The Russian - SETTING

by Patterson, James

  About the fifth person I spoke to was a man named Luis Munoz. Munoz was dressed in a black suit with a yellow tie and acted more like he owned the place than managed it. He also made sure to tell me that he’d gotten his MBA at Columbia.

  We sat at adjoining empty desks. After Munoz went on and on about what a good intern Elaine had been, I said a little harshly, “C’mon. It’s just us. I’m not going to make any notes. And I promise I won’t remember who tells me what. But this bland information about Elaine won’t help me capture her killer. I need to understand who she really was. Can you help me?”

  Munoz considered my position and finally said, “Okay. Truth is, I knew Laney reasonably well. I even met one of her two roommates at an office happy hour. I can’t remember the girl’s name, but she interned with the Yankees. She loved baseball.”

  I had spoken to that roommate. It had been her bobbleheads I’d first noticed.

  Munoz continued. “Laney was highly social. Almost had, like, a phobia of loners or of being alone.”

  I asked a few more questions and was impressed by how forthright Munoz was being. He even admitted that Elaine had once turned him down for a date. Not that, as her supervisor, he should have been asking, I thought, keeping the future working lives of my daughters in mind.

  As I started to wrap things up, I noticed a sticker, then saw that duplicates had been applied to the frame of every computer monitor and landline phone in the office. The stickers showed a cartoon computer, its long arms holding a radio in one hand and a telephone in the other. Underneath it was a company name: Computelex.

  The branding struck me as unusual so I took a picture of it with my phone.

  I thanked Munoz and decided it was time to head over to the hospital.

  Chapter 78

  The nurse caring for Brett Hollis recognized me from this morning, nodded, and waved her hand toward his room.

  I opened the door quietly. Mrs. Hollis looked up at me from where she sat by her son, holding his hand.

  As I stepped farther into the room, I saw Hollis was awake. He even managed a smile. His face didn’t look too bad, though he was back to bandages across his nose. I guess I was used to it. He also had one arm in a cast, and one leg as well. He didn’t look very comfortable lying in the bed.

  Hollis managed a weak, “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said back.

  Mrs. Hollis stood up. She said, “Brett’s been through a lot. They set his pelvis late last night. The doctor seems happy with his progress.”

  “I’m just here to say hello,” I assured her.

  She gave me a stern look. “Three minutes. That’s it. When I come back from the bathroom, you’ve got to go.”

  I nodded my agreement. I liked her. I could see where Hollis got his smarts.

  I sat down in the same chair his mother had been in. I wanted to chat with Hollis. Cheer him up. But the truth was, I had an agenda.

  I leaned in close and asked, “Remember anything?”

  Hollis smiled. “All business. I respect that.” His voice faded out. I handed him the cup from his nightstand and helped him sip some water. Then he started again. “A guy tumbled into Kelly and I just reacted.”

  I remembered Harry Grissom telling me that Kelly Konick was the pretty girl in the yellow skirt who’d been there with Hollis. “Can you remember anything about the guy?”

  “I never got a good look at him. From what I saw, he looked average. Exactly average. I wouldn’t be able to identify the guy if he walked in with a sign that said, ‘I pushed your colleague in front of that bus.’”

  I laughed dutifully. But the idea of a man being invisible because he was so unremarkable—that stuck in my head.

  “Any thoughts on why he might’ve pushed Kelly? We have a couple of witnesses who said it looked deliberate from a distance.”

  Hollis shook his head. “I was kinda distracted, and a little nervous because I’m really into Kelly. I wasn’t paying attention to anything except her.”

  The door opened and Mrs. Hollis walked in. I stood up and told Hollis, “I’ll be back tomorrow. Rest and do what your mom says.”

  Hollis gave another weak smile as he said, “I always do.”

  Chapter 79

  An unexpected call diverted me from following up with Ms. Richard at the New York Public Library. Instead, I met FBI agent Emily Parker at a Starbucks not too far from the hospital.

  Emily had requested the meeting but hadn’t explained the reason behind her invitation.

  She was already seated and pushed a plain black coffee toward me. “Hail the New York hero. You single-handedly prevented Jeffrey Cedar from killing again.”

  As I slid onto the opposite chair, I said, “I appreciate you not making me visit the FBI offices again, especially to congratulate me on a case that seems to be only partially solved.”

  She couldn’t hide her own smile. “As much fun as that was, I’d rather Robert Lincoln not see me with you.” She took a quick sip of her own coffee. “I’m sure you get that a lot. People saying they’d rather not be associated with you. People avoiding you. The usual.”

  I had to smile as I replied, “Actually, I get it more than I care to admit. Though hopefully all that will stop once I’m happily married.”

  We both let out a good laugh at that.

  Emily plopped down two thick case files on the table between us. “Time to talk shop,” she said, turning serious. “Tell me what you’ve found on the killer remaining at large.”

  I told her about my unorthodox briefing with Hollis from his hospital bed.

  “Hollis gave me the idea that he could be someone so unremarkable he’s virtually invisible,” I said. “That’s not to say it was our killer who pushed Kelly Konick in front of the bus, but I’m open to the possibility. If he blends in everywhere, there’s a likelihood he’s quite ordinary-looking.”

  “Interesting,” Emily said. “Maybe that’s why we’ve got no reports of anyone noticing anything strange near any of the crimes. Not in any of the businesses where the victims worked or around where they lived.”

  I had to admit it was gratifying to hear the nation’s “premier” law-enforcement agency agree with me.

  Emily leaned in close. “The people at Quantico believe our killer targets women he feels have disrespected him.”

  I related my interview with Luis Munoz, Elaine Anastas’s manager at Manhattan Family Insurance, that he had mentioned she’d had a phobia of loners. Maybe she had encountered one and somehow insulted him.

  “Could a loner also be a ghost?” I wondered aloud. “Or a killer?”

  Chapter 80

  I drove home after my meeting with Emily Parker. Traffic was slow, and I was grateful. With ten kids and a busy office, sometimes it’s hard to find a quiet place to think. Like a lot of cops, the best place for me to mull things over is in my car.

  For once in the progress of this case, I felt pretty good about my day. Brett Hollis seemed stronger than I’d expected, and I’d gained some valuable information that had been validated by the FBI.

  Stopped at a light on Amsterdam Avenue, I tried to put all the pieces together. I believed our killer was a traveler. I didn’t think he was from New York. But how to find out more? There were no databases for jobs with travel. No businesses were going to come forward and suggest one of their employees was a killer.

  I had two more employer interviews scheduled for the next morning. I thought I knew all the right questions to ask.

  It felt like things were back to normal when I walked through my front door. Chrissy and Shawna gave me a hug. The other kids were doing their homework at the dining room table. There was very little drama.

  Jane looked reserved, but not melancholy. I didn’t want to make a big fuss over her. Juliana had told me that the boys had circulated it at school that Jane had been the one to dump Allan. The story of her saying no to him over the phone was true enough. I guess it’s all in how you spin it. And, apparently, in how many brothers an
d sisters you have to tell the story.

  The front door opened and I smiled at the sight of my grandfather, Seamus. A moment later, his IT guy, Elgin, followed. Seamus introduced Elgin, then let the kids introduce themselves to him. It was no small feat.

  Seamus pulled me into the kitchen and said, “I hope you and Mary Catherine don’t mind that I brought Elgin over for dinner without checking first.”

  I said, “You know I don’t mind. I also know you don’t care whether I mind or not.”

  Seamus chuckled. “Just trying to follow social convention, my boy.”

  My grandfather, Mary Catherine, and I stood in the kitchen for a moment. Elgin seemed amazed at the number of people at the table. I smiled at the gangly young man as he took in the group.

  I called from the kitchen, “Yes, Elgin, this is normal.”

  He managed a shy smile as he looked up and said to all of us, “Usually, it’s just me and my mom at home.”

  Having Elgin at the dinner table helped take the focus off Jane and her funk. For a quiet computer nerd, Elgin didn’t seem to mind the attention.

  Of course, he and Eddie bonded over computers, losing everyone else at the table as they dove deep into the details of networks and hacking. Elgin reached into his backpack and pulled out a magazine called 2600. He handed it over to Eddie.

  Eddie’s eyes lit up. “Wow, the latest issue. Thanks!”

  Mary Catherine inquired, “What kind of magazine is that?”

  “It’s a magazine for hackers. Really cutting-edge stuff,” Eddie blurted out.

  Elgin looked down at the table but added, “There’s nothing in it Eddie hasn’t already seen. I just thought he’d get a kick out of reading it.”

  Mary Catherine nodded, trying to avoid openly endorsing hacking.

  After dinner, Seamus took me aside. In a low voice he said, “I wanted Elgin to see you as a real person, with the family. He’s been following the investigation, and he mentioned that it’s difficult for him to think of cops as regular people.”

  There were two sides to every story, and I took the NYPD’s. “The news always avoids any talk of a cop’s family or the kids left behind when a cop is murdered. I’m glad you brought him. He seems like a good kid.” I smiled. “He’s smart and gets along with the others.”

  Seamus clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Great. Now for the next order of business: your wedding. Specifically, you need to write your vows.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  My grandfather winced and said, “That’s a tired excuse. How hard can it be for you to write four or five lines?”

  “Can it be a limerick? Mary Catherine is Irish, after all.”

  “So are we. If you do a limerick, she’ll slug you. After I get the first crack at you.”

  I tried to hide my smile as I said, “There once was a girl from Tipperary. Her body was not terribly hairy. She—”

  My grandfather punched me in the arm and walked away.

  Chapter 81

  The next morning, my first stop was the bustling medical supply office near Columbia where Chloe Tumber, the third New York homicide victim, had worked part-time while she was in school.

  The manager, a pleasant woman, was clearly busy but didn’t rush me or my questions, though she didn’t have much information either. No one in the office did. There was no one as forthcoming as Luis Munoz here. Even when I made the offer to go off the record, no one had any information to give me about Chloe other than that she was twenty-six years old and a whiz with data entry. But apparently she’d kept to herself and also kept unusual hours due to her class schedule.

  I thanked the manager but mentally wrote this place off as another dead end. Before I gathered my things and stood up to go, I took a moment to check my phone and messages.

  Then I saw it: the same sticker I’d seen at the insurance company yesterday. Stuck on the front edge of a computer monitor. The cartoon of a computer with rubbery arms holding a radio and a phone. Computelex.

  It took a moment for it to register, then a thousand new questions rushed into my brain. I reached up and stopped the first person walking past me.

  “Excuse me,” I said, putting my finger on the sticker in the corner of the computer monitor. “Do you know what that is?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s from the company that installed computer software to coordinate our phones and radios and some of our vans. There’s a sticker on every piece of equipment that was updated.”

  “When were they here?”

  “Maybe three weeks ago?”

  I did a quick calculation and realized that was shortly before Chloe Tumber had been murdered. “How many people from the company were here to install the software?”

  “I think it was just one dude. Honestly, I don’t remember much about him. He was only here for about a week.”

  He was a ghost, I thought.

  Chapter 82

  Daniel Ott was essentially finished with the software and hardware upgrades at the trucking company in Queens but was enjoying hanging out with the men on the loading dock. They’d come to him for a couple of other engineering issues after he’d impressed them with his system of loading tires so quickly. They’d even invited him out for a beer one evening after work. He’d never experienced this kind of friendliness before.

  Now he was just wrapping up the last few issues before heading home to Omaha. Ott wasn’t quite sure he was ready to leave New York. He was reveling in the media attention, and he doubted he’d get the same amount of news coverage anywhere else. Reading the articles and hearing the TV stations relentlessly covering his crimes tickled him.

  Ott wanted one more notch in his belt before leaving New York. That would be his last word to Detective Michael Bennett.

  Since he had not seen any news stories about the bus hitting the younger detective, he assumed the investigation was ongoing. If the detective had died, there would’ve been a report about it. Perhaps injuring him was just as good. Maybe even better. It would distract other people in his unit. They would visit him in the hospital, wasting time.

  He had heard a couple of the truck drivers talk about the excellent hamburgers at a sports bar on Greenpoint Avenue called The Queen’s Castle, and he decided to go for an early lunch. The place looked a little hokey on the outside with fake towers and turrets, but Ott felt his stomach rumble, looked at the menu posted outside, and then stepped through the door.

  He glanced around the dimly lit sports bar and noticed that the half dozen flat-screen TVs hanging on the walls were all dark and silent. The door next to the bar led to the kitchen. He didn’t see anyone back there.

  Then he heard a woman’s thick Long Island accent. “What the hell? It’s not even eleven. We’re not open yet.”

  Ott looked up to see a tall, athletic-looking woman with frizzy black hair behind the bar, dressed all in black.

  Ott stated, “Sorry, I was hungry.”

  “Jesus Christ, eat around noon like everyone else,” she muttered.

  Ott didn’t like the verbal abuse. Especially when he had done nothing to deserve it. He calculated the odds of other workers showing up if he took action right now against the woman yelling at him to leave.

  He felt for the knife in his front pocket. He pictured what he would do to her given enough time. It made him feel excited instead of annoyed. Why wait?

  The woman continued to work behind the bar. She didn’t look up again.

  He slipped on his rubber surgical gloves and circled the area, measuring his angle of attack. He inched closer, blade extended. The bartender still had her head down, slicing a small mountain of lemons and limes. She’d never see him strike.

  Suddenly Ott heard the noise of the front door opening, and a man’s voice called out to the bartender. “Boss told me to come in early, help you prep. Tell me you’re glad to see me!”

  Ott wasn’t glad. He quickly folded and stowed the Gerber knife, ducked his head, turned, and walked out the way he’d come in.r />
  Ott decided he would follow her home later and make her his grand statement before he left New York. He wouldn’t even bother with reconnaissance. If she lived with anyone else, they could be part of his farewell masterpiece too. He was already picturing it in his mind. Walls smeared with blood. Her body laid out in the middle of the living room.

  New York really was going to be a hard place to leave.

  Chapter 83

  My heart was thumping as I jumped into my car and raced back up Broadway. Despite state and local ordinances, I had my cell phone in hand. Out of habit, I almost dialed Brett Hollis. Instead, I tried Harry Grissom. There was no answer. For all I knew, he was down at One Police Plaza, explaining how I’d left John Macy alone in the office. Then I tried Emily Parker. I got her voicemail.

  As soon as I got to my desk, my next call was to Alvin Carter in the Atlanta Police Department.

  As soon as he answered, I blurted, “This is Michael Bennett with the NYPD. I think I might be onto something. Have you ever heard of a company called Computelex?”

  “Nope. Not that I recall.”

  “Can you check with the employers of the victims down there to see if anyone from that company ever visited their offices?”

  “What do you got?”

  “Two victims, each worked at different businesses in separate industries. Both businesses had someone from this company Computelex on-site, working on their computers.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “Your theory is that the killer works for this computer company?”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but the timelines match up. I’m following up on whether the fact that a Computelex employee visited the office of both victims is statistically unlikely. If it was a big company like Microsoft, maybe. But I’ve never heard of this Computelex.”