by David Wind
“I said I didn’t see Jack or Sonja leave. Don’t forget Sylvia Mossberg was under surveillance, when Samael took her out. Maybe one of the Moffertys snuck by me. Or Joan Bidding got past Sy. The way this case is going, anything’s possible. Besides, if Sonja is telling the truth, I want to know who sent her to Hong Kong, and why.”
<><><>
Through the long hours of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Hyte paced the confines of his apartment, an unwilling hostage of police department mentality.
Sy Cohen and Sally O’Rourke did all the legwork, returning at the end of each day to give him their reports. Randal Schwartz checked out the coach passengers and stewardesses who had visited Asia and cleared each.
Hyte’s biggest concern was still Sonja Mofferty and the mysterious client who had hired her. At the modeling agency, Cohen and O’Rourke learned that her assignment had come through Dunsten and Thurmond Advertising.
Cohen’s report wasn’t as hopeful. “When the woman in charge of bookings there said, ‘We have no record of who the client is,’ I showed my tin and told her that I was going to run her in for obstruction of justice in a homicide investigation.”
“And?” Hyte asked, amused.
“She told me I could do whatever I wanted to, but they have no record of who the client was, only the advertising agency that contracted with them.”
Then Hyte assigned Cohen to watch Joan Bidding, and O’Rourke to keep surveillance on the Moffertys.
Hyte went to the chalkboard. Tacked on the wall next to it was a large blank sheet of poster paper.
He wrote the date of the hijacking at the top of the poster. Under that, the date of Richard Flaxman’s death.
In the next column, he wrote the date of every death, and then added three more Friday dates, the first of which was April thirtieth, tomorrow night.
Stepping back, he studied the list. Was there something significant? If there was, he couldn’t see it.
The phone rang. Schwartz answered it.
“Miss Graham,” the black man called.
Hyte went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
“Hi,” he said when he picked up the phone.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’ve been better. How’s Denver?” Emma had left Tuesday night. Graham International was opening its fifth retail store on Monday next. Emma’s presence was important for the opening ceremonies.
“Hectic but under control. Everything’s behind schedule. Half the inventory is somewhere between New Jersey and Hawaii. I’ve done one newspaper interview, and all they talked about was the killings in New York. I feel so damned guilty, being here. Should I come home Friday and fly back Saturday?”
“It’s not necessary. Your father will be fine. Just concentrate on the store and make it a good opening. I’ll see you Tuesday.”
“I miss you. A lot. I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. About getting married.”
“And?” he asked.
The phone amplified her throaty laugh. “You know the answer is yes—when this is all over with. When my father is...you know.”
Hyte exhaled. “Safe. I know. I love you, Emma, and I miss you, too.”
He went back to the living room. “Randy, see if you can get me Franklin Masters.”
A moment later Schwartz said, “He’s on the phone.”
Hyte picked up the extension. “Dr. Masters, sorry to bother you.”
“I’ve been expecting your call. Jack told me what happened last Thursday. Why are you harassing him?”
“I’m not harassing anyone. I’m trying to stop a killer. Doctor, would you please ask Sonja to call me? I need to know who the Hong Kong modeling was contracted by.”
“I’ll ask her.”
“Soon,” Hyte said sharply. “And Doctor, I think it’s advisable for the Moffertys to break their Friday night pattern of seeing you. At least until this is over.”
“I agree, completely. In fact, after the last killing, I told the Moffertys I would come to see them on Friday nights. Does that meet with your approval?”
Hyte detected no sarcasm in his voice. “Thank you.”
“I’ll ask Sonja to call you.”
A few minutes later, Cohen and O’Rourke came in. They gave the same report as yesterday. The Moffertys stayed home all day; Joan Bidding returned home from work at four.
“What’s this?” O’Rourke asked, looking at the poster board.
“Important dates. But nothing rings a bell.”
“Why are there only three dates instead of four?” Cohen asked, pointing to the dates without names.
“The Helenezes were taken out together. I think that’s the plan for the Moffertys.”
“Joan Bidding is next,” O’Rourke said.
Hyte looked at her. “Why?”
“The pattern. She’s going to work tomorrow night. If Samael’s homework is as thorough as we think, she provides the only opportunity.”
“Maybe. Remember, Samael does the unexpected. Look at Mossberg. We all believed she’d be safe until after ten o’clock. Samael took her early, made everyone believe she was safe at home, and then waited until later to kill her. No, we can’t make definitive statements. Both Bidding and the Moffertys have to be watched.”
“I think Samael’s a woman,” O’Rourke said. “Flaxman was killed nine months to the day of the hijacking. That number is significant to a woman. It takes nine months to give birth. Samael was conceived on June nineteenth and born on March nineteenth.”
Once again, the way O’Rourke’s mind worked took Hyte by surprise. “Maybe you’re right.”
The phone rang. “Mason’s on his way over,” Schwartz said.
Mason arrived twenty minutes later, tired and harried.
“I feel like I’m in a war,” he said. “This has been the worst week of the year. I’ve got every fucking precinct and borough squad working overtime.”
“It’s springtime, Chief,” Sy said. “The scuzz like to work warm weather. They can run faster.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Mason said.
“Did you get tomorrow night’s schedule?” Hyte asked.
“McPheerson isn’t taking any chances. He’s covering everyone. Three teams will be watching each of the remaining passengers who live in our jurisdiction. That’s the Bidding woman, eleven coach passengers, one of the stewardesses from coach, and the Desmond girl.
“The Suffolk police are putting two dicks on the Mofferty house from eight P.M. until eight A.M. shift change at one A.M. Westchester has been asked to do the same for Jonah Graham.”
“He’s got private help inside.”
“I also spoke with the PC.”
The hackles on Hyte’s neck rose. “About?”
“Everything. This situation isn’t his fault and you know it. He’s given the okay for you to put someone on Bidding and the Moffertys. We’ll clear it with the Islip PD—they cover Bay Shore. We both believe that if McPheerson’s people get Samael, he won’t make it to a cell, much less an indictment. The PC wants them watched. And I want your word that you won’t move out of this apartment.” He looked at his godson intently. “If any of McPheerson’s people see you, the whole thing goes down the tube. Suspension for you, which means you’ll never get a chance to find the real Samael. So you stay home.”
Hyte knew he had no choice. When he spoke, it was as if a hook was ripping through his intestines. “You have my word.”
“Thank you. Now I have to go back to the office and figure out a way to reorganize the precincts. McPheerson requisitioned thirty dicks to work tomorrow night.”
As soon as the chief was gone, Sally O’Rourke spoke.
“We’re pulling guard duty? We’re supposed to make sure that our killer makes it back to a holding cell?”
Hyte spoke in a monotone. “That’s what the man said.”
“And you’re going to do it?”
“Sally, you’ve been working for me long enough to kn
ow that I do what I believe is necessary. Right now, we’ve caught a nasty case with political overtones. There are careers at stake as well as lives. But there’s something even more basic involved. It’s who we are and what we represent.”
He paused when he saw the doubt in her eyes. “The reason I’m going to stay home tomorrow night, when all I want is to put an end to Samael, is because I have to get Samael the right way. No games. No politics. Mason is right. If I don’t stay home tomorrow night, and someone sees me near any of the victims, it will give McPheerson and Conner the opportunity to suspend me. If that happens, Samael may just win. McPheerson sure as hell won’t be able to stop him, even if he really wants to.”
<><><>
Hyte woke with a start. He looked at the clock: six fifty-five A.M. It was Friday again. The seventh Friday since Richard Flaxman had died in Forest Hills.
He called Phil Mason at nine and requested two portable cellular phones and the locations of McPheerson’s surveillance teams.
Sonja Mofferty called at 10:15. “Dr. Masters gave me your message.”
“Have you been able to remember the company you did the modeling session for?”
“Yes. I went through my files. I found several of the proof sheet photographs from that session. The company was the International Accessories Corporation Limited.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Three-oh-two-seven Victoria Boulevard, Hong Kong.”
The answer threw him. “It’s a Chinese company?”
“The people I dealt with were British. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Hyte said, changing the subject. “I understand Dr. Masters is coming to your home on Friday nights.”
“Yes, he thought it best.”
“Mrs. Mofferty, it’ll be over soon.”
She laughed bitterly. “One way or another, right, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you do. The first time you spoke with Dr. Masters, you were trying to learn why Jack and I were seeing him. Franklin told me why it was necessary to explain my therapy; it was because you thought I was killing all these people. That’s why you keep asking me these questions. Isn’t it ironic that the only thing that can prove I’m not the killer is if that monster gets me? Is that what you’re waiting to see, Lieutenant?”
“Mrs. Mofferty—”
Sonja Mofferty hung up.
He needed air. He left the apartment, and walked until he reached the East River, where he leaned on the cement abutment and looked down at the fast moving water.
The overcast sky and gray clouds outlined the buildings across the river. The water was dark.
He stayed for a half hour, thinking about Sonja Mofferty.
His instincts told him she was not Samael, but the only thing he could trust were his eyes. When he saw Samael, he would know him—or her.
Everything about the murders was wrong. Samael’s ability to locate the Helenezes when he himself hadn’t been able to was a part of that wrongness. He sensed that Sonja’s modeling job had been a setup to cast suspicion on her.
When he returned to his apartment, Hyte handed Schwartz the name of the company Sonja Mofferty had given him. “Call their New York office and get everything they have on this place.”
Fifteen minutes later Schwartz hung up the phone. “They no longer handle that account. The account executive who did won’t be in until Monday. The woman I spoke to said that they need verification that I’m from the police before they’ll give us any information. I told them to expect someone from the chief of detectives’ office to contact them on Monday morning and I suggested that she have all pertinent information ready. She said there would be no problem as long as whoever came had proper identification.”
“Good, Randy, very good. I’ll have Sy go over there Monday.”
“Do you think Sonja Mofferty is Samael?” Schwartz asked.
Hyte looked at Schwartz. “I don’t know.”
<><><>
Two and a half hours after O’Rourke and Cohen arrived at the apartment, Deputy Inspector Douglas Mannering, of the CD’s staff, showed up with the two cellular phones and a small manila envelope.
“The Chief asked me to remind you about your promise,” the deputy inspector said.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Hyte said.
“He also wants you to know that he’s been able to temporarily quash Conner’s request for disciplinary suspension. But it’s not over yet.”
Hyte nodded. “Where will Mason be tonight?”
“Headquarters, with all the brass.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
“Good luck, Ray.”
When the inspector left, the team gathered around the table. “I want check-ins every half hour,” he told Cohen and O’Rourke. “Sally, I want you on the Moffertys.”
He held up a hand to stop her protest. “It’s the location that dictates the assignment. In a crisis, there’s more of a chance that the security people working at Kennedy will recognize Sy: He was trained at the airport for terrorist situations. And Sally, Sy knows his way around the terminals, you don’t.”
O’Rourke nodded.
“Now, let’s see what McPheerson’s got in mind.” Opening the envelope, he withdrew two sheets of paper. “Two men at the front and rear of Bidding’s building. One man on the roof, another on the roof across the street. He’s got the building sewn up tight.” He paused, troubled by an omission in the surveillance schedule. “That’s stupid.”
“What?” Cohen asked.
“They’re not covering Bidding while she’s at work.” He rubbed his eyes, wondering if McPheerson’s people had read his report that Bidding worked one Friday night a month. “Sally, get moving. I want you at the Mofferty’s by seven-thirty.”
She hung back. “I don’t like this Bidding thing. Maybe I should go with Sy.”
“We need a backup for the Mofferty’s. Who knows what McPheerson told the Suffolk people? He might have given them his shoot-first-and-worry-about-things-later terrorist line. I need you there.”
She picked up the phone and left.
“How do I play it?” Sy Cohen asked.
“Bidding goes on at eight. She’ll probably leave her place by seven or a quarter after. She drives. You tail her and find the best place to work her from. Do not forget Samael took out Mossberg between the synagogue and home. I’ll call Mason and advise him of the situation. Stick close to Bidding without being seen.”
Cohen picked up the portable phone. “I’ll call as soon as she leaves for work.”
When Hyte and Schwartz were alone, he made himself a light Scotch. His stomach was knotted and his mind dark. He felt utterly helpless. His only positive thought was that Sy Cohen was one of the best.
He called Mason and told him about McPheerson’s screw-up. “McPheerson talked to her husband,” Mason said. “He agreed to make sure she stayed home.”
“Phil, if you were Joan Bidding, and your husband knocked up another woman and then told you he was divorcing you, would you listen to him?”
Silence followed. Then, “I’ll call Queens Homicide and have two men sent over to back up Cohen.”
Chapter Forty-one
A pilot wearing the deep blue Trans Air uniform and carrying a bulky leather bag entered the employee section at ten-fifteen. Directly to the front was the men’s room. To the left a hallway opened into a waiting area. The pilot saw Sy Cohen sitting on a bench.
The pilot went to the men’s room, walked to the mirror, and smiled. Samael’s makeup did not crack.
The Messenger of Death went into a toilet stall and locked the door. Sitting on the closed toilet seat, Samael opened the leather bag and withdrew a pair of white cotton gloves. When they were on, the Messenger of Death removed the black bow of vengeance.
Next came a suede-wrapped bundle. Samael untied its binding, revealing three cork-tipped bolts.
Removing the corks, Samael placed each bolt into the revo
lving magazine, cocked the string, checked the safety, and put the crossbow back in the bag. The grip almost touched the handles.
Samael unlocked the stall door and went into the hallway. Stopping at the intersection, Samael looked toward the lounge area. Sy Cohen was still there. The Messenger of Death would have to wait. Not for long though, that would not be good. It was eleven o’clock.
Samael saw Cohen use a portable cell phone. When he hung up, Samael watched him peer into Joan Bidding’s office, nod to himself when he saw the two young stewardesses with Bidding, and then walk toward Samael the pilot.
Nodding politely when the policeman walked past, Samael tracked him until he entered the men’s room and closed the door.
<><><>
Joan Bidding’s phone rang. She held up her hand to interrupt the stewardess she was talking to, “Night Supervisor.”
“Joan Bidding, please.”
“This is she,” Bidding said.
“Mrs. Bidding, this is Officer Schwartz of Lieutenant Hyte’s staff.”
“Yes, Officer Schwartz? Is there something wrong?”
“Please don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Bidding. But the Friday Night Killer has been captured while attempting to break into your apartment.”
“Oh, my God!” she cried. “My children? Are they all right?”
“Yes, but they’re badly shaken up. They witnessed a death. Can you come home immediately?”
“Right now!” she cried. Grabbing her purse, Joan Bidding ran out of her office.
Behind her, when she reached the first of the two exists, was a pilot carrying a battered leather bag.
In the underground parking lot, Bidding ran to her car. When she reached it, and put the key into the door lock, she felt something pressed to her head.
“Don’t move.”
Joan Bidding began to tremble. She bit down on her lower lip. A flash of pain preceded the taste of blood. She stopped trembling.
“Turn around,” said the oddly inflected voice.
Bidding did. She found herself face to face with the pilot who had come into the lot with her. “What—”
“Be quiet. I have come to collect you. You have outwitted death for long enough. It is your time, Joan Bidding.”
