David Drusin pivoted to whisper to me. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Alex. You might start seeing Raymond Tanner’s ugly face everywhere you go. That’ll give you something to prosecute.”
EIGHT
“Do we have a temp office?” I asked Mercer, when he met me in the lobby of the Waldorf at 11:15 A.M.
“In the basement. A cubicle next to the homicide guys. Where’s Blackmer?”
“He’ll be up in the afternoon. He’s interviewing a vic in that Columbia date rape.”
Mercer was leading me to the service elevator. “Did you drive?”
“No. Took the subway. I had a stop to make on my way in. Went to check on a sick friend.” I looked at Mercer to see if he got what I meant.
“All good?”
“Apparently not as sick as I thought,” I said, but he didn’t blink. “Mike here?”
“Don’t know what Rocco has him doing, or whether it’s his mother. I wasn’t expecting him yet. You’ve got to lose some of that edge, girl. You two will be okay.”
“My edge, such as it is, has nada to do with Detective Chapman. I’ve just come from the arraignment of Gerry Dominguez, and it was a bit contentious, to say the least.”
“You got rattled at an arraignment?” Mercer said, chuckling out loud as the elevator doors closed. “Miles to go, Alex.”
“I called the squad,” I said, referring to the SVU on upper Broadway. “Gerry Dominguez responded to a 911 call last month. Suspicious-looking thug carrying a lead pipe. Seventh Precinct.”
The DA’s office and courthouse were in the Fifth, so it was uncomfortably close territory.
“Lots of lead pipes around town.”
“This one was ours. Raymond Tanner. Fits the scrip to a tee, only Dominguez claims not to have known Tanner was wanted. Had his mitts on the mutt but misspelled the name by one letter in the two-fifty. Does that make any sense to you?”
“The sergeant hear anything about it?” Mercer said, referring to his boss at SVU.
“The only people in the know seem to be the giant computer brain at One Police Plaza and Dominguez’s lawyer, David Drusin. Something wrong with that picture, right?”
“There’s a whole task force looking for Tanner. They’ll jump on this.”
“So in the meantime, since Drusin’s shtick is that Dominguez is just playing mind games about chowing down on his wife and all the other ladies on his list, I can use my free fantasy time to worry about Tanner hunting me around town.”
“And I have no doubt you will do that, Alex, looking over your shoulder everywhere you go. So I’m going to put you to work instead.”
We had turned into a long corridor, dimly lit, with just enough air-conditioning to make breathing tolerable.
“You couldn’t find anything more cheerless than this?” I asked.
We passed several open doors. I recognized a few detectives in each of the rooms, interviewing men and women I assumed to be hotel employees.
Halfway down the hall, Mercer turned in. There were four desks in the barely furnished space, with an old lamp on each and a ceiling fan that looked like an original artifact.
“Best we were able to do. The presidential suite’s reserved.”
I dropped my tote on the floor, sat on a desktop, and began fanning myself with a manila folder. “Tell me the news.”
“Autopsy’s done,” Mercer said. “No surprises, and details to follow. The lab says that spot of blood that Dr. Azeem picked up on the curtain is sufficient to profile, so that jumps to the head of the line, along with our deceased.”
“Could it be hers?”
“Spatter? Sure thing. But it’s either hers or the perp’s, because Azeem’s camera says it was deposited the same time of day. It’s not some traveling salesman from a month ago who cut himself shaving.”
“So we’re likely to have two DNA patterns by tomorrow and a photo to put a name to the dead body anytime now. What’s up with the video surveillance?”
Mercer pointed to the far end of the hallway with his thumb. “They’re working two angles. Because Azeem put an exact hour on the murder, Rocco has one team working all the videos starting at two P.M., the earliest time he thinks she died. They’re looking for whoever left the room with the trunk, working off photos of the luggage we found last night, which is a huge help. That’s about fifty cameras’ worth.”
“Tedious job. Why wouldn’t they have just left the trunk in the hotel?”
“The killer clearly wanted to bleach out the insides and make sure it wasn’t traceable to him, and besides, it’s not bad cover walking out with luggage. We’re interviewing bellmen now to see if he was brazen enough to get help, even though someone had already attached wheels to the old thing long before it was stolen.”
“And what’s the other angle?”
“The second group is working in reverse, going backwards to try to catch the killer or killers coming into the hotel.”
“Any sign of the feds yet?” I asked.
“Nope. Just an advance team on site to see if they can secure the area they need for the executive group arriving this week.”
“Maybe Scully’s idea of lowballing this investigation to the media will work—making it look like an ordinary street crime, I mean.”
“I got the porter from the office building opposite the Yale Club in the next room. Let’s finish up with him.”
“How about the owner of the suitcase?”
“In London. Private equity guy who was here for a few weeks but lives in London. His wife was using the luggage to pack up a lot of her stuff and ship it over. Says he bought it at the antiques market on Portobello Road, with wheels already attached.”
The Yale Club was located at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, a handsome neoclassical building from the early nineteen hundreds, directly opposite Grand Central and sited—as Yale legend had it—on the very street corner on which their famous alum, Nathan Hale, was hanged by the Brits for espionage during the Revolution.
“How did it go missing?” I asked.
“Nobody at the clubhouse had an explanation,” Mercer said, motioning for me to follow him into the adjacent room. “The guest insisted on having it outside on the sidewalk while he waited for a car service that was taking him to the airport. He went inside to use the men’s room and ten minutes later, the trunk was gone.”
“Hardly a surprise.”
“He thought the club’s doorman had an eye on it, but the entrance got busy, so nobody was watching.”
“And the porter?”
“Works in the building across the street,” Mercer said, tapping before he opened the door. “Alex Cooper, I’d like you to meet Mr. Johnson White.”
The slim gentleman, African American with skin as dark as Mercer’s, braced himself on the desk beside him and stood up briefly to shake my hand. He appeared to be in his late sixties, with close-cropped gray hair and beard. He was wearing a navy-blue jumpsuit over a white T-shirt.
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Good to meet you as well,” I said.
“How much longer will you have me here, Mr. Wallace?”
“Don’t you worry, sir. Your supervisor is fine with this.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” the man said with a smile. “It’s my lunchtime.”
“We’ll try to be quick,” Mercer said. Then to me he explained, “Officers canvassing the area around the Yale Club found Mr. White. They think he can put some pieces together for us. I had just started talking with him when you arrived.”
“I don’t have many pieces, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
Johnson White was relaxed and talked easily. “I was born sixty-eight years ago. Right here, in Harlem. Finished high school. Served in Vietnam. Married the first girl I saw when I got home,” he said. “Have two daughters, three grandchildren. And I got one job I’ve had since 1974. Short story, Mr.
Wallace.”
“Short and sweet, sounds like to me. You’re a porter, they tell me.”
“That’s a polite way of saying it. A custodian. A porter. I’m a janitor, Mr. Wallace.”
“You work in an office building?”
“Yes, ma’am. Right there on Vanderbilt Avenue, 43rd to 44th Streets. Bank of America building.”
“Since 1974?” I asked.
“I guess you’re too young to know, but it wasn’t a bank when I went to work there. It was the grandest hotel in New York.”
“Grander than the Waldorf?” I couldn’t help but make the comparison because of the dead girl whose murder was driving our investigation.
“Oh, I would have to say yes to that. It was called the Biltmore.”
“I’ve heard of it, of course, although I don’t remember it.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald had glorified the Biltmore in his stories, associating it with Jazz Age luxury and style. He and Zelda had honeymooned there—briefly—until they were ejected for their rowdiness. In countless movie romances, couples reunited under the famous Biltmore lobby clock.
“My father worked there long before me. Got me the job when I came home from ’Nam. In those days it was still connected to Grand Central. In fact, I used to meet passengers registered at the hotel on our own private arrival platform in the train station. It was called the Kissing Room,” he said, winking at me. “Brought them back to the Biltmore underground—never had to deal with foul weather or the riffraff who used to hang around the station. Got them right up to the hotel lobby in a private elevator.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Bet you didn’t know we had a roof garden in between the two wings of the hotel, either, and in the winter we turned it into a skating rink. Now is that grander than the Waldorf or not?”
“Sounds like it was.”
“All that’s left of the Biltmore today is the old clock and the baby grand piano that sat in the lobby. You can come see them inside the bank building.”
“Mr. White and I had just started talking about how he used to carry luggage for railroad passengers,” Mercer said. “That’s why he’s got such a good eye for expensive bags and trunks.”
I knew there was a point that Mercer was making with the narrative.
“The police came around early this morning with a copy of a photograph of that big leather suitcase. I recognized it right away.”
“Because—?” Mercer asked.
“I’d never seen that kind before, if that’s what you mean. But I knew it was fine.”
“Fine?”
“Not from my days hauling garbage and shredding documents in the bank, but from the time my daddy and I were helping fancy people from the train station into their hotel suites. This was a fine piece of leather luggage, a big trunk back when people traveled in style if they were rich. Not with all the wheely bags and backpacks and aluminum stuff that they jam into the airplane overheads today. Not that kind.”
“Where did you see it?” I asked.
“I was standing out in back of my building, on the loading dock area, on a break. Hot as hell the day was. And the brass fittings on the case? The sun was hitting on them, making them shiny like they were new, looking good against the dark leather of the trunk. Caught my eye is all.”
“Was there anyone with the trunk?”
“Not when I first saw it,” Johnson White said. “Strange for people in this city to leave so much as a soda bottle on the street for fear it’ll get snatched. A big, fat old suitcase? Really careless.”
“Did you say anything?”
“To who?”
“Well, did you see the people who put it out on the sidewalk?”
“Don’t know when that happened. Didn’t see anyone close to it at first. It was just standing there in that slice of sunlight, all by itself.”
Johnson White stopped talking and leaned his head down, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his neck. “You got some kind of sweatbox going on in here, Mr. Wallace?”
“Can’t help it, I’m afraid. We’re making do.”
“You’re not thinking I had anything to do with that trunk, are you?” White was stern-looking now, as he lifted his head to ask Mercer. “I’ve seen movies where police do this to people.”
“You’re helping us, Mr. White. The heat is just what it is down here.”
“How long were you watching the trunk?” I asked.
“I wasn’t watching it at all. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”
“Sorry.”
“It caught my eye, is all. Then some guy walked across the street—you know, from the exit of the train station—walked right up to it all boldlike, and just wheeled it away. It was as though he was supposed to be doing it.”
“One guy?”
“All I saw was him.”
“Did he talk to anyone at the Yale Club?”
“I didn’t see him say a word to nobody, and wasn’t nobody paying attention to say a word to him.”
“What did you do?” Mercer asked.
“I kept on doing exactly what I’d been doing. Resting up.”
“Did it seem unusual to you, the guy taking the trunk?” I asked.
“For all I knew, young lady, he was the very guy who left it there. Didn’t you listen to me? I don’t know who put it out on the sidewalk in the first place.”
“So you didn’t alert anyone at the club, or look for a patrolman?” Mercer asked.
The porter wiped his brow with the handkerchief. “Nothing out of the ordinary, Mr. Wallace. I’m not looking for any trouble, anytime.”
“What did the man look like?”
“White. He was a white man with dark hair, is all I can say.”
“C’mon now,” Mercer said. “You can do better than that. Was he a kid? Was he your age?”
“Somewheres right in between. Maybe thirty, maybe older.”
“Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?”
“Regular.”
Johnson White was beginning to show his annoyance with all the questions.
“Tall or short, I’m asking you.”
“About as tall as this lady here,” he said, pointing at me. “Tall for a lady, but kind of regular for a guy.”
“Well, did he look like a man who would have owned a fine piece of luggage?” Mercer said, leaning over to try to get in the witness’s face.
“Now I’m supposed to be the judge of that?”
“You told us you had lots of practice at it. Grandest hotel in New York,” I said, trying to reignite a spark in the man.
“So long ago I’ve forgotten everything except how pretty the place was.”
“The man,” Mercer said, “did he look clean? How was he dressed? Give me something to work with, Mr. White.”
Johnson White was sweating profusely. “Can’t think in here. You gonna let me up for air?”
“Soon as you tell me what I want to know.”
“Pants. Shirt—not a T-shirt. Noticed the collar because he had on a baseball cap and I saw dark hair hanging out the back of the cap, over his collar.”
“Keep going.”
“That’s all I took in. Man walking like he didn’t have a worry in the world, rolling that big trunk across the street.”
“You saw where he went?” I asked. “Back into Grand Central?”
“I never said he came out of the train station. Just crossing from in front of it. And I saw exactly where he went.”
“Tell us,” Mercer said, leaning in again.
“There’s a ramp that comes from the street on the 44th Street side.”
“What kind of ramp?”
“For vehicles. Cars and such,” White said. “Has a special ceiling in it. A real pretty place.”
“Ceiling?”
“You two ever been to the Oyster Bar?”
White was talking about the famed seafood restaurant, one hundred years old, which still anchored the lower level—once the hub of all commuter traffic—of Grand Centra
l.
“Sure we have. You never met the oyster Ms. Cooper here didn’t like.”
“Then you know the ceiling? The beautiful tiles?”
“Guastavino tiles,” I said. The terra-cotta free-span timbrel vaults, the invention of a Spanish architect named Rafael Guasta- vino, were landmarked in the famed restaurant as well as in sophisticated building designs throughout the city. “Fancy tiles on a ramp? Ramp to what?”
“Used to be that ramp led to the basement of the Biltmore Hotel, miss. That’s how come it was all spiffed up back in the day. I spent a lot of time going in and out there,” White said. “But it doesn’t go anywhere anymore. It’s just a parking garage under there now.”
NINE
By one fifteen, Mercer and I were standing under the spectacular tiled ceiling of the Acme Garage on East 44th, almost kitty-corner from the Yale Club. The Catalan vaulting, as it was known, had once been a gateway to a luxurious hotel but was now as dirty and grim as any underground commercial parking space in the city.
The young man in charge was as surly as befit someone spending all his hours below the street, inhaling gas fumes and jockeying cars to get them as close together as possible without scratching fenders or sides.
“A guy with a trunk? Nothing unusual about luggage.”
“A big old leather trunk. You might notice,” Mercer said. “Maybe think it wouldn’t fit in a car.”
“We got vans, we got SUVs, we got pickups and panel trucks. I park ’em, I don’t pack ’em.”
“How about surveillance cameras? You must have them in here for security.”
Garages were easy targets for armed robbers because they did so much business in cash.
“We got ’em. They’re just on a loop, though. They record over themselves after twenty-four hours. No reason to save tapes if nothing happened,” the garage attendant said, pausing to spit on the floor. “And nothing happened.”
“We’d like to go through receipts with you. See if anyone charged their parking fee or one of you jotted down plate numbers.”
“You told me you don’t have a date. How you gonna do that?”
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