Terminal City (Alex Cooper)

by Linda Fairstein

  Fifteen minutes later, Mike and Mercer joined me after Mike bought himself a chocolate shake.

  It was almost six o’clock when two Crime Scene detectives made their way down the marble staircase toward the departure gate to which they’d been directed.

  “Yo, Hal,” Mike said, waving his shake in the air. “You on a slow boat, or what?”

  “Why, she going somewhere without me? Dead girls don’t walk.”

  “Yeah, but the train might just up and pull out of here.”

  “Looks like you got a trifecta now. Two broads and a homeless guy. Scully must be pulling his hair out.” Hal and his partner were lugging large cases filled with equipment. “Make yourself useful, Chapman. Go on back up to the car and bring down a load. Take one of the Metro-North kids with you.”

  “I’ll take you out to Big Timber first. That’s where the body is.”

  The automated voice boomed the MTA’s latest mantra through the loudspeakers. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, to mind the gap between the platform and the train. And if you see something, say something.

  “Who’s the jerk who told me to go to Grand Central Station?” Hal Sherman asked as he walked away from us.

  “Where the hell do you think you are?” Mike said, grabbing one of Hal’s camera cases.

  “First thing we did was go down to the Station. That’s why we’re so late.”

  “Look, Hal,” I said, “I know you’ve been whipped back and forth, but we’re all too drained to be playing word games.”

  “Listen to you,” Hal said, wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve. “Grand Central Station is the name of the IRT subway stop that serves the 4, 5, 6, and 7 trains. I know you don’t like traveling with all your perps and molesters on public transportation, Alex, but most of us have to. I dragged all this crap down into the subway station—which was packed to the gills with the great unwashed, bearing the sweet smell of a summer afternoon after a day at the office—and had a hell of a time getting it back upstairs.”

  “So where are we now?” I asked. “I stand ready to be corrected.”

  “This building, which might just be the most beautiful crime scene in all the city, is a terminal. It’s not a station. Its name is Grand Central Terminal.”

  “What?”

  “Trains terminate here. They don’t stop and move on. Penn Station, Union Station—you get the picture—they’re all just two-minute stops on the line. Trains come in. Unpack their passengers and reload, then keep on chugging along. Like the dictionary tells you,” Hal said, holding a finger straight up to make his point, before hoisting his heavy case, “a terminal can be a station, but not every station is a terminal. This place was built as a terminal. Everything comes to a dead end right here.”

  “Tell it to the girl on Big Timber,” Mike said. “She’s terminal, too.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  We had trudged to the 42nd Street side of the great terminal, on a gently sloping ramp that ran from the lower concourse to the upper. Lieutenant Correlli, Mike, Mercer, and I were being turned over to the acting president of Metro-North, Bruce Gleeson. One of the security guards led us to the elevator, which required keyed access to enter.

  I studied the wall directory, but it offered no clues to our destination. There must have been offices built on top of the vast barrel vault of the ceiling above the main concourse, but it was impossible to see where they might be.

  The directory listings were for floors one through six. The concourse—more than sixteen stories high—was all one could make out around and above us.

  “When you get on,” the security guard said, “press the button for the seventh floor.”

  “It only goes to six,” I said, pointing at the directory.

  “The public doesn’t need to know the seventh floor exists, but that’s where you’re headed.”

  We stepped into the elevator. It was a slow ride to the top of the tall building. When the doors opened, we were greeted by Bruce Gleeson.

  “Why don’t you follow me?” he said. “It gets pretty complicated up here. And just so you know, these hallways are dotted with NYPD surveillance cameras.”

  “That’s comforting,” Mike said.

  The corridors we walked were narrow and long, snaking from one end of the vast building to the other, a circuitous route that was windowless, with peeling white paint on the walls. Bare pipes ran overhead, causing me to wonder how the huge space was ventilated and cooled down when it was constructed more than a century ago.

  After three or four minutes, we reached a locked door, which Gleeson opened for us.

  “C’mon in and take a seat,” he said, turning on the lights. “This is our situation room.”

  Unlike the hallway, this space had obviously been upgraded. It was the size of a large corporate office, with faux-wood paneling and a conference table in the center of the room. There were twenty chairs, large phone consoles in front of each one, and a spider-phone that made external communication accessible to all participants in the room.

  “What happens here?” Mike asked.

  “This is where we come to figure out how to run the railroads when something else shuts them down,” Gleeson said with a laugh. “Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the great blackout in 2003. You can even go back to 9/11. It’s our command and control center, for times when things are out of control.”

  “I know your trains are running today,” Rocco said. “But it’s clear we’ve got a situation here.”

  “And I’m not exactly sure what that is, other than the body that was found this afternoon. I’ve been given information about this, but I’m afraid I’m not a crime buff. I don’t read the tabloids.”

  “It’s our third homicide in as many days, Mr. Gleeson. Two didn’t happen here, although close by, but they’re linked to this victim because someone drew train tracks—at least, that’s what we think the design is—on each of the bodies.”

  Gleeson picked up a remote control and turned from the head of the table to a wall off to the side, where eight television screens were mounted in two stacks of four each. With a single click they were on. Each one was tuned to a different channel, and all seemed to be in the middle of the evening news cycle. Five of the screens showed reporters standing somewhere within the landmarked terminal.

  “I guess the news is out,” he said. “I’m a novice at this. Just holding a place while our terminal’s CEO gets a bit of a sabbatical. Tell me what you need.”

  “So our first victim was found Tuesday night. Fiftieth Street, in the Waldorf Hotel,” Mike said. “A young woman who was probably drugged and kidnapped before she was murdered. No reason to connect it to Grand Central then. Now we’ve got this track thing going on—some kind of souvenir the killer leaves on their bodies, and like the girl in the railroad car downstairs, that one had her throat slit, too. Probably raped.”

  Bruce Gleeson shook his head.

  “Second victim is a guy. Stabbed in the back. Found up on DePew Place, right on the street, but we confirmed this morning that he lived in one of your tunnels.”

  “That’s a story we don’t need to tell the reporters.”

  “It’s all hanging out there by now.”

  “Actually, Mr. Gleeson,” Mercer said, “the deceased didn’t seem to have anything to do with the station proper—I mean, with the terminal. By the accounts we have so far, he came and went by the Northwest Passage. He was more of a street hustler who burrowed in when he needed a place to stay.”

  “So it’s this body on the private railcar that brings everything under our roof right now, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mercer said.

  “This young woman,” Gleeson asked, “does she work in Grand Central?”

  “We don’t know who she is yet. Not a whit of identification, just like the first one. We may not be able to answer that till we get her picture out i
n public tomorrow.”

  “Do you think the killer could be an employee?” Gleeson’s fingers were nervously tapping on the table.

  “Until an hour ago,” Mike said, circling the table as he talked, “we had no reason to connect this to the terminal. We don’t know whether this guy is a train buff or a conductor, a mole or a commuter. But I don’t like the direction the case is taking.”

  “What direction is that?”

  “Bodies getting closer to the terminal.”

  “You’ve got a luxury hotel on 50th Street,” Mercer said. “The body’s found in a Tower suite, forty-five flights up in the air. Dicey because the president is due to take over that space in a few days, but it seems like the location is just a coincidence.”

  Mike was running his fingers through his hair. “No such thing as coincidence.”

  “Next guy is on a dead-end street. Stabbed in the back. In our business,” Mercer said to Gleeson, “there’s no reason in the world to connect him to the first victim—who turns out to be a well-educated girl from a stable family with a work history and maybe dating a bad guy.”

  “Emphasis on maybe,” Mike said.

  “The boyfriend didn’t like the breakup—that’s often cause for violence,” Mercer said, “and he happens to channel all his anger toward POTUS.”

  “That’s a far cry from being able to organize all this shit,” Mike said.

  “He fled, didn’t he?” Rocco said.

  “Lousy timing, although I’m not sure he’s perp material.”

  “But not just a coincidence, in your book.”

  “Never is,” Mike said, shaking his head.

  “Only the design of the tracks on both bodies,” Mercer said, “which we first thought was a ladder, is what connected them. I don’t think any cops would have linked the two deaths otherwise.”

  Gleeson was trying to divert the crimes from his turf. “Could that be what they are? Ladders?”

  “That’s what Coop thought,” Mike said. “Led us off course, like she often does. We’d all be happy if they were ladders.”

  “This new case changes the whole dynamic,” Mercer said. “It happens in a railroad car that’s sitting on a platform directly adjacent to your terminal, two days before the president of the United States, who’ll be staying at the Waldorf, is due to arrive.”

  “But we’ve got excellent security here,” Gleeson said, watching Mike as he did laps around the table.

  “Like what?” Rocco asked.

  “There’s an NYPD presence, as you know. Well armed and patrolling all parts of the terminal. There’s Metro-North police.”

  “What, two hundred of them covering more than thirty stations?” Mike said. “Not exactly reassuring. Especially if you remember the midnight cowboys.”

  More than a decade ago, the Metro-North police force was rocked by a scandal. Videos surfaced of officers patrolling the concourse of the great terminal on the late shift, wearing only their hats, neckties, shoes, and holsters. The building was nicknamed the Wild West. Massive firings that resulted led to the slow growth of an entirely new crop of officers.

  “They’ve got K-9 units—dogs that sniff bombs and others that are trained to detect poisonous vapors. And they can bring in assault weapons if needed.”

  Homeland Security had long ago designated major transportation hubs for heightened security measures. Operation Torch established teams comprised of six detectives and a dog—all trained in counterterrorism techniques—to patrol on New York City subways.

  “Are they in place now?” Mike asked.

  “I know they’re planning to saturate the terminal over the weekend, for the president’s arrival,” Gleeson said, counting off a list on his fingers. “Sniffers are installed all over, too.”

  “You said that. Dogs.”

  “No, I mean the electronic sensors. They’re called sniffers.”

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen those metal boxes around the concourse, and the wires dangling from some of the arches?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never noticed them.”

  “That’s part of the plan,” Gleeson said. “They sniff the air for traces of poisonous gas or any kind of chemical that would signal a biological attack.”

  “Someone actually monitors that?” I asked.

  “No, Ms. Cooper. The sensors feed data to a computer system that runs constantly and is primed to alert security if there’s a positive result.”

  “That’s happening now?” Mike asked.

  Gleeson hesitated. “It’s supposed to be. I’ll have to check and get an answer for you. Occasionally the chemicals in the cleaning fluids set off the sensors, so they have to be readjusted from time to time. And we have surveillance cameras, as you know. With facial recognition capability.”

  “Using that term very loosely.”

  “Why? You’ve had a problem with it? Most of the officers think it’s been very effective.”

  “It has been, Mr. Gleeson,” Rocco Correlli said. “Chapman doesn’t like anything to slip through the cracks. Every now and then—”

  “Face it, Loo,” Mike said. “You don’t want your mug on the camera? Anyone with half a brain can bypass the system. Head down, any kind of hat with a brim.”

  “A wig, a fake mustache, a pair of large sunglasses,” Mercer said. “Facial recog is not going to help us in the short run here.”

  “What’s this?” Mike asked. He had circled the conference table enough times to make me dizzy from watching him. “What’s behind these blinds?”

  He was standing to the right of the table, pointing at a large panel of venetian blinds.

  “It’s—it’s the operations room behind there,” Gleeson said. “It has nothing to do with the issue of security inside the terminal itself.”

  “Lift them, will you?”

  Gleeson picked up one of the remotes and pressed a button. The white blinds glided up and rolled back, revealing another room twenty feet below us. There were two rows of men—ten per row—each in front of a desktop. Covering the entire wall in front of them was a giant board, run by a computer, with brightly colored lines that danced as the workers typed on their keyboards.

  “What am I looking at?” Mike asked.

  Bruce Gleeson stood up and approached the window to the operations room. “Those men can tell you where every piece of equipment that’s running is at any given moment. They’re the rail traffic controllers.

  “There are thousands of square miles—and hundreds of thousands of travelers—serviced by this system. There are two thousand switches along the rails the trains ride, going to the north and west of the city. Used to be there were men who stood in the switch towers all day to make changes on the tracks according to the signals they were sent. Now,” Gleeson went on, “these guys you’re looking at just right-click on the mouse and the change is made, whether the rail is in New Haven or Poughkeepsie. No more towers. No more men out there flipping the switches.”

  “That’s a lot of power for these guys,” Mike said.

  “And a huge responsibility.”

  “The lines on the big screen?”

  “A train arrives at this terminal every forty-seven seconds, Mr. Chapman. To the far right, you can see that there are only four lines. White lines.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s because there are only four tracks that go in and out of the tunnel, once they merge from the departure platforms. Four tracks,” Gleeson said. “Keep your eye on the white lines.”

  “Will do.”

  “As soon as the color changes—there you go—one of them is red now.”

  The red neon streaked onto the screen. “So that’s an arrival,” Mike said.

  “Yes. And when the four tracks reach northern Manhattan, they branch out. Soon there are eig
ht tracks going in different directions. Then sixteen.”

  “The green and yellow lines.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How about all that purple?” Mike asked, pointing to lines on the left.

  “Those are tracks under repair,” Gleeson said. “Or an indication that a VIP is going to be coming through, so they’re left empty.”

  “Is any of that clearance for this weekend? For the president?”

  “I—I don’t know. I’m in management, I’m not an engineer. I’ll have to find out for you.”

  “I’m getting ahead of myself. Following tracks up to Canada when I should be more interested in a bad guy heading this way.” Mike turned his attention back to the conference room. “How many exits and entrances to Grand Central? To the terminal itself?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mike said. “Twenty-six separate and distinct entrances? We’d need an army to cover those—and monitor every train pulling in or out—twenty-four/seven.”

  Bruce Gleeson put his hand to his forehead. “You’ve got the entrance on Vanderbilt Avenue, at the top of the marble staircase. Opposite the Yale Club.”

  Mike nodded at Mercer. “Where the trunk was stolen.”

  “On the south side—42nd Street—there are entrances on both corners—and of course the Grand Hyatt hotel is in the middle of the block. You can access the terminal and subway through a back corridor in the lobby.”

  “Check.”

  “Lexington Avenue has the long arcade entrance, past all the shops and food halls. It draws you right into the main concourse as well as down into the subway station.”

  “Don’t forget the Park Avenue Viaduct,” Mercer said.

  That roadway above street level that encircles the building has an entry into the upper tier above the Grand Hyatt lobby, too, which I had used many times coming and going to ballroom events and avoiding the crowds at the bar downstairs.

  “And from Park Avenue,” Gleeson said, “through the MetLife Building, you come directly in here.”