On the chair beside the desk, the clothes that the judge had been wearing were carefully folded. “Black evening dress,” I observed. “He must have gone out after meeting with Alistair.”
“The question is, was he undressed already when his killer surprised him? Or was he forced to disrobe?” Mulvaney pointed to the judge’s tied hands. “Looks like the killer restrained the judge with his own cravat—or ascot—or whatever those fancy things are.”
“You’re right.” I inspected the dead man’s fleshy wrists. “There is no chafing or bruising; no sign that he struggled against his restraints. This would lead me to suspect that the killer tied his hands after the judge was shot. But that makes no sense, unless he was trying to stage the murder scene, somehow sending a message to us.”
“I’d be careful not to read too much into it,” Mulvaney said, sounding a note of warning.
“Let me guess: you want to know when he was killed.” The door leading to the hotel room’s bathroom opened, and Jennings, the coroner with whom I’d worked many cases in the past, ambled into the room, wiping his hands upon a thick, plush white towel. He placed his black leather supply bag at the foot of the bed and turned to greet Mulvaney and me.
“Of course. How have you been, Jennings?” Mulvaney clapped the short, rotund doctor on the back.
“The same. But I’m getting old. Aches and pains are worse than ever.” Jennings rubbed his lower back. He had agile hands and a keen mind, but his body itself was almost as oversized as the bloated form on the bed. I was not surprised it gave him trouble.
He turned to me. “Glad you’re back in the city, Ziele.”
I nodded. “The message we received said the victim was killed sometime last night.”
Jennings grunted. “The muscles are stiff; rigor mortis has taken hold. So he’s been dead more than three hours but less than twelve. Officially, that would put it between approximately midnight and eight o’clock this morning. I incline to say closer to midnight, however. His body has cooled significantly. He was a large man, and let’s be frank: an obese corpse typically takes longer to cool. But in this case, with his body exposed to the air, lacking clothing or covers, the process has gone faster than I’d normally expect.” He coughed. “With your permission, I’d like to move him now.”
Mulvaney turned toward the cigar-smoking officers, still standing at the rear of the room. “Lads, have you gotten the necessary photographs?”
“We have, Captain,” the taller one answered.
“And you’ve dusted the room for prints?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Let’s move him,” Mulvaney said.
Jennings whistled, and two of his assistants materialized. It took them only moments to place Judge Porter’s massive corpse onto a stretcher, cover it with a clean white sheet, and remove it from the room.
“You’ll have my autopsy report tonight,” Jennings said as he made his way slowly to the door. “But this one seems pretty straightforward, medically speaking. A gunshot at close range means he was killed almost instantly. He never had a chance.”
No, he didn’t—at least not once he found himself in tight quarters with this killer. But why had he been here? And had the killer followed him—or met him here by arrangement?
“Let’s gather the evidence to take back to the station house—and with luck, we’ll find something I can tell the commissioner about,” Mulvaney said.
I put on my cotton gloves and went over to the nightstand. I examined the rose and Bible but found nothing out of the ordinary. In every respect, they were exactly like those found at Judge Jackson’s home early this week.
I again regarded the bed where the judge had breathed his last breath. “His killer had nerves of steel,” I remarked. “Looks like he was shot while lying on his back, facing up. It takes a steady hand to look your victim in the eye before killing him.”
Mulvaney nodded in agreement.
I bent down, leaning over the swath of red, mixed with a gray substance I knew to be brain. It formed a giant balloon shape on the bed, at the center of which a small brass item glinted in the morning sun.
The bullet.
“Do you have the tool kit?” I asked Mulvaney. Wordlessly, he brought it over and I chose a pair of long metal pincers.
Gingerly I grabbed the bullet with the metal pincers, then held it up to the light. “It’s a standard thirty-two caliber. It could have come from any number of automatic pistols on the market…”
“Let’s bag it and I will take it by Funke’s after I meet with the commissioner,” Mulvaney said. A. H. Funke was a gunseller on Chambers Street who often helped us make sense of cartridges and pistols, not to mention the criminals who used them. “I’ve seen enough here. We’d best get downtown.”
But I stood at the bed, shaking my head. “Why was he shot? The Bible, the white rose—” I broke off, nodding toward the items now in my satchel as evidence. “It’s just like Judge Jackson’s murder. Except most killers don’t change their methods so radically. Why kill one victim with a knife, the next with a gun?”
Mulvaney appeared annoyed. “You trust too much in what your professor says. And who’s to say he knows what he’s talking about, any more than the rest of us? Half the time his nonsense sounds no better than witch-doctor mumbo jumbo to me.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But even if we discount his theories of criminal behavior, he was the last person we know to have seen Judge Porter alive last night. I need to talk with him as soon as possible.”
“If it’s an anarchist plot,” Mulvaney mused, “then several of them could be in on it together. Perhaps we’re not looking for just one killer but a team of them.”
I agreed. But thinking of Jonathan Strupp, I hoped Mulvaney was wrong.
As we made our way down the hallway toward the elevator, I stopped by the room that had been transformed into temporary interview space; here, a handful of senior detectives would speak with every employee of the Breslin. Mike Burns, a detective I knew, seemed to be organizing the junior officers.
“Say, Mike,” I called out, poking my head into the room. “Have you found out yet when Judge Porter checked into room 503 last night?”
He looked over with a smirk. “Well, if it was Judge Porter, he didn’t use his real name. He—or somebody else—signed into the room as a Mr. Sanders. Gave his address as 3 Gramercy Park West. I’ve got the register right here.” He held up a thick sheaf of papers.
I caught my breath. “That’s Judge Jackson’s address,” I told Mulvaney as I walked across the room to take a closer look at the register.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He stared in disbelief.
“And it raises the question: Who called in Judge Porter’s murder? The staff here would have known him as Mr. Sanders,” I said.
“The killer may have made the call. Or one of his anarchist conspirators.”
“Exactly. Where did Mr. Sanders sign?” I asked Mike.
“Let’s see.” We waited a few moments as he ran his finger down to a signature near the bottom of the page. “Here it is. He listed his first name as Leroy. Leroy A. Sanders.”
I drew in a sharp breath—but I thought only of the message contained in the musical cipher that Judge Porter himself had decoded just last night.
Leroy avenged.
And my mind was so consumed with this chance discovery that it was not until much later that I realized that the elevator operator who took us back to the lobby was not the same man who had taken us up to the murder scene earlier.
CHAPTER 11
The Lawyers’ Club, 120 Broadway. 1:30 P.M.
“Do you think the Moody pick stands any chance of passing?” A man’s voice, loud and obnoxious, filled the stately marble lobby of the Lawyers’ Club.
A different man, with long silver hair, the kind that just reached his collar, answered in soft, cultured tones. “William Moody’s Supreme Court nomination will spark no end of controversy, but don’t count him out just yet. He�
��s the President’s choice, and as you know, Teddy Roosevelt never backs down from a fight.”
The first voice emanated from a sturdy fellow with a ruddy complexion and close-cropped brown hair. I followed him into the elevator. “Top floor, please,” I instructed the attendant.
After I left Mulvaney, I’d placed four telephone calls to track down Alistair here at his favorite club, where Mrs. Mellown had assured me I would find him. Presumably, he was unaware of his friend’s brutal murder.
My companions continued to talk.
“The only complaint against Attorney General Moody is that he’s a Massachusetts man. Why should it matter that two men on the court are from the same state?” asked the stocky man.
“I’d say the geographical question only matters if you’re a Southerner or a Westerner. It smacks of favoritism—especially after the President packed his Cabinet with New Yorkers. Still, if anyone can push the nomination through, it’s Roosevelt.” The silver-haired man smiled.
The second man clutched at his brown felt fedora. “I support the President, but even so … I’m not sure I like having a judge on the court so completely in Roosevelt’s pocket.”
“He has the chance to create a legacy that will endure long beyond his term. We should all be so lucky as to have such influence…” Their voices trailed away as the elevator lurched to a stop, the attendant cranked open the doors, and they entered the club room ahead of me.
“Sir?” A maître d’, crisp in both manner and dress, approached me expectantly.
“I’m here to meet with one of your members, Alistair Sinclair,” I said, with more confidence than I actually felt. It was a private club—and while flashing my police credentials might have gained me entry, they would not necessarily inspire his cooperation.
“He’s expecting you, Mr.…?”
“Simon Ziele.”
He ran a pencil down his list of reservations.
“He may have forgotten our plans,” I said, forcing a rueful smile, “but I’m sure if you reminded him?”
“Of course, sir,” the maître d’ said. “Just one moment.”
The man disappeared, leaving me standing at the entrance to the large room that was nonetheless intimate: the warmth of plush red carpets and gold-patterned draperies contrasted with the dark lustrous wood that enveloped the room from beamed ceiling to paneled walls. The centerpiece of the room was a large fireplace decorated with intricate wood carvings. The room itself was infused with the smells of alcohol and cigars—the residue of decades of lawyers’ traffic.
I had never been to the Lawyers’ Club before, despite Alistair’s long tenure as a member. Perhaps he thought it was too exclusive for my taste; he and I had our differences in that respect, for Alistair was at ease in diverse parts of New York society in a way I was not.
“The professor is expecting you. Please follow me, sir.” The maître d’ issued his instructions with a stiff nod.
He ushered me past the large stained-glass window, beyond half a dozen tables of men having hushed conversations, and into a secluded alcove at the back of the room, where Alistair sat with a copy of the World, sipping a single-malt scotch.
I took the seat opposite him and ordered a coffee, black, from a waiter who materialized the moment the maître d’ left. “It’s not like you to follow the yellow papers,” I said, observing him carefully. Alistair normally looked to the New York Times or the Tribune for his news, not the sensationalist Journal or World. Although none of them would have news of Judge Porter’s murder in this afternoon’s issue, I was sure. Still, I watched Alistair for any sign that he knew.
There was none. He laughed as he flipped the paper to show me. “For news coverage, never. But the Sunday comics are another matter. Someone left a copy from this past weekend, so I decided to check on this week’s yellow kid.”
I half smiled, knowing he meant Hogan’s Alley, one of the World’s popular color comic strips—and no doubt one of the few nonacademic topics that captured Alistair’s attention.
“If you’re here, you must have uncovered something interesting,” he said, showing no sign of worry or concern. I was relieved that he did not yet know about the judge’s murder—but that feeling was immediately tempered by the realization that now I would be the one to tell him.
For his part, he ordered another single-malt scotch, neat. Then, after pushing aside his paper and a half-eaten serving of baked salmon, his eyes caught my own—and immediately widened with anxiety.
“What is it, Ziele?” he asked, his voice steely but quiet.
“About what time did you finish with Judge Porter last night?” I watched for any hesitation or other sign that he was lying.
But we had come to know each other too well. Something in my voice or manner betrayed me.
“Why do you ask?” Now his voice was laced with ice—though from fear or worry, I did not know.
“I need to know when you last saw him,” I repeated.
“Blast it, Ziele!” He pounded his fist on the table, rattling the dishes and silverware. “You might behave like a friend and not a policeman.”
Several heads turned toward us.
“Quiet,” I said, and my own voice was brittle. “The fact is, I can’t tell you more until you answer my question. I need to know where—and when—you last saw Angus Porter.”
Alistair’s breath caught sharply. “Your question can only mean one thing. My friend is dead. And this is how you tell me?”
Now we had the full attention of most surrounding diners. I forced my own voice into a low whisper when I said, “You’re not letting me tell you anything—much as I want to. Please—just let me know where and when you left the judge last night.”
“He left me,” Alistair said without emotion. “We talked until near midnight. Mrs. Mellown was still up, tidying the kitchen. She saw him out, as I’m sure the elevator attendant and man downstairs did.” He shook his head. “Now for God’s sake—”
I interrupted him as his voice rose again. “Judge Porter was shot in the head last night in room five hundred three of the Breslin Hotel. His hands were bound tightly together, and there was a Bible and a white rose on the nightstand next to his corpse.”
Alistair froze. “Damn.” The word, loud and anguished, was wrenched from somewhere deep inside of him.
The waiter who resurfaced to bring his scotch and my coffee gave us a worried look. “Please, gentlemen,” he reminded us. “Remember our other members this afternoon.”
Alistair seemed not to have heard, though he took the glass the waiter offered. The slight trembling of his hand made the caramel liquid slosh, though it did not spill. He raised the glass to his lips and took a large gulp; then just as abruptly, he placed it on the table. All blood drained from his face, and just as I thought he might become ill, he excused himself.
I finished my coffee and waited several anxious minutes for him to return. I had handled it badly—and yet, there was no good way to deliver terrible news like this.
“I’m sorry,” I said, more gently, when he returned.
“He was a good man.” Alistair wiped his face with his napkin, then took another sip of his scotch.
“What did the two of you talk about last night?” I asked.
His ice-blue eyes seemed fixated on a point in space just behind me. “We talked of Hugo and old times. Nothing more.”
“You must have discussed the case,” I said, pressing him.
“Not after you left.” He took a sip of his drink.
I looked at him sharply. “You mean to tell me that Judge Porter didn’t discover anything new? Something that might have led him to confront someone or go somewhere—”
“Of course not,” Alistair cut me off roughly.
“How can you be so certain?” I said. “He was murdered within a couple of hours of leaving you, and his crime scene is almost a perfect replica of Judge Jackson’s.” I leaned in closer. “There has to be a reason why…”
“You said he w
as shot,” Alistair said, after a moment of silence, with his head held in his hands. “That his hands were tied. Those are important differences. I’ve told you time and again,” Alistair said, his face growing red, “that killers tend not to vary their methods. Method is everything.” His voice began to rise again. “Vidocq was correct when he showed us that every criminal has a certain behavioral pattern—or style—that remains consistent throughout every crime he commits.”
I leaned back in my chair and looked at him askance. “Exactly. That’s the difficulty here. Nothing about the crime scene matches up. Except that when I see a white rose and a Bible in the room of a dead man, I see something too remarkable to be a coincidence.”
Alistair shook his head. “The gun is a very different weapon from the knife. It takes one kind of personality to hold one’s victim close while slicing his throat. A gun appeals to another sort of person entirely: it requires less strength, only the ability to shoot straight.”
I shot him a look of disbelief. “You, of all people, can’t be telling me you don’t believe these murders are linked. Angus Porter was Hugo Jackson’s friend and colleague—not to mention the fact that he was advising us on this case. If you are suggesting that there are two separate killers at work, then the only argument that makes sense is that those two killers were motivated by the same cause and they endeavored to deliver the same message.”
“You mean, two different anarchists?”
“It would explain the difference in weapon. I’ll grant you that. And the fact that Judge Porter counseled Judge Jackson on Drayson would account for his being targeted. But the coincidence is still too much.”
“Was there music?” Alistair asked, a worried expression crossing his brow.
“You mean at the crime scene?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know.”
“I let him keep the composition we found among Judge Jackson’s papers,” Alistair said glumly.
“No matter. You kept copies, I assume.”
Alistair nodded. “Made them myself, by hand.”
“The more important question is: Why did Judge Porter go to the Breslin after leaving you?”
Secret of the White Rose Page 12
