Next of Kin

by James Tucker

  “We’ll get a cab.”

  “No,” she said. “Ben and I have heavy coats and hats. We’d like to walk.”

  The guard shook his head. “I’d advise against it, ma’am. I can’t cover you when you’re walking, not as well as if we’re in a car.”

  She said, “Thank you for your concern, but we’ve been cooped up for a day and we need to be outside for a while.”

  “It’s very cold, ma’am.”

  “We don’t mind, do we Ben?”

  Ben was already walking toward the door. He liked Mei’s apartment, but he felt restless. The cold air outside gave him energy. Running would be best, he thought, but he’d walk quickly, if Mei and the bodyguard could keep up.

  He headed right out the door, toward Fifth Avenue.

  He heard the soft rubbery sound of Mei’s boots behind him. He saw people walking to work and strolling with their dogs. He saw older people using canes with one hand and clutching their coat collars closed with the other. He looked up, exhaled, and watched his breath form a cloud above him.

  And then he no longer heard Mei’s boots.

  Suddenly worried, he stopped and turned around.

  She was ten yards behind him, smiling, waving.

  And just behind her was the big bodyguard. He didn’t have a hat and seemed like he was in a bad mood. The guard met Ben’s eyes but didn’t smile.

  Ben was reassured by the bodyguard’s presence, but he didn’t fully trust him. He allowed Mei to catch up to him, then walked beside her. In a low voice he asked, “Did you bring it?”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “Did you bring the gun?”

  “Yes,” she told him. “Yes, I brought it.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Late morning, Buddy sat in his cubicle drinking from a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. He tried to get his mind cranked up again, but the fatigue had him in its grip and was slowing him down. He stood up, circled the bull pen, and tried to shake it off. Yet even when he felt sufficiently awake to continue his work, he realized the deaths of Carl Brook and family had convinced part of him that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t solve the case.

  But the other part of him was royally pissed off.

  Now he knew he was being played.

  In the foyer of Bruno’s town house, he’d discovered the bullet from the antique Gaston. That clue led right to Carl Brook—until Vidas had confirmed Carl’s innocence through DOT video footage.

  Now Buddy was presented a second time with physical evidence—the contact lens. Was it authentic, a mistake by the killer? Or was it another plant?

  He didn’t point out these things to Malone or Vidas. He figured they already knew he’d been played. That they’d also been fooled brought him little satisfaction. He resolved again to press on, to be as relentless and focused as he’d ever been.

  Sitting in his desk chair, he called the attorney Robert Kahler.

  Kahler’s secretary put him through immediately.

  Buddy said, “Mr. Kahler, I’d like to know if your client, Dietrich Brook, wears contact lenses. And if so, would you give me the prescription?”

  Kahler said, “No words of condolence for my other client, Carl Brook, and his family?”

  Buddy was silent.

  Kahler added, “You’re not doing your job.”

  Buddy wanted to reach through the phone line and throttle the guy, but he kept his emotions in check. “Just call me with the information. Thank you, Mr. Kahler.”

  He put down the phone and rolled back his chair so he could see Vidas. Hearing him, his partner turned around.

  Buddy said, “Did you get the prescription on the contact lens CSU found in Carl’s hallway?”

  Vidas nodded, reached for the small notepad on his desk, and looked at it. “Greek to me, boss,” Vidas said, holding it out for Buddy.

  Buddy glanced at the numbers. “Makes no sense to me, either. Is that prescription strong or weak?”

  “CSU said it was average.”

  “Average,” Buddy echoed. “Except it was moist, so it had to belong to a family member or the killer. Unless . . .”

  Vidas asked, “Unless?”

  “Nothing,” Buddy said. He didn’t want to highlight the embarrassing notion that the killer was fucking with him.

  His desk phone rang. “Lock here,” he said.

  “Detective, this is Robert Kahler.”

  “What do you have for me, Mr. Kahler?”

  “My client, Dietrich Brook, does in fact wear contacts. He has provided me with his prescription.”

  Buddy picked up a pencil and grabbed a Post-it note. “Would you read it to me?”

  He wrote as Kahler spoke. Then he read it back to Kahler, who confirmed it was correct.

  Buddy said, “Hang on a minute, would you?”

  He muted the phone and rolled his chair back. “Vidas,” he said, “show me the prescription you got from CSU.”

  Vidas ripped off the sheet of notebook paper and handed it to Buddy.

  Buddy compared them carefully, but it was clear the prescriptions matched. He returned the notebook paper to Vidas. Vidas nodded at him encouragingly.

  Buddy rolled back to his desk, pressed the mute button again, and said, “Mr. Kahler, may I send a team over to collect a DNA sample from Dietrich Brook? It’s an easy thing, just a cotton swab to the mouth. Doesn’t take long and it’s painless.”

  A pause on the other end of the line. Then Kahler said, very crisply, “No, Detective. You may not have a DNA sample or anything else. Goodbye.”

  Buddy hung up and considered Dietrich Brook. The man probably had the ability to commit the crimes. He’d no alibis, other than his wife, for any of them. He had motive—his brothers were trying to force him out of the family business. He likely knew of Carl’s antique pistol. And early this morning CSU had discovered a single contact lens with a prescription that matched his own. For most detectives this would be convincing, yet Buddy wasn’t convinced. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but he believed two connections existed. The first between the murders of the Brook family and the paintings that were essentially stolen in Nazi Germany. The second between those paintings and the most notorious of death camps.

  As he thought about the case, he heard Vidas answer his phone, then hang up. “They’re at the lab,” Vidas told him, standing outside Buddy’s cubicle. “Dietrich Brook’s prints. From the SEC.”

  Buddy felt his body warm. “Did the lab scan them so we can compare them to the prints from the Carlyle Residences’ lobby and elevator, plus Mei’s apartment?”

  “They’re doing it now, but there are hundreds of prints. It might take a while.”

  Buddy followed Vidas down the hall and to the small lab at the back of the precinct offices. A young male technician—short, thin, pasty skin, large glasses, flannel shirt under his white lab coat—was scanning in the print card from the SEC.

  Once the prints were scanned, the technician turned to them and said, “Thank you, Detectives. The prints are in the queue, and we’ll get to them as soon as we can.”

  Vidas asked, “How long?”

  The technician raised his eyebrows. “I’d say a week. Maybe a week and a half.”

  Buddy shook his head. “You’d say wrong. I’ll give you an hour. You come to me with results in more than an hour, and I’m going to Chief Malone.”

  The technician stood and backed away. His face went from pale to pink. He seemed unused to being challenged. He said, “We have a system. Everyone waits his turn.”

  Vidas said, “What about priority? We’re working a murder here.”

  The technician’s eyes narrowed and his voice developed an edge. “Everyone’s working a murder. Or a rape. We have limited staff.” He waved his hand toward the room where a few others were bent over computers, lab tables, and equipment.

  Buddy took a step forward. He knew he shouldn’t be antagonizing anybody in CSU. He needed them today and he’d need them in t
he future. But in this moment he didn’t care how many bridges he burned. He said, “We’re dealing with twelve murders, including two cops. Do you want to be responsible if he strikes again?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Buddy looked at his watch. “Detective Vidas and I will be back in one hour.”

  But they didn’t need to return. The technician called Buddy thirty-seven minutes later.

  “It’s Michael in the lab. I have a three-point match. Out of a possible twelve points to feel good about your guy. Not great, I’m afraid. Pretty tenuous, and it wouldn’t stand up in court.”

  Buddy gripped his desk phone. “Where did we get the print that matches the SEC print?”

  “From inside the Carlyle Residences.”

  “Which residence?”

  “Nobody’s residence. It came from the elevator cab that serves the residences.”

  Buddy thought about the path Dietrich Brook—if it had been Dietrich Brook—would have taken after attacking Mei and Ben at the Carlyle. Walk out with everyone else evacuating the building. Nab someone else’s wallet. Go through the queue on Seventy-Sixth as that person. Or make up a name, address, and telephone number. And walk free.

  Buddy hung up the phone. He sat quietly in his cubicle, glanced at his computer screen, and then turned away from it, instead staring blindly at his dented and coffee-stained desk. The bullet from Carl’s Gaston had matched the bullet in Bruno’s foyer, linking Carl to those murders, if only weakly. A bad set of fingerprints linked Dietrich to the Carlyle Residences elevator, but not conclusively.

  Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply. He admitted to himself that he might be wrong. Perhaps things were as they seemed and Dietrich Brook was guilty. And yet he sensed the killer was near but faintly obscured, that his adversary was an ever-present but malevolent spirit rather than an ordinary man.

  Half an hour later the bull pen grew quiet. Buddy heard Chief Malone’s booming voice. Just like the other detectives, he stood to see why the chief had come to the Nineteenth Precinct. In an instant he knew. Malone’s huge figure bore down on him.

  Buddy didn’t move.

  Malone, who looked no different than he had at four in the morning, other than his face having turned purplish red, planted one foot on Vidas’s side of the cubicle wall and the other on Buddy’s side. Malone pointed at both of them. “Time to poke the hornet’s nest, gentlemen.”

  Buddy acted like he didn’t know what Malone was urging him to do. Vidas looked at Buddy yet said nothing.

  Almost panting, Malone said, “The lab told me what they found. You didn’t think to call me? Not even as a courtesy?” Malone spit out the last word.

  Vidas said, “It’s only a three-point match.”

  Malone leaned forward. “What about the contact lens CSU found?”

  Vidas shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Same prescription used by Dietrich Brook, but we don’t have DNA to compare.”

  Malone shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. He lifted his fleshy chin and glared at Buddy. “So what do you need, Detective? A video of Dietrich Brook killing everyone? Or having him do it in a theater with a thousand witnesses? How much before you get off the pot?”

  Buddy knew he’d lost the argument, but also that Malone could be right. He might have his man, and moving now would take Mei and Ben out of danger. He turned to Vidas and said, “Go meet with Judge Conrad. Request a search warrant for Dietrich Brook’s place in SoHo.”

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Late afternoon, Mei worked at her desk at Porter Gallery. She was alone, except for Ben, who was playing in Anta Safar’s office behind the exhibition space. Mei was writing her essay for the Joshua Reynolds catalogue to be issued in connection with the show in September, when she received an e-mail from Peter Armitage. She clicked on it and read:

  Thanks for having drinks with me the other day. You asked me not to contact you for three months, but here I am doing just that. You’re very beautiful and I think we’d have a good time together. Some friends and I are off to Ibiza on Saturday. Travel is private, of course. Would you join me? Best, Peter

  Her face grew hot. Peter had assumed her relationship with Buddy would falter. Peter had ignored her request to leave her alone for a mere ninety days. And that of course irritated her, as if one simply didn’t and wouldn’t travel on commercial airlines.

  She deleted Peter’s e-mail and continued working for another half hour. When she heard a metallic noise from the rear of the gallery, she realized it had been nearly an hour since she’d checked on Ben. Concerned that he’d left Anta Safar’s office and gone to explore the large storage room at the rear of the gallery, she slid her chair back from her desk. The storage room, she knew, contained vertical racks holding million-dollar paintings. It wasn’t a playground for a ten-year-old.

  Then she heard another noise. It sounded like the rear gallery door between the back hallway and the alley.

  As she stood, she noticed her handbag and remembered the revolver inside it. Shaking her head, she began to leave her desk. She glanced at the front door, to be sure no visitors had entered the gallery, but Ward’s guard wasn’t there. She didn’t know if he’d stepped away for a coffee, walked ten feet beyond her vision, or gone.

  Returning to her desk, she grabbed the handbag and looped its straps over her left shoulder. Then she walked slowly into the hallway leading to the offices and the storage room, her high heels clicking on the polished concrete.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Buddy sat in his cubicle and called the Polish Institute for Holocaust Studies in the Bronx.

  When the receptionist answered, he said, “This is Detective Lock with the New York City Police Department. I’d like to meet with someone who can help me trace survivors of Auschwitz who lived in Poland after the war.”

  “Good afternoon, Detective,” the woman replied. “There are two gentlemen who work as researchers and scholars in your subject area. The first is a young man who did excellent work at Oxford University. He’s bright and very pleasant.”

  Here the woman stopped.

  Buddy said, “And the other researcher?”

  “Ah. Well, that would be Dr. Kosmatka.”

  Again the woman paused.

  Buddy said, “What are Dr. Kosmatka’s qualifications?”

  “He’s . . . he’s a linguist, Detective. Speaks many languages. But he’s older now, a bit frail, and hard of hearing. I’m surprised he’s still with us, after surviving the death camps as a boy.”

  Buddy felt his pulse quicken. “Is Dr. Kosmatka available to meet with me tomorrow?”

  There was a pause during which Buddy heard the rustling of papers.

  Coming back on the line, the receptionist said, “Dr. Kosmatka is available anytime after three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. But are you sure, Detective?”

  Buddy ignored her question, saying only, “Please tell him I’ll be there at three p.m.”

  As he hung up, he noticed the desk sergeant standing by his cubicle. He stood.

  “Buddy, there’s some confused kid here to see you. Says he wants to confess, but that he didn’t do it.”

  Buddy winced. “Didn’t do what?” he asked.

  “Wouldn’t say anything more than ‘Bruno Brook.’ Want me to send him away?”

  “No,” Buddy said, jumping up. “Put him in the interview room.”

  Minutes later Buddy sat across a scratched and gouged metal table from a high school kid. The kid wore a navy-blue sport coat with his school’s crest embroidered on the breast pocket of the jacket. He had a few pimples but was otherwise handsome, with fair skin, dark hair, and a mole to the left of his nose.

  Buddy set his digital audio recorder on the table and said, “What’s your name?”

  “Mark Rydell.” The kid’s voice was in the middle range, a little nasal.

  “You’re in school?”

  “Dalton.”

  “Why are you here?”
r />   “To tell you what I know.”

  “About what?”

  “About what happened to Lucy Brook. Well, to her entire family.”

  Buddy leaned back, crossed his arms. “What do you know?”

  “Lucy was my girlfriend.”

  Buddy didn’t say anything.

  Mark Rydell stopped, waited for Buddy to do something, and then continued. “I saw her on New Year’s Eve. Up at Camp Kateri.”

  Buddy said, “How’d you get to Camp Kateri?”

  “There’s a road a half mile away. I borrowed my uncle’s Jeep and drove up there to be with Lucy. But I left before the police arrived.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes, sir. Lucy kicked me out.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “We had an argument. And that’s . . . that’s why I’m here, sir. She had something going with John Brook. He’s her cousin.”

  Buddy kept a poker face.

  The kid nearly stuttered, “I just want . . . wanted you to know. Because John Brook found out about us—about Lucy and me. And he threatened to kill her.”

  Buddy said, “So you think John Brook might have taken revenge on Lucy by killing her and her family?”

  Mark Rydell nodded. “Isn’t it possible? I mean, I just thought I should tell you what I know.”

  Buddy uncrossed his arms and leaned closer to the kid, who obviously didn’t know that John Brook was dead. Buddy thought the kid was telling the truth, but he had the chance to confirm his story and also John Brook’s veracity. “Mr. Rydell,” he said. “When you found out about John and Lucy, were you angry?”

  “Yes.”

  Buddy waited a moment and then asked, “Did you hit Lucy?”

  The kid’s eyes wandered down to the table.

  “Did you hit Lucy?” Buddy asked again.

  Mark Rydell nodded.

  Buddy said, “Yes or no, please. Did you hit Lucy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  The kid looked up at him. “At Camp Kateri.”

  “No,” Buddy said. “Where on her body did you hit her?”

  The kid pointed to his chest.