Yet—unless she’d questioned someone about the matter—how could anyone else have known of her recent discovery? She had wanted to speak with Alistair, presumably about what she had learned. Failing that, what had she done next?
The pit in my stomach deepened, and I looked at Alistair with trepidation. He had been less than forthright with me throughout this investigation and I did not wholly trust him. But I knew he would not risk Isabella.
“Isabella may be in grave danger,” I said. “It’s imperative for us to find her right away.”
“Why is she in danger? Ziele, this kind of talk is completely unhelpful if you cannot also tell us where to look!” Alistair was becoming overwrought with worry.
“Isabella wrote down a name, the Golden Dragon,” I said, going on to explain what that meant. “She didn’t dream it up; she found it somewhere in the papers she was examining.”
“Then let’s split up these papers and take a look,” Tom said.
But soon we had finished scanning through each stack to no avail.
“Whatever she found,” I said, “she must have taken it with her.” Agitated, I tapped my fingers on the desk.
Alistair was despondent. “That makes it almost impossible to figure out where she went.”
Tom did not complain, but he rubbed his forehead as though he had a terrible headache.
“There’s no reason to dwell on what we don’t know,” I said. “We need to focus on what we do know—and what we can find out. But I need you to think hard, Alistair. Stop panicking and think.”
I walked over to the blackboard that lined one wall of the small office, and I redrew my triangle showing Sarah Wingate, Michael Fromley, and the unknown killer. Under each name, I abbreviated everything we knew. For example, Sarah had discovered funds gone missing. Michael Fromley had frequented Mamie Durant’s as well as numerous gambling joints until he found himself blacklisted because of his behavior. For the killer, I wrote that he had access to Fromley. That he owed significant sums of money and likely had stolen from Alistair’s fund to cover his debts. That he had increasingly managed to threaten our own investigation and the well-being of those helping us. “What else?” I tapped the chalk against the board.
When Alistair said nothing, I pressed on. “You must focus more intently than you’ve ever done before. Think about everything you’ve learned because now you need to put it to use. This isn’t about understanding a criminal type who interests you. It’s not about tracking a killer after the fact. It’s about saving Isabella. She doesn’t have much time—if it’s not already too late.”
Alistair looked at me uncertainly and swallowed. “Our killer is unraveling.” His voice was rough, so he cleared his throat. “Each day, he grows more desperate and acts with increasing violence. Based on what you tell me about the Golden Dragon, and assuming Isabella was correct in identifying the killer’s connection to it, I would guess the killer suffers from an addiction, probably to opium. If his supply is exhausted—or he cannot gain access to the increasing amounts he needs to satisfy his craving—then he becomes increasingly agitated and desperate.”
“So his erratic, violent behavior may be the result of drug withdrawal, in addition to the pressure of our investigation?” I asked.
Alistair nodded.
“We can’t discount a gambling addiction, either,” I said, explaining why. People were less familiar with the symptoms of gambling addiction, but many were the same as symptoms of drug addiction: the restlessness and anxiety, sometimes so severe the person experienced sweats, chills, or both. The constant lying. The need to spend more and more money to support an increasing habit. For where once $1 or $10 bets satisfied, only $50 bets would do. I knew the symptoms well.
“Whoever this killer is,” I said, “he’s no longer trying to intimidate us through ten-dollar bribes and boxes of evidence. He killed Sarah Wingate. He just killed a witness to her murder. And he won’t hesitate to kill Isabella unless we can reach her and stop him.”
“What are the chances of that?” Alistair asked. He ran his hands over the taut lines on his face, looking suddenly old.
“No chance at all unless we try.” I waited. “He’s close to us. He’s been watching our every move. That means we’re close to him—even if we don’t know it.”
Alistair picked up a paper from Isabella’s stack of notes and reread it. As I looked over his shoulder, my mind began to race in multiple directions until it led me to a single promising idea. I grabbed the list of money sums Isabella had compiled and excused myself.
“Keep looking for anything that may help. I’ve got to make a telephone call,” I said, muttering the last words. I didn’t want their questions.
“Declan Mulvaney, please.” Impatient, I waited for my old partner to pick up. It seemed an eternity—but was probably only a few minutes—before I heard his familiar, reassuring voice on the other end of the line.
“Ziele, how are you, old boy?”
“I’ve been better,” I said, my voice strained. I explained the urgency of the situation before moving on to the purpose of my call. “Do you know the Golden Dragon?”
“The gambling den?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s one of the toughest gambling joints in the city.” Mulvaney didn’t mince words. “Why?”
“Do you have any influence over the owner? I need information.” I waited.
Mulvaney’s silence was long and studied.
It was an open secret that the police and the city’s gambling joints were partners in an unusual arrangement. When protection money was regularly paid to the governing police precinct, then the police ensured those gambling dens were not raided. As long as the payoffs arrived on time, the police would turn a blind eye to whatever illicit activity went on. But if the payoffs were late, then the house would be raided, trashed, and closed down.
“The place is up to date, Ziele,” he finally said. “If you could wait until next month’s payment is due, then I could try. But I’ve got nothing on them right now.”
“And no contacts?” I asked. I was desperate now. “Anyone with a good relationship who could ask them some questions?”
“They’re tough customers, Ziele. I can’t help you there.”
“How about some advice, then?” I asked, explaining my situation: that I needed to locate the name of a customer who had borrowed—and still owed—large sums of money. I didn’t know the customer himself. But thanks to Isabella’s careful comparison of Sarah’s notes with new evidence she had somehow discovered, I had the dates he had borrowed money and a list of amounts owed to the Golden Dragon.
“What about Nicky at the Fortune Club?” I took a deep breath after I said it. “Would he have the connections to get the man’s name?”
Mulvaney chortled. “Only you, Ziele, have the imagination to think of that—finding a man based on an amount of money. Only you.” Then he grew sober. “I think Nicky could do it. You’re right on that count.” There was a long silence. “If you go that route, you know what you’re risking, right?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was on guard now.
“Nicky’s always taken care of you because of his deep regard”—he drew a breath—“the affection, even, he held for your mother.”
He waited for my reaction, but I gave him none. I was not unfamiliar with the rumors that had swirled around Nicky Scarpetta and my mother. But I had never dignified them by acknowledging them, and I would not do so now.
After a moment, he continued, saying, “Be careful, Ziele. You deal with the devil, it’s only a matter of time before the devil wants his due.”
“Nicky is not the devil,” I said, objecting strongly to his characterization.
“No,” Mulvaney said, adding sagely, “but Nicky’s favors are not free. Not for most people. And when he wants payment, it won’t come cheap.”
“You think I should be concerned?” I asked, taking him more seriously now.
He thought a mo
ment. “Yeah, I do. But then again, you want to save the girl, right? There are worse things you could do. You got scruples about this, maybe you ought to have been a rabbi or a priest. They’re the ones that get to have scruples in this life.” He considered what he had said. “And I’m not even sure about them.”
And so our conversation ended. I thanked him and replaced the telephone receiver on its hook.
I stared at it for another few seconds. Then I took a deep breath and picked up the receiver once again. “Four-seven-six Franklin,” I said to the operator—and waited for someone at Nicky Scarpetta’s Fortune Club to pick up the telephone.
I explained my plan to Alistair and Tom while I waited for Nicky to call back with the information I needed. He had agreed to follow through, just as I had expected. “Yeah,” he had said, “The Bottler owes me a favor. I got no problem calling it in.”
We waited in agonizing silence, but Nicky was quick to call back.
I picked up the phone, my anticipation high.
“I got the name for you,” Nicky said without delay.
“Who is it?” My heart seemed to be beating loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Theodore Sinclair,” he said. “No doubt about it. Your dates and amounts made a perfect match.”
I sighed in exasperation. “It’s not his real name. Theodore Sinclair was the son of one of my colleagues. He’s been dead two years.”
Alistair, overhearing, dropped his head into his hands.
“Can you get me something more?” I asked Nicky. “Like a physical description, maybe the address where he lives? If this guy owes thousands of dollars, as the list I’ve seen suggests, then the Bottler’s men know exactly where to find him.”
We waited some more.
“It’s almost as if he’s out to destroy you, Alistair,” Tom said. “Whoever he is, he is stealing from your fund; assuming the name of your son; and taking your daughter-in-law. You really have no idea who he may be?” Tom was careful with his last question, but it needed to be asked.
“I—” Alistair was cut off by the telephone’s ring.
I answered it on the first ring. “Ziele here.”
“All right,” Nicky said, “I got the address and description. The description ain’t much help. Customer looks like half the fellas in this city. But you’ll get him from the address. You ready?”
“Go,” I said. I had a pencil in hand, and with Tom and Alistair watching eagerly, I first wrote the physical description: brown eyes/hair; medium, stocky build; square jaw; visible injuries.
Nicky explained, saying, “He got roughed up last week when he didn’t pay up.”
Then the address: I wrote down 508 West 112th Street, apartment 5B.
Thanking Nicky again, I hung up.
Alistair and I looked at each other. His face was ashen.
“You know who it is?” I asked.
But his ice-blue eyes reflected confusion. “I’m hoping I’m wrong.”
“We’ve got his address. Let’s go find out,” I said, my voice grim. Almost as an afterthought, I asked Tom, “Will you wait here in case she returns?”
“Wait a minute,” Tom said. “I still don’t understand. Who is it?”
Alistair looked away, then walked out of the small office, leaving it to me to answer Tom’s question.
“These words describe a lot of men in this city,” I said, tapping the piece of paper I carried. “I’m hoping my own suspicions are wrong.”
Alistair and I each kept our own counsel as we headed south on Amsterdam Avenue to 112th Street. My own mind filled with disparate images that, though once unconnected, now came together in rapid succession and assumed larger significance. The purple bruise he had suffered when I first met him. Our half glimpse of him in the Bowery, when we had convinced ourselves we were mistaken. His restlessness. His lies. His profuse sweating. These individual images, one by one, linked together until they formed a picture and I saw him whole.
He had the means: he’d been trusted with ready access to everything at the research center, from files and financials to Fromley himself. He had also been in a unique position to monitor and hamper our progress, even as he pretended to help us. And he had the motive: enormous debts resulting from an addiction to drugs or cards, I had not yet determined which. While his connection to Sarah Wingate remained unclear, the rest of it made perfect sense. And the image in my mind was confirmed by the name next to the doorbell at 508 West 112th Street.
Horace G. Wood.
CHAPTER 29
“You must have suspected him, the moment I told you about the Golden Dragon. You thought you saw him outside Nicky’s that first day, remember?” I made the comment in a bland enough tone, but I had to admit I was curious. I had met Horace just five days ago, but Alistair had worked with him for seven years. How could he have been so blind?
But of course, it was precisely because he had known Horace that he missed seeing it. We never scrutinize the familiar in the same way we do the unknown.
Alistair seemed to have retreated into a private world of his own. His face was wan, etched with lines of worry. He commented only that “the address confirms it.”
My heartbeat accelerated as we approached the door of Horace’s apartment.
“We don’t know that he has her,” I said, “but it makes sense that he does.” I rapped sharply on the door. “She was working at his desk this morning when she discovered the connection between the stolen funds and the amounts owed to the Golden Dragon. She may even have asked Horace about it.” I rapped again, and this time when no one answered, I pulled a thin metal file out of my pocket.
Alistair raised an eyebrow. “My understanding of the Fourth Amendment and police procedure may be rusty, but don’t you need a warrant for that?”
I shook my head. “It’s okay.” I applied more pressure to the pin tumbler lock. “If we were breaking in to look for evidence only, you would be correct. But when someone’s life is at risk, as Isabella’s is, then we’re completely justified.”
I didn’t tell Alistair, but for Isabella, I’d break through this door even if the law didn’t sanction it.
The pin stack lifted and the lock turned. “Got it.” I gave Alistair a grim nod and he followed me inside.
“Isabella? Horace?” I called out their names, but there was no answer.
Horace’s apartment was a railroad flat, which meant one room connected to the next like the cars in a train. We passed first through the room he used as an office or living area, then the kitchen, and finally entered his bedroom. The place was messy and strewn with papers, but I noted nothing out of the ordinary.
“I’ll search his front rooms; you try the ones here in back,” I said. While I had little hope we would find Isabella here, surely something in the apartment would lead us to wherever he had taken her.
I was searching through a mass of papers covering one corner of the living room when a crashing sound startled me. I returned to the back of the apartment, where Alistair stood in the midst of shattered glass and broken bottles. He had apparently ripped Horace’s medicine cabinet right off the wall and thrown it onto the adjoining bedroom floor, smashing it to bits.
His explanation seemed wrenched from somewhere deep within. “I’ve known him for years, given him every opportunity. I loaned him money. And look how he repays me.” Alistair’s throat was choked with emotion. “He has betrayed me personally and committed unforgivable crimes.”
His anger spent, he sank onto the bed and dropped his head into his hands.
After a moment, he looked up, and I was struck by the despair in his eyes. “You can’t believe he would harm Isabella. He knows her.”
My own gaze did not waver. “I know Horace’s betrayal has come as a painful shock. But you cannot let it dull your thinking. Isabella needs you too much right now.”
I bent down and began to sort through the contents of Horace’s medicine cabinet. “Now help me think.”
Alistair began stac
king different medicine bottles onto Horace’s nightstand. “In retrospect, I suppose his behavior these past few weeks should have made me suspicious. He’s been restless. And despite the cool weather, he sweated constantly.”
“But you never noticed anything that suggested a criminal tendency?”
His response was dry. “You may not believe it, Ziele, but I don’t sit around and speculate about my associates and their propensity for crime.”
I picked up the jagged remains of two medicine bottles. Their names were still visible. “He has a number of opium products here.” I passed Alistair the glass fragment that represented the remains of Greene’s Syrup of Tar. “He also has Soothing Syrup, Gray’s Cordial, and some laudanum—liquid opium.”
Alistair shrugged. “Ordinary stuff, typical of most people’s medicine chests. If he is addicted to opium to the extent his debt would suggest, then he needed far more than this. He needed the sort of fix you can find only in an opium den.”
“Let’s move on and search the other rooms,” I said. We worked in silence for several moments until Alistair shouted out that he had found something.
“What is it?” I asked, rushing into the kitchen.
“His appointment book,” Alistair said. “Look—he had four meetings with Sarah Wingate in the weeks leading up to her death.” He shook his head. “If she knew he had stolen the money, why didn’t she report him and be done with it?”
“I don’t know. They were negotiating something, perhaps.” I studied the appointment book carefully another moment. There were other meetings, as well, in the weeks before her death, but they were coded with initials. F.A.E. was each Tuesday. And each Friday night was marked H.R.E. I put the book in my pocket to examine later. Any evidence that did not point us to Isabella would have to wait—even the evidence that would certainly seal Horace’s fate in front of a judge and jury. We found a shoe box by his desk, containing deposit slips for the checks embezzled from the dean’s fund.
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