Big Jack

by J. D. Robb

  “Guess not. You lock the place down tight when the crew’s not here?”

  “Damn straight. You got your vandals and your looters and your sidewalk sleepers, your assholes looking for a place to screw around or deal.” He shook his head, adorned with a dusty Whittier gimme cap. “We got a lot of equipment in here, not to mention the supplies. Steve—Mr. Whittier—he don’t stint on security. He runs a class operation.”

  She didn’t know about class, but she knew about noise. Inside there was plenty of it.

  “Lot of space,” she commented.

  “Five floors, three buildings. You got round about eighteen thousand square, not counting rooftop area. Gonna be a mix of residential and business. Keeping as much of the original structures and features we can salvage, and we’ll install new where we can’t, keeping the original style.”

  “Yeah. This much space, three buildings, there’s a lot of ways in and out. A lot to cover.”

  “We got a central security system, and individual backups on each building.”

  “Who’s got the codes?”

  “Ah, that’d be Steve, myself, head carpenter, assistant foreman and the security company.”

  “You can give those names to my partner. We’d like to look around.”

  “You going any farther than this, you gotta have your hard hat and goggles. That’s the law.”

  “No problem.” Eve took the canary-yellow construction hat and the safety glasses. “Can you show me where you’ve used the flame sealant?”

  “Damn near all the subflooring’s been sealed.” He scratched his chin. “You want, we can start here, work our way through. But I’m telling you, nobody coulda gotten in here after hours.”

  “It’s my job to check it out, Hinkey.”

  “Gotta do what you gotta.” He jerked a thumb and began to wind his way around equipment. “This here’s commercial space. Probably lease it to a restaurant. This here floor’s been sealed up. Had to rip out what was left of the original. New flooring’s not installed yet, just the sub and seal.”

  Eve took the scanner out of her field kit and ran a standard for blood trace. Gauging the size of the building, the time it would take to scan each area of flooring, she straightened from her crouch.

  “Can you do me a favor, Hinkey? How about you get somebody to take my partner through the next building while you and I go through this one? We’ll hit the third after that. Save us all some time and trouble.”

  “Whatever you want.” He took a two-way off his belt. “Yo, Carmine. Need you floor one, building two.”

  They divided into teams, and Eve moved from area to area on the first floor. After a while she was able, for the most part, to tune out the noise. Buzzing and whirling, the sucking of compressors and the smack of air guns.

  The voices of the crew came in a variety of accents. Brooklyn and Queens, Hispanic and street jive. She filtered it out, along with the music each section selected as background tunes. Trash rock, tinny country, salsa, rap.

  Because he was giving her time and no hassle, she listened to Hinkey’s running commentary on the job progress and details with half an ear.

  He droned on about climate controls, inspections, electrical and filter systems, walls, trims, labor, plumbing. Her brain was jammed with it by the time they hit the second floor.

  He nattered on about windows, framing, stopped off to chew out a laborer and to consult with another crew member on specs. It gave Eve hope she’d shake him off, but he caught up with her before she made it to the third level.

  “Apartments up here. Give people a decent place to live. Fact is, my daughter’s getting married next spring. She and the guy, they’ve already put in for this unit right here.”

  Eve glanced over in time to see him look a bit baffled and sentimental. “Be nice for them, I guess. And I know the place is built good. Solid.” He rapped a hand on the wall. “None of that toothpick-and-glue shit some of these places use when they slap one of these old buildings back together. Steve, he takes pride.”

  “You worked for him long?”

  “Seventeen years this October. He ain’t no fly-by-night. Knows his buildings, too. Works side by side with you in a crunch.”

  She found a few drops of blood, discounted it as she had in other areas. Not enough. And you put a bunch of people together with a bunch of tools, a little blood was going to spill.

  “He spend much time on this job?”

  “Oh yeah. Biggest we’ve had. Worked his ass off to get this bid, and he’s by here every day.”

  He walked with her out of the unit, down the hall formed by studded walls.

  “How about his son?”

  “What about him?”

  “He put in time?”

  Hinkey snorted derisively, then caught himself. “Works in the office.”

  Eve paused. “You don’t like him much.”

  “Not for me to say, one way or the other.” Hinkey lifted a beefy shoulder. “I’ll just say he don’t take after his old man, not that I see.”

  “So he doesn’t come around.”

  “Been here once or twice, maybe. Doesn’t take much interest. Suit-and-tie type, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” She stepped over a stack of some sort of lumber product. “Would he have the access codes?”

  “Don’t see why he would.”

  “Boss’s son.”

  Hinkey’s shrug was his response.

  Her ears were ringing, her head pounding by the time they hit the fourth floor. She decided she’d have asked for ear protectors if she’d known how bad it would get. It seemed to her that the tools had gone to scream level here. She eyed, with some respect, a large, toothy saw run by a man who looked to weigh in at a hundred pounds flat.

  She gave it a wide berth, flipped on the scanner.

  And hit the mother lode.

  “What the fuck is that—beg pardon.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot of blood, Hinkey.” She ran the scanner over the floor, revealing a bright blue pattern along the floor, splattered on the wall. “One of your men cut off an appendage with that saw up here?”

  “Jesus Christ, no. Lieutenant, I don’t see how that could be blood.”

  But she could. Just as she could see the smear of it running down the hall. Where Tina Cobb had tried to crawl.

  He’d walked through it, she noted, squatting down for a better look. He’d left some prints, and wasn’t that handy?

  So had Cobb, she saw. Handprints, bloodied. Tried to pull herself up the wall, used it for support and pressed her hand there, there.

  He’d taken his time with her, Eve was sure of it. He’d let her crawl, limp, stumble the entire length of the fourth-floor corridor before he delivered the death blow.

  “Can’t be blood.” Hinkey stared at the blue, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “We’d’ve seen it. Jeezopetes, you couldn’ta missed it.”

  “I need this area cleared. I’ve got to ask you to get your crew out of this building. This is a crime scene.” She took out her communicator. “Peabody? I’ve found her. Fourth floor.”

  “I’ve gotta . . . I gotta call the boss.”

  “You do that, Hinkey. Tell him to be available, at his home, in an hour.” Eve turned to him, felt a pang of sympathy as she saw the horror in his eyes. “Get your crew out of this building and call Whittier. I want to talk to him.”

  In under an hour, the construction noise had been replaced by cop noise. Though she didn’t have much hope of picking up more evidential trace, she had a team of sweepers spread throughout the building. A crime-scene unit took images of the hand- and footprints, and with their tech magic extracted microscopic blood traces for DNA match.

  She’d already matched the index fingerprint on the wall to the prints on file for Tina Cobb.

  “I know you’re going to say it’s just cop work, Dallas, just step-by-step investigation, but it’s just short of miraculous we were able to nail this scene.”

  Peabody stud
ied the blood patterns, boldly blue under the scanners set on tripods.

  “Another few weeks, maybe days, they’d have set the floor, covered the walls. He picked a good spot for this.”

  “Nobody to see her, hear her,” Eve stated. “Easy enough to get her inside, dozens of reasons he could’ve used. There’s plenty of pipe for the murder weapon, tarps to wrap her body in to transport it. He’d get the gas first. Have that in the transfer vehicle. He got in here, he could access the gas. We’ll follow up there. There’ll be records of what’s stored or purchased through the Whittier account.”

  “I’ll get on that.”

  “Do it on the way. Let’s go see Whittier.”

  She didn’t want him on scene, not yet. She wanted this first contact in his home, where a man felt most comfortable. And where a man, guilty or innocent, tended to feel most uneasy when confronted with a badge.

  She didn’t want him surrounded by his employees and friends.

  He opened the door himself, and she saw a sleepless night on his face that was layered over now with what might have been shock and worry.

  He extended a hand to her in what she took as the automatic manners of a man raised to be polite. “Lieutenant Dallas? Steve Whittier. I don’t know what to think, what to say. I’m not taking this in. Hinkey thinks there’s been some mistake, and I’m inclined to agree. I’d like to get down to the site and—”

  “I can’t allow that, at this time. Can we come in?”

  “What? Oh, yes. Sorry. Excuse me. Ah . . . ” He gestured, stepped back. “We should sit down.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Somewhere. In here, I think. My wife’s out, but I expect her back soon. I don’t want her to walk in on this. I’d rather try to tell her . . . Well.”

  He walked them into his den, held out his hands to chairs. “Would you like something? Something to drink?”

  “No. Mr. Whittier, I’m going to record this interview. And I’m going to give you your rights.”

  “My . . . ” He sank into a chair. “Give me a minute, will you? Am I a suspect in something? Should I . . . Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You have a right to a lawyer or a representative at any time during this process. What I want is to get a statement from you, Mr. Whittier. To ask you some questions.” She set a recorder in plain view on the table and recited the revised Miranda. “Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”

  “Yes, I guess I do. That’s about all I do understand.”

  “Can you tell me where you were on the night of September sixteenth?”

  “I don’t know. Probably here at home. I need to check my book.”

  He rose to go to the desk for a sleek little day calendar. “Well, I’m wrong about that. Pat and I had dinner out with friends. I remember now. We met at about seven-thirty at the Mermaid. It’s a seafood place on First Avenue between Seventy-first and -second. We had drinks first, then took the table about eight. Didn’t get home until around midnight.”

  “The names of the people you were with?”

  “James and Keira Sutherland.”

  “And after midnight?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “After midnight, Mr. Whittier, what did you do?”

  “We went to bed. My wife and I went to bed.” He flushed when he said it, and the expression reminded her of Feeney’s embarrassment when he’d realized what she and Roarke had been up to on their recreational break.

  She deduced Whittier and wife had indulged in some recreation before sleep.

  “How about the night of September fourteenth?”

  “I don’t understand this.” He muttered it, but checked his book. “I don’t have anything down. A Thursday, a Thursday,” he said, closing his eyes. “I think we were home, but I’d have to ask Pat. She remembers these things better than I do. We tend to stay home most evenings. It’s too hot to go out.”

  He was a lamb, she thought, innocent as a lamb, just as he’d been at seven. She’d have bet the bank on it. “Do you know a Tina Cobb?”

  “I don’t think . . . the name’s a little familiar—one of those things you think you’ve heard somewhere. I’m sorry. Lieutenant Dallas, if you could just tell me what’s going on, exactly what’s . . . ” He trailed off.

  Eve saw on his face the minute the name clicked for him. And seeing it, she knew she’d been right in betting the bank. This man had had no part in splattering the girl’s blood.

  “Oh my sweet Jesus. The girl who was burned, burned in the lot a few blocks from the site. You’re here about her.”

  Eve reached in her bag, just as the bell rang at the door. Roarke, she thought. She’d made the right choice in contacting him after all. Not to help her determine Whittier’s involvement, but to give the man someone familiar in the room when she pushed him about his son.

  “My partner will get the door,” she said, and took Tina’s photo out of the bag. “Do you recognize this woman, Mr. Whittier?”

  “God, yes, oh God. From the media reports. I saw her on the reports. She was hardly more than a child. You think she was killed in my building, but I don’t understand. She was found burned to death in that lot.”

  “She wasn’t killed there.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe anyone on my crew would have a part in something like this.” He glanced up, confusion running over his face as he got to his feet. “Roarke?”

  “Steve.”

  “Roarke is a civilian consultant in this investigation,” Eve explained. “Do you have any objection to his presence here at this time?”

  “No. I don’t—”

  “Who has the security codes to your building on Avenue B?”

  “Ah. God.” Steve pressed a hand to his head a moment. “I have them, and the security company, of course. Hinkey, ah . . . can’t think straight. Yule, Gainer. That should be it.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Pat?” He smiled weakly. “No. No point in that.”

  “Your son?”

  “No.” But his eyes went blank. “No. Trevor doesn’t work on sites.”

  “But he’s been to that building?”

  “Yes. I don’t like the implication here, Lieutenant. I don’t like it at all.”

  “Is your son aware that his grandfather was Alex Crew?”

  Every ounce of color drained from Steve’s cheeks. “I believe I’d like that lawyer now.”

  “That’s your choice.” Standing as shield, Eve thought. Instinct. A father protecting his son. “More difficult to keep certain facts out of the media once the lawyers come into it, of course. Difficult to keep your connection to Alex Crew and events that transpired fifty years ago out of the public stream. I assume you’d prefer if certain details of your past remained private, Mr. Whittier.”

  “What does this have to do with Alex Crew?”

  “What would you do to keep your parentage private, Mr. Whittier?”

  “Nearly anything. Nearly. The fact of it, the fear of it has ruined my mother’s health. If this is exposed, it might kill her.”

  “Samantha Gannon’s book exposed quite a bit.”

  “It didn’t make the connection. And my mother doesn’t know about the book. I can control, somewhat, what she hears about. She needs to be protected from those memories, Lieutenant. She’s never hurt anyone, and she doesn’t deserve to be put on display. She’s not well.”

  “I’ve no intention of doing that. I don’t want to have to speak to her, to force her to speak to me about any of this.”

  “You want to shield your mother,” Roarke said quietly. “As she shielded you. But there are prices to be paid, Steve, just as she paid them in her day. You’ll have to speak for her.”

  “What can I tell you? For God’s sake, I was a child the last time I saw him. He died in prison. He’s nothing to do with me, with any of us. We made this life.”

  “Did the diamonds pay for it?” Eve wondered, and his head snapped around, insult plain on his face.

  “They did
not. Even if I knew where they were, I wouldn’t have touched them. I used nothing of his, want nothing of his.”

  “Your son knows about them.”

  “That doesn’t make him a killer! That doesn’t mean he’d kill some poor girl. You’re talking about my son.”

  “Could he have gotten access to the security codes?”

  “I didn’t give him the codes. You’re asking me to implicate my son. My child.”

  “I’m asking you for the truth. I’m asking you to help me close the door your father opened all those years ago.”

  “Close the circle,” Steve mumbled and buried his face in his hands. “God. God.”

  “What did Alex Crew bring you that night? What did he bring to the house in Columbus?”

  “What?” With a half laugh, Steve shook his head. “A toy. Just a toy.” He gestured to the shelves, and the antique toys. “He gave me a scale-model bulldozer. I didn’t want it. I was afraid of him, but I took it because I was more afraid not to. Then he sent me upstairs. I don’t know what he said to my mother in the next few minutes, other than his usual threats. I know I heard her crying for an hour after he left. Then we were packing.”

  “Do you still have the toy?”

  “I keep it to remind me what he was, what I overcame thanks to my mother’s sacrifices. Ironic really. A bulldozer. I like to think I razed and buried the past.” He looked over to the shelves, then, frowning, rose. “It should be here. I can’t remember moving it. Odd.”

  Antique toys, Eve mused while Whittier searched. Gannon’s ex had antique toys in his office and an advance copy of the book.

  “Does your son collect this sort of thing, too?”

  “Yes, it’s the one thing Trevor and I shared. He’s more interested in collector’s values, more serious about it than I from that standpoint. It’s not here.”