There were nods and mumbling as Mary Catherine returned to the kitchen. Not watching the news wasn’t a particular hardship on my kids. I plopped into the chair at the end of the table and just listened to the simple chatter between the kids. It was nice to get a sense of what was going on with my family.
Jane looked at her phone and frowned. “Allan didn’t text me good night.”
Juliana teased her sister. “Give it a rest, Jane. We all know you have a boyfriend.”
Fiona added, “And we know he’s cute.”
Bridget chimed in. “And he plays on the lacrosse team.”
Jane knew they were winding her up but couldn’t help throwing in “Captain of the lacrosse team.”
Mary Catherine came back out of the kitchen. “That’s enough, girls. Leave your sister alone.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and immediately felt myself start to doze off. Instead, I stood up again. “Gotta shower and get back into the office. Lots to do.” I clapped my hands together as if I was excited about the prospect.
Mary Catherine gave me a stern look. “You can’t sleep for a couple more hours?”
“Afraid not.”
“This case won’t affect our wedding, will it?”
“No way.”
She seemed dubious.
I added, “I promise.”
Mary Catherine knew I wouldn’t break a promise.
Chapter 59
I’d like to say I was more than ready to face another day when I sat down at my desk in the Manhattan North Homicide office. But that would be a lie. Almost as soon as I sat in my new rolling leather chair—Mary Catherine had ordered it from Office Depot after I complained one too many times about city-issued furniture aggravating my aching back—all I wanted to do was put my head down on the desk and go back to sleep. But a twenty-minute nap would do nothing for me. What I really needed was a two-week nap to get back to normal.
To make matters worse, Brett Hollis seemed to be in a very chipper and pleasant mood. He was wearing an even smaller bandage strip across his nose, humming the theme song to Game of Thrones as he reviewed tips that had come in overnight.
I sighed as I looked down at the crime-scene photos from the homicide in SoHo, very impressed that Dan Jackson had already gotten someone to print the images and leave a duplicate set on my desk. It was that kind of cooperative attitude that made the NYPD so effective at solving homicides.
Hollis stepped behind my chair and looked over my shoulder at the photographs. “What did you think of the latest scene?”
“It was most similar to the Staten Island crime scene. Definitely a homicide by a sharp implement of some kind, and the killer stabbed the victim’s eye—but her right one, not her left. And there was blood around the body, but not spread on the apartment walls. No idea yet if any of the blood came from a second sample either.”
“Did you find any rearrangement of the victim’s collectibles, any sort of counting message?”
“Nothing at all.”
Hollis patted me on the back. “It’s all going to work out. You keep saying if we all do our jobs we’ll catch this guy. We’re all doing our jobs now. I’m going to run down a couple of leads from the tip line in an hour or so. That’s my job.”
I let out a chuckle. He was a good kid. Hollis gave me a wave as he walked toward the conference room.
I looked down at my notes from all the homicides in every city we’d identified and then at the new crime-scene photos from Lila Stein’s apartment.
I said a quick prayer for her soul. It was probably the fifth time I had prayed for her since last night.
I craned my neck to glance across the wide squad bay, past a dozen desks with empty chairs. Brett Hollis stood in the conference room, organizing the leads with Task Force Halo. I noticed that Hollis was dressing sharper on the days he worked with the task force. Today he wore a nice Arrow dress shirt with a subtle blue tie. He looked good. I was impressed.
Harry Grissom wanted to recruit the best and brightest into his homicide unit, and as I had already told my boss, Hollis was a keeper. He had that little something extra. He could deal with people. He wrote good reports. And he didn’t seem to get overwhelmed by assignments that were outside the box. This was part of what I, like a football scout, was supposed to do in my role as a senior detective: Identify needs and then find the right personnel to fill them. Keep management in the loop.
I couldn’t suppress a cringe when I noticed the door to the squad bay open and John Macy stalking through the office. That couldn’t be good, though since news of another homicide had broken, I’d expected to see him at some point.
He glanced in my direction but ignored me completely.
He marched past me and into the conference room like a member of command staff. I looked over and saw Hollis, whose expression quickly shifted from pleasant to annoyed and then to angry. He gave me a look I had to interpret through the conference room glass. It was definitely something along the lines of Please come in here.
Which was just about the last thing I wanted to do. If I never had to interact with John Macy again, I’d consider the rest of my career a success. But I couldn’t leave my partner alone. Especially not when he had made it clear he needed support.
I only hoped not to embarrass Harry again.
Chapter 60
I stood up, straightened my shirt, and walked to the conference room with purpose. As soon as I opened the door, I heard Brett Hollis say, “Ask him yourself,” as he cut his eyes to me.
I looked at John Macy and said, “What can I do for you?” It was as professional and direct as I could manage.
Macy fumed and did little to hide his annoyance at having to acknowledge I was a living, breathing person. Finally, he stood tall and puffed out his chest a bit. He said, “I need details on the latest homicide in SoHo from our man.”
I had to think about how to respond. After a moment, I shrugged and said, “There are certain aspects of the murder that make it appear to be the work of the same killer as in our other cases. However, there are also several details that don’t match up. We’re going to have to wait for forensic reports to come back before we can say anything definitive. And even then, we’re still dealing with a killer who’s proven adept at not leaving behind any identifying evidence at crime scenes.”
Macy shook his head in disgust. “Typical.”
“Typical of what?” My voice was taking on a sharper tone already. “Typical of the cop who doesn’t want to be skewered for rushing to judgment? You’re not a fellow cop I can discuss theories with. You’re a politician. I don’t trust you not to run off and tell the mayor about a theory I later discover was mistaken. So all I can do is tell you the facts as I know them.”
Macy folded his arms in front of him and cranked his condescending tone up to say, “What if you took a guess? Something no one can hold you responsible for.” He deliberately slowed down and over-enunciated each of his next words. “Do you think that this homicide is the work of the same killer?”
I looked at Hollis, took a deep breath, and said, “No. I don’t think it’s the same killer.” There, it was out in the open.
For a moment, Macy just stared at me. Then he argued, “I read the initial memo. The victim was fatally slashed and then stabbed in the eye. It has to be our killer.”
“Wrong,” I shot back. “It doesn’t have to be anything. Look, you asked for my opinion and I gave it. Overall, that whole crime scene just doesn’t feel like the work of our killer.”
Macy was incredulous. “Now crime scenes have emotions?”
“Credit me with some experience.”
Macy nodded his head reluctantly. Arms still folded across his chest.
I continued. “Crime scenes usually show the underlying personality of the killer, especially when we’re dealing with serial killers.”
Hollis chimed in. “That’s correct. My research has shown that a particular killer’s MO is often reflected in the scene he leaves
behind. Some killers rush, and others take their time. Some killers have serious OCD and the compulsions are reflected in their murder scenes. Maybe the victim’s body has to be laid out in a certain way, or the wounds must be inflicted at exactly the same angle every time.”
I picked the thread of the conversation back up. “And in this case, while the crime scenes in SoHo and Staten Island seem similar to each other, they don’t really seem like any of the others. The differences are significant enough that we can’t discount the possibility that they are the work of a second killer.”
Macy said, “Are you shitting me? Now you’re saying not only that you don’t think this most recent murder is part of the pattern but that you don’t even think the Staten Island murder is related?” A vein on his forehead started to throb. “A second-killer theory is not going to fly. Do you have any idea what kind of panic that will cause?”
I didn’t know what more to say. “Just giving you my experienced opinion. Obviously you’re going to have one of your own.”
“This is no time for a standoff, Bennett,” Macy said. “We need results. Go get some. Now.”
With that statement of the obvious, Macy was out the door.
Hollis was next. He sighed and wiped his face. “That was a serious dick-waving contest,” he said. “I gotta get out of here for a few minutes. I’m running down those leads I mentioned. All of them are fairly close by and shouldn’t take me too long.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Hollis shook his head. “I got this. I can handle a simple lead or two.” He winked and patted me on the shoulder, leaving me in charge of the Task Force Halo headquarters.
Four victims—six, if I was wrong about the second killer—and zero suspects. The numbers didn’t look good.
Chapter 61
Daniel Ott found himself in the Manhattanville neighborhood of West Harlem, standing outside the building that housed Michael Bennett’s Manhattan North Homicide unit. He stood next to a steel support for the elevated train that ran directly across the street from the building.
There were cars parked under the track for blocks in each direction. Many of them looked like police vehicles. A lot of Ford Crown Victorias and Chevy Impalas. He supposed that was one of the main perks of working this far uptown: parking. Apparently free parking. Something that was pretty much lacking everywhere else on the island of Manhattan.
Ott had handled quite a lot of surveillance over the years. With the exception of his first, spontaneous kill and the librarian’s unexpected friend—his loose end’s loose end—he always researched his victims’ movements and habits. But none of them had ever had the slightest idea that Ott was watching them. None of that was as serious as what he was doing now, surveilling a police officer.
He stared across the street at the entrance to the office building. There was a furniture truck in the midst of a delivery. The crew had set several temporary ramps next to curbs so they could roll all kinds of office equipment into the building. There were three stacks of chairs on specialized dollies, each stack more than six feet tall. On separate dollies rested two desks, turned on their sides so that they too rose almost six feet in the air. Everything on the sidewalk was some sort of obstruction.
Great.
Daniel Ott didn’t want to be here, watching the building. He was supposed to be at work in Queens, though really, he was ready to get home. He wanted to see his girls. But Bennett was getting too close to identifying him. And he had to admit he did feel a twinge of excitement as he bounced several plans through his head. What could he do to disrupt the investigation, starting right now?
As he watched, he spotted the young detective he’d seen with Bennett at the library, the one with the broken nose, stroll out the front of the building. Today the man wore a blue shirt and tie, and was walking with a woman in a bright yellow skirt. Ott could tell by their body language that the two young people were attracted to each other.
They stopped on the sidewalk near all the office furniture. They stood right on the curb as a bus whizzed past them, yet they barely noticed. The detective said something and smiled. The young woman laughed and placed her hand on his arm.
Another bus rolled past. Ott lost sight of the couple for a few seconds. Then an idea popped into his head.
He crossed the street quickly. He had to balance patience with speed. He wove through the office furniture deliveries, using them as cover to obscure his approach, though they also blocked his vision. Each time the couple shifted position as they continued their animated conversation, Ott lost sight of them.
Ott pulled from his pocket a pair of rubber surgical gloves and, with his gloved right hand, extracted his Gerber folding knife and opened the blade.
Then he heard the hiss of air brakes and a diesel engine. Another of the fast-moving buses coming this way. Ott couldn’t believe the timing. He closed the knife and stepped over one of the small ramps lying on the sidewalk. He took a moment behind one of the chair stacks to calculate how fast the bus was moving. The big diesel unit looked to be gaining speed quickly.
All Ott had to do was knock the detective into the middle of the street, where the bus would have no choice but to make him a headline in tomorrow’s paper.
The time was now. Ott stepped quickly from behind the stack of chairs, his head down and his legs driving. But he lost his bearings slightly when sidestepping a ramp, and realized that instead of the detective, he was about to run into the woman in the yellow skirt.
Ott tried to redirect or slow his charge, but it was too late. His shoulder connected with the woman’s midsection and she let out a loud gasp as he knocked the wind out of her. The woman staggered from the blow and stepped awkwardly from the curb onto the asphalt.
Ott had screwed up. There was no other way to view it. He just stood there, frozen.
Then, unexpectedly, the young detective darted off the sidewalk and jumped into the street, pushing the woman out of the path of the bus.
The bus driver stomped on the brakes. The big vehicle skidded sideways.
The detective barely had time to look up as the flat nose of the bus struck him squarely, sending his body flying a good fifteen feet, arms and legs flailing as if taking flight…before hitting the ground with a tumbling thud. The bus managed to stop about five feet from the spot where the young man’s body now lay in the middle of the street.
The detective’s left leg was bent at a sickening angle. His right arm flopped behind his back.
Ott didn’t wait to see anything more. He casually turned and walked away from the bus. He didn’t rush—remembering how his mistake in the library had gotten him spotted by Bennett—but he didn’t waste time either.
He was more than two blocks away when he heard the first siren rushing to the scene.
Chapter 62
It’s not exactly unusual for cops to get hurt—or worse—on the job, so this was hardly my first time at the Columbia University Medical Center. But getting exiled from the emergency room and sent to the waiting room was new.
I had raced downstairs from our offices as soon as I’d heard the sickening sound of the bus hitting something, then skidding to a stop. Not that I’d expected to find my partner, of all people, flat on the ground in the middle of the road, limbs akimbo.
I rode in the ambulance with Brett Hollis and had been raising hell to make sure he got the best care. Though maybe I raised a little too much hell, actually, since an Asian American doctor told me that if I didn’t get out of the ER, she’d cut the tendons in the back of my leg. I didn’t believe her completely, but then again, I wasn’t going to bet my mobility on it.
The waiting room seemed especially crowded. Mainly with patients, but there was also a large contingent of NYPD people in one corner, including a couple of eyewitnesses to Hollis’s injury who were saying the incident was no accident. I would need to interview them later.
I saw Harry Grissom talking to a twenty-something woman in a vibrant yellow skirt, whom I vaguely recog
nized as someone who worked on one of the lower floors in our building.
I also spotted a woman who appeared to be in her mid fifties sitting on the outskirts of the NYPD crowd. She had dark hair and was using a Kleenex to wipe her eyes. She looked familiar, and I realized I recognized her from the family photographs Hollis kept on his desk.
I stepped over to her and said, “Excuse me. I’m Michael Bennett. Are you related to Brett Hollis?”
The woman looked up at me, nodding, and said, “Ann Hollis, Brett’s mom. He’s told me all about you.” She clearly didn’t want to say too much for fear of breaking down.
I sat in the empty chair next to her. “I’m so sorry about Brett. I rode in the ambulance here with him, but he was only conscious enough to hold on to my hand.”
“The ER doctor gave me a list of his injuries, but I haven’t heard anything more. Have you?”
“She didn’t even tell me that much, but I’m only his NYPD partner. You’re his next of kin.”
A tear ran down her left cheek as she looked at me and said, “It’s about what you expect from this kind of accident. Shattered pelvis, broken leg, broken arm, concussion. Plus he cracked a front tooth and broke his nose again.”
She seemed on the edge of a meltdown. I understood. I would have already melted if this had happened to one of my kids.
She started to sob, and I put my arm around her. Most veteran cops have done some time in a waiting room, comforting the loved ones of fellow cops who’d been injured on the job.
As I sat there, holding my partner’s mother, my mind drifted. First, to Hollis’s injuries, and his chances of recovery. Yet with the pressure from the mayor’s office mounting, it was hard not to make a mental to-do list of next steps in the investigation. Even as a woman literally cried on my shoulder.
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