and she remembered that back in college she had been surprised that a place with such high ceilings could have such little ambient light.

  A pair of telescopes stood at the window pointed out at the park—no doubt for bird-watching—one seemed to be tailored for a child. Several digital SLRs sat on a small table beside the telescopes, a collection of telephoto lenses neatly arranged like the spires of a small city. Like Daniel, Dr. Winslow was a Nikon man.

  He gestured to two big Morris chairs and said, “How may I help you?”

  Hemingway liked reducing people to stereotypes—it had helped her growing up and it was an invaluable skill as a detective; often, generalities were all there was to go on. Winslow had the air of a trust funder who had chosen the cloistered world of academia because it filled out the job requirement imposed by a certain kind of upbringing—old money that said a man had to fill his time with work. And with a passion as evident as his, it was easy to see that he wasn’t bored.

  “Dr. Winslow, first off we appreciate your taking the time to see us. We want to go over what you discussed with Detectives Lincoln and Papandreou yesterday.”

  The man nodded and closed his eyes. Hemingway had a hard time telling if the expression that came over his face was one of sadness or of being inconvenienced.

  Hemingway glanced at her notes. “Did you suspect that Benjamin might not be as . . . unique as you had been promised?”

  Dr. Winslow shook his head. “My wife handled the details. I had no expectations one way or another. Biology,” he said, waving his hand through the air, gesturing to the dozens of cased birds, “has its limitations.”

  “Were you upset when you found out?”

  Dr. Winslow thought about the question for a moment. “Detectives, when I was a child my mother purchased a dog. She bought it from the finest breeder in the country—a wonderful little whippet named Grosvenor. Around Grosvenor’s first birthday he developed some health issues—health issues my mother had been told he would not have. The dog, it appeared, was guaranteed. The breeder said he would be happy to take Grosvenor back. He’d put the dog down and replace him with a pup from the newest litter. But my mother already loved that dog. Some things cannot be undone.”

  Hemingway found the comparison distasteful. “So you weren’t upset?”

  “I don’t care how Benjamin came into my life, only that he has.”

  Winslow was one of two single fathers on the list. “Where is Benjamin now?” she asked.

  “At school, of course.”

  “Did you think about keeping him home?”

  He stared at her. “Keep Benjamin from school? No.”

  Hemingway thought about William Atchison cracked open in his tub. If Dr. Winslow had seen that, little Benjamin wouldn’t be going anywhere until he was fifty. “You know about the boys who have been murdered in the past few days?” Winslow didn’t look like the kind of guy who spent a lot of time in front of the television.

  He nodded i
n that weird blinky fashion again and it made Hemingway uncomfortable.

  “The link between the five victims is the donor—the same one as Benjamin’s.”

  Winslow didn’t say anything, he just stared at her as if awaiting the good news part of the conversation.

  She continued. “We believe the killer may have had access to your file sometime in the past. We don’t know how or when but it’s one of the possibilities we are examining. Someone knows these boys share a father. We just don’t know how.”

  At this he lifted his head, straightened his back as much as he could, and peered at her from under bushy eyebrows. “What about the opera invitation?”

  “What opera invitation?”

  He stood up and lifted a handsomely framed photograph from an oak sideboard, handing it to Hemingway. “Benjamin and I went in matching tuxedos. We had a lovely evening. We had punch and the music was wonderful.” He sounded happy, childlike.

  “When was this?”

  Dr. Winslow picked up his iPad and clicked through his e-mail. Then he handed the tablet to Hemingway. “That’s the invitation,” he said. “May twelfth.”

  Hemingway looked at it. It was an invitation to an evening at the opera for friends of the clinic. It congratulated them on a happy nine years.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Instead of blind carbon copying everyone’s e-mail address, they cc’d them. Everyone who was to get a nine-year invitation was probably on that e-mail list. Here, let me show you.” He reached over and clicked on the address.

  A list of e-mail addresses appeared. She read through them, ignoring the cutesy e-mail handles and focusing on those with real names—she recognized at least thirty from Brayton’s patients. The e-mail addresses for the Rochesters, Grants, and Simmonses were on the list.

  She looked up at Phelps. Someone at the clinic had made a mistake and sent this out to all of Dr. Brayton’s children. She counted the addresses—there were sixty-seven of them.

  They had their hunting list.