by Dan Mahoney
“That must have been late at night for nobody to notice,” McKenna said.
“Actually, I know now that it was around four o’clock in the morning on Sunday, February twenty-second. Then he went downstairs with the luggage and checked her out.”
“Carrying Meaghan’s body in one suitcase and her luggage in the other?” McKenna asked. “He must be very strong.”
“Wait until you see the video we have of him. Not unusually tall, but he’s a real brute.”
“Does the desk clerk remember him?”
“Sure does. He had a cowboy hat on, but he also had a shiner developing under his left eye. Meaghan didn’t have any room charges, so he just turned in the key and that was that. Checked her out at ten after four. Then he must have gone outside, gathered up her clothes from the ground, and threw them and her suitcase with the clothes into the Dumpster at the end parking lot. Calls a cab and he’s off to the marina with Meaghan’s body.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because yesterday I found the cab driver who brought him there from the Loftleidir.”
“Do you have any leads on who this killer is?” McKenna asked.
Thor tuned to Rollins.
“I’ve looked at the hotel video of him for hours, but he’s not one of the IRA people I’m familiar with,” Rollins conceded. “We also have a number of informants planted in the IRA and nobody knows anything about him, all of which leads me to believe he’s either new or an independent contractor.”
“Where do you go from here?” McKenna asked.
Hackford and Rollins looked at each other, then both turned to Thor. “As you can see, we’re not doing well,” Thor said. “This man didn’t leave a single fingerprint in the two suites he occupied in the Saga Hotel, and it doesn’t look like he made any mistakes anywhere else.”
“They always make mistakes,” McKenna said. “There’s no such thing as the perfect crime.”
“I’ve got just one slim hope left, and that amounts to garbage.”
“Garbage?”
“Yes, garbage,” Thor said. “After he checked Meaghan out of her hotel, the clerk remembers him putting the receipt in his pocket. I’m hoping he forgot about it.”
“Forgot about it until when?”
“Until he returned to his suite at the Saga. If he threw it out there, I’ve got his fingerprints.”
“You have the garbage from the Saga Hotel?”
“Not all of it. Just the paper,” Thor said. “We’re very serious about recycling in Iceland. The Saga staff goes through all the garbage collected from their guest’s room and removes everything that can be recycled. After the bombing, I had all that saved. I have a good part of the hotel’s garbage from the week before the bombing.”
Pretty damn thorough, McKenna thought. Would I have had the foresight to do that? “Do you have people going through it?”
“I went through it myself once, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Now that we do, I’ll go through it again.”
“I can help. When do you wanna do that?”
“It can wait. Are you tired?”
McKenna didn’t realize it until Thor asked the question, but he had been up all night and was exhausted. “I could use a nap.”
“Then you should get one. I’ll drive you to your hotel and you can get some rest before we take O’Malley to identify the body. She’s in bad shape and I couldn’t sleep for days after I saw her.”
The knot in McKenna’s stomach was back.
Twelve
The trip to Reykjavík in Thor’s Mustang covered some of the bleakest landscape McKenna had ever seen. Thor bemoaned the fact that the airport was located in an area of lava fields in what he considered to be the ugliest part of the country. “Stick around long enough and I’ll show you how beautiful Iceland really is,” he promised McKenna.
“I haven’t seen a tree, yet,” McKenna commented.
“And you won’t, around here. There aren’t many forests in Iceland now, but there were when the Vikings first arrived and there will be again. The government has a major reforestation program going and it gets lots of popular support.”
“What happened to the trees?”
“Some were cut down to build homes and ships, but most of them were burned as firewood over the centuries. That wouldn’t happen today.”
“Why not?”
“Because just about everything in Iceland today is heated with geothermal energy,” Thor explained proudly. “We’ve got enough volcanoes and hot springs to heat and provide power for the rest of Europe, if it were closer.”
Okay, enough of the small talk for now, McKenna thought. “Rollins said something about a member of the Irish government being involved in the bombing,” he said. “Can you tell me what you’re basing your suspicions on?”
“Be glad to, but this can’t be mentioned to anyone until we get some positive proof.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
For twenty minutes McKenna heard all the reasons Thor had for believing that Timothy O’Bannion was behind the bombing. McKenna mulled them over and concluded Thor was right. There was no other way the IRA could have had people in place in Reykjavík to kill the foreign secretary without the connivance of O’Bannion or a person similarly placed in the Irish government. Given his history of IRA involvement, it had to be him.
That settled, McKenna took in the scenery. The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared, dawn had finally arrived, and the character of the landscape had changed from lava fields to high, green hills. Thor turned a bend and the mountain-ringed city hugging one side of a large harbor came into view. The area surrounding the center of the city was dominated by concrete apartment buildings. Most were tall, ten stories or more, and there were expansive grassy spaces or children’s playgrounds between them.
Thor turned onto a wide highway, but there wasn’t much traffic. Lining the highway were stores, shopping centers, gas stations, schools, and churches. Set back from the highway were the apartment buildings. Everything was new, clean, and McKenna didn’t see any graffiti or a single piece of litter on the ground. He also didn’t see many people, but those he did see were casually dressed, most of them wearing ski jackets.
The closer Thor got to the center of Reykjavík the smaller the spaces between the buildings got and the older they appeared. Six stories became the norm, and then four. By the time they were in the center of town, the buildings adjoined each other. Many were made of wood and were of quaint Nordic design in colors ranging all the shades between blue and red. There was still no litter or graffiti, but there were people on the streets. Most were casually dressed shoppers or office workers. By that time, McKenna thought he was one of the few people in the country wearing a suit.
“That’s where I work. Police headquarters,” Thor said, pointing to a four-story modern building across the street from the bus station.
“Where do you live?”
“In an apartment building a block behind headquarters. I like to keep things convenient.”
Thor drove through an area that reminded McKenna of Greenwich Village with a few differences: The buildings were lower, the streets were certainly cleaner and less crowded, the traffic was much lighter, there were no horns blaring, and McKenna didn’t see a single security gate on any of the shop windows or doors. Yet, there was still a cosmopolitan atmosphere. It was what Greenwich Village should be like, McKenna decided. “Shouldn’t there be more cars on the street?” he asked.
“Most of our parking is underground and many people don’t have cars,” Thor explained. “The buses are excellent, the fare is cheap, and you can walk from one end of the city to the other in forty-five minutes.”
By then they were in an area much more formal in character. There were exclusive-looking restaurants and shops set among European-style hotels. “That’s Steikhút, the place the bomber had dinner with Meaghan,” Thor said, pointing to a pleasant-looking restaurant.
All of a sudden, McKenna
felt very close to Meaghan at this spot so far from her home. “How far is this from the Saga Hotel?”
“We’ll be there in another five minutes.”
“And from the Hotel Loftleidir?”
“Ten minutes in the other direction.”
“How about the marina? Where’s that?”
“The harbor’s four blocks from here.”
So everything was close and convenient for the killer, McKenna thought. How nice for him and how bad for Meaghan.
Across a large lake and park surrounded by government buildings and formal residences belonging to the wealthy, McKenna saw the large, modern building. Lighted lettering running down the side of the building proclaimed it to be the Saga Hotel. Across the street from the hotel were many new buildings. “The National University,” Thor told him.
Thor had to drive around the lake to get there and McKenna saw more different species of ducks and swans swimming around than he had imagined existed. A bellboy came over to the car and greeted Thor by name as soon as he pulled in front of the hotel. “Are there any reporters hanging around?” Thor asked.
“The usual few in the bar having their breakfast. Do you want me to park your car for you?”
“Don’t bother. I’m going to be out in a minute.”
“Sure,” the bellboy said, opening the car door for Thor. McKenna got out and followed Thor.
It was a nice lobby, but not overly large. The decor was marble, mirrors, and glass. Thor went to the reception desk, greeted the pretty young desk clerk, and asked, “Could you call Jónas for me, please?”
“Sure, Thor. Better yet, I’ll go get him for you.”
“Do Icelanders usually talk to each other in English?” McKenna asked as soon as she left.
“Only if there’s a foreigner present. We like to think of ourselves as polite.”
“How does she know I’m a foreigner?”
“Your suit, for one. You must have noticed already, but we usually don’t wear suits. Besides, both the bellboy and the desk clerk probably know who you are.”
“How?”
“Icelanders are big readers, highest per capita sales of books in the world happens here. Then there’s the papers. Newspapers from every major city in the world are sold in here, so I’m sure they both read the ones in English. You’ve had your share of coverage, you know.”
“I’m flattered,” McKenna said. “You also seem to be pretty well known here.”
“Just a big fish in a small pond. You don’t want to talk to the press now, do you?”
“Not if I don’t have to. I’d rather stay low-key here. I take it you folks are also big drinkers.”
“Another thing we might lead the world in. We attribute it to the long night, but you still won’t see much in the way of public drunkenness here.”
The desk clerk returned with Jónas in tow. He was in his forties and smiling graciously, the first person McKenna had seen dressed in a business suit in Iceland.
“So good to meet you, Detective McKenna,” he said, offering his hand. “Thank you for choosing the Saga for your stay here.”
“I didn’t know about it before I came here, but it looks like the place I’d choose for myself,” McKenna said as he shook the manager’s hand.
“Thanks for saying so,” Jónas replied graciously, then turned to Thor. “You wanted to see me, Thor?”
“Yes. I’d like you to try and keep the press out of Brian’s hair. It would be even better if they didn’t know he was here.”
“I understand. I’ll talk to the staff and do everything I can,” Jónas said, then turned back to McKenna. “If you would just call the desk before you come down from your room or before you return to the hotel, I’ll make sure there are no reporters hanging around the lobby.”
“Fine, but how will you do that?” McKenna asked.
“Easy. I’ll just buy them a round at the bar. They always fall for that one. Are you ready to be shown to your room?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ve given you the presidential suite, compliments of the hotel. Your luggage is already up there and Mr. O’Malley is in room seven twenty-eight. Please feel free to call me directly for anything you need.”
I’m beginning to really like Iceland, McKenna thought.
McKenna had tried to sleep, but couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to get Meaghan off his mind and was apprehensive about seeing her in the morgue. Although he had spent years in different borough homicide squads in New York and had grown accustomed to seeing the bodies of people who had been grotesquely murdered, he had never gotten comfortable with seeing those same bodies in morgues. It bothered him being in those places where death was treated so routinely and regarded in such an antiseptic, detached manner.
Depending on the age of the victim and how they had died, sometimes seeing them in the morgue turned McKenna’s stomach. He had a feeling that this was going to be one of those times and was afraid that the famous detective from New York was about to embarrass himself and the NYPD in front of Chris O’Malley and that other famous detective from nowhere. In this case, a story like that could quickly go worldwide.
McKenna gave up on sleep. He got up and walked around the large suite, looking for signs of damage from the blast. There were none, so he took a shower, then went through the selection of clothes he had brought with him. Angelita had packed nothing but suits, dress shirts, and ties, so he knew he wasn’t going to be at the peak of fashion in Iceland. He put on a fresh suit, but decided against wearing a tie. He was shining his shoes at one o’clock when the front desk called. Thor had been around again and had dropped off a package for him. It was being brought up.
Another bellboy delivered the package. McKenna had been rushed through the airport so quickly by Janus that he had neglected to change any of his dollars into kronas, the Icelandic currency. He gave the bellboy five dollars and it was graciously accepted.
McKenna sat at the desk and opened the package. There was a large envelope inside with a note from Thor attached to the outside. It read:
Brian,
Enclosed are the crime scene photos and the autopsy photos from the Toronto police. They should give you some idea of what to expect at the morgue today. Also enclosed is a package of Dramamine tablets. I find that they help to keep my stomach settled at times like this. I’ll be around to pick you and Chris O’Malley up at two o’clock. Lunch is at four at my place, if you both are up to it by then.
Regards,
Thor
P.S. I already took three Dramamines and you might want to pop two before going through these photos.
So big, famous, tough-guy Thor is another sissy, McKenna thought. Good news for me, but who would have suspected that? McKenna took Thor’s advice, reached into the envelope, and found the box of tablets. He took three and washed them down with a bottle of club soda from the minibar.
The photos were just as grisly as Thor had said. Winthrop had suffered excruciating pain. The first photos were of Winthrop’s frozen body doubled over in his basement freezer. There wasn’t much damage to Winthrop to be seen in those photos, and they were followed by a series of shots leading up to Winthrop’s second-floor bedroom.
McKenna knew that the shots were taken to emphasize that there was no blood trail from the bedroom to the basement, but they told him more than that. From the furnishings, the high ceilings, and the decor in the downstairs room, it was apparent to him that Winthrop had indeed been wealthy.
The bedroom was a mess. There were belts tied to the four bedposts of the large double bed and quarts of dried blood stained the bed spread. Separate photos showed the killer’s tools lying on the floor next to the bed. The scissors, the large kitchen knife, the pliers, and the hammer were all covered with blood. The killer had cut Winthrop’s clothes from his body and there were separate shots of each item of clothing lying on the floor. Winthrop had been wearing a black lace bra, matching black lace panties, and black stockings, but the rest of the clothin
g was male. None of the clothes were bloodstained, so McKenna knew that the killer wanted his victim naked before he went to work.
There was also a photo of a broom with a broken handle. Before going any further through the photos, McKenna had a pretty good idea where the missing section of broom handle was going to show up.
He was right. The first of the morgue shots showed Winthrop lying facedown on the stainless steel autopsy table with the broken broom handle protruding from his anus. Winthrop was slight of build and had long, blond hair. The tape measure lying stretched out along the body indicated that he was five feet four inches tall. McKenna could see many cigarette burns on Winthrop’s buttocks and on the back of his legs. He could also see that each of his fingers had been smashed.
With some trepidation, McKenna went on to the next photo and was shocked by what he saw. A tie was stuffed in Winthrop’s mouth. His neck was bruised, showing that his ordeal had ended by strangulation, but the killer had had his way with Winthrop for some time before finally granting him the welcome release of death.
Cigarette burns and large, ugly bruises were all over the front of his body, his penis had been slit lengthwise to the base and spread open, and his scrotum had been removed. Winthrop had small, feminine breasts, but the nipples had been pulled off. His face was so bruised and battered that McKenna was certain that his mother would have a difficult time recognizing her son lying on the table, but it wasn’t the overall condition of the body that had shocked McKenna. He had seen this exact type of torture before on the body of a murder victim remarkably close to Winthrop’s physical condition. The description of the killer in both cases had been just as close.
As McKenna went through the rest of the photos, he wondered if it could possibly be the work and play of the same man. Or could there be two people so perverted, cruel, and insanely sadistic walking the planet at the same time? He hoped not.
In 1989, McKenna had been assigned to the Manhattan South Homicide Squad. The victim had been a slim, thirty-one-year-old transvestite prostitute named Joseph Dwyer. The body had been found by the desk clerk of the West Side Motor Inn, a flea-bag hotel used by prostitutes of all kinds to complete their business transactions. The clerk had discovered the body two hours after Dwyer and the killer had checked in and five minutes after he had seen the killer leave alone.