Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  “I see. Did she work with all these people?”

  The room was very large, easily holding about thirty employees.

  “She might have known some of them, but she mainly worked with the people on either side of her. Those four stations all dealt with the same project she was on.”

  “I see. And where would her supervisor be?”

  “Over here,” she said. “I’ll introduce you.”

  The supervisor’s partitioned area was only slightly larger than those the other workers were sitting in.

  “Frank? Can I talk to you a minute?” Grace called out.

  The man named Frank turned and McQueen thought he was young—probably twenty-six or seven—to be a supervisor.

  “What can I do for you, Grace?” he asked.

  “Frank Kovac, this is Detective Sergeant McQueen, from the police. He’d like to talk to you about . . . about Kathy Stephens. I’m sorry.” The introduction made, Grace rushed off.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Kovac asked. “Did something happen?”

  “As a matter of fact it did, Mr. Kovac,” McQueen said. “Kathy Stephens and her daughter have been killed.”

  “What?” Kovac’s eyes seemed to go out of focus behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Was it . . . a car accident?”

  “No,” McQueen said, “they were murdered.”

  “Murdered?” McQueen hadn’t noticed the man’s Adam’s apple before, but now it seemed to bob up and down. “God.” He groped for his desk and sat heavily in his chair.

  “Did you know her well, Mr. Kovac?”

  “What? Well? Uh, no . . . I mean, we worked together, that’s all.”

  “Never saw her outside of work?”

  “No,” the man said, and then hurriedly, “say, you don’t think—”

  “I’m just asking questions, Mr. Kovac. I don’t think anything, yet.”

  “Oh . . .” Kovac said, but he looked dubious.

  “What about her coworkers?”

  “What about them?”

  “Did she get along with them?”

  “Sure, I guess so.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Are you asking if she was seeing any—”

  “Mr. Kovac, I just want to know if anyone here was close friends with her, male or female.”

  “Well . . . she spent most of her break time talking to Jen . . . uh, Jennifer Douglas.”

  “And is Jennifer Douglas here today?”

  “No, she’ll be in . . .” He paused to look at his watch. “Well, soon. She and . . . uh, Kathy . . . would have been coming in at one.”

  McQueen looked at his watch. It was quarter to one.

  “What about the people who are here now?” he asked. “Did they know her?”

  “Sure . . . I guess . . .”

  “I’d like to talk to all of them,” McQueen said, “but I don’t want to disrupt your workday. Would you go and get them and bring them here one by one?”

  “They’re on the phones . . .”

  “I won’t keep them long. I promise.”

  “Well . . . I guess it would be all right . . .” Kovac said, haltingly.

  “It would be very helpful, Mr. Kovac,” McQueen said. “You want to help, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course—”

  “Good,” McQueen said, “I’ll just wait here while you go and get one of them.”

  Chapter 56

  McQueen questioned the three people who were presently assigned to the same project that Kathy Stephens worked when she was there—two girls and a young man. They all told him the same thing. They saw her sometimes at the end of their shift, when she was coming in, or at the beginning of their shift, when she was going home. No, they didn’t socialize with her outside of work.

  “She was old,” one of the girls said. She looked to be all of eighteen and McQueen knew from Kathy Stephens’s driver’s license that Kathy was thirty-seven.

  Old.

  They were all shocked that she was dead, but they knew nothing about her home life.

  By the time McQueen had finished questioning them their shift was over. Kovac told him that Jennifer Douglas had arrived.

  “Did you tell her anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I want to talk to her before she starts working.”

  “I’ll get her.”

  “Wait,” McQueen said. “Is there someplace more private?”

  “Uh, you could use the break room.”

  “How do I get there?”

  Kovac gave him directions that were easy enough to follow.

  “Give me two minutes and then send her in.”

  “All right.”

  McQueen found the break room empty. It was the end of one shift and the beginning of another. There were long tables, chairs, and some vending machines. Also a microwave, and a small refrigerator.

  He turned when the door opened and a rather chubby, plain-looking woman in her mid-twenties walked in, looking nervous.

  “Miss Douglas?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Douglas.”

  “I’m sorry” he said. “My name is Detective Sergeant McQueen. I’m with the N.Y.P.D.”

  “Is . . . has something happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, to my husband, or my kids?”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Douglas,” McQueen said, “your family is fine. Don’t worry.”

  The woman heaved a sigh of relief and looked less nervous.

  “What’s this about, then?” she asked. “I have to get to work.”

  “I won’t keep you long. Why don’t you take a seat?”

  “I really don’t have time to—”

  “I think it would be better if you sat.”

  The woman hesitated, then said, “All right,” and sat down.

  “Can I call you Jennifer?”

  “Sure,” she said, with a shrug of her round shoulders. Her hair was shoulder length, brown, rather lank, her clothes were K-Mart rather than J.C. Penney or Macy’s.

  “I’m here about Kathy Stephens.”

  “Kathy.”

  “You do know her, don’t you?”

  “Sure, Kathy and I are friends. We’re in the same boat, you might say.”

  “The same boat?”

  “We both have kids. We’re a little older than the others on our project.”

  “I see.”

  “Has something happened to her?”

  “Yes, Jennifer. I’m sorry to have to tell you that she’s dead.”

  Jennifer’s mouth dropped open and for a moment she was speechless. Her eyes filled with tears; she covered her mouth with both hands. She gagged for just a moment, leading McQueen to think she might vomit, but she didn’t.

  “W-where’s Miranda?” she asked.

  McQueen hesitated, then said, “I’m afraid Miranda is also dead, Jennifer.”

  “Oh, Gohhhhd!” she said, drawing it out and covering her mouth again. She said something behind her hands that McQueen didn’t catch.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t under—”

  “I said, ‘Did he do it’?” she repeated, dropping her hands into her lap.

  “Did who do it?”

  “That boyfriend of hers,” Jennifer said, “Allan.”

  “Allan Hansen?”

  She nodded.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because he used to hit her, and Miranda,” Jennifer said. “How was she killed?”

  “I don’t think you want—”

  “Please?”

  “She had a broken neck,” McQueen said, “and Miranda was . . . kicked in the head.”

  Her mouth quivered, her eyes filled even more, but she did not dissolve into tears. Instead, she became angry.

  “That dirty sonofabitch!” she snapped. “He finally did it.”

  “Jennifer—”

  “Do you have him?” she asked. “Did you arrest him?”

  “No, we don’t have him,” McQueen said. �
�That’s why I need your help, Jennifer. Can you answer a few more questions?”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know if it will help put him away.”

  McQueen sat down opposite her.

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  Anxious to help she looked crestfallen at the first question.

  “No, I don’t,” she said, sadly.

  “He didn’t live in the house with her?”

  “No, but he stayed there a lot. He used to get some mail there, too. Oh, and he used her basement.”

  “For what?”

  “Storage.”

  “What did he store there?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Kathy never said.”

  “Is it possible she didn’t know?”

  “Yeah, it’s possible,” Jennifer said. “That bastard never told her anything. He took her money, and didn’t tell her what he was spending it on.”

  “Did he work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was a mechanic.”

  “Jennifer, did Kathy give you any idea where he might have lived when he wasn’t with her?” He wondered if Hansen had an apartment somewhere that his sister and mother didn’t know about?

  “Well . . . I think she said that he stayed with his mother and sister.”

  “Did he live with her?”

  “No, just stayed there sometimes, like he did with Jennifer. Like he probably did with other women.”

  “He had other women?”

  “Kathy always said no, but I think he did.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Once,” she said, “when he came here to pick her up. He even looked mean, Detective. I don’t know what she ever saw in him.”

  “I’m going to give you my card. I’d like you to call me if you think of something I should know. Will you do that?”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help you put that bastard away,” she said, with feeling.

  He handed her his card.

  “Are you all right to go back to work?” McQueen asked. “Would you like me to try and get you the day off?”

  “No, I want to work,” she said, standing up. “It’ll keep me from . . . thinking about it too much.”

  McQueen stood and said, “Jennifer, thank you for your help.”

  “You get him, Detective,” she said, “you get that monster.”

  “We will,” he said, realizing he had made the same promise a couple of times before.

  Chapter 57

  Finding an address for Allan Hansen turned out to be stupidly simple. Diver and Dolan found the garage where the man worked, and the bookkeeper there gave them the address she had to send Hansen’s checks to if he didn’t come in and pick them up.

  “Some of these guys,” she said, “you don’t see ‘em for days. Sometimes they just find other jobs and never come back, so we mail ‘em their last check.”

  She had fake red hair, and painted-on eyebrows, and was sixty if she was a day, but her clothes were as tight as they could be without strangling her.

  “Say,” she said to Dolan, “you married?”

  In the car Dolan said, “What is this, my lucky day? First the kid, now this old lady with the creepy, painted-on eyebrows.”

  “I wouldn’t take too much credit for the girl,” Diver told his partner. “She was just teasin’ a coupla old men.”

  “Hey,” Dolan said, “she was into me.”

  “Yeah,” Diver said, “that’ll happen.”

  “What the hell happened to kids?”

  “Whataya mean?” Diver asked.

  “They didn’t have fifteen-year-olds like that when I was a kid,” Dolan said. “Shit, twelve- and thirteen-year-olds got tits these days.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Diver said. “It’s scary—especially when you have daughters.”

  “Your daughter’s only—holy crap, she’s fifteen, right?”

  “Yeah,” Diver said, “but she don’t look like that kid Terry—and thank God for that.”

  This time the address was for a two-family brick house in Bensonhurst, around Sixty-third Street.

  “This guy’s got a lot of addresses,” Diver said, as they approached the door. “I wonder if he lives anywhere permanently?”

  “If this is another girl like the sister . . .” Dolan said.

  “If she was even his sister,” Diver said.

  “Damn, but she was built . . .” Dolan said.

  “Back or front?” Diver asked.

  “Let’s see if he’s here,” Dolan said. “I don’t want to go all the way around the back for nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Dolan said, “you’re in shape, all right. Fifteen-year-olds with Jayne Mansfield bodies are really into you.”

  “Speakin’ of Jayne Mansfield,” Dolan said, as they went up the stairs. “You ever watch that Law & Order SUV?”

  “It’s SVU, you dunce.”

  “Yeah, well, the broad on there, what’s her name, Mariska? That’s Jayne Mansfield’s daughter.”

  “With Mickey Hargatay.”

  “What?”

  “That was her father. Mickey Hargatayy. Played Hercules in the movies.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “Steve Reeves was Hercules.”

  “There were lots of Herculeses,” Diver said. “Yeah, but Steve, he was the real Hercules.”

  “There was no real Hercules, you dumb fuck.”

  “Then what are we arguin’ about?”

  When they reached the top of the steps Diver was already huffing and puffing.

  “Shoulda called for backup, this time.”

  “Yeah,” Dolan said, “and last time they coulda helped us with Terry Big Tits, right? Ring the bell, Hercules.”

  When McQueen got back to the house, Sommers waved him over to her desk.

  “I’ve got all the cases entered in the computer, Dennis.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Did Detective Dell solve it yet? Or whatsit? Detective Pentium?”

  “Don’t make fun, Dennis,” she said. “This computer has been invaluable to the squad since we got it.”

  “Seems to me the computer wouldn’t be any good without you, Bailey,” he said. “And what about that?”

  “What about what?”

  “The computer?” McQueen said. “How come this lieutenant can get us one, but Jessup couldn’t?”

  “I dunno,” she said. “Maybe Jessup never tried.”

  “Yeah.”

  As he walked to his desk she asked, “Where’ve you been? Did you talk to Lydia Dean again?”

  “I did.”

  “She still comin’ on to you?”

  “Bailey . . .”

  “She did, didn’t she?”

  “I told you,” McQueen said, “I thought she had something up her sleeve last winter, and I still think she does.”

  “Like what.”

  “Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “what if her husband’s not missing? What if she killed him?”

  “We don’t have enough murders to deal with?”

  “No, think about it,” he insisted. “Nobody’s seen him or heard from him in all this time.”

  “Maybe because he doesn’t want to be seen or heard from.”

  “And the fire . . . that’s also an odd piece, here,” McQueen said. “Who chooses to kill that way?”

  “Lots of people have used fire to kill someone.”

  “But then they go in, take the body out and store it for two weeks before getting rid of it? I wouldn’t go back into a burning building—or a burned-out building—to get a dead body out.”

  “So it’s just the entire Wingate case that bugs you,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “It bugs the hell out of me. It’s an odd way for a serial killer to get started. There are too many other people involved.”

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ve got one for you. Try this. The Wingate mu
rder is entirely separate from the fire, and from Victor Dean’s disappearance.”

  “Okay, keep going.”

  “The killer goes in the building after Thomas Wingate, and suddenly finds himself in the middle of a fire . . .”

  “. . . set by Victor Dean, or somebody working for him.”

  “. . . right,” she said, “And Lydia Dean is right in there with him. They’re after the insurance . . . and she later kills him to get rid of him. So, she is a widow, and she collects the insurance.”

  “And her brother happened to be in the building at the time.”

  “I can accept her brother being in the building and succumbing to the smoke,” McQueen said, “but then you bring an entirely different person into it, the serial killer.”

  She bit the end of her pen as she tried to ponder that one.

  “What if he’s there to kill Thomas Wingate, but the smoke gets to him first?”

  “So he takes him anyway, puts him on ice as he planned, and then disposes of the body two weeks later?”

  “Sure, why not?” she asked. “He meant to kill Thomas, but the kid is dead anyway. Why not go ahead with the rest of your plan?”

  “And then continue from there with the others? The Sheepshead Bay guy, Melanie Edwards and now John Bennett.”

  “And whoever this nut has on ice now.”

  “Boss,” she said, “nobody’s worked the Bennett angle yet.”

  “Jesus,” McQueen said, covering his face with his hands. There it was, his glaring flaw, delegating.

  “Why not give it to Andy?” she asked. “The Double Ds really don’t need him.”

  “Where is Tolliver?” McQueen asked. “I spoke with Diver and he didn’t say.”

  “I hate to say it, Dennis,” she said, “but! think they ditched him.”

  McQueen sighed.

  “Find him, Bailey,” he said. “I’ll give him Bennett to follow up on. That puts him on the serial case, which is what he wanted in the first place, right?”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  McQueen watched her walk back to her desk and hoped he hadn’t bitten off more than he could chew.

  Chapter 58

  “What’ve you got?” McQueen asked Sommers, looking at her computer screen over her shoulder.