by Andrew Grant
Tuesday. Late morning.
It didn’t take Art long to reach a decision. He talked.
When a hotel guest made it known he had certain needs, Art explained that he’d call a particular number. It had been given to him by a guy who went by the name Igor. Art didn’t know if Igor was the guy’s real name. He’d never asked or tried to find out. Because he was terrified of him. All he knew was that one day, eighteen months before, his coworker Darwin—the previous point man for the guests’ nocturnal requirements—hadn’t shown up to work. Then as he left the hotel at the end of his shift, Art was intercepted by the driver of a black S-Class Mercedes. He was invited to get into the back seat. Igor was already there. He showed Art a photograph. It was of Darwin’s head, crushed like a watermelon. Igor invited Art to take Darwin’s place in his organization. Art hadn’t felt that refusal was an option. And besides, he’d seen the motorcycle Darwin drove. The jewelry he’d worn. The girls he occasionally went home with. The wad of notes he carried, rolled up in his uniform pocket. And he’d wanted some of that for himself.
The number Igor had given Art undoubtedly belonged to a burner phone, so Devereaux made a call to his old friend Spencer Page in Support Services.
It took him twenty minutes, but Page was able to narrow the phone’s location to a building on Fourth Avenue. The information would have been useless in court—worse than useless, as it would have put Page and the detectives in the dock themselves—but Devereaux wasn’t worried. The priority was finding the killer before he added a fourth victim. If any legal feathers needed to be smoothed over afterward, there were ways to do that. It could turn out, for example, that Art remembered Igor mentioning the address. He could write a statement to that effect. Whether he wanted to or not.
“Which one first?” Devereaux paused in front of the directory notice in the building’s foyer. There was a hair salon. A greeting card store. A tax accountant. And a combined temporary service/modeling agency.
“The top one.” Garretty started toward the stairs. “If the girls ever need to show up for any reason, a modeling agency would be a great cover.”
—
The double doors at the top of the stairs gave way to a semi-circular reception area. A black line woven into the carpet divided the space into two quadrants. The one on the right was fitted out with a sleek, blond wood couch and two matching chairs. They had ink blue suede cushions. The walls were sky blue, and above each piece of furniture were large, framed black-and-white photographs of emaciated women in a variety of uncomfortable-looking clothes. The furniture on the left was laid out the same way, but it was made of mahogany and brown leather. It was more traditional in style, and on the magnolia-colored walls behind it was a set of prints showing groups of people happily working in half a dozen different settings.
A phone began to ring as Devereaux and Garretty approached the reception desk, which was opposite the doorway, straddling the divide between the two zones.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” The receptionist—a woman who appeared to be in her early sixties with a 1960s-style beehive hairdo—picked up her handset. “Bear with me one moment.”
Devereaux reached over and disconnected the call. “Birmingham PD. We’re here to see Igor.”
“There’s no one by that name here.” The woman slammed the handset down, almost crushing Devereaux’s fingers. “You must be in the wrong place.”
“Maybe.” Devereaux took out his cell and dialed the number Art had given him. A few seconds later the chorus from one of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances rang out from behind a door on the blue side of the room. “Or maybe not.” Devereaux ended the call. “Don’t get up. We’ll introduce ourselves.”
—
The detectives didn’t knock. The door opened onto an office that had clearly been set up with interviewing in mind. There was a daybed against the left-hand wall. A couch on the right. And straight ahead, facing back into the room, was a desk with a single visitor’s chair next to it. Behind the desk, a man got to his feet. He was easily seven feet tall. His blond hair was cropped close to his skull, which somehow accented his radiant blue eyes and high cheekbones. He was wearing black suit pants and a white dress shirt, with seams that were struggling to contain his chest and biceps.
“Igor.” Devereaux crossed to the desk, picked up the iPhone that was lying there, and slipped it into his pocket. “This is your lucky day.”
Garretty showed his badge, then wedged himself in the corner of the couch. “You see, normally we’d have spoken to our buddies in Vice before coming to visit with you. They’d be waiting outside to scoop you up, once we were done with our questions. In fact, we can still call them. But if you give us the one little piece of information we’re looking for, we’re willing to walk out of here and leave you in peace.”
“Where did you send Emma Noble last night, Igor?” Devereaux asked.
“Who?” Igor’s voice was surprisingly soft for a guy his size.
“Maybe you knew her by a different name.” Devereaux took out his phone and called up a picture of Emma lying on the church steps.
“She’s dead?” A flash of alarm showed on Igor’s face.
“Correct.” Devereaux kept the picture up on the screen. “You sent her somewhere last night. Don’t waste time denying it—we know she worked for your service. You sent her somewhere, and she wound up dead. Tortured. Then murdered. We want the guy who did it. For now, we don’t care about you. If you want it to stay that way, tell us where you sent her.”
“You can’t connect this to me.” Igor pulled his eyes away from the gruesome image. “You take me in, and I’ll be free in twenty-four hours.”
“Maybe.” Devereaux shrugged. “So here’s a couple of things for you to think about while you’re in the holding cells. First, we might just whisper in a couple of ears that the girls you’re running are underage. Pimping out kids? Not great for life expectancy in the joint. But you’re a big guy. You’ll probably make it through, as long as you don’t close your eyes. So here’s the second thing. The guy who murdered Emma—he’s done it twice before. He started out with regular women. Then he figured out how to work a little smarter. Why snatch someone off the street and risk getting seen, when you can call a number and have a victim sent wherever you want her? And this guy? He likes to kill on consecutive nights. We know that for a fact. So which of your girls will be next? And when two of them are dead, how many of the others will continue working for you? I hope you haven’t got any big spending plans, Igor. ’Cause your cash supply’s about to dry up.”
“Just tell us where you sent Emma,” Garretty said. “That’s all you have to do.”
“I don’t remember.” Igor leaned forward with his palms on the desk. “I’ll have to check. I’ll—”
“It’s OK.” A woman had appeared in the doorway. She was in her mid-forties. She was short and slim, and was wearing a plain black knee-length dress with black pumps. Her hair was cut short. It was dark and shiny. She had a sheet of paper in her hand. “Igor, you can go. I can help these gentlemen.”
The woman stood aside to let Igor pass, then closed the door and stepped into the center of the room. “My name’s Linda Marshall. This is my…agency. I was listening to your conversation just now. I can help you with the details you need.”
“OK.” Devereaux stepped around from behind the desk. “Let’s have them.”
“One moment.” Marshall held the paper close to her body. “As you can see, I’m cooperating with you here. It’s just awful, what you said happened to poor Emma, so I’m making things as easy for you as I can. And I’d appreciate it if you could return the favor.”
“What have you got in mind?” Devereaux crossed his arms.
“Janice, my receptionist, she doesn’t know anything about this side of the business. None of my other employees do. My other companies—they’re totally legitimate. I wouldn’t want to see any of them go down with the ship.”
“What about Igor?”
“We heard he crushed a guy’s skull.”
“Ha. The guy from the French hotel? No. He was an idiot. He fell off his Harley on his way to meet Igor one night. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and he went headfirst between a Dumpster and a brick wall. Igor called me. I saw the mess the guy had made of himself, and I thought, why look a gift horse in the mouth. I took pictures. Spread the story. That way, Igor didn’t have to break any heads.”
“And you?”
“This is a volatile business, Detective.” Marshall shook her head. “I’ve known this day would come for a long time. My bags are always packed. If Vice didn’t show up for, say, half an hour, in return for my cooperation…”
“They can be a little slow moving, those guys.” Devereaux nodded. “So tell us what you know.”
“Here’s the address we sent Emma to last night.” Marshall held out the sheet of paper. “The call came in at 2:33 pm. The appointment was for eight pm.”
“The client’s name was John Smith?”
“John Smith 17, actually. John Smith’s a very popular alias.” A flash of amusement faded quickly from Marshall’s face. “You don’t expect married men to use their real names, do you, Detective?”
“But you do know his real name?”
“How would I?” Marshall shrugged. “This is a cash business. We don’t ask clients for ID. All we ask is that they pay and don’t smack anyone around.”
“And if I have my Forensic Accounting guys take a look at your bank accounts?”
“They’ll find money. Plenty of that. But no names.” Marshall stepped forward and took hold of Devereaux’s forearm. “I swear, Detective, if I knew his name I’d tell you. One of my girls is dead. I take that personally. What do you think I did before I started running this place?”
“If I find out you’re lying…” Devereaux pulled his arm free from Marshall’s grip.
“I’m not.” Marshall paused. “But there’s another possibility you should take into account. Last night Emma only had one appointment. She arrived OK, right on time. Then five minutes later she texted in a code nine.” Marshall registered the blank expressions on the detectives’ faces. “That means the client was a no-show. We have codes that the girls use to update their status on a job. To tell us they’ve arrived at a client’s address, for example. When they’re leaving. If the client gets rough. If he won’t pay. And so on. So if Emma never met the client, he couldn’t have killed her. Someone else must have jumped her, maybe when she was leaving the premises. It would have taken a strong son of a bitch, though. Emma was a tough girl. And she was streetwise.”
“Interesting.” Devereaux glanced across at Garretty. “And the code nine—that was the last you heard from her?”
“Right.” Marshall nodded. “The appointment didn’t go ahead, and she didn’t have any other jobs.”
“Do you have an emergency code?”
“Of course.”
“Any chance she could have texted the wrong one?”
“I mean, it’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. Emma wasn’t a moron.”
“OK. We’ll keep that in mind. Was there anything else that didn’t ring true about last night?”
“Well,” Marshall’s face contorted as if she’d bitten into something sour. “One thing was creepy, looking back. The guy, he was very specific about his requirements. Which is nothing unusual, in itself. But…”
“But?” Devereaux prompted.
“He said he wanted a girl who was turning twenty-one that day.” Marshall couldn’t meet Devereaux’s eye.
“And you sent Emma to him anyway?” Devereaux couldn’t keep the disdain out of his voice. “Don’t you read the papers?”
“Of course I do.” Marshall forced herself to look up. “And if that’s all he asked for, I’d have turned him down in a heartbeat. But he was just as insistent about something else. He only wanted a girl who had a kid. He really hammered that point home so I figured he was mainly into the kinky stuff—spanking, wearing diapers, whatever.”
“Did Emma have a kid?” Devereaux was suddenly uneasy.
“Of course not. And it wasn’t her birthday, either. We’re not selling reality, Detective. Just fantasy. But whether John Smith 17 is B/DK and he killed Emma, or someone else grabbed her near the address he gave, it was me who sent Emma there. And I’m the one who has to live with that.”
Tuesday. Early afternoon.
On the way out of the building, Devereaux called one of his old partners—Eddie England—who now worked in Vice. Devereaux told him about the setup at the modeling agency and said he should roll on it right away. Then he unfolded the sheet of paper Marshall had given him and handed it to Garretty.
“Recognize the address?”
“No.” Garretty handed it back. “Should I?”
“Of course not.” Devereaux mimed shooting himself in the head. “You were still in the hospital. But I was just there. It’s the building where Dean Sullivan lives. The guy who was at the movies with Lucas Paltrow on Thursday. Or claimed to be.”
“That’s an interesting coincidence. We should have another conversation with Sullivan while we’re there. See why he lied.”
—
The apartment the detectives were interested in was on the first floor, midway along the corridor, on the same side of the building as Sullivan’s. Devereaux pointed to the slot for a name card below the peephole in the center of the door. It was empty.
“I guess he didn’t want her to see his real name.” Devereaux banged on the door.
There was no reply.
“Stay here, Cooper, in case someone shows up.” Garretty turned back toward the entrance to the building. “I’ll find the super.”
Garretty returned twelve minutes later. He was walking several feet ahead of a short, round, fifty-something guy who was wearing a kind of uniform that was made up of beige pants and a matching shirt with the title Superintendent embroidered on the chest. He had round, wire-framed glasses balancing on his squashed, stubby nose, a greasy comb-over, and hands like baseball mitts.
“Wait up.” The guy was really dragging his feet. “What’s your hurry?”
“This is Anton.” Garretty rolled his eyes. “Anton was napping when I found him. Apparently he’s cranky right after he wakes up.”
“Thanks for helping us, Anton.” Devereaux nodded toward the door. “We need you to unlock this. Then step away to the side and remain in the corridor. You are not to set one foot in the apartment unless we call for you. Do you understand?”
Anton grunted, then pulled out a master key on an extending wire attached to a drum on his belt and slid it into the lock.
The layout of the apartment was the same as Sullivan’s. There was a U-shaped kitchen on the left. A floor-to-ceiling window straight ahead, beyond the living and dining area, though this one opened onto a small private deck rather than a balcony. And an archway leading to the bedrooms on the right. But there was no furniture. No personal possessions of any kind. The place clearly wasn’t occupied. There was a closed-up, musty tinge to the air. And along with it, the hint of a harsher scent with a bitter, metallic aftertaste.
“Blood.” Devereaux stepped farther into the room. “Tommy—over here. Look.”
There was a reddish-brown oval-shaped pool on the floor, about eighteen inches long. Its edges were darker and were turning crusty. The center still looked soft and was a richer scarlet. Flies were already buzzing around it, and three were stuck in the slick.
“Looks like that madam was wide of the mark with her random attacker theory,” Garretty said.
“That was never going to fly.” Devereaux shook his head. “Not with the guy asking specifically for a twenty-one-year-old with a kid. Marshall was just trying to find a little wiggle room for her conscience. You can’t blame h
er, really.”
“So our guy calls Marshall’s service.” Garretty stepped back toward the door. “Gives this address. Emma shows up. He lets her in. She sees the place is empty, realizes there’s a problem, maybe tries to get away. There’s a struggle. The guy subdues her, but it takes a while and she’s hurt in the process. Marshall said Emma was tough. He makes her send the code for a no-show, to make sure no one came looking for her. Then he either finished the job here or took her somewhere else.”
“He most likely took her somewhere else.” Devereaux looked at the walls as if trying to assess how soundproof they were. “He wouldn’t know if anyone had heard them struggling and called 911. It’s hard to carry a body to a vehicle without looking suspicious. And my guess is he’d want privacy, and time, to do what he wanted.”
“We need to get CSU down here to make sure that is Emma’s blood.” Garretty checked off the actions with his fingers. “We need to get a canvass going. Someone might have seen the guy coming in. Or leaving, with Emma. We need to figure out who could have had access to the apartment. And who could have known it was empty.”
“Tommy, look at this.” Devereaux was pointing to the corner of the living area. A piece of wood was propped up against the wall. It was an inch wide. An inch deep. And as long as roughly half the width of the window.
“That shouldn’t be there.” Garretty narrowed his eyes.
“Right. It should be wedged in the door track, in case the lock gets forced.” Devereaux crossed to the window, pulled on a latex glove, and with the tip of one finger he pushed on the door handle. It slid open easily, giving full access to the deck. “Except that it was already unlocked. The guy could have taken Emma out this way. We need to extend the canvass. It should include every apartment with a view across the gardens.”