Had he not broken his ankle and fallen into the darkling maw of the fetid earth, he would not have had to create the identity of Connor Custus. He, Charles Roland Cheswith, could have simply wandered off into the rain having pressed a button on his phone and disposed of his brother and Doohan. But Doohan had seen him. Doohan had run into the rain to stop him. Doohan's alibi wasn't in place.
Doohan's dentist had canceled all appointments. Besides, Doohan had second and third thoughts about the whole thing. The man with the Irish accent who called himself Sean Hanlon had told him that he had set up an insurance policy with a Dutch company for Doohan's. Payoff price: one million and two hundred thousand dollars. Doohan had bought the lie and signed his name to the policy, which Charles Roland Cheswith planned to let fall into the hands of the police. Poor Doohan had, they would conclude, bought the policy, blown up his tavern and died in the effort, especially when Cheswith called the police to confess that he had been hired by Doohan to blow up the bar.
There should have been no connection made between Charles and his brother, Malcom, the cook who would cook no more, the brother who had parlayed salary, a small inheritance from a co-worker with no relatives and some remarkable luck and skill at sports betting, into almost two million dollars. The two million, of which Malcom had proudly written his brother, was to be a down payment on a very small restaurant in Soho.
Cheswith, well stoked with pain relievers, managed to stand.
Charles had learned his bomb-making skills before he was twenty in Dublin. He had not been particularly good at it. He had the scars to prove it.
At the age of twenty-five, he had taken to the stage, had become an actor. Dinner theater in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana. A rare, small part in a television series episode, twice as a corpse. People would recognize him on the street but have no idea where they had seen him before. Perhaps the highlight of his long and unsuccessful career was his appearance on a network game show in which he won twenty-six thousand dollars.
Connor Custus had been a rather good improv character, especially considering the pain he had been in and the great likelihood of impending doom under water of such filth as to best not be thought of.
He had succeeded in his performance and failed in his plot. Now, to get away, Charles Cheswith would have to improvise as he never had before. He still had hopes. If he could get away, get back to Australia, wait to be contacted by lawyers about his brother's estate, he would be fine.
There was no police officer guarding his room. He was not a suicide threat and he could hardly move from his bed with a broken ankle and full of painkillers with nurses checking on him. But he would do it. The great disappointment would be that the performance he would now have to give might be seen by few and appreciated by none.
He almost fell as he took his first hop toward the door. He steadied himself on the night table. The plastic water pitcher fell over. The table quaked. Charles did not fall.
"Harder than playing Stanley Kowalski," he said, biting his lower lip.
Charles had never really played Kowalski. He had understudied the role in A Streetcar Named Desire when it was being played by a soap opera actor in a summer one-week run at a dinner theater in San Antonio.
Charles had eight thousand dollars in cash in the hotel where he was staying. He had a passport with his real name on it, an Irish passport. It was enough to get him out of the country.
Time for the next hop.
Hand against the wall, Charles made his way toward the door.
15
FLACK FOUND A VETERAN DETECTIVE in the precinct near the Gun Hill Road subway station. The detective, Stuart Bain, had been a friend of Don Flack's father.
"Buildings being painted," Bain said, standing outside the precinct under an eave where he could smoke without violating the law and getting wet from the rain. "How big a place we talkin' about here?"
"Don't know," said Flack.
"We've got a list we watch," said Bain. "Unoccupied places being built, remodeled. You wouldn't believe what people'll steal. One place they took new tile right off the floor at night while the glue was drying. I'll get you the list. But you know it might not be on there."
"I know," said Flack. "How's Scott?"
Bain finished his cigarette, fieldstripped it and said, "My son, Scott, is off fighting in Iraq. Was a time he considered becoming a rabbi. You know that?"
"Don't think so," said Flack.
"Now all he's considering is coming back alive and in one piece," said Bain. "Come on. I'll get you the list. I'll go with you. Check it out. Guy killed how many yesterday?"
"Four," said Flack.
"Maybe some backup wouldn't hurt," Bain said.
"Maybe it wouldn't," said Flack.
* * *
"Ellen?"
She wouldn't have taken any chances, not after she had been fooled the night before. The voice of the caller last night, the man she knew as Adam, wasn't really like Jeffrey's, but she had deluded herself. Not again. She was no fool.
"Jeffrey?"
She was alone in the hotel room. The room wasn't as nice as the one she had been in the night before. She had the feeling the police were punishing her for leading Adam to the hotel, for getting Paul killed.
The police had asked her to give them her phone. She had refused, said she needed it to stay in touch with her parents because her father was very ill, that she would tell the man in the bathroom if anyone called.
This call had come at the perfect moment. It was almost a sign. The officer, David McCord, had gone into the bathroom. The phone had rung. It was Jeffrey. No doubt. But she asked to be sure, to be reassured.
"Jeffrey, you sound- "
"I have to see you," he said. "Now. Soon."
He sounded like the sixteen-year-old boy he was, not the fourteen-year-old man-child she had first known and loved and wanted and needed.
"I'm sorry, Jeffrey. I can't. Not for a few days. Then we'll find a way to be together. I promise."
She had almost called him "baby." He didn't like that.
"I've got to," he said.
She heard the toilet flushing. Not much time. Seconds.
"I'll kill myself if I don't see you today," Jeffrey said, his voice definitely trembling.
"Gronten Hotel on Twenty-seventh Street," she said. "Room eight-eleven. Say you're my nephew. Tell them I told you to bring me something, a book. Pick up a book."
"I'm sorry," Jeffrey said.
"Don't be," she said.
This time she called him "baby."
"That was fine," said the limping man, taking the cell phone from the boy's hand and closing it. "You don't have to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you."
* * *
"What're you showing me?" Danny asked.
Lindsay sat in front of him, palms up. The palms were almost beet red.
"Palms without glass fragments," she said.
He held out his hands and said, "Palms without glass fragments. What's your point?"
"I sprayed glass fragments into my palms," she said.
"Sounds like fun," Danny said. He grimaced.
"Then I applied French green clay like the clay I found on one of the palms of the people at Wallen we examined."
"And you found?"
"The clay didn't remove glass fragments. I had to pry them out."
"That had to hurt," said Danny.
"It didn't feel good. The interesting thing is I got the glass out, but I didn't get rid of all the green clay stain. Our killer did the same."
"So we have a suspect," said Danny. "Someone with a slightly green palm, swollen like yours where the fragments were removed."
"We have a suspect," Lindsay said with a smile.
"Wrong, Montana," Danny said. "We've got two suspects. I took another look at the videotape, sections that hadn't been altered."
"And you found?"
"I'll show you," he said.
It was Danny's turn to smile.
They moved down t
he hall to where Danny had set up the videotape.
"There," he said. "Students in Havel's ten o'clock class going into the lab."
He stopped the image on each of the four students.
"Got it so far?" he asked.
"Nothing to get yet," she said, standing behind him.
"Right," he agreed. "But now we go forty minutes after the class ended. I've isolated images of all the students. Annette Heights."
On the screen, frozen with a click, Annette Heights, the girl with the cute round face and wavy dark hair, was openmouthed, talking to two other girls.
"Okay," said Danny, pressing a button.
The images shot by and then stopped.
"Karen Reynolds," he said.
The tall girl was walking alone down a corridor toward the camera. Lindsay examined the image and nodded. Danny moved to the next image he had isolated.
"James Tuvekian."
The boy sat at a table in the cafeteria across from another boy. It was the same table where Danny had interviewed the students and faculty.
"And finally, Cynthia Parrish," he said.
The girl was standing next to a locker. A boy was leaning over her, one hand resting on the wall over her right shoulder. She was looking up at him. She looked as if she were about to cry.
"See it?" Danny asked.
"I see it," Lindsay said. "One of our kids changed clothes."
"And why would someone do that?"
"Blood," said Lindsay. "Get rid of the bloody clothes. Alter the tapes."
"Let's go talk to our suspects," said Danny.
"I'll get my kit."
"Bring an umbrella," Danny said.
* * *
He hadn't been able to get the bloody clothes she had been wearing out of the building. Too many eyes. The alarm had come too quickly. The damned queer O'Shea had found Havel's body too soon.
He had improvised, gotten the gym bag out of her locker, helped her change. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Havel wasn't supposed to die. But it had happened and he had done his best to cover it up.
Now he had to dance just ahead of the two CSI detectives.
He was dancing as fast as he could.
* * *
If you were homeless, finding a reasonably or unreasonably dry place to get out of the rain was growing increasingly difficult. There were underpasses, but they were three inches deep with dark water. There were basements with broken windows, but they were minilakes with floating garbage. There were abandoned buildings, but they were thick with bottom-rung crack addicts or the clinically insane.
The Hat was in search of something better.
The Hat, of course, always wore a hat, whatever kind of hat he could find or filch. It was his trademark. It was all he really had to identify himself among the shaggy, skinny, toothless old men with unkempt hair and beards.
The Hat had another name. He hadn't forgotten it. He just had trouble attaching it to the creature of the streets he had become.
The Hat knew a place to get out of the rain, an office building that was almost finished. The Hat knew a window he could pry open. He would just have to keep watch for guards. There wouldn't be any contractors or builders or workers today, not with the rain.
All he needed was something to eat.
He wouldn't steal. No need. If you were willing to walk and knew where you were going, you could always get a free meal, a not-bad meal. You didn't even have to dig into the garbage bins down by the food court in Grand Central Station.
The Hat went through the window and almost lost the St. Louis Rams cap he was wearing. It tipped back when he went through the window, but it didn't fall off. He made a note to clean up the prints from the window before he left. The Hat closed the window behind him and stood quietly, sniffing the air.
Over the fumes of freshly painted office walls, he smelled peanut butter.
* * *
There wasn't much blood on the hospital blues that Charles Cheswith found in the hamper outside the open door of Room 203. A woman was mopping inside the room, speaking to someone in Spanish. Charles had been lucky. She was just across from the room in which he had been.
No one was looking down the corridor his way.
He might have found something cleaner, but he didn't have time to fish around. He took the blues and hobbled to a door marked "Custodial." The door was open. He clicked on the light and took off his hospital gown. The room smelled like solvent or cleaning fluid. Charles had always liked the smell of Lysol and gasoline. His brother, Mal-com, had a more delicate sense of smell. There had never been much compatible between them.
The small room contained white plastic bottles, packages of napkins, bolts of toilet paper, paper towels. Charles needed a pair of shoes or slippers. He needed crutches. He needed to get the hell out of the hospital.
He opened the door a crack and peered out. The cleaning woman with the hamper had moved farther down the corridor. Charles came out and went into the room she had exited.
Two beds, both occupied. A skinny, gray man in need of a shave lay sleeping in the nearby bed. His mouth was open. He was snoring. In the other bed, a short broad man with black wavy hair that looked dyed looked up at Charles and said, "Que pasa?"
"Stubbed my toe," said Charles with a rueful smile. "Just now coming out of surgery."
"You should take care of that, Doctor," said the man.
"On my way to do just that," Charles said. "Just checking on the patient here."
Charles hobbled to the first bed and looked at the chart at the foot of the bed. Then he looked up.
"Fine," he said.
"He's gonna die," said the man in the far bed.
"We all are," said Charles.
"Pero este hombre va a morir hoy o manana."
"Que lastima," said Charles. "Tengo a tomar sus zapatos."
"Por que?"
"He won't be needing them anymore," said Charles, holding on to the bed and leaning over. A pair of hospital slippers were just under the bed. He managed to fish them out without falling.
"I guess not," said the man.
"Does he have crutches?"
"No," said the man, "but I do."
"Mind if I borrow them? I'll get another pair and send these right back."
Charles awkwardly managed to put on the slippers.
"I guess," said the man. "They're hospital crutches."
Charles hobbled to the man's bed. The crutches leaned against the wall near the head of the bed. Charles reached for them.
"You are one fuckin' bad liar," the man said, grabbing Charles's wrist.
Charles tried to pull away, but the man was remarkably strong.
"I thought I was pretty good at it," Charles said. "I'm just having a bad day."
The man let go of Charles's wrist and said, "So am I," said the man, "but you can bounce away. I can't."
The man patted the blanket where his right leg used to be.
"Diabetes," the man said.
"Sorry," said Charles, taking the crutches.
"You think you're having a bad day? Talk to me about bad days," said the man, turning away.
* * *
"We'd like to look in your locker," said Danny.
"My locker? What for?"
"We think you know," said Lindsay.
A tall, broad young uniformed officer named Dave Wolfson stood behind her. Wolfson had been drafted as a wide receiver by the Jets. He got cut early in the season and became a cop. He still played weekend football for the NYPD team. Wolfson knew how to smile. He just didn't do it when he was on the job.
"You'll need a warrant."
"We can get one," said Danny. "Officer Wolfson will just stand guard in front of your locker till it arrives."
"I want a lawyer."
"We haven't charged you with anything," said Lindsay. "Are we going to need that warrant?"
"No."
"Let's go," said Danny.
They went down the steps at the end of the main corrid
or in the Wallen School. Classes were in session. Footsteps of the quartet clicked down the stairs. They went into a room at the end of the lower level corridor. The room was just past the video security center where a woman in a security uniform looked up at them from the screens.
Danny, Lindsay and Wolfson moved to a quintet of lockers. The man inserted a key into the lock on the third locker and stood back. Danny opened the door. The locker was empty, clean.
"You cleaned it out?" asked Danny.
"Yesterday," he said.
"Then why didn't you want us to look inside it?" Danny asked.
"It's empty. I knew you'd ask me why."
"Why?" asked Danny.
"I took a few things, computer programs, a hard drive, some things. You going to turn me in?"
"You've got bigger worries," said Danny. He nodded at Lindsay. She set down her kit, reached into it and came up with a spray and a pair of goggles. The others stood and watched as she sent a mist onto the inside of the locker door. Dozens of fingerprints appeared. Lindsay put the spray back in the kit and came up with a pack of transparencies inside of clear plastic envelopes. She selected one and held it up to the locker door.
"Your fingerprints aren't inside this locker," she said.
"I don't understand. Maybe I never touch- "
"This isn't your locker," said Danny. "Which one is it? We can open them all."
Resigned, the man moved to the first locker and used another key on his chain to open it.
Officer Wolfson moved to the door of the small room. Danny reached over and opened the locker door. Inside, on the high shelf, were two books. Hanging on one of the three hooks was a shirt.
"Looks like blood," said Danny.
On the bottom of the locker was a white plastic grocery bag. Lindsay reached over, gloves on, and opened the bag.
"And what's this?" asked Danny.
He got no answer.
"More blood," said Lindsay, taking something carefully from the bag.
She held up a dress. The front of it was covered with dried blood splatter.
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