by Tom Barber
‘He used him as target practice,’ Archer told him. ‘The doc had twelve knives stuck in him. Never seen anything like it.’
Pause.
‘So our guy knows,’ Chalky said quietly. ‘Despite everything we did.’
‘Yeah. He knows, mate.’
‘Did the doc have any idea where we were taking her?’
‘Only to JFK, but that could be enough. Don’t forget he met you at the morgue too, so he knows you’re from the UK. The man knew Issy lived with Vargas too. The way he’s crept around us, he seems too thorough to not know Alice is NYPD with a half-English guy on the same investigation team. It wouldn’t be too big a leap for him to guess where you’ve headed.’
‘Let him. He might think we’ve taken her to England, but neither you or I have any links with where me and the girl are now. He won’t find us here.’
‘We’re gonna work double-time to try and find out who this son of a bitch is. But for the love of God, keep her safe, Chalk. You should see the crime scene here. If he finds her and has the time to do something…’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. You know that.’
The call ended and Chalky kept his back to the pub, looking at the street and the people walking past. A wide road took up the thirty or so metres ahead of him, cars passing each way.
His eyes shifted from person to person, vehicle to vehicle, taking everything in.
He recalled the ME, who he’d interacted with only a few days ago. Then pictured him skewered to the wall of his own home, the knives pinning him in place, leaving the innocent man sagging in a grotesque final pose.
Chalky remembered the moment the light in the theater came back on and the shock of seeing that unusually tall man standing so close to him and Issy, grinning down at them like the Cheshire cat but with yellow teeth.
‘Who the hell are you,’ Chalky muttered under his breath, studying the people and cars coming and going. ‘And where are you.’
He turned and walked back into the pub. Isabel had almost finished her sandwich and had clearly snuck a few of his fries, but looked up at him innocently as he walked back in.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked.
He felt her eyes searching his face for anything to worry about. He sat down and smiled, hoping it was convincing. ‘Yeah. How’s the grub?’
‘Mine’s OK, but your fries are great.'
‘Does she know?’ Shepherd asked, as Archer met back up with him, Vargas and Marquez on the Wyzyck’s porch.
‘He’s not going to tell her,’ he told them. ‘Not yet, anyway. And without the details if he eventually does.’
‘She’ll pick it up,’ Vargas said. ‘You can’t keep up bullshit with her. She’s seen too much. And she’s sharper than one of those knives in there.’
‘I know.’ Archer swore, his hands interlocked behind his head. ‘We did everything perfectly and he still found out. Fooled everyone except him.’
‘Can Cobb divert any of your old colleagues as backup?’ Marquez asked. ‘Provide more security?’
‘They’re as busy as we are, Lis,’ Archer replied. ‘It’s a huge deal to us, but a child’s life being in danger doesn’t match up on paper to the threats they’re dealing with there. Cobb shouldn’t have helped us out as much as he already has. He, Fox and Porter are liaising with Chalky in case he needs anything while they’re in hiding. Fox met him at Heathrow after he and Is landed, and gave him a Glock with spare ammo before they went on to Oxford.’
He paused, thinking.
‘Do we still have the two knives that this guy threw? From the carnival and theater?’
‘Chain of evidence has them in CSU possession right now,’ Shepherd said. ‘Last I heard, they were due to be examined by a professional cutler this afternoon.’
‘I’ll take them over myself,’ Archer said, pulling out his car keys.
‘Not sure we can get a lot from them,’ Marquez said. ‘Our guy knew he was going to lose the blade at the fairground and the ones in there.’ She pointed at Wyzyck’s home.
‘But he didn’t plan on losing the one at the theater,’ Archer said.
‘He still threw it.’
‘Because his gun clicked dry. He wouldn’t have tossed the blade if he hadn’t emptied his weapon at Isabel and Chalk, and he ran out of time to retrieve it. That knife was a different type from the one buried in the wall at the fair. I remember thinking that when I saw it in the evidence bag.’
Looking through the window, he saw the team of investigators freeing Dr Wyzyck from the wall, laying him on his back carefully onto protective sheeting before the rest of the knives still in his body could be removed one at a time.
‘He might hope we overlook it,’ Archer said. ‘But I think our guy made a mistake.’
NINETEEN
‘What other major enemies did Gino Lombardi have, aside from the Devaneys?’ Ledger asked, once Shepherd, Vargas and Marquez had re-joined him and Josh at the Bureau. None of them had had an opportunity to change out of their dark clothes from the funeral service, the outfits now seeming particularly fitting after what had been discovered at the Medical Examiner’s home.
‘We’ve been struggling to find out,’ Vargas said. ‘The Irish were his main rivals. The Lombardis were fighting a turf war with them for years. There were plenty of other guys in the city that he crossed, obviously, but the ones we could trace are either dead or in prison. The guy you met the other day was one of the few Devaneys left on the street. And organised crime is a closed-lip world.’
‘What about a youngster?’ Marquez asked. ‘Capping off the last Lombardi could be something to put on your resume.’
Josh shook his head. ‘We asked the soldier we picked up that question. He said the bosses and capos don’t have many boundaries, but most of them are family men. They wouldn’t try to snuff out an eleven year old kid. And wouldn’t want the sort of attention that would bring.’
‘Doc Wyzyck’s death reached the news,’ Ethan cut in, everyone looking over when he transferred it to the big screen.
After they’d studied the news feed, not a word was spoken for almost a minute, each person in the room starting to focus on something different. Shepherd called Eisenhower Park on Long Island again, wanting to know how a mangled up, partially melted ID of theirs had ended up in the trash can in Vargas’ basement; he’d already cross-checked their employee lists with management, but no-one matching the description of their suspect worked at the park. Beside him, Josh contacted Queens OCME to see when Wyzyck had last been seen there, while Ledger examined photos of the scene at Polonksy’s butcher’s shop. Ethan was poring over footage from a street camera near Wyzyck’s residence, wanting to try and capture the moment when the killer arrived at his home. He was having as little success as the other day. Their man always seemed to know where the cameras were.
Vargas was sitting wrapped up in her own thoughts, finding it hard to concentrate, her mind on her daughter thousands of miles away.
Her foot made a quiet taptaptap as it hit the table leg nervously.
Beside her, Marquez was slowly turning the pages of Gino Lombardi’s file. She stopped, then took out a photo, an image taken at his downtown club, and examined it carefully, studying the faces of each mobster in turn.
She looked closer.
‘A Nassau groundskeeper came forward and said his ID card went missing from his locker at the park on July 2nd when he was showering,’ Shepherd said, putting down the phone. ‘Held back because he thought he’d get fired for losing it, but eventually came clean.’
‘An examiner’s assistant told me Wyzyck hasn’t been at the hospital for two days,’ Josh said, putting one hand over the receiver. ‘He was off shift though, so it was only today when he was due back anyone thought to check when he didn’t turn up. But we might have another problem.’
‘What?’ Shepherd asked.
‘A colleague of theirs hasn’t been seen for three days. Apparently she never misses a shift, and s
he’s not at her home or responding to calls. Last anyone saw her was when she left for the day on July 5th.’
Shepherd swore, staring at him. ‘Both have to be our guy,’ Ledger said. ‘Groundskeeper’s ID got him access to all areas at the Nassau County fair. They weren’t letting people in without paying at the gate; guess he didn’t want to risk being remembered by staff when he bought a ticket.’
‘And the missing examiner’s assistant gave our guy a chance to snoop around the morgue at the hospital,’ Josh finished. ‘If it was him, he could’ve stolen her ID.’
‘Allowing him to get inside and then not find Issy’s body anywhere,’ Shepherd said. ‘So that’s how he knew. Find out who this missing girl is and put out an APB,’ he told Josh, who nodded and left the room. Shepherd then focused on Marquez, having already registered the fact she hadn’t been listening. Normally, she’d be pitching in with her own theories but she appeared to be totally immersed in the photos from Gino’s file. ‘Down the table. You seen something?’ he asked.
She stared at the image, then at her sergeant. ‘Could be reaching.’
‘Try us.’
‘There’s a famous photo you guys mighta seen from the 1950’s. Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield at a dinner party. Mansfield is wearing a dress cut so low she’s almost falling out of it. Loren’s looking at her breasts so disapprovingly it’s like they owed her money. I’ll show you.’
She conducted a quick search then pulled up the image on her phone and passed it around the group. Ledger, Vargas and Shepherd looked at the picture then glanced at each other, puzzled.
‘When’s the last time you slept, Lis?’ Vargas asked.
‘You’ll see where I’m going. Look at Loren’s expression. Now look at this.’ She passed around the photo from inside the bar/club, the picture where some of the people’s eyes were shut. ‘Ignore Gino. Check out Issy’s mom, Carla.’
The detectives did as she asked.
‘Look at her face in that shot,’ Marquez said. ‘The other day, we thought she was angry with her husband when we saw this, right? She’s got the same look that Loren is giving Mansfield in that famous still. But I think she’s focusing on someone off camera.’
‘So?’ Shepherd said. ‘It could be anyone. Maybe some asshole was being too loud. Or a waiter spilled a drink.’
Marquez went back to the photos inside Gino Lombardi’s file and rifled through them. Reaching almost the end of the stack, she found what she was searching for and withdrew another photo, showing it to the group.
‘Same bar, different night, same look on her face. This woman was feeling some hate.’
‘So a waiter or waitress messed up two nights in a row?’ Shepherd said. ‘Or someone else pissed her off. I don’t see what you’re getting at.’
‘It’s not who she’s looking at,’ Marquez said. ‘It’s how she’s looking at them. I got a feeling Gino’s a total dead end on this case, no pun intended.’ She held up the photo and tapped Carla Lombardi’s face in the photo with her nail, the room looking at the image of the woman gussied up for a night out. ‘I think we should take a closer look at Carla. Gino wouldn’t be the only one with enemies.’
‘OK, worth following up. We got not much else. But that file isn’t gonna help,’ Shepherd said. ‘We need to speak to someone who knew them when they were alive. When they were on top, running the show in Midtown. They could shed some light, maybe.’
Vargas’ foot had stopped tapping. She looked at Marquez, then rose.
‘I’ve got an idea. Let me go make a phone call. I’ll be back.’
At the cutler’s shop in Manhattan, Archer rested his forearms on the desk, having given the knife expert a brief explanation of what he wanted to know and why. ‘What can you tell me?’ he asked the man. ‘I need every detail you can find.’
‘It’s a nice piece, without being memorable,’ the cutler said, turning the theater knife over in his hands, the weapon still inside the protective bag. The blade had been swabbed for DNA then stored, in case any additional forensic analysis was required. ‘Measures almost six inches long.’ He pointed to a section of the metal by the hilt. ‘Whoever made it left a watermark here, but someone filed it off. The handle is cholla cactus trimmed in mesquite. Price at retail, new, would be four or five hundred bucks. With the watermark removed? Maybe a quarter of that.’
‘Is it traceable in any way?’ Archer asked, looking at the blade in the bag. ‘To a region or something?’
‘Cholla cactus suggests it came from California, or the South. Cutlers often use local materials or horn or bone from indigenous wildlife. Doesn’t mean anything if your man found this somewhere or took it off someone.’
‘I think this is his knife. He seems to have an affinity for them.’
The man weighed up the piece. ‘I got something that may help. I can make some calls to check it out, but might be wrong.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The size. It’s too long and the weight is uneven.’ He moved his hand up and down as he held the blade in the bag, testing the balance. ‘This knife would be worth twice the price if it was more carefully crafted. With a cholla cactus, mesquite-trim handle, and the unnecessary size, it points me in two directions. First, it wasn’t a one-off. The lack of precision makes me think it was bought in a retail store.’
‘And two?’ Archer asked.
‘I’ve got a guess where it came from. Where size matters.’
He looked at Archer.
‘Texas.’
‘It’s the second largest State in the country, Sam,’ Shepherd said, once Archer had got back to base. The two men were in the conference room with Ethan and Marquez, the rest of the team currently elsewhere following their own assigned lines of enquiry. ‘And you want us to try and find out where a knife came from that our guy might not even have bought?’
‘The cutler’s working on that. And CSU are swabbing for DNA on trash found at Polonsky’s, right? Empty fast food boxes, cans of beer.’
‘With no results, so far.’
‘But I saw the brand of brew. Shiner Bock, from the town of Shiner. In Texas. Our guy is throwing knives likely to have come from the State and putting down beer from there too.’
‘So he watched Dallas growing up or likes bull riding, big deal. I’ll follow you on most things, but let’s get real. We don’t have a chance in hell of finding him from this.’
‘Just stick with me for a second. I think it could fit.’ Shepherd shrugged, folding his arms as he listened, Marquez standing beside him. ‘If his coming after Issy isn’t personal, then someone has hired this guy,’ Archer told them both. ‘Like any business, you look at past performance before retaining a specialist’s services, right? This man’s got no problems trying to murder a child, but going to the trouble of building that Venus flytrap? That crosses from a business arrangement into being mentally disturbed or just plain sadistic. I’m convinced he’ll have done stuff like this before, somewhere.’
‘Done what? Built traps?’
‘Maybe. And murdered kids.’ He looked at Ethan. ‘How many children are killed in the US each year?’
Ethan conducted a quick search on the computer. ‘580 or so, per 100,000. Nineteen suffer gunshot wounds each day.’
‘That’s too broad,’ Archer said. ‘Try this. How many go missing?’
‘Each year?’ Archer nodded. Ethan typed. ‘Over 460,000 kids, according to the NCIC.’
‘How many in Texas?’
He typed in the search. ‘Over three hundred, on average. Some years over five hundred.’
‘We can narrow that down.’
‘How?’
‘The cutler said throwing this knife accurately would be extremely hard due to its poor balance.’ As Archer spoke, Marquez picked up the weapon, she and Shepherd examining it carefully while listening to what he had to say. ‘The blade is unusually large to the hilt, apparently. That and the handle is what got him thinking it was crafted in Texas. Bigger has to be better, r
ight? But our man hit guard Rizzo in the throat when he was moving fifty feet away, just after he got grazed and with Chalky in front of him. That’s one hell of a skill.’
‘He missed Issy at the fair, though. Not that good.’
‘Remember, she said she snapped her head to the side when she saw a flash of light. Completely unexpected. If she hadn’t done that, he would have hit her square between the eyes.’
They both went quiet. Mulling over his point, but wondering where he was going with it.
‘And there were a lot of potential witnesses from the first knife attack on Isabel, yet no-one saw a thing,’ Archer said. ‘Even though this man is six foot seven, at least. Even taller, by the sounds of it. Somehow, he knows how to blend in.’
‘None of this narrows our search down,’ Shepherd replied, quietly. ‘These are things we already know.’
‘It shows he knows how to meld into the background of a carnival. And there are knife throwing acts at these fairs, just like we talked about the other day after the incident on Sunday night.’ Archer held up his cell so they could all see the screen. ‘Impalement arts, it’s called. I’ve been reading up. And I remember the guy from the touring show on Long Island saying they don’t employ people who practice it. Too much of a health and safety risk. But other places hire them.’
‘So, what? You think the tall man’s a carny?’ Shepherd asked.
‘I think he could be, or was in the past. He could have come after Isabel at any time, but decided to do it when she was at a carnival, despite being surrounded by crowds of people. Tells me it’s somewhere he feels comfortable and where someone as tall as him could blend in easier than say, a sidewalk in Queens.’
‘How could he know she’d be out there on Long Island that night?’ Marquez asked.
‘Probably watching and following her for a while. There were posters for the fair plastered all over Astoria. A ton of kids in the neighborhood went. Good guess she was gonna go too.’
‘Polonsky wasn’t killed until Saturday. If that’s so, our guy’s only been in town for a few days.’
