Raney made himself look at the bodies. This was also part of his job. He felt the bile rise in his throat. He coughed to hide this discomfort and turned to Detective Second Grade Rafael Beale, who had caught this case. Beale's cordovan-colored skin looked muddy, almost greenish, like a shoe left for a long time in a lake.
"We got anything yet?"
"Not much. ME says they died around midday, maybe a little earlier. It's hot, so they didn't cool much. No obvious prints; he probably wore gloves and some kind of wrapping around his feet. You can see where he stood, there"- he indicated smear marks in the pools of stiffened blood on the kitchen floor-"and there, probably when he was doing the girl. Both of them were penetrated vaginally and anally by an object, we don't know what yet. Maybe raped, too, but the autopsy will show it either way. Tore them up pretty bad internally, especially the girl. He left, um, produce in the orifices, bananas in the girl, carrot and celery in Mrs. Chalfonte."
"Rick came home and found them like that?"
"Yeah. Fuck! I'll tell you, Loo, we find this scumbag, it's gonna be hard to get him to a courtroom."
"I don't want to hear shit like that, Beale, okay?" Raney snapped, and added in a calmer tone, "How did they die?"
"After he had his fun, it looks from the spatters, he cut the girl's throat. Sprayed blood all over the mother. That was after he cut the breasts off her, you can see there…"
"Yeah, I get it," said Raney quickly, "and then he smashed her head."
"Yeah. Some kind of hammer or steel bar to do that kind of damage. We haven't found the murder weapon or anything he left. He was real careful."
"Uh-huh. You'll run this through the bureau?"
"Oh yeah, VICAP, the works. Looks like he had practice, maybe he did it before. And also the posing, the sexual shit. Could be. You ever work a serial, Loo?"
"Once. A pair of wack jobs was snatching little girls, a mother and her son. Satanic rituals. But nothing like this. This is fucking off the charts. Anything back on the canvass?"
"Not a whole helluva lot. Of the four closest houses, two were unoccupied at the time of, one neighbor had the TV on, didn't hear shit, the other's an old lady, heard screaming at about the right time, but she thought it was from a TV."
"Then he must have had the tape off their mouths for some of it."
"Yeah, the sick piece of shit. He wanted to hear them scream; that, or else he was torturing them for some information, or whatever."
"What kind of information?"
Beale shrugged. "You know, where's the money or the dope?"
"What, you think Chalfonte's a guapo drug lord?"
"No, but, you know, it's something to think about. Why he didn't leave the tape on them."
"Yeah, you're right. Okay, check that aspect out, but low-key it, you know? So it doesn't get back to him. I mean the guy was on the job, he works for Radionics, all that police communications gear… there's probably not a lot of money in his life. Anything else?"
"The across the street neighbor, old retired guy, saw a white male exit the house around maybe eleven, give or take. Blue ball cap, white T-shirt, chinos, sneakers. Odds are it was our perp. Couldn't see the face, average height, husky build. Walked off."
"That's interesting. No car?"
"Not that our guy could see. You're thinking a bad license? He's afraid to drive?"
"Or he doesn't own a car. Or he parked around the block. You'll check that out. Expand the canvass. I'm not sure we've ever had a serial killer who didn't have wheels… except…"
Beale waited, but Raney was chewing on his lower lip and staring up at a corner of the ceiling.
"You got something, Loo?" Beale asked.
"Maybe. That serial I worked on, the perp used the subway. He was some kind of feeb, probably he couldn't drive at all, but thinking about it just now… it hit me that Mary Chalfonte was married to his brother. Do you know this story?"
"No, what story?"
"No, right, it's twenty years now; you were in junior high. This nut, this satanic sacrifice woman had two sons. One of them did the kidnappings of the victims, and the other one wasn't involved in that. He was just a regular lowlife murderer. I arrested him, as a matter of fact, with my old partner Pete Balducci. Completely unconnected crime. He killed a woman and her little boy, slashed them to pieces. A real con man, too. Felix Tighe. The fuckhead kept Mary locked up and chained to a bed. Beat her with a hanger, among other bad stuff. Anyway, around this time, when Felix was on the run, she managed to escape and go to the cops, and the main cop she wound up with was Rick Chalfonte. He helped her through all the horseshit, and after Felix went up for life, she divorced him and her and Rick got together. And now this."
"So… what, you like this Felix for this one? He can't be on the street?"
"Beale, I would fucking love Felix Tighe for this one. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to say it, he's dead. Died in prison just recently. But let me tell you, it's still a fucking weird coincidence. It gives me the chills."
4
"So, did you make your contact?" asked Rashid. "Sure, no problem," said Felix. He'd scored some meth after leaving Lucy and was feeling pretty good. "No prob-bob-lemo. She was eating out of my hand."
"Very good. Our friend contacted us today. I will tell him this when I return the message. He will be pleased. This operation is of great importance to him."
Felix looked at Rashid blankly, but smiling.
"Our friend in prison."
"Oh, yeah. What, he called you?"
"No, of course not. All our communication is through the lawyer Bascomb. The message is to launch the other operation now. Here you will help us."
"The other operation?"
"Yes. Come with me, I will show you."
Felix followed Rashid into the kitchen of the house and down the stairs to the basement. Barring the way was a heavy door closed by a large hasp and a combination padlock. Rashid opened it, holding the lock closely as he dialed so that Felix could not see the combination. When the door was opened, Rashid flipped a light switch and ushered Felix inside, closing the door behind him and throwing a bolt to lock it.
A long hanging fluorescent fixture cast its industrial glare over a substantial cement-walled basement room. Shop tables lined one wall, with pegboards on which hung a variety of tools, and there were racks of cardboard part bins neatly arranged below these. Industrial shelving lined the other walls, stocked with cardboard boxes, cans, and lengths of pipe. There was a pipe-cutting vise on a tripod and a complex-looking electrical meter on the shop table. Rashid picked up a length of three-inch pipe capped on both ends, rusty black except for a small toggle switch emerging from a hole drilled in one of the caps.
"Do you know what this is?" Rashid asked.
Felix looked around the shop and then at the cylinder. What else could it be? "A pipe bomb," he said.
"But sophisticated, a sophisticated bomb," said Rashid. "I will explain. You see this small switch? This is the arming switch. Pushed down, like now, the bomb is harmless. Up? I will show you." Rashid moved to the work bench, laid the bomb gently on it, and picked from one of the bins a J-shaped plastic tube, white, as thick as a ballpoint's barrel. It had a squarish lump on one end from which two wires emerged and another pair coming from the belly of the J. He shook it; a tiny rattle.
"That is a ball bearing in there. When the device is on safe, this electromagnet holds the ball bearing in a little shallow cup. When the arming switch is thrown, the magnet shuts off and the firing circuit turns on. Any movement then knocks the ball out of its cup. It slides down the tube and comes to rest between these two contacts, which connect to the firing circuit. The ball closes the circuit and the bomb goes off. This is for cars, you understand, or lean it against a door where the target will come in. Or leave it in a bag at a shop. It can't be moved, do you see?" He jiggled the little tube again.
Felix saw, and struggled to keep his face neutral and interested. Rashid's pedantic manner was get
ting on his nerves. He thought about hog-tying Rashid and ramming the bomb up his ass and flicking the switch. He played with the thought for a while as Rashid droned on about the other types of detonating devices he had at hand: radio-controlled, timers, spring detonators for package bombs. And the explosives: homemade RDX, ammonium nitrate, and acetone peroxide.
"The explosives are the hardest to get," Rashid explained. "With the recent events, the authorities are being very cautious. We have enough for small demonstrations, but we are still assembling material for our larger project. Here you will come in."
"Me? How?"
"Fertilizer purchases. Small lots in garden and farm supply stores in the area, not enough at one time to be suspicious. Someone who looks like you, an American, would not be suspected. Despite that their own people bomb very often, the Americans are crazy looking for Arabs. It is very amusing, do you not think?"
"Yeah, I'm laughing my ass. What's your larger project?"
Rashid smiled in that annoying smug way he had. "Need to know, need to know. You will be told at the proper time. Now we are ordered to plant one device. The target is a judge. Evan Horowitz."
"What did he do?"
"He condemned our friend to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, on the testimony of a lying traitor. It is impossible in any case for someone like ibn-Salemeh, an Arab patriot, to get a fair trial in New York with the Jews in control, but I think this action will demonstrate that we are not sheep to be slaughtered at their wish. So, here is what you will do: Horowitz keeps his car in an open lot behind the courthouse. You walk through the lot with several newspapers under your arm. You drop one, you stoop to pick it up."
Rashid retrieved the black pipe bomb. "In another newspaper you have one like this. You slip it out and attach it, under the car. It will have a magnet on it so it will stay. You throw the little switch and walk away. Do you think you can do this?"
"Uh, let me see if I get it," said Felix. "Do I throw the switch before or after I put it on the car?"
"After! After! It is the trembler detonation I showed you. If you throw the switch before…"
"Calm down, Rashid. I was joking, okay?"
Rashid frowned. Was it possible he was being made fun of? "This is not time for joking, Felix. I mean it."
"Sor-reee. So when do I blow the judge?"
"Tomorrow morning. I will give you further instructions then. Now, I have more work to do. You will leave now."
Felix made no move to follow this order, but wandered around the room poking into the various bins.
"Do not touch those things, please! I ask you to leave. Now!"
Felix had found what he was looking for. "Okay, okay, don't get all bent out of shape. I'm going."
He went out of the room. Rashid shut the door and threw the bolt. Felix took a moment to study the combination lock hanging open on its hasp. The sense of confidence and brilliance from the methamphetamine was still strong in him, and the idea that popped into his mind at that moment seemed like a stroke of genius. He left the house and walked with a spring in his step along Broadway to the hardware store he had visited that morning. There he purchased a Master combination lock exactly similar in appearance to the one on the cellar door hasp. He went back to the house and down the basement stairs. The door was still shut, and the lock was still hanging open. He switched locks and crept up the stairs.
When the Spaniards came home, Felix was in the living room watching television. He had been surprised to find that the house had cable, something new since he left for upstate. He was watching MTV with the sound off. He liked watching the girls but thought the music was shit. Carlos picked up the remote and switched the channels rapidly until he found a soccer game. Felix didn't object. He had scored some downers, too, and was working on his mix, just the right combination of prescription drugs for the feeling he wanted, strong and confident, but relaxed, too, so that he wouldn't get into one of his rages. Later maybe, but not now. He had to find the money, find out where the little Arab fuck stashed it. There had to be money. Everyone knew terrorism was a cash business. Then all these fuckers would get theirs.
The little Arab fuck came up from the basement and started jabbering in Arabic to the two Spaniards. They spoke Arabic, too, which didn't make much sense, since they were spics. Maybe part of Spain was Arab now. A lot of things had changed while he'd been in- cable, computers, all this terrorist shit, the weird people on the streets, women in fucking veils, niggers from Africa. He didn't like it, but what could you do? The main thing was the money. Keep calm, get the money, that was the plan. And revenge, that was important, too. That girl.
Rashid went out and drove off in his green Toyota station wagon. Of course, he got to drive a car. Felix waited until the sound of the car had faded. The Spaniards were glued to soccer. He went down to the basement, opened his lock, and went in. The completed bombs were racked neatly in a cardboard box, seven of them, separated by bubble wrap. He took one and adjusted the wrap to mask the loss. He replaced the original lock, went up to his room, and stashed the bomb under his mattress.
***
"What the hell was that?" said Karp to no one in particular. The sound had been loud and sharp, and seemed close, quite different from the muffled roar that he and everyone else in lower Manhattan had heard on September 11. Karp was in the fifth floor hallway of the courthouse proper. For a moment after the sound, everyone froze and let out an exclamation similar to Karp's, exclamations of astonishment, curses, a few prayers. Then the small crowd moved as one down to the end of the hallway by the elevator banks, to where tall windows gave views of the street. Karp could see nothing except wisps of dark smoke. The word "bomb" was much heard. And "terrorists." This was New York in the zero years of the new century.
Karp crossed through the security door to the DA's side of the building and climbed the three flights to his office floor.
"Did you hear it?" he asked Flynn, the secretary.
She had. She thought it sounded like a bomb, too.
"Murrow!"
Murrow came out of his cubbyhole. "It was a bomb, apparently," he said without being asked. "One of the judges' cars."
"Anyone hurt?"
"Yes, one killed. A court officer, Bedloe. You know, the one who tells you you can't park in the judges' lot. He was moving one of the cars like he does when the lot's jammed and it blew up."
"Christ! Where did you find this out?"
"When I heard the explosion, I called Jerry in the ground-floor snack bar. He always knows what's going on before anyone else. What do you think? More terrorists?"
"Doubtful. I was under the impression that the terror community was into clipping federal judges, not lowly state ones. Do you know whose car it was?"
"A brown Lincoln is all I heard. I could find out."
"Do so. Oh, and Murrow? Did you get anywhere on that other thing? I'm booked in with Jack and Rachman later."
"Yeah, Dr. Hirsch and the lovely Leona. Memo's on your desk."
Karp found that Murrow had done his usual thorough job, a page and a half of pure fact, which the sex crimes bureau should have discovered, but did not. He absorbed the details and turned to other things.
At lunchtime, Karp went down the street and walked around Foley Square to the special lot where the judges and other court officials kept their cars. Crime scene tape was up and the area was thronged with police and media wagons. Also present were the small band of demonstrators, with placards and bullhorn, demanding justice for Mr. Onabajo. They had been there since the trial started, local Nigerians, the women in loud prints, the men in African caps, together with the usual representatives of the African-American community. The wrecked car had been towed away, but a police tow truck was lifting another car damaged by the blast. Karp approached a detective he recognized from another case.
"What's the story, Sam?" he asked.
Sam Moscow looked around with a hard cop expression on his round face, which softened when he saw who
it was. In response to Karp's questions, he said, "Oh, this here? We like it as an attempted assassination of a judge. Unless someone had a hard-on for old Bedloe. He gave out one ticket too many."
"Who owned the car?"
"Judge Horowitz. Nice Lincoln Towncar. There's frag all over the lot. No question it's high explosive, not any cheap-ass black powder jobbie."
"That doesn't sound good."
"Tell me about it!" said Moscow, turning a hard eye on a couple walking past, the man bearded with a turban, the woman in a sari, and also taking in the Onabajo people.
"Fuckin' city these days."
Karp let this pass. "You on the case?"
"Me? Nah, our loo sent a bunch of us from the Five down here to help out with the canvass. A red-ball obviously, with a judge being a probable target. The bomb squad will get most of the action. We're trying to see if anyone saw the perp."
"Did anyone?"
"Not yet. What's this Horowitz like? A hard ass?"
"Not particularly," said Karp. "He's been in Supreme Court about twelve years. I don't recall anyone shaking their fist at sentencing-'I'll get you if it's the last thing I do, you bastard.' But you never can tell. Or it might have nothing to do with his courtroom life. He might not even be the target. You recall those scumbags who were whacking cops at random, back in the day."
"Oh, yeah, them," said Moscow, morosely. "That's all we fuckin' need. Anyway, we'll find out which. Or not, as the case may be. I gotta go."
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