Barker said nothing. A picture appeared in his mind, of his mother’s face when two police officials with gold on their caps and their sleeves came to their tiny apartment on West Tenth Street and gave her the news.
“That slug shattered my leg,” Kelly said. “I could have retired with a disability pension. Instead I stayed on, and I’m glad I did.”
Barker wondered where this was going.
“The thing is,” Kelly went on, “there are times when you’re under pressure and you have to make a decision. That’s when you don’t lose your temper and do something dumb. Everybody makes mistakes now and then, that’s only natural. But there’s no excuse for blowing your cork when the right thing to do is to stay calm and make choices that are best for the circumstances. You understand?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Keep it in mind, okay?”
Barker rose to his feet. “Okay, Lieu. I’ll keep it in mind.”
7.
The autopsy room was in the basement of Bellevue Hospital. It was adjacent to the morgue, where it had been located for more than a century. The air inside the room was cool and damp and heavy with the acrid stink of chemicals.
The nude body of Catherine Delure lay faceup on a stainless-steel table that was slightly elevated at the head end. Water was streaming over her blond hair and down to her feet, and her blue eyes stared sightlessly at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. A nearby table held the remains of Penny Ellis.
Dr. Myron Robbins fussed about, checking his instruments, preparing to begin the procedure on Delure. Robbins was Manhattan’s chief pathologist, a cheerful man with wisps of gray hair sticking out from under his cap.
Ordinarily, Robbins would leave the work to one of his assistants, while he observed. Assistants were on hand now, but today’s subject was a star, and Robbins had as keen an appreciation of PR as anyone. No doubt the media would have questions for him afterward. So he’d do this one himself.
Another reason was that Robbins was close to retirement. He was aware that a former chief pathologist could readily find work as a consultant on TV, and that seemed like a great gig. Look at Dr. Michael Baden, who was frequently seen on Fox News. That was another reason for Robbins to shine now.
Jeb Barker was among a group of cops who were gathered nearby, staring silently. All of them were gussied up in baggy, pale green hospital gear, complete with caps and masks, as if they too were medical personnel. Only their eyes were showing, but Barker had no trouble picking out Hogan. The way the lieutenant’s nose poked out the front of his mask made him easy to identify.
Barker watched as Robbins arranged his tools on a table. They included a bone saw, a long slim knife, several scalpels, two large pairs of scissors, a set of forceps, something that resembled a cleaver, a hammer with a hook on the end, and various other instruments, each glinting with reflected light.
Barker then shifted his gaze to Delure’s body, and a number of thoughts went through his mind. How many men must have fantasized about seeing her lying on her back, naked? How would they feel if they could see the famous body now, with its skin cold and gray-white under the stream of water? How would Delure feel if she could see herself lying there exposed and helpless while a bunch of cops gawked at her?
Barker had seen more than his share of dead bodies, a few of them dead because of violent incidents he’d been involved in. He’d also witnessed a number of autopsies. As a cop, he was supposed to look on with no more emotional involvement than he would have felt watching a butcher trim a side of beef.
But it didn’t work that way with him. He knew the procedure was necessary, because it could provide information that might help solve a crime. Yet he couldn’t help feeling that the lifeless pile of meat was a human being, and that this was a barbaric ritual.
A diener, whose job it was to clean corpses before autopsies, sponged off Delure’s chest and belly. As he went about it, the blue hole between her breasts was clearly visible. When he finished, he dropped the sponge into a waste container and stepped back, waiting for Robbins to begin.
The pathologist took his time. With exaggerated care, he measured the cadaver, recording his findings by speaking into an overhead microphone. As he did, one of his assistants took photographs. Robbins was featured prominently in many of the shots.
Barker could sense an air of impatience among the onlookers. He was feeling some of that himself. They all knew Delure and her manager had been shot to death. The only question concerned the bullets that had killed them. The detectives were hoping the slugs would provide some clue that might lead them to the shooter.
So come on, Doc. Move it.
At last Robbins got down to the actual procedure. He chose one of his scalpels and bent over the body. After pausing for a moment, he began to cut.
The pattern was the customary Y, starting at Delure’s left shoulder. Robbins sliced his way down under her left breast and stopped at the sternum. Next, he made the same type of cut from the right shoulder until the two incisions met. Last, he cut her open down to the pubic bone.
From there on it got messy. The pathologist cut through the soft tissue and muscle and peeled back the three flaps, and his assistant dropped the upper one over Delure’s face. Robbins pushed the other two aside, relegating the once-glamorous breasts to the status of excess baggage.
Next the pathologist severed the sternum with the bone saw. To cut the tissues holding the ribs in place he used heavy-duty shears, and when that was completed, he pulled the ribs aside as well. Delure’s vital organs were now exposed.
“Suction,” Robbins said. His assistant handed him a hose that was attached to a bottle. He thrust the hose into the abdominal cavity, and the bottle filled with dark-red blood. He returned the bottle and continued his work.
The assistant then used a small electric saw to incise Delure’s skull, the tool emitting a high-pitched whine that set Barker’s teeth on edge. The cap of bone came away in one piece, with wet blond hair hanging from it, and the assistant set about removing the brain.
Robbins went on cutting. He freed the larynx and the esophagus and various arteries and ligaments, and last he severed the organs’ attachment to the spinal cord, bladder, and rectum. That would make it possible to pull out the entire organ set as one piece.
The diener held a tray ready as Robbins gripped the slippery mass. The pathologist tugged it out of Delure’s body and placed it on the tray, and the diener put the tray on a nearby counter next to a sink. The detectives moved closer, to get a better look.
Robbins continued to work at a slow, measured pace. He washed the organs in the sink and began examining them, starting with the thyroid. When he finished, he weighed it and said into the microphone, “Thyroid normal, weight twenty-two ounces.” He placed it on the countertop and repeated the process with Delure’s liver.
Joe Spinelli was standing beside Barker. Under his breath he said, “It’s the heart we want to see, Doc. What about the heart?”
But the pathologist was in no hurry. He cut open the stomach and recorded its contents, then slit the intestines and studied them before moving on to still another organ. Twenty minutes passed before he got to the examination they were all waiting for. He picked up the heart and washed it, peering at it as if he’d never seen one before.
Robbins then laid the heart down on the counter and held his scalpel over the center of it, where the puncture was. With deft strokes he sliced it open, exposing all four chambers.
You didn’t have to be a pathologist, Barker thought, to see the amount of damage it had sustained. The shot had ripped into the cardiac muscle tissue, tearing it and causing a massive hemorrhage.
Apparently, Hogan could no longer take the suspense. “She was killed instantly. Right, Doc?”
“No.”
Hogan’s eyes bulged. “No? Whaddaya mean, no?”
Robbins looked at him.
“Penetration trauma severely damaged both atria. That prevented blood from flowing to the right ventricle, which would have sent it to the lungs for oxygenation. Cessation of blood flow also starved the subject’s brain of oxygen and rendered her unconscious. I estimate she was alive for approximately twenty seconds before expiring.”
Hogan exhaled audibly. As he did, several of the others suppressed snickers.
But the lieutenant wasn’t to be put off. “So where’s the bullet?”
Robbins didn’t bother to answer. He used forceps to reach into the torn tissue, and when he found what he was after, he held it up. Clutched in the forceps’ jaws was a metal object streaked with blood.
“Jesus,” Hogan said. “A dart.”
“A fléchette,” Robbins corrected him. “The term comes from the French. It means little arrow.”
“I’ll be damned. Like a bullet with fins.”
Barker spoke up. “The fins are to stabilize it in flight. But it still wouldn’t be very accurate, unless it was fired from up close.”
Hogan glared at him. “How do you know that?”
“When I was in the Marine Corps,” Barker said, “there was some work done with them. But they were much smaller than this one. A bunch of them would be packed together in twelve-gauge shotgun shells.”
The lieutenant was obviously annoyed at being one-upped. He turned back to Robbins. “Okay, but what kind of gun did the guy use? The bodyguard frisked him, and he was clean.”
Robbins said, “Perhaps some diligent detective work would supply the answer.”
That shut Hogan up, at least for the moment.
The pathologist dropped the fléchette onto a tray on the counter and spoke into the microphone, describing what he’d found. An assistant placed a ruler next to the projectile and photographed it.
Unlike the other cops, Barker had seen enough. He realized he’d just learned something valuable. And waiting for the same procedure to be performed on the body of Delure’s manager wouldn’t tell him any more than he knew now.
“See you later,” he said to Spinelli. He turned and headed for the door, pulling off his mask and cap as he went. In the dressing area outside the autopsy room he stripped off the rest of the gear and signed out.
Once back on the street he reflected on what he’d witnessed. He no longer had any doubt that the killer had gone to the Sherry-Netherland for the express purpose of killing Catherine Delure. The Ellis woman had probably just been in the way.
So what Barker had to do now was dig into the actress’s life. Who were the people closest to her? Who might have had a motive? For starters, it would be good to have another talk with Delure’s pretty brunette secretary. He hoped she hadn’t gone back to Los Angeles.
8.
Dana Laramie was still in a state of shock. Nothing had ever had an impact on her emotions like the murders. In a matter of a few minutes, two people close to her had suffered violent deaths, and her world had changed completely. It felt as if she’d been hit in the pit of the stomach with a hammer.
Since then, she’d ducked the media, shutting herself off from the horde of reporters eager to interview her. But she’d received a flood of phone calls, and trying to cope with them hadn’t helped her nerves. The calls had come from Catherine’s lawyer, from various people at the studio, from the director of Hot Cargo, from the picture’s male lead, and of course, from members of the media, who continued to circle her like a school of sharks smelling blood.
There’d even been a call from her former boyfriend, an actor she’d once thought she was in love with. Until she’d found out he was cheating on her with at least two other women. When he called he had seemed solicitous, but she wasn’t fooled. The murders were a huge story, and like a lot of people, he wanted to stick his nose into the action. What a jerk. She was lucky to be rid of him.
The police had said they’d want her to help them create a composite drawing of the killer, so she’d agreed to stay in New York long enough to do that. But she couldn’t bear to remain at the Sherry-Netherland. She’d moved to the Regency, on Park Avenue at Sixty-First Street.
It didn’t make much of a difference. The awful images of the bodies were engraved in her memory. She had only to close her eyes to see the gory wounds, the expressions of agony on the dead women’s faces.
Creating the composite required her to spend hours with a police artist, trying to work out an accurate likeness. Chuck Diggs helped as well, and the result looked much like the man who had come to the suite that fateful morning.
Seeing the finished drawing produced another jolt. The features were strong and masculine, and to her, they were the embodiment of evil. It was as if she was looking at the devil and he was looking back at her.
For all those reasons, she couldn’t wait to get out of the city. It had been announced that Catherine’s funeral would be private, but she’d asked for an invitation and one was sent to her. As soon as that was over, she’d fly back to the West Coast.
She was in her room at the Regency and about to make a flight reservation when another call came in on her cell. The caller was Len Zarkov.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” the producer said. “Catherine was a wonderful person. And I’m sure she thought a lot of Penny. I’m sorry for you too, Dana.”
“Thank you. It was terrible.”
“Yes, of course it was. I wanted to express my sympathy, but I also thought it would be good for us to have a talk. There are a number of things I want to go over with you.”
“Such as?”
“They’re matters that concern Catherine. Especially her reputation.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Not on the phone. Could you come to my apartment?”
She hesitated. “I suppose so. When?”
“Now, if you can.”
Again she hesitated. The thought of being alone with him made her uncomfortable. But finally she agreed.
He gave her an address on the Upper East Side and hung up.
She had no idea what he’d been referring to, but he’d made it sound ominous. Catherine’s reputation? What did that mean?
At the moment Dana had on jeans and a T-shirt. She made a quick change, into a gray top and a checked skirt, and left her room. Down on the street a doorman whistled up a cab for her, and after she told the driver where to go and settled back on the seat, she began thinking about the call and what she knew about Zarkov himself.
He was noted for his ability to raise money for his film projects, and he often had several in development at the same time. An independent, his company was called Zarstar Productions, and his movies were released through Galaxy Films.
Catherine had remarked that his pictures rarely failed to make a profit, which was an anomaly in the business. She’d said that when he was making a movie the only things he cared about were who he could get as the stars and the director, and whether he thought the premise would draw audiences. Costs would be kept under control by his line producer. Nothing else, including the quality of the script, much interested him.
As far as his personal life was concerned, he was known as a womanizer. Or as Penny Ellis had put it, a pussy hound. It was said that he’d turned the casting couch into an art form, and judging from the women Dana had seen him with on a few occasions, that was probably true. Many of them were starlets, which was a euphemism for hungry young actresses who’d do anything, and anybody, to get ahead. With Lennie, they said, you had to lay to play.
He’d also had a string of affairs with more prominent female performers, and he was often mentioned in the gossip columns. On one occasion he’d made a pass at Catherine, who brushed him off. She was a star, and if he resented being rebuffed by her, that was just too damn bad.
It wasn’t that Catherine didn’t like sex. The fact was that she had loved it and didn’t try to hide her appetite. Or co
ntrol it. Fucking, she’d once remarked to Dana with a laugh, was a glorious way to spend your free time.
Of course, she could have had just about any man she wanted, and there were plenty to choose from. But that didn’t include Len Zarkov. The only thing she’d wanted from him was a fat contract.
His apartment building was one of a row of tall, elegant structures just off Fifth Avenue. When Dana arrived, the doorman saluted and opened the door for her and she went into a lobby that was illuminated by a huge crystal chandelier. The walls and the floor were clad in beige marble, and an antique table held a large bouquet of flowers.
A concierge stood at a marble-topped desk. She told him why she was there and he spoke into a telephone and then directed her to the private elevator that served the penthouse. She stepped into it and was whisked upward.
Zarkov was waiting for her in the foyer. He was heavyset and had coarse features, and his thinning black hair was brushed straight back. Behind tinted sunglasses, his eyes were unreadable. He was casually dressed: white shirt open at the throat, black pants, black loafers. Dana thought he was far from good-looking, but there was an air of power about him, and she knew some women found that irresistible.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said. “I’m sure you’re very distraught.”
“I am,” she said. “I still can’t believe it happened.”
He nodded, his manner grave. “I feel the same way myself. But as I said, there are matters we should discuss. So come along, and we’ll sit out on the terrace and talk.”
She followed him through a living room furnished with white sofas and chairs and ankle-deep white carpeting. A Mark Rothko painting that blended horizontal bands of orange and yellow and red decorated one wall. Two of the other walls were glass and gave spectacular views of the city.
Even more extraordinary were the views from the terrace. Looking to the east Dana could see the Queensboro Bridge spanning the river, and Roosevelt Island, and in the distance jets that were taking off and landing at LaGuardia and JFK. Still farther, miles of Long Island stretched away into the haze. To the south, the skyline was punctuated by the MetLife and Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. There was even a glimpse of the harbor.
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