Novak was not as Driscoll had imagined. His freckled face and crooked smile suggested he be cast in a remake of the Hardy Boys. Had this man, cloaked now in prison green, met the right talent scout, he may have turned his back on savage butchery. His attempted-murder rap stemmed from an assault with a machete. The sliced and diced woman survived, saving him from lethal injection.
“Driscoll?” Novak wanted to know, taking a seat across from the Lieutenant at a metal table.
“You eyeball a couple of kids from a dated Polaroid in a downstate newspaper but miss my mug on page two?”
“You look better in the paper.”
Do I, now? “I’m told you knew the twins.”
“Their old man, too. I figure that’s gotta be good for something, no?”
Why alert the police? Driscoll wondered. He could have called Shewster and laid claim to $3 million. That’d be a whole lot of something. “I don’t know how current your newsstand is, but we already know who the twins are.”
“Yeah? Then why ya here?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who called.”
“If the police department has ID’d the twins, why is their lead investigator here and not sitting before a judge and a jury with the twins lawyered up like O.J. Simpson?”
“News flash, Novak. Johnnie Cochran’s dead. It’d still take a lot of money to hire the remaining Dream Team. And where would a pair of sixteen-year-olds get that kind of money?” The expression on Novak’s face said he was aware he had slipped somehow. But it was too late to take back his remark. “Look, Novak, you placed the call. That tells me you’ve got something to say. So say it.”
“What do I get out of it?”
“You must have me confused with the genie inside Aladdin’s lamp. The police department’s not a financial-aid office.”
“I’m not after money. If I thought the king’s ransom they’re advertising in the paper could get me outta here, I wouldn’t have called you. Besides, I’m sure who ever is fronting the money would figure out a way of not having to pay a three-time convicted felon.” He smiled. “There are other forms of compensation.”
“Inmates can still be charged with extortion, my friend. And here’s another news flash. If you don’t start talking, I can make life a little more challenging.”
“This is a freakin’ prison. They got bars on the windows. How more challenging can it get?”
“Oh, I dunno… How about a stretch in Special Housing? Or maybe a new roommate. One who doesn’t waste time soaping up after he tells you to bend over.”
“Yep. Much better in newsprint. It hides your ugly side.” After a bit of reflection, Novak opened up. Driscoll figured it was the prospect of no soap. “Their old man’s name is Sanderson. Talk about an ugly side. This guy’s a real prick.”
He’s speaking in the present tense. Could Sanderson be alive? “Yeah, like coming after a thirty-three-year-old woman with a machete makes you an Eagle Scout.”
“That dyke had it coming. She led me around by the dick for three years while she was screwing my sister-in-law.”
Driscoll was surprised. They usually swore they were framed. “Nice group of company you ran with. This Sanderson guy have a first name?”
“Gus. Gus Sanderson. A prince.”
“Sounds like he fit right in with your stable buddies.”
“You know the guy?”
“No. Should I?”
“But you said stable.”
“Yeah?” As in where people like you should sleep at night.
“C’mon. You’re shittin’ me. Stable. Like in horses. Right?” The look on Novak’s face was one of disbelief.
“So?”
“Sanderson was a hansom cab driver. Made a livin’ carting tourists back and forth in Central Park between the Plaza Hotel and the Tavern on the Green. When he wasn’t loaded and beatin’ up on his kids, that is. He did some carving job on the girl’s face, huh? Musta been tired of seeing double.”
Driscoll lunged across the table and grabbed Novak by the throat. “Your sense of humor just pissed me off!”
The prisoner’s face flooded with color. He gasped for air, leaning precariously backward in his chair until Driscoll released his hold.
“What’s the big deal?” Novak managed, choking on his words. “You figure they’re killing people. Aren’t you? You forgettin’ who the bad guys are?”
Was he? Or had the vision of a girl’s face being butchered forced a memory of his daughter’s mangled body entangled in the twisted metal of the family van?
“Lighten up, Lieutenant. You nearly killed me, for Chrissake! Lighten up already.”
“Talk.”
“I’m afraid to now.”
“Tell me about Sanderson.”
“As long as you stay focused, I will. Jeeesus! I thought it was lights-out back there.”
“Start talking about Sanderson.”
“Like I said. He ran a horse-drawn carriage in the park.”
“How is it you knew him?”
Novak looked over both shoulders and leaned in to within inches of Driscoll’s face. “This stays here, right?”
“Depends on what ‘this’ is.”
“Look. I’m a three-time loser. I’m never gettin’ out. But if Sanderson finds out it was me that turned on him, it’s goodnight Elizabeth. I may be behind bars, but that don’t mean I’m protected from the likes of him.”
“Talk.”
“Does that mean we have a deal?”
“DAs cut deals.”
“C’mon, Lieutenant. You know what I’m askin’ for.”
“Talk.”
Novak looked defeated. He took a deep breath and held it. But when he finally exhaled, his words flowed like water. “Sanderson wasn’t just cartin’ tourists around the park. Once a week, one of those tourists dropped off a package. The package contained a half-pound to a pound of methamphetamine-working man’s cocaine. It came from a variety of sources. Some cooked right here in the USA. Some from other countries. At the end of the day, Sanderson would head to his stable, on East Sixtieth Street, under the FDR Drive. After tending to his horse-Teener was her name.” Novak grinned at the notion. And Driscoll knew why. “Teener” was street slang for meth. “After settling Teener in for the night, Sanderson would climb the stairs to a loft he had built over the stable. There, he would cut the meth with either baking soda or vitamin B12. One time he used lye. Said he had a score to settle. Remember, we’re talkin’ one mean son of a bitch. Back to the story. After depositing a sixteenth of an ounce of the stuff, Teener. The horse. A sixteenth, get it? Anyway, after depositing the speed into mini-press-n-seals, he’d call me.”
“Why you?”
“I was his distributor.”
Driscoll leaned back in his chair and reflected on what he had just been told. He had his suspicions, but he still wasn’t sure why Novak was turning on Sanderson. “The guy into anything else?”
“There was a rumor he had a Web site. For what, I haven’t a clue. But it musta been another way of making money. It’d be an even bet he’s still using it. That guy could squeeze mercury out of a dime.”
“And the twins? How’d they play into this?”
“Beats the hell outta me. All I can tell ya is they were attached to him like a Vise-Grip. The guy’d go to take a piss, and they’d hafta tag along.”
“So they knew about the loft?”
“Musta. Where he went, they went.” Novak scratched his head. He looked puzzled. “You’re really liking them for the killings?”
“You know otherwise?”
“No. Nothing like that. It’s just that when I knew them, they were nice kids. I don’t think either of them was a fan of the leash, but from what I saw, they were both nice kids.”
“One more question, Novak. Why tell me all this?”
He grinned. “Sanderson was one cheap bastard. Had tons of money. All of it cash. Stashed it under the floorboards in his loft.”
So that’s where they
were getting the money for their killing spree. Sure, the Crenshaw girl said the bills smelled of horses! A perfect place to store it, too. Right in the middle of their killing field.
“I doubt if Uncle Sam ever saw one nickel of the money. But a lot of that cash was mine. He cut me off when the judge pounded the gavel. Why go and do that? He coulda easily got it to me in here. But he didn’t. So, my compensation is seeing to it the guy gets busted.”
Revenge. Powerful motivator. “You said the stable was on East Sixtieth under the FDR?”
“Looks like a two-car garage. Sits across from a small park on Marginal Street. Painted battleship gray, the last time I saw it. Had a rusted sign hangin’ overhead. ‘No Vacancies.’”
The man grew silent.
“That it?”
“I doubt you’ll need more.”
The prisoner whistled, as he watched Driscoll stand, summon a guard, and head for the door.
As soon as Driscoll stepped outside the building, he called Margaret. “The con thinks their father’s still alive. Says his name is Gus Sanderson and that he operated a hansom cab inside Central Park across from the Plaza. Give the media a heads-up on the name and put a call in to the sheriff’s office in Carbondale. See if they have anything on a Gus Sanderson, then send someone up to the park.”
“On it.”
“I’m betting the father’s dead and that the twins are holed up inside a stable on East Sixtieth under the FDR. It’ll resemble a two-car garage. Some sort of loft up top. Painted gray. Call it in to Manhattan North. They’re to have the Nineteenth Precinct cordon off the area. No one moves in or out. The FDR skirts the river. Have the Harbor Unit send up two boats. And get a hold of Aviation. I want two choppers circling. They spot any pair in the vicinity, they’re to point them out so someone can intercept. Anybody comes within five hundred feet of that stable is to be intercepted as well. Let’s hope they’re home this time. I’ll be heading back with full lights and siren. Forty-five minutes. An hour, tops. If there’s no movement, I wanna be there when we go in.”
“You got it.”
“Where’s Cedric?”
“Sitting on Shewster.”
“Good. Fill him in on what’s going down.”
“Will do.”
Driscoll hesitated, not sure how she’d react to his next order. But he gave it. “I want a SWAT team onsite. Shooters in position.” He was sure he heard her take a breath. He held his, waited two seconds, then heard her say, “Done.”
Thoughts collided inside the Lieutenant’s head as he raced south on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Although Novak raised the possibility that Sanderson might still be alive, it’d be unlikely the twins would seek refuge in their father’s building if he were still in the picture, and every instinct told Driscoll that’s where they were. But were they alone? These two were psychos. Angus said the old man was dead but he didn’t say buried. Driscoll hoped they hadn’t pulled a Norman Bates or a Jeffrey Dahmer. Then there was Novak, who had confessed to pushing drugs. That couldn’t go unreported. Put an end to the killings first, wisdom suggested. The inmate’s not going anywhere.
Chapter 88
“You’d like to see the sights of old New York, would ya?” Timothy Alfreds beckoned to a strolling couple, in his best histrionic cockney. The closest he’d come to London’s East End, though, was his being born on East Seventeenth Street, long before Starbucks opened at both ends of the block. Alfreds felt the accent added to the flavor and tranquility of the horse-drawn carriage ride through the park.
While he was fluffing the passenger pillows behind him, he heard a woman’s voice. When he turned about, a gold shield and a police ID were six inches from his nose.
“Jesus! What now?”
“I’m Detective Butler. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Detective First Grade Liz Butler was part of Driscoll’s task force. She was a no-nonsense, top-notch police officer who was good at retrieving information. From anybody.
Although Alfreds was suspicious of all investigators, he was relieved she wasn’t from the Department of Consumer Affairs, or worse, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, who had the annoying habit of sending out an inspector to examine the carriage, its license, the laminated card that displayed the maximum charges, along with the horse. They did this, without notice, once every four months.
“It’s always a pleasure to help the authorities,” said Alfreds. “What is it you’d like to know?”
“Gus Sanderson. You know him?”
Butler caught his answer before he spoke it. The twitch of his left eye said he knew Sanderson. It also said Alfreds would weigh his words. There was a simple remedy for that. All men loved a flirt and she’d know when to turn it on.
“You’re looking at the only friend he had in New York,” said Alfreds. “He and I worked this circle for the past seven years.”
Her knack at gravitating to just the right person boggled her fellow officers. She claimed she was gifted. “The only friend he had in New York? As in past tense?”
“I guess we’re still friends, but I haven’t heard from him in a while.”
No twitch. “Why’s that?”
“He headed south.”
“South Carolina? South America?”
Alfreds grinned. “You never met Gus. Am I right?”
“What gives me away?”
“Gus wasn’t much of a traveler. He knew a hundred ways of making money. But a thousand ways to keep it.”
“No crime in that. How far south did his buck take him?”
“Pennsylvania.”
Alfreds was becoming less reticent. Butler was pleased. “Why Pennsylvania?”
“We,” he said, motioning in the direction of a handful of drivers, “have a friend there.”
“You and the other drivers?”
“Me and the other horses.”
Cute. “What kind of friend? Two footed or four?”
The man smiled. “You’re quick-witted. And it suits you.”
“Thanks,” said Butler, extending an open palm to the man’s horse.
“It might take Molly a minute or two to warm up to ya. The time would be cut in half if you had an apple in that hand.”
“Passed a few fruit vendors on the way up. None of them looked like they could make it through the alphabet. I hate it when I have to use my hands to illustrate what a pound of grapes looks like.”
“You’ve got a way with words, too. I’m guessin’ all your denim is made in America.”
“They fit better.” Molly was nuzzling against the tips of the detective’s fingers. “Who’s your friend in Pennsylvania?” Her question was directed at the horse.
“If you had an apple…”
“No apple, Molly. Sorry.”
“There’s a farm just west of Philly. Miller’s Farm,” said Alfreds. “Molly, I see you’ve made a friend. Any room for Molly in your Mounted Unit, detective?”
“Not without a sex change. The department only uses gelded males.”
“The Mayor know that?”
“You didn’t hear it from me, but the commissioner held back that nugget until Sully Reirdon assured him he’d stay on as top cop. What’s at the farm?”
“The farm?”
“Miller’s Farm. You said it was outside of Philly.”
“Right. Sanderson in Pennsylvania. Most of the carriage horses in New York work a nine-hour day. On the streets, there’s just asphalt. Hot to the touch in July, cold in December. The city says if the temperature is over ninety degrees or below eighteen, the horses are not to be worked. Otherwise, we’re out here, rain or shine. Sanderson brought his horse to Miller’s to have her roam on grass, trot, lie down if he wants to. Anything but pound asphalt. Believe me. It’s like being sent to a fine spa. Without that kind of break, the horse’s life span is cut in half. His horse’s name is Teener. A dappled gray Appaloosa. A beautiful animal.”
“These temperature regulations. When you’re not permitted
to work, where do you bring the horses?”
“Same place where they spend their nights. In their stables. New York’s got five major ones. A couple of them house up to seventy horses. They’re up in the Hell’s Kitchen area, between Eleventh and Twelfth avenues, from West Thirty-seventh to West Fifty-second.”
Butler was stroking the side of Molly’s neck.
“Where does Molly bed down?”
“Shamrock. On West Forty-fifth.”
“And Sanderson’s horse?”
“No four-by-six for Teener. Sanderson had his own stable. A single. On the Eastside somewhere.”
“Not a fan of overcrowding?”
“Like I said, I’m probably the only friend he’s got in the city.”
“He piss someone off?”
“I don’t think so. He was a hard man. Kept to himself. Stayed out of everyone’s business. And didn’t invite many into his. That rubbed a lot of the guys the wrong way. Most of them are regulars. So we see each other every day. Like family,” said Alfreds.
“I take it Sanderson wasn’t much of a family man.”
“He had his own. Two kids. A boy and a girl. They used to work the carriage with him. Probably brought in most of the cash. Sanderson dressed them up as Indians. He told the strollers Central Park was originally built as an Indian reservation. The kids were the only ones still around. Might seem a little corny. But we see people from all over the world. Many of them think the old Westerns on Nick-at-Nite are reality shows. His Two-Little-Indians package was a draw. A gimmick to attract customers. One of his hundred ways to make a buck. It worked pretty well. Sanderson had many repeat customers.”
“You said the kids worked the carriage. What’s that involve?”
“Part of the attraction was to give his customers a chance to ride with a pair of real Indians.”
“Where’d they sit?” Butler could live without knowing and would have preferred it that way. But this was an investigation, not a casual conversation.
“Nobody sits up front with the driver. The city is big on that rule.”
“So they sat in back?”
“Alongside the customers.”
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