“Let me guess. This fits with the Joel Rifkin profile somehow,” I said.
Emily was already on one knee, reaching into her bag, flipping through her stacks of photocopied research.
She tore out a sheet.
“Rifkin’s second victim was beaten and strangled.”
“Check,” I said.
“The dismembered body parts hidden in buckets of concrete.”
“This isn’t technically a bucket, but a pretty reasonable facsimile.”
“Reasonable?” Emily said as the sound of hammers rained down from above.
Chapter 89
THE HOTEL’S SECURITY CAMERAS turned out to be a gold mine.
Standing in a cramped, broiling basement security room, Emily and I watched a computer screen, where Apt, in living color, casually walked with the dead girl through the Carlyle’s lobby.
“You grinning son of a bitch!” I said, clinking the screen with my finger.
Apt was wearing an expensive-looking polo shirt and jeans, dressed elegant casual, summer suave. He had on a chunky gold wristwatch. We’d already spoken to the clerk, who said Apt had paid for his $2,000-a-night suite in cash. Watching him head for the check-in desk, I thought Apt’s overall demeanor seemed calm, self-confident, not out of place in the slightest in the insanely expensive hotel. The fucker.
The best video footage of all came from the camera in the corridor outside his room. At three a.m., a difficult-to-make-out man carrying something large wrapped in a sheet walked toward the rear service elevator.
“So he did her in the room, then,” Emily said, nodding.
I nodded back.
“It still boggles my mind that he would take the time to prepare a batch of concrete in the basement and lay her in it. Imagine, you’re down in that pit in the middle of the night. He even took the time to trowel it smooth and seamless with a craftsman’s pride. I can see why this guy was a commando. He must have antifreeze for blood.”
After we obtained copies of the tapes, we went up to the eleventh-floor room Apt had rented out. There was lavish furniture everywhere, an antique rolltop desk, a cream-colored sectional, gilt-frame mirrors. The window of the sitting room had an incredible view to the south, the Met Life Building on Park and the Chrysler Building.
We found the hooker’s bag behind the chic sectional. Among a plethora of interesting trade equipment was a wallet with a New Jersey State driver’s license. Wendy Shackleton.
“Do you think Jersey Girl Wendy here crossed Berger somehow, too?” I said. “Or is Apt maybe starting his own Dead People Club now? Branching out?”
“My money’s on Berger,” Emily said.
The CSU team was already in the bedroom. They’d found a bloody chair leg and blood spatter on the sheets and headboard of the bed. One of the techs told us they’d also found textbook-quality fingerprints on the chair leg.
“He’s getting sloppy?” I said.
“No,” Emily said, staring at the blood on the graphic canvas over the California King sleigh bed. “I’d say it’s more that he just doesn’t care if he leaves evidence. His main concern and number-one priority was staging the body, turning it into a copy of Rifkin’s second victim. The girl was just his project material, modeling clay, oak tag.”
We stared out the window as the techs clicked their cases shut, getting ready to leave. As we watched, the sun came out from behind a passing cloud and turned the Chrysler Building’s iconic spire to molten silver.
“Not bad digs for a boy from coal mine country,” Emily said.
“Berger transformed the lad,” I said. “It’s your classic rags-to-riches-to-mass-murderer story.”
“What now?” Emily said as we kept standing there.
“How about we both resign, and I call room service for a bottle of champagne?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Emily said as she headed for the door.
Chapter 90
AFTER A HOT, frustrating ride back downtown, we headed directly up to my boss’s office on the eleventh floor of HQ to show her the hotel’s security tapes.
“The stones on this guy,” I said as we watched. “This place makes the Plaza look like a Days Inn, Miriam. And look at him. He’s walking around like he owns it. He even paid for his room with a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills.”
“What’s the progress on getting Berger’s assets frozen?” Emily said.
“The wheels of justice move slowly. Actually, in the summer in this city, they come to a grinding halt,” Miriam said, frowning. “Last I heard we’ll have the warrants by the end of the day, but that’s what they said yesterday. Berger’s lawyer, Duques, is the executor of the estate. Why don’t you swing by and appeal to his civic responsibility. It’s a long shot, but maybe it’ll get him to shut his damn mouth to the press for five minutes.”
We took another leisurely roll in the baking midday gridlock back up to midtown. Allen Duques’s office was in a glass pagoda-shaped building on Lexington Avenue across from Grand Central Terminal. I parked my unmarked in the middle of a bus stop across the insanely congested street and threw down the NYPD placard on the visor so it would still be there when we returned.
Duques’s firm was on thirty-three. The outfit had the entire floor. Right out of the elevator, the name of his firm, Hunt, Block & Bally, stood in yard-high stainless-steel letters on the Brazilian Cherry wall.
“Mr. Duques?” said the brunette waif of a receptionist behind the glass door after we asked to see him. Her fine-boned model’s face looked amazed, as if we’d just asked her to tell us the meaning of life.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Duques is booked all day,” she informed us.
“Yeah, well, this is important,” I said showing her my shield.
“Really, really important,” Emily said, flipping her Feds creds for good measure.
Even with all our magic badge power, we had to wait another ten minutes before another attractive flunky, who looked like she ate maybe every other day, showed up.
I trailed a finger along one of the exotic-wood-paneled hallways she led us down.
“So this is what the corridors of power look like,” I said, nodding thoughtfully.
Around a corner, Duques stood in his office doorway, smiling pleasantly. The preppy bespectacled gent shook our hands before getting us seated in his plush office. He reminded me of the fancy hotel manager, polished and perfect, not a damn wrinkle in his white shirt even when he sat down. I, on the other hand, was sweating like a pig in a hot tub, despite the A/C. How did these rich guys do it?
“Now, what can I do for the NYPD and the FBI?” he said after we declined his coffee offer. The trim, middle-aged lawyer seemed affable and down-to-earth, which most likely wasn’t easy for him, considering his socks had probably cost more than my shoes.
“We were wondering if you could help us,” I said.
“I can try,” he said, eyeing us carefully. “What’s the problem?”
“We have reason to believe that Carl Apt still has access to Lawrence Berger’s money,” Emily said. “To be frank, we’re working on a warrant to have Berger’s assets frozen, but it won’t happen until tomorrow at the earliest. We know you’re the executor of Mr. Berger’s estate, and we’re here to ask you to freeze action on all accounts before anyone else is killed.”
“Hmm. That’s a tall order,” the lawyer said, leaning slowly back in his chair. “You’re assuming a lot. I’m not even sure I should admit that my client had a relationship with Mr. Apt.”
“Crazy assumption, I know,” I said, “considering your client admitted to it and to his guilt in his signed confession before he killed himself.”
Duques took off his glasses and chewed on an endpiece.
“A signed confession that I’m going to fight to have expunged,” he said.
“We’re not here to bicker, Mr. Duques,” Emily said.
She placed a sheet of paper on the lawyer’s desk. It was a printout of Apt and the hooker at the Carlyle from the security tape.<
br />
“This morning, we found this woman dead at the Carlyle Hotel,” Emily said, tapping the paper. “Apt paid two thousand dollars in cash for the room that he killed her in. We know Apt isn’t independently wealthy. Berger took him in off the street.”
“Allegedly,” Duques said, raising an eyebrow.
“Right,” I said, going into our folder and showing him a crime scene close-up of Wendy Shackleton’s beat-in face. “And see, this is where Apt allegedly bashed in this young lady’s alleged face with an alleged chair leg.”
That’s when I stood.
“I told you we’re wasting our time,” I said to Emily. “I told you we should have gotten the warrant first.”
Duques stood himself as we were leaving.
“Wait, I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Of course, I’ll help. We actually have a team working on the audit right now. I’ll tell them to put blocks on all transactions. Also, if I find any discrepancies, I will let you know first thing. Though in all honesty, it might take a little while. Mr. Berger’s estate is in excess of eight hundred million dollars.”
“What’s your cut?” I said, still in pissed-off bad-cop mode.
“Thank you, Mr. Duques,” Emily said, getting me out of there. “I knew you’d do the right thing.”
Chapter 91
DESPITE THE CHARMING Mr. Duques’s assertions to do everything humanly possible, for the rest of the day, we put full-court pressure on the city DA’s Office to speed things up on a warrant. Emily even placed a call to the FBI’s New York Office White Collar Squad for any guidance they could give in cutting off Apt’s money supply.
By 7:30, we hadn’t heard back from anyone, but at least it seemed we were barking up the right money tree now. Also, no one else had been ritualistically killed—at least that we knew of. I love progress.
I was going to give Emily a ride back to her hotel, but she begged off, saying she needed to get some shopping done for her daughter.
“Get some sleep, partner,” she said as we departed in the parking lot. “You’re going to need it.”
I turned down the police radio as I began my drive home and slid in a Gov’t Mule CD that I kept in the glove box. A machine-gun roll of skull-whomping drums started up, followed by a soul-piercing electric guitar. The hard-wailing Southern rock turned out to be just what I needed to reduce my about-to-pop blood pressure. I turned it up as high as it would go as I punched my Impala toward the FDR.
My stress felt purged as I pulled into my beach bungalow’s driveway an hour later.
“Finally. There you are. I was getting worried,” Mary Catherine said as I crossed the porch and opened the front door.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Did your phone battery die or something? The phone’s been ringing off the hook. Your FBI agent friend said something urgent just came up and to call her right away.”
I quickly checked my phone. Emily had left three messages. I must have missed it over my head-banging.
I called her back.
“Emily?”
“You need to come back to the city right away, Mike. Karen from the CIA just called me again with new info that she said might lead us straight to Apt. She’s coming to my hotel room. You need to get here as soon as you can.”
“On my way,” I said before hanging up.
“I take it you’re not staying for dinner,” Mary said.
I nodded and then glanced beyond the kitchen doorway at all the kids seated at the dining room table. Beside a cauldron-size metal pot, Juliana was passing out plates of pasta. That’s when I inhaled the scent of garlic and olive oil.
Sweet glory of angels!
Mary had made a massive batch of her world-famous meatballs and sauce.
I glanced at my phone.
Too bad I was going to have mine for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Chapter 92
STARVING AND BITING MAD, I listened to some more Gov’t Mule as I hammered back toward Manhattan’s big-city bright lights. It was nine thirty on the button when I rapped on Emily’s hotel room door.
She surprised me when she answered it. She was in a bathrobe.
“Hey, Mike,” Agent Parker said, hurrying toward the suite’s bedroom after she let me in. “Karen isn’t here yet. Why don’t you have a seat and a drink while I get changed?”
“Twist my arm,” I said, spotting a six of Brooklyn Lager on a table by the terrace door.
I rolled open the sliders to her room’s small terrace and drank by the rail. The first beer was good. The second even better. Down on the street in front of the hotel, taxis were lined up back to Central Park West. One after the other, they pulled into the hotel’s driveway, and well-dressed, smiling folks got into them on their way to a night on the town. With my drink, the sultry night air, and the romantic city lights, I felt like I was having one, too. Almost, at least.
I decided to raise my drink to them and the city at large. I was proud of them. They weren’t going to let Apt ruin their night. That’s what the Carl Apts of the world didn’t understand, I thought as I took an icy sip. New York was just like the human race. Sure you could scare it, slow it down, maybe even halt it for a little while. But it kept right the hell on going. No matter what. That was the best thing about New York City.
“Mike, where are you?” Emily called behind me.
“Out here,” I said, turning.
I froze in midspin by the terrace sliders. Inside the doorway, Emily wasn’t wearing her usual Fed business getup. She was wearing a midnight blue dress. A short dress that hugged her hips and showed a lot of cleavage. As I failed to close my gaping mouth, she fingered the string of pearls around her neck.
I was still stumped for a verbal reaction when there was a knock on the door.
“Is that Karen?” I finally said.
“I don’t know. Go see,” Emily said.
It wasn’t Karen. It was two white-jacketed room service guys with two white-linen-covered rolling tables. On one table were two silver trays, on the other two silver buckets. They wheeled them both out onto the terrace and brought out two chairs. The older of the waiters smiled at me as he popped the champagne bottle’s cork.
“Shall I open the other, sir?” he said to me as he filled two flutes.
“That won’t be necessary,” Emily said, tipping the man as she shooed him off the terrace and out of the room.
Chapter 93
“UM?” I said when she came back.
“I forgot to tell you. Karen’s not coming,” Emily said as she put a glass of champagne in my hand.
She sat down in a chair above the sparkling city lights and took a sip of her bubbly.
“In fact, she never was coming,” she said. “I made it up.”
“Why?” I said.
“Several reasons,” Emily said, staring at me as she crossed her long legs.
She was wearing high heels, I noticed. Very high, very black, peep-toed ones.
“I’ll tell you all of them as we eat, Mike,” she said as she lifted the lid of her tray.
“You should see your face,” Emily said as I sat.
“I’d rather see yours,” I said, shaking my head.
I devoured the dinner. I couldn’t decide which was better, the perfectly cooked baby lamb chops smothered in lemon, parsley, and rosemary, or the white truffle–garlic mashed potatoes. The champagne we washed everything down with was cold crisp Veuve Clicquot. After the third glass out in the night air, I could feel bubbles dancing in my bloodstream.
Emily popped the other bottle and filled our glasses again.
“I’m still waiting for those reasons, Agent Parker,” I said, smiling at her. “Why am I here? What the heck are you doing? What the heck are we doing?”
She set down the wet bottle carefully on the linen.
“Okay. First,” she said. “Happy birthday.”
“But it’s not my birthday,” I said.
“I know,” she said, taking a little bow. “It’s mine. My
thirty-fifth, to be exact.”
“No!” I said, reaching over and giving her a hug. “Happy birthday! Why didn’t you tell me?”
A huge, beaming smile crossed her face as she gazed out at the city. In the dim glow of the building lights, her face took on an amber cast, as if she were made of gold.
“Ever since I got divorced, Mike,” she said, still looking away, “I’ve dated some pretty great guys. But every time I feel myself getting close, I start thinking about this guy I know. This New York cop who, no matter how wise he is with his mouth, just can’t quite disguise the sadness in his pale blue eyes, the light in them that’s so bright yet somehow so sad.”
In the warm breeze, the candle flame flickered between us and she looked at me full on. Her beauty was always striking, but never more than at that moment. Seeing her face and smile were like looking at a gift I’d given up on getting.
“For my present, I wanted you all alone, Mike, for a couple of hours,” she said, standing and lifting the bottle off the table. “No kids. No cases.”
Her free hand found mine, and she tugged me up out of the chair and guided me into the room. She set the bottle down, closed the door, and pulled the curtain, and then she was in my arms.
“Just you,” she said, kissing me.
We kissed for a while, standing. I could feel the goose bumps on her arms as I touched her. She shivered when I laid my palm on her bare back.
“I want you, Mike,” she whispered a few wonderful minutes later. She took my hand again, this time tugging me toward her bedroom.
“I always have,” she said.
We kissed on her bed for a while, and then she broke off suddenly and headed for the bathroom.
“Get the champagne from the other room,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
I went out and took the champagne off the coffee table. I was turning back to the bedroom when I stopped. Suddenly I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even know why. Pascal said that the heart has reasons that reason itself knows nothing about.
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