by Dave Warner
‘That is kind of you,’ Holmes said.
‘Back in a minute,’ she said and ducked out quickly. She was confused now. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She reached the tall dispenser in a back corner of the foyer and fed in her money. A buck for a cup of soup, you couldn’t complain. The building was quiet now, most everybody would have left for the day. As the soup was filling, she smelled something rich and tantalising, and turned to find the security guard Dwayne there, a plastic bag dangling from his hand.
‘Hi, Dwayne.’
‘Doctor Watson. Sorry, I just came on.’
‘Something smells good.’
‘Homemade lasagna.’ He lifted the bag. ‘You want some, I’ve got plenty.’
She nodded at the soup. ‘I’m good.’
Her phone rang. She answered eagerly.
‘Hi, Garry, news?’
‘I’m afraid so. Thought I’d keep you in the loop. We’ve got a fourth victim. A girl who tends bar at a club up in the Bronx. The Zebra Lounge.’
19
The squad room smelled, the heating on high seemed to bring out the worst odors that had impregnated the walls for forty years. Detectives were coming and going, uniforms filing reports. Greta Lipinski was busy typing and Benson was on the phone. They had come as soon as they received Benson’s call that he could spare them twenty minutes. Holmes had spent almost the entire last two hours venting his spleen on police incompetence.
‘We gave them the suspects on a plate, nothing changes.’
As soon as they were within spitting distance of Benson, Holmes, with more venom than Georgette had heard from him before said, ‘You were supposed to be watching those suspects.’
Benson stared him down. ‘We were.’
Holmes actually blinked. It was the first time she had seen his self-assurance punctured.
Benson gave him no chance to regain his balance. ‘A team of four on each of them. My best people. At five-thirty, Melissa Harper was in with Scheer. We had two of ours in the hall posing as cleaners, and another six posted all around the building. Morris was at a café. We had eyes on him the whole time. Edwards was in transit from work and being watched. Noah isn’t one of them, that’s about the only thing we can be sure of.’ Sending that shot across Holmes’ bow before reloading. ‘Ricky Coleman on the other hand was unaccounted for.’
‘He’s not in custody?’ Georgette was shocked.
‘We had to let him go. Seeing as we were applying for warrants on four alternate suspects we had no grounds to keep him. We had a surveillance team on him but he gave them the slip.’
Holmes made a mocking sound in his throat. ‘So your team lost Coleman but you’re certain they didn’t lose any of the other four.’
‘Coleman was on the lookout and had associates running interference. He would never have managed it if I had double the team on him – which I would have apart from needing eyes on your guys.’
Georgette couldn’t believe Coleman, if he were Noah, would risk another murder knowing he was being watched, and said so.
‘Maybe he gets off on the danger.’
Holmes, she saw, looked suddenly crumpled, the puff crushed out of him. ‘Might we view photos?’ he asked.
Lipinski pointed a remote at the large screen. An image of a dead girl, naked from the waist down, a crimson sash starting from her throat on the left side and running across her chest, was splashed across it. The young woman had been propped on a milk crate in a back alley but sagged, her long hair like seaweed frozen in a current. Benson gave the basics.
‘Emily Cransberg, twenty-five. She arrived for work at four forty-five. They open at six. Her and the bar manager were the only ones there. She went out the back for a smoke around five-thirty. The bar manager noticed she was missing and went looking, found her like that.
‘CCTV?’ asked Georgette.
‘Not out the back. There is a camera over the bar but it captured nothing. Noah likely came over the wall from the adjacent property, a furniture shop, probably went back the same way. The techs are processing.’
‘He needs to be athletic, then,’ observed Georgette.
‘Maybe. We can’t rule out he was hiding in the actual club. The bar manager says they were really only setting up the bar.’
‘Have you photos of the bar?’ asked Holmes.
‘Kelvin just downloaded them, I think.’ He clicked around and found a bunch. ‘These are taken from the bar.’
They showed a rectangular room with exposed brick painted in bold Lichtenstein-style murals. The furniture was trendy bohemian, milk crates, kitchen chairs, the odd bentwood. Benson pointed to the right-hand corner. ‘The room is L-shaped. The short leg of the L runs off here and there are male and female bathrooms here too.’ He found a photo of it, a few tables and chairs, a couple of vintage Space Invader tables. ‘This area was in darkness. So, Noah could have got in earlier and been waiting.’
‘But he would have had to leave over the wall?’ asked Holmes.
‘Again, we think that’s likely but he’s a cool customer. He might have snuck back through while the bar manager was occupied.’
‘No bloodied footprints either way?’
‘No. He suits up.’
‘Noah’s trademark?’ asked Holmes. Benson hit the computer for the next image, a close-up of the ark on Cransberg’s inner thigh.
Benson said, ‘Noah’s taking bigger risks.’
‘Is it possible Noah could have an accomplice?’ Georgette said.
‘Our psych doesn’t think so. He says this is all about Noah’s own personal plan and power. The last thing he would do is share it. Our surveillance teams did witness two interesting events however.’
Georgette waited.
‘Around three this afternoon, Avery Scheer entered a bodega, purchased candy and then used their pay phone to call. Only lasted about a minute, so nothing detailed. And nothing on the face of it that unusual …’
‘Except he’s bound to have a cell phone or two on him,’ said Georgette.
‘Do you know who he called?’ asked Holmes.
‘Not who, not yet, but the call was to a Boston number listed as Sunrise House, the registered owners of which is a charity. We spoke to the CEO. Sunrise House is one of those halfway houses for alcoholics, addicts and people with mental conditions. We are assuming for now that it might be a patient of Scheer’s.’
‘A psycho?’ speculated Georgette.
‘We’ll be asking him exactly what that call was about,’ said Lipinski, gathering her things. They were going to be moving soon.
‘So it could have been a prearranged call to an accomplice?’ Georgette said.
‘It’s not impossible but our shrink really doesn’t think so.’
‘And the other incident,’ said Holmes. ‘You mentioned two.’
Now Benson was readying to go.
‘Walter Morris, about three hours ago, not long after Emily was murdered, met with a guy in Bed-Stuy. Our team ran the plates and came up with a known drug dealer.’
Lipinski pulled on her holster. ‘And where there’s drugs, there’s lowlifes.’
Benson said, ‘We are on our way now to interview your four persons of interest. We’ve got warrants to seize computers and phones, see if they shared the discussion paper with anybody. There’s no point holding off now.’
‘You are going to inform the newspapers you have a serial killer?’ asked Holmes.
‘We have to clear it with command but I don’t see them intervening. It made sense to keep it quiet while we thought we had the killer under surveillance but unless something pings when we interview them, we’ll go public: TV, Twitter, Instagram, you name it. We’ll hold back on the Noah line in case there are copycats or Noah decides he wants to contact us.’
Georgette understood they had hours of work still ahead of them. ‘Thanks for keeping us in the loop,’ she said.
Holmes rather stiffly also thanked them.
Benson said to Georgette, ‘I do
n’t have to remind you to take care until Noah is caught.’ His gaze switched to Holmes, putting the onus on him.
‘You have my word,’ Holmes said.
Later Georgette and Holmes sat in a bar, the neon flashing outside making it seem like a cheap studio film set. Holmes nursed a brandy the way a longshoreman nurses a grudge. She took his silence to mean he was still brooding over failings in Benson’s surveillance.
She said, ‘I know these cops. They are not incompetent. They were watching the suspects. It can’t be one of them.’
‘You mistake my mood for petulance. It was very wrong of me to attack Benson. A young woman is dead because I missed something.’ He dispatched his brandy in one gulp.
He cast about as if thinking of a second brandy but declined her offer. ‘What I really need is the seven-percent solution.’
This she knew was a reference to his cocaine concoction that allegedly helped him in his dark and difficult moments.
‘I have been reborn, Watson, but only in part, and I am afraid that in my diminished capacity I shall be worthless. We had a chance, a gilded clue that the next victim was to be a zebra, and yet still I could not prevent the murder of Emily Cransberg. Sherlock Holmes plunged off a cliff into that lake. Perhaps that should have been the end of him and this was not meant to be, this is some perversion, not some event ordained by God but quite the opposite, the joke of the serpent played upon those who would exalt themselves.’
He buried his head in his hands, then looked back up into her eyes and said, ‘I have failed, Watson. That is the naked, awful truth.’
He studied his empty glass.
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
He placed his glass gently on the table. ‘Shelley had a point: even the most powerful among us are blinded by our vanity. Time catches up with us all, Watson. It would certainly appear to have swallowed me.’
Serial Killer In NYC was all over Twitter. She had slept in and only been up about fifteen minutes. Holmes’ door was still firmly closed. After they had returned to the apartment Holmes had retreated to his room with nothing more than a ‘goodnight’. Not even a quick bout of bartitsu, the umbrellas forlorn in their stand like single women at a town-hall dance. She had been unable to sleep until something like four, and consequently overslept. She heard her phone ringing but couldn’t locate it. Finally she found it under the New York Times. Holmes likely had been up after all, she realized. The phone clock said nine thirty-three. It was Benson.
‘Morning,’ she said as brightly as she could muster.
‘A promise is a promise.’
Holmes bedroom door opened and she saw him standing there fully dressed.
‘Have you slept?’ she said into the phone.
‘Enough.’ She put the phone on speaker so Holmes could hear the cop continue. ‘We’ve interviewed all four persons of interest. Every single one of them claimed to be shocked when we told them about the murders. Each of them has an alibi for at least one of the four murders, most of them for at least two. Both Avery Scheer and Edwards informed us the only contact they’d had about the book was with a certain Percy Turner and Doctor Georgette Watson. Walter Morris also remembered you and a weird dude with you, sniffing around. It’s a good thing you can alibi your friend or he’d be our prime suspect.’ Holmes flexed his shoulders, annoyed and looked about to speak but she held up a finger for him to be quiet. ‘Scheer asked if you were part of the investigation, I declined to answer. Harper says she mentioned the case to a friend but only in general terms and certainly not the murder sequence. We checked out the friend and she’s alibied too. Of course, any of them could be lying. But lying to protect who? Family would be logical but only Edwards is married. He has two daughters, no criminal records, one is in London, the other, Michigan. Scheer is divorced, no children, no relationship. Harper and Morris ditto. We’ve looked at siblings, parents. Nobody of interest.’
Studying Holmes’ face, she was going to channel him and say, ‘Well Noah most likely wouldn’t seem to be of interest’ but held her tongue.
Benson continued, ‘We asked Scheer if he was certain nobody else had access to that book. He said he scanned and printed the discussion document himself and shredded any spares. The book was sitting on the shelf in his study with others but he says he never leaves people alone in his study, especially not students. The only other people who have a key to his office are the cleaners. We spoke to them, Koreans. Believe me they weren’t kicking back reading an obscure Italian book. We can’t rule out somebody made a copy of the key – either Scheer’s or the cleaners’, but if they went to that trouble why not take the book? I’ll keep a team on each of them just in case but Walter Morris and Coleman might be our best connection.’
Holmes gestured a telephone call and she understood.
‘What about that phone call Scheer made?’ she asked.
‘Scheer claimed he went to the store for candy, remembered he needed to remind a patient about medication but had left his cell at home so he asked to use the store’s. He says he never got through to his patient at Sunrise House, they weren’t in. We had some local Boston cops check and it stacks up. There’s one phone in the hallway they all use.’
‘What did Scheer say about the patient?’
‘Didn’t want to talk at first, gave us the doctor–client crap till we showed him the photos of the dead girls. Leonard Chester, twenty-four, alcohol and drugs. Scheer says he is non-violent. We checked. He was in a clinic being treated when Carmen Cavanagh was murdered. The Boston police found him sleeping rough around the time Emily Cransberg was having her throat cut up in the Bronx. It’s not him, in fact, Scheer has not been consulting with patients for four months. He says he does six months on, six months off but keeps tabs on current patients by phone, so no consultations since he found the book. He said he would never give a person with violent tendencies inspiration by introducing talk of some crime case like that. Walter Morris’s apartment reeked of pot and get this, the dealer he met with? He did jail time with a KA of guess who? Ricky Coleman. We’ve hauled Coleman back in and the dealer. I have to go. Don’t forget, when Noah’s down, we’re having that drink.’
She regretted that last line being public. Speaker was always a bad idea. The connection ended. She looked up at Holmes.
‘What do you think?’
‘They were being watched by competent police, ergo none of them killed Emily. And though I am not a student of the diseased mind, I have practical experience of these matters and I agree with the police doctor: Noah would not delegate. This is his world view where he alone is the Messiah. I was wrong.’
‘You think it really could be Coleman?’
‘That some criminal osmosis from Walter Morris to Coleman has led to these deaths?’ He shrugged. ‘From what I saw of Coleman, I find it irreconcilable. But what do I know?’
There was no tone of self-pity, simply resignation.
‘I’m going to my lab. You are more than welcome to join me.’
‘I think not today, Watson. Although of course I shall accompany you.’
‘There’s no need. I’ll use a chauffeur service. Have them ring me on arrival.’
He bowed. ‘As you wish.’
With that he retreated to his room, pausing on the threshold to say, ‘Your hamsters: rather than space, consider time.’
She would have asked him what he meant but he shut the door too quickly.
Recently he had restricted himself to a slow drive-by her residence. He couldn’t be sure it wasn’t being watched. He also took the precaution of alternating vehicles and taking a different route in case they checked street cameras, as later they undoubtedly would. The cars he’d purchased out of state and they were registered to an alias, so, good luck catch
ing him off that. Mind you, he was resigned to the fact that he may not escape the subsequent investigation. Things could go wrong, mistakes could be made. When they figured out what he’d left for them, they would go looking for him. Nope, no sign of her. Turner was probably with her again, the bodyguard, he sniggered. Well, he’d be dealt with if it came to it but hopefully there would be no need. If she was not at her lab now, she would be sooner or later, and he’d figured his way around that problem easy enough. It was all coming together as it should. He smiled as he thought of the shell game he’d created: while you’re looking there, the prize will be here. He began whistling softly. The snow had eased off but more was predicted. Good. The icier the better.
Zoe was clinging to life by a thread, Vernon was following the same trajectory and Esther and Jonas had certainly not got any better. Georgette had segregated the four affected hamsters, and placed them in the room where Holmes had recovered. There was no discernible problem with the remainder but then she’d had to use the maze to see that Esther and Jonas were showing symptoms. What had Holmes meant by his elliptical comment about time not space? She had been pondering that in the car when Harry had called.
‘Just checking my daughter hasn’t had her throat slashed by some psycho killer.’
She apologized for not having called him.
‘I heard about the Zebra Lounge,’ he said. Then added, ‘Seems your friend Percy was off the mark with his suspects.’
That was unfair of course.
‘I think he helped Benson,’ she said tactfully. ‘What are you up to?’
‘The Rebecca Chaney case. Turned out Brooklyn were already well down the track on a homicide that led to Queens. Everybody decided it was better to stick with what they had, than change horses. Carter and Gomez asked me to help.’
‘No arrest?’
‘She’d had a few threats from the ex but run-of-the-mill stuff and he has an alibi. Gomez spoke to the hairdresser though. I gave her your feedback. Hairdresser said Rebecca had been excited, she had a date, no pictures of the guy but she was pretty sure the name was Paul. Paul this, Paul that, works as an accountant, or at least that’s what he told her.’