The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  So the driver was home. Good. Sometimes when police come a-calling, residents suddenly remember errands they have to run far across town. Or they simply hide in the basement and don't answer the door.

  She stepped out, testing her left leg.

  Acceptable, though it still hurt. She was between pill times and resisted the urge to take another ibuprofen. That little liver failure thing.

  Then she grew impatient with herself for fussing. For God's sake, Rhyme has the use of 5 percent of his body and he never complains. Shut up and get to work. Standing on the front stoop of the driver's house, she pressed the doorbell, heard a Westminster chime inside, an elaborate trilling that seemed ironic, given the minuscule house.

  What could the driver tell them? Had Moreno commented that he'd been followed, that he'd received death threats, that someone had broken into his hotel room? Had the driver gotten a description of someone conducting surveillance?

  Then footsteps.

  She felt, more than saw, someone peering through the gauzy curtain covering the window in the door.

  Perfunctorily, she held her badge and shield up.

  The lock clicked.

  The door swung open.

  CHAPTER 17

  HELLO, OFFICER. NO, DETECTIVE. You are a detective? That's what you said when you called."

  "Detective, yes."

  "And I am Tash. You can call me Tash." He was cautious, as he'd been on the phone when she called earlier, but perhaps because she was a woman and a not unattractive one, he relaxed his guard. His Mideast accent was just as thick as earlier but he was easier to understand face-to-face.

  Beaming, he ushered her into the house, decorated largely with Islamic art. He was a slight man, with a dark complexion, thick black hair, and Semitic features. Iranian, she guessed. He was wearing a white shirt and chino slacks. His full name was Atash Farada and he'd been a driver with Elite Limousines for the past ten years, he explained. Somewhat proudly.

  A woman about the same age--Sachs made it mid-forties--greeted her pleasantly and asked if she wanted tea or anything else.

  "No, thank you."

  "My wife, Faye."

  They shook hands.

  Sachs said to Farada, "Your company, Elite, said Robert Moreno generally used another driver, right?"

  "Yes, Vlad Nikolov."

  She asked for the spelling, which he gave. Sachs jotted.

  "But he was sick on May first and so they called me instead to drive. Could you tell me what this is about, please?"

  "I have to tell you that Mr. Moreno was killed."

  "No!" Farada's expression darkened. He was clearly upset. "Please, what happened?"

  "That's what we're trying to find out."

  "This is such bad news. He was quite the gentleman. Was it robbery?"

  Demurring further, she said, "I'd like to know where you drove Mr. Moreno."

  "Dead?" He turned to his wife. "Dead, you heard. How terrible."

  "Mr. Farada?" Sachs repeated with patient insistence. "Could you tell me where you drove him?"

  "Where we drove, where we drove." He looked troubled. But he looked too troubled. Studiously troubled.

  Sachs wasn't surprised when he said, "Sadly I am not sure I can remember."

  Ah. She got it. "Here's an idea. I could hire you to re-create the route. To start where you picked him up. That might refresh your memory."

  His eyes pendulumed away. "Oh. Yes, it might. But I could have a regular assignment for Elite. I--"

  "I'll double your fee," Sachs said, thinking about the ethics of paying a potential witness in a homicide investigation. But this case was fat with moral ambiguity from the top down.

  Farada said, "I think that might work. I'm so very sad that he died. Let me make a call or two."

  He vanished toward a den or study, pulling his mobile from its holster.

  Farada's wife asked again, "There is nothing you'd like?"

  "No, thank you. Really."

  "You are very pretty," the woman said with admiration and envy.

  Faye was attractive too, though short and round. Sachs reflected that one always envies whatever one is not. The first thing that she'd noticed about Faye, for instance, was that when she walked forward to shake the detective's hand she did so without any hitch in her gait.

  Farada returned, wearing a black jacket over the same slacks and shirt. "I am free. I will drive you. I hope I can recall everywhere we went."

  She gave him a focused look and he added quickly, "But once we start I think the places will return to me. That's how the memory is, isn't it? Almost a living creature unto itself."

  He kissed his wife and said he'd be back before dinner--with a glance toward Sachs so that she could confirm this would be the case.

  She said, "A couple of hours, I'd guess."

  He and Sachs walked outside and they got into the black Lincoln Town Car.

  "You don't want to sit in the back?" he asked, perplexed by her choice of the front passenger seat.

  "No."

  Amelia Sachs was not a limo girl. She'd been in one only once--at her father's funeral. She had no bad associations with long black sedans based on that experience; she simply didn't do well being driven by others, and sitting in the rear seat exponentially increased her discomfort.

  They got under way. The man drove expertly through traffic, unwavering but polite and never using the horn, though they encountered several idiots whom Sachs would have blared onto the sidewalk. The first stop was the Helmsley on Central Park South.

  "Okay, so I pick him up here about ten thirty a.m."

  She climbed out and walked inside to the hotel's checkin desk. The mission, though, was a bust. The clerks were helpful but didn't have any information that bore on the investigation. Moreno had had several room service charges--food for one--but no outgoing or incoming calls. No one remembered if he had had any visitors.

  Back into the limo.

  "Where next?" she asked.

  "A bank. I don't remember the name but I remember where."

  "Let's go."

  Farada drove her to a branch of American Independent Bank and Trust on 55th Street. She went inside. It was near closing time and some of the staff had left. The receptionist rounded up a manager. Without a warrant, Sachs couldn't get much information. But the woman, one of those template vice presidents, did tell her that Robert Moreno's visit on May first was to close his accounts and move his assets to a bank in the Caribbean. She wouldn't say which one.

  "How much? Can you tell me?"

  Only: "Mid six figures."

  Not like he was laundering huge sums for the cartels. Still, this was suspicious.

  "Did he leave any money here?"

  "No. And he mentioned he was doing the same for all of his accounts in other banks."

  Returning to Tash Farada, Sachs dropped into the passenger seat. "And after this?"

  "A beautiful woman," the driver said.

  She thought for a moment that Farada was talking about her. She then laughed to herself when he explained that he'd driven Moreno to the East Side and collected a woman who'd accompanied him for the rest of the day. Moreno had given the address--an intersection, Lexington and 52nd--and told the driver to pause in front of the building.

  They drove there now and Sachs regarded the structure. A tall, boxy glass office building.

  "Who was she?"

  He answered, "Dark hair. I am thinking she was about five-eight, in her thirties but youthful, attractive as I was saying. Voluptuous. And her skirt was short."

  "Actually I was more interested in her name and business affiliation."

  "I caught her first name only. Lydia. And as for business...Well." Farada offered a coy smile.

  "Well what?"

  "Let me put it this way, I'm sure they hadn't known each other before he picked her up."

  "That's not telling me much," Sachs said.

  "You see, Detective, we learn things in this job. We learn human nature.
Some things our clients do not want us to know, some things we do not want to know. We are to be invisible. But we are observant. We drive and we ask no questions except, 'Where do you want to go, sir?' And yet we see."

  The esoterica on the Mystic Order of Limo Drivers was wearing and Sachs lifted an impatient eyebrow.

  He said in a soft voice, as if someone else were listening, "It was clear to me she was a...You understand?"

  "An escort?"

  "Voluptuous, you know."

  "One does not necessarily mean the other."

  "But then there was the money."

  "Money."

  "Much of our job is learning not to see things."

  Brother. She sighed. "What money?"

  "I saw Mr. Moreno give her an envelope. The way they both handled it, I knew it contained money. And he said, 'As we agreed.'"

  "And she said?"

  "'Thank you.'"

  Sachs wondered what prim ADA Nance Laurel would think of her noble victim picking up a hooker in the middle of the day. "Did there seem to be any connection between this woman and the building? A particular office she worked in?"

  "She was in the lobby when we pulled up out front."

  Sachs doubted the escort service would have a cover operation here. Maybe this Lydia worked as a temp or had another part-time job. She called Lon Sellitto and explained about the woman, describing her.

  "And voluptuous," Tash Farada interjected.

  Sachs ignored him and gave the detective the address.

  Sellitto said, "I got that canvass team together--from Myers's division. I'll get 'em started on the building. See if anybody's heard of a Lydia."

  After they disconnected she asked Farada, "Where did they go from here?"

  "Downtown. Wall Street."

  "Let's go."

  The man eased the Town Car into traffic. Speeding up, the big, spongy Lincoln wove through the congested traffic. If she had to be a prisoner in the passenger seat, at least she could take comfort that the driver wasn't a plodder. She'd rather have a fender-bender than a hesitant ride. And in her opinion faster was safer.

  When you move...

  As they made their way downtown she asked, "Did you hear what they talked about, Mr. Moreno and Lydia?"

  "Yes, yes. But it wasn't what I thought it would be, about her job, so to speak."

  Voluptuous...

  "He talked much about politics. Lecturing in a way. Lydia, she was polite and asked questions but they were the questions you ask at a wedding or funeral when you're a stranger. Questions you don't care about the answers to. Small talk."

  Sachs persisted. "Tell me what he said."

  "Well, I remember he was angry with America. This I found troubling, offensive really. Perhaps he thought he could say these things in front of me because of my accent and I am of Middle Eastern descent. As if we had something in common. Now, I cried when the Trade Towers came down. I lost clients that day, who were my friends too. I love this country as a brother. Sometimes you are angry at your brother. Do you have?"

  He sped around a bus and two taxis.

  "No, I'm an only child." Trying to be patient.

  "Well, at times you are angry with your brother but then you make up and all is well. That makes your love real. Because after all you're joined by blood, forever. But Mr. Moreno wasn't willing to forgive the country for what it had done to him."

  "Done to him?"

  "Yes, do you know that story?"

  "No," Sachs said, turning toward him. "Please tell me."

  CHAPTER 18

  I N ALL ENDEAVORS MISTAKES HAPPEN.

  You can't let them affect you emotionally.

  You try to whip cream without chilling the bowl and beaters and you're going to end up with butter.

  You and the tech department datamine the name of a client's regular driver at a limo company and it turns out he was sick the one day you need to ask him about. And even removing a few careful strips of flesh couldn't get the man lying in front of you to give up the substitute's name. Which meant that he didn't know.

  Silverskin...

  Jacob Swann reflected that he should have known this, should have prepared, and that gave him a dose of humble. You can't make assumptions. The first rule to any good meal is prep. Get all the work done ahead of time, all the chopping, all the measuring, all the stock reduction.

  Everything.

  Only then do you assemble, cook and finish.

  He now cleaned up quickly in Vlad Nikolov's house, reflecting that the hour wasn't a complete waste of time--refining your skills never is. Besides, Nikolov might have known something helpful to the police (though as it turned out, he hadn't). Since he had people like that ADA Nance Laurel and the whistleblower to take care of, he wanted to keep Vlad Nikolov's corpse a secret for as long as possible. He wrapped the oozing body in a dozen towels and then in garbage bags, taping them shut. He dragged the corpse to the basement, thud thud thud on the stairs, and eased it into a supply room. The odor wouldn't begin to escape for a week or so.

  He then used the man's mobile and called Elite Limousines, reporting in hesitant English with a functional Slavic accent that he was Vlad Nikolov's cousin. The driver had learned of a death in the family, back in the old country (he didn't mention Moscow or Kiev or Tbilisi, since he didn't know). Vlad was taking several weeks off. The receptionist protested--only about scheduling, not that the story seemed incredible--but he'd hung up.

  Swann surveyed the scene of the interrogation and noted he'd left very little evidence. He'd used trash bags and towels to catch the blood. He now scrubbed the rest, using bleach, and put the towels and phone in a trash bag, which he'd take with him for disposal in a Dumpster on his way home.

  As he was about to leave, he received an encrypted email. Well, it seemed that NIOS had learned some very interesting information. The whistleblower was still unknown, though Metzger had people looking into that. However, the tech department had discovered some names of other people involved in the case, in addition to Ms. Nance Laurel, the prosecutor. The lead investigators were two individuals--an NYPD detective named Amelia Sachs and a consultant, someone with the curious name Lincoln Rhyme.

  It was time for some more digging and datamining, Swann reflected, pulling out his phone. After all, the strength of the best cookbook in the world, The Joy of Cooking, derived from the patient assembly and organization of facts, from knowledge, in short--not showy recipes.

  CHAPTER 19

  DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PANAMA?" Tash Farada asked Sachs, in the passenger seat of the Town Car. He was animated and seemed to enjoy speeding through traffic as they headed toward Wall Street.

  She said, "The canal. Some invasion or something down there. A while ago."

  The driver laughed and accelerated hard to avoid a slow-moving lane of traffic on the FDR. "Some 'invasion or something.' Yes, yes. I read history a great deal. I enjoy it. In the eighties Panama had a regime change. A revolution. Just like our country."

  "Yes, Iran. In 'seventy-nine, wasn't it?"

  He glanced at her with a frown.

  "Persia, I mean," she corrected.

  "No, I'm speaking of seventeen seventy-six. I'm American."

  Oh. Our country.

  "Sorry."

  A wrinkle of brow but a forgiving one. "Now, Panama. Noriega used to be an ally of America. Fighting the Communist evil. Helping the CIA and the DEA wage war on the scourge of drugs...Of course, he was also helping the cartel heads wage war on the scourge of the CIA and the DEA. That game caught up with him and in nineteen eighty-nine the U.S. had had enough. We invaded. The problem was that Panama was a dirty little war. You've read George Orwell?"

  "No." Sachs might have, long ago, but she never bluffed or tried to impress with knowledge she didn't have command of.

  "In Animal Farm, Orwell wrote, 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' Well, all wars are bad. But some wars are more bad than others. The head of Panama was corrupt, his underl
ings were corrupt. They were dangerous men and oppressed the people. But the invasion was very hard too. Very violent. Roberto Moreno was living there, in the capital, with his mother and father."

  Sachs recalled her conversation with Fred Dellray, who'd told them that Robert Moreno also went by Roberto. She wondered if he'd legally changed it or just used the Latino version as a pseudonym.

  "Now, he was a young teenager. That day in the car he told Lydia, his voluptuous friend, that he didn't have the happiest home life, his father traveling, his mother had sadness problems. She was not much there for him."

  Sachs remembered too the father's oil company job, the demanding hours, and the woman's eventual suicide.

  "The boy, it seemed, made friends with a family living in Panama City. Roberto and the two brothers became close. Enrico and Jose, I think were their names. About his age, to hear him tell it."

  Tash Farada's voice faded.

  Sachs could see where the narrative was headed.

  "The brothers were killed in the invasion?"

  "One was--Roberto's best friend. He doesn't know who actually fired the shots but he blames the Americans. He said the government changed the rules. They didn't care about people or freedom, like they said. They were happy to support Noriega and tolerate the drugs until he grew unstable and they were worried the canal would close and the oil tankers could not get through. That's when they invaded." A whisper now. "Mr. Moreno found his friend's body. He still had nightmares about it, he told the woman Lydia."

  Although the evidence might point to Moreno's being less than a saint, contrary to what Nance Laurel would have liked, Sachs couldn't help but be moved by the sad story. She wondered if Laurel would have been. Doubted it.

  The driver added, "And when he was telling this story, telling it to Lydia, his voice grew broken. But then all of a sudden he laughed and gestured around him. He said he was saying goodbye to America and was happy about that. This would be his last trip here. He knew he couldn't return."

  "Couldn't return?"

  "That's right. Couldn't. 'Good riddance,' he said." Tash Farada added darkly, "I thought good riddance to him. I love this country." A pause then he added, "I'm not happy he's dead, you understand. But he said many bad things about my home. Which I think is the best nation on earth and always has been."

  As they approached Wall Street, Sachs nodded toward the site of the September 11 attacks. "Did he want to see ground zero?"