Mike answered the lieutenant but looked at me. “It’s the latest thing, Loo, or hadn’t you heard? They try to rehabilitate miscreants these days. Give us a second chance. Were you hoping they’d administer a lethal injection?”
Pug chuckled. “Yeah, a quart of vodka.”
“It’s Scully himself who brought Mike into this,” Mercer said. “Once the medical examiner got word to him tonight that Professor Azeem was lecturing at Columbia this week and had this very promising device, he sent Mike to pick Azeem up and get him to you.”
The Manhattan North Homicide offices were uptown, much closer to the Columbia University campus than the South detectives or even the hotel scene. Keith Scully and Mike Chapman went way back together. It made sense that Scully would find a way to ease one of his smartest detectives into action again. This couldn’t be Mike’s case to run with, because his official assignment was the North, but he would be a valuable asset to have on a high-profile murder investigation.
“So Scully’s got your back, huh? On loan to me for this nightmare?”
“I’m not working a full tour, Loo. My mother’s in the hospital.”
I took a deep breath, anxious to ask why Mike hadn’t told me.
“If I may break in,” Fareed said, “I think the blood spot is an important factor. Perhaps every bit as important as the time of death. Not for the public, perhaps, but to inform the commissioner.”
“Yeah,” Pug said, scoffing at the reserved chemist. “Was it like a spot or a speck? Scully’s gonna wanna put his job on the line for that tidbit.”
“Tell me about it,” Rocco said.
“When your men worry about missing something with the naked eye, they paint the suspected area with luminol. It reacts with the iron in hemoglobin to produce a visible result.”
Television forensics had imparted that information to every viewer of SVU or CSI.
“But they missed a small area on the curtains today, which happens often when the fabric is in the very range of blood colors. These were what you might call rose. I imagine they just overlooked that area of the room as unimportant or uninvolved, since there was already so much blood on the bed and body.”
“So your camera scans the entire scene for the presence of blood?” I asked.
“Precisely. That avoids the assumptions that humans make, just applying the luminol where they expect to find evidence connected to the crime.”
“We may have enough of the killer’s blood to work up a DNA sample?”
“That would be my hope, Ms. Cooper. If the murder weapon is as sharp as Dr. Mayes described, he may have just nicked his finger on it while packing up to leave.”
“Let Scully sit on that factoid. He shouldn’t give it out to the public,” Rocco said, jabbing his cigarette at Fareed. “I’d like you, Pug, and Mercer to come downstairs with me to stand with the commissioner. Don’t open your mouth unless I tell you to.”
Pug nodded. Mercer didn’t need any instructions in dealing with the media. His dignity and wisdom had guided me through every hot-spot situation we’d encountered together.
“And you, Chapman,” Rocco said, pointing his cigarette tip, “keep out of the limelight.”
“I’m a new man.”
“I kind of liked the old one,” I said.
“What do you say, Loo? Welcome to our world, right? Probably the first time there’s ever been a murder at the Waldorf, wouldn’t you think?” Pug asked, straightening his shirt collar and reknotting his tie.
“Fifth,” Mike said. “Best I can tell.”
Mike had an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s crime history, almost as thorough as the amount of military history he had absorbed throughout his youth and in his studies at Fordham University. His father, Brian, had been a tremendously respected homicide detective who died of a massive coronary within twenty-four hours of turning in his badge and gun. Brian had taken Mike, his only son, to crime scenes and on ride-alongs in unmarked cars as early as Mike could remember.
“Back in ’82 there was a bank executive killed in a stairwell. Robbery gone bad, and boy did she bleed like a stuck pig. My dad caught the squeal. I’m not sure anyone was ever charged with that. And in ’99 a tourist—from Brazil, I think—had his throat slashed by someone he brought back to the room with him after a week of gambling in Atlantic City. Known perp.”
“A slasher?” Rocco asked. “Better have someone pull those files tomorrow. Never can tell.”
“Not even close, Loo,” Mike said. “This was an execution.”
“Call Huey for me, will you, Mercer? Let’s get a plan for the midnight tour and tomorrow morning.”
Mercer called Sergeant Tatum and told him to get up to the command center, while Rocco began handing out assignments. “What have you got in the morning, Alex?”
“I have to see Battaglia at eight thirty.” That appointment hadn’t been made yet, but the district attorney would want as complete an update as I could give him before he started his day. “Then a quick court appearance. I’m all yours by ten fifteen.”
“I want you to work out of the hotel. I’m going to run this right here.”
“Makes sense.”
“The sergeant will be up in five,” Mercer said. “I’ll meet Alex here in the morning and we’ll handle this together.”
I looked at Mike to jump in with us, but he was staring at the lieutenant.
“You two are on the sex crimes angle,” Rocco said. “Every contact you have in the other boroughs and across the country, every cold case you can get your hands on, every parolee who’s hit the streets in the last year, every junkie who’s AWOL from his program. And, Alex, look into every one of those trunks that’s been sold—when, where, to whom.”
He searched in vain for an ashtray, then tapped the ashes from his cigarette into a vase of flowers.
“Hugh will oversee all the employee and guest interviews. Night Watch will kick in at midnight, and by morning we’ll have help from all the local squads. As long as it takes. Any of the weepy broads—I can’t stomach that stuff—anyone squirrelly or acting nuts we’ll sweep right over to you, Alex. You’ll have backup?”
“I’ll reach out for someone tonight. Not a problem.”
“Pug, I’ll throw you all the support you can handle. You’ll have four guys around the clock with you for starters. More if Scully gives me what I ask for. Homicidal maniacs from here to Nome, anything that smells like this, you find ’em. Call in chits on any snitches you’ve got,” Rocco said. “Who owns this joint anyway?”
“It’s part of the Hilton chain, I think,” Mercer said.
“Get their lawyers in on this. Any litigation? Anybody trying to sabotage this place for commercial reasons?”
The uniformed cop stepped back into the doorway. “Excuse me, Lieutenant Correlli? Just got word that the commissioner is about to pull up on the Lexington Avenue side. You’re to head downstairs to Peacock Alley to brief him.”
“A briefing in a bar,” Pug said. “Off and running.”
“Johnny? Professor? Anyone have anything to add?”
“The commissioner would like you to bring Ms. Cooper, too,” the cop said.
“I—uh—I can’t say anything to the press, Rocco. Battaglia would have my head. There’s no point in taking me down with you.”
“You know Scully as well as I do, Alex. He doesn’t want to be hanging out there all alone. He just wants the visual of you standing behind him. If anything gets screwed up,” Rocco said, smiling at me as he plunged his cigarette tip-down between the stems of the yellow roses, “he can always say the district attorney was leading the charge.”
“He won’t need Coop to take the fall,” Mike said. “If you haven’t solved this within forty-eight hours, the feds will be in here, setting up shop for the president’s pilgrimage. You want to see a complete professional fuckup? Put the feebies to work on a homicide.”
FIVE
Keith Scully stood at the makeshift podium in the fashionable l
obby of the five-star hotel. He was an enormously well-respected commissioner who had risen through the ranks to the top job, keeping the admiration and affection of most of his men along the way. He was about my height—five ten—with the ramrod-straight bearing of an ex-marine. His short-cropped hair had grayed throughout his tenure, and he tolerated far less nonsense now than he had in his youth.
Rocco Correlli was a step back, at the commissioner’s right shoulder. Pug, Mercer, and I stood several paces behind both of them and off to the side, where I attempted to keep out of camera range while the focus was on Scully.
The deputy commissioner for Public Information, Guido Lentini, was trying to control the unruly crowd of reporters who had surged past the patrol guards on Park Avenue and up the staircase to the lobby. We all knew the locals from print and broadcast well; most had a long familiarity with police work and knew how to ask questions and when to mine their favorite detectives for well-placed leaks. Others were drawn in from feature work about traffic accidents and consumer frauds and limited their inquiries to the color of the deceased’s hair and whether next of kin had been notified.
This group was unusual. I recognized some national reporters, cable and network, thrown into the mix, perhaps anticipating that this was more than a gruesome street crime.
“When you guys settle down,” DCPI Lentini called out, “the commissioner will get started.”
One of the reporters had slipped off to my side, whispering into his microphone as his cameraman scanned the art deco interior and the carefully placed potted palms lining the gilded archways into the main lobby. He seemed to be doing a setup for tomorrow’s NBC Nightly News, talking to Brian Williams, in case the story grew into a national one.
“We’re here, Brian, in the historic Waldorf Astoria—an early New York City skyscraper built over the air rights of the New York Central Railroad—yes, the train tracks run directly below us on Park Avenue to all points north of the city—and opened in 1931. It’s actually the second site of the famed hotel,” the young man said, vamping to fill time while other teams elbowed for space, setting up tripods and mikes. “If you know your history, Brian, you’ll recall that it was an Astor family feud that led to the construction of the original Waldorf-Astoria, on the site of what is now the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue at 33rd Street.”
The reporter looked around to see if Scully was ready to speak. The commissioner was listening to Rocco Correlli, who moments ago in the empty bar had given him a quick rundown—more of what we didn’t know than what we did—and was now whispering something else in his ear.
“William Waldorf Astor built his swank establishment in 1893, naming it the Waldorf, next door to his aunt’s home after a nasty battle with her, and when she moved away it was her son—John Jacob Astor IV, later to perish on the Titanic—who replaced her mansion with the Astoria Hotel. There was only a tiny strip of pavement, known as Peacock Alley, which separated the two structures, so the cousins soon after joined them together to create the Waldorf-Astoria, which at the time became the world’s largest hotel and the very first to offer room service to its upscale clientele.”
Scully stepped to the microphone and silenced the press corps.
“Brian,” the reporter whispered as he turned to face the podium, “Commissioner Keith Scully, after a briefing in Peacock Alley—now a bar in this legendary venue—is ready to tell us about this most unusual murder, in the Waldorf Towers, a boutique hotel within a hotel, on the eve of a presidential visit.”
I couldn’t think what made this homicide unusual, except to someone who had never covered crime stories in Manhattan. People had been killed in every landmark location from Central Park to Madison Square Garden to the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. The stories rarely made national headlines—housing projects, school playgrounds, and abandoned buildings held no interest for news desk editors—unless the victim was prominent or the setting was one that resonated with the rest of America.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Scully said, beginning with the routine assurances about the safety of the Waldorf Astoria and the full cooperation of management and staff.
He might have been talking about another body than the one I saw. The unidentified victim had been stabbed in the neck. No need to alarm the public by disclosing that her throat was slit from ear to ear. Uncertain about how she came to be in the Waldorf. Uncertain about which day and what time she died. Uncertain about whether she had anything to do with the hotel itself, either as a former employee or regular guest.
“How about a photo of the lady, Commish?” a tabloid reporter yelled out. “What’d she look like? How old is she?”
“You’ll have that tomorrow afternoon.”
“How long was she registered at the hotel?” another voice called from the back of the pack.
“There is no evidence that she was a registered guest this week.”
“A hooker, maybe?” That was the New York Post’s veteran crime reporter, Mickey Diamond.
The NBC correspondent’s jaw dropped when he heard the question. The city’s crime beat set the low bar for gentility.
Keith Scully gave Diamond his best “drop dead” expression and pointed to one of the women who’d been sent by MSNBC.
“What do you intend to tell White House officials in preparation for the president’s upcoming stay here?”
“That the Waldorf Astoria is the safest place in town. I’d be more worried about the grizzlies in Yellowstone than the likelihood of running into anything dangerous in New York. That we hope to have this matter solved within days. We’re asking for everyone’s help, in calling the TIPS hotline and remaining anonymous if you choose to do that. The hotel is offering a”—Scully looked off to the right at the management representative to confirm the amount—“a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest.”
“Is that all?” Mickey Diamond shouted. “Mr. Hilton can do better. And would you tell us, Commissioner Scully, if the lady was sexually assaulted? We got a serial rapist on the loose?”
“This is a homicide, Diamond. That’s all you need for now. OCME will conduct an autopsy tomorrow.”
I knew Scully’s thinking. This news would be shocking enough. Let the medical examiner deal with the more sordid crime elements before making the panic message public. He was about to step down from the podium.
“But you’ve got Ms. Cooper warming up in the wings, Scully,” Diamond continued. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Keith Scully stopped himself in time to grab my elbow, rather than leave me alone and stupefied in the spotlights, and escort me off the platform, signaling to the corps that this was his last statement for the evening. “Battaglia sent us his on-call bureau chief. Just happens to be Ms. Cooper. We’re ready for anything.”
Uniformed cops led the commissioner, Pug, Mercer, and me through the hastily assembled group of reporters, past a few dozen startled hotel guests who were being questioned by detectives as they emerged from elevators, and took us back into Peacock Alley. At this hour, the stately room would normally be full of thirsty New Yorkers, throwing back late-night martinis or dining on the signature Waldorf salad. But the NYPD had closed down the chic bar early, depriving the hotel of a significant amount of revenue—as this entire tragedy would doubtlessly do. I looked wistfully at the bottles of Scotch lined up behind the empty bar.
“Anything else to do tonight, Alexandra?” Scully asked. His next meeting would be with his top commanders and the mayor.
“Just a late supper and a good night’s sleep. Rocco gave us all our marching orders.”
“I’m taking off. See you tomorrow.”
Scully’s security detail guided him out through the lobby, past the windows of the expensive jewelry store within the hotel—the scene of an armed robbery a few years back—and down the escalator toward Lexington Avenue.
As soon as he was out of the way, Sergeant Tatum began to usher in those of
his men who were interviewing guests, turning Peacock Alley into a makeshift squad room. Several gents in black tie were separated and taken to tables in the rear, while two young couples dressed for a casual summer city night were squawking about being inconvenienced by the police stop.
I waited till Pug busied himself with some of his colleagues before taking Mercer aside.
“Where does a girl go to get a drink around here?”
“I hear you.”
“I’m not sure I could put down any food after that scene upstairs, but I’m having a nightcap here or at home.”
“This place isn’t an option. Start walking.”
We took the same route as the commissioner. The reporters had all scattered to the sidewalk on Park—a far more scenic shot—to do their stand-ups beneath the glittering gold lettering of the hotel name carved into the stone facade, flanked by two giant American flags.
Mercer got on the down escalator backward, looking up at me as he rode to the ground floor. “Mike’s waiting for us at Patroon. At the rooftop bar.”
I tossed my head back to avoid locking eyes with Mercer.
“It’s his mother, Alex. He flew home early because she’s in the hospital.”
Mercer was Mike’s best friend. They had worked together in homicide for years, until Mercer asked for a transfer to Special Victims. Like me, he enjoyed trying to put the pieces back together, restore dignity to those witnesses least likely to expect it from the system, and see them triumph in a court of law.
Mike, on the other hand, held his emotions close. It was more natural for him to unravel the mysteries surrounding a dead man’s dilemma than to try to comfort someone alive but traumatized by an assailant.
I bit my lip and nodded that I understood.
“You think he dissed you? Is that it?”
Still on the long descent to street level, I could look straight ahead and not make eye contact because Mercer was below me on the moving staircase. “It’s been almost two months.”
Terminal City Page 4
