The last of the SOC team came out of the apartment and logged out, leaving D’Agosta alone with his thoughts. He stood for a minute in the empty hallway, trying to settle his frayed nerves. Then he snapped on a pair of latex gloves, pulled the hairnet close around his balding pate, and moved toward the open door. He felt faintly sick. The body had been removed, of course, but nothing else had been touched. He could see, where the entryway took a dogleg, just a sliver of the room beyond and a lake of blood on the floor; bloody footprints; a handprint streaked across a cream-colored wall.
He stepped carefully over the blood, pausing before the living room. Leather sofa, pair of chairs, overturned coffee table, more clots of blood on the Persian rug. He slowly walked into the center of the room, rolling his crepe-soled feet down, one after the other, stopped, turned, trying to reconstruct the scene in his mind.
D’Agosta had asked the team to take extensive samples of the bloodstains; there were complex overlapping splatter patterns that he wished to untangle, footsteps tracked through the blood, hand-prints layered on handprints. Smithback had fought like hell; there was no way the perp escaped without leaving DNA at this scene.
The crime, on the surface, was simple. It was a disorganized, messy killing. The perp had let himself in with a master key. Smithback was in the living room. The killer got in a good blow with his knife, right away putting Smithback at a severe disadvantage, and then they fought. The fight carried them into the kitchen—Smith-back had tried to arm himself: the knife drawer was halfway open, bloody handprints on the knob and counter. Didn’t get a knife, though; too damn bad. Got stabbed again from behind while at it. They fought a second time. He had been cut pretty bad by then, blood all over the floor, skid marks of bare feet. But D’Agosta was pretty sure the perp was also bleeding by this time. Bleeding, shedding hair and fibers, blowing and snorting with the effort, perhaps scattering saliva and phlegm. It was all there, and he had confidence that the SOC team had found it. They’d even cut out and taken away some floorboards, including several with knife marks; they’d cut pieces of drywall, lifted prints from every surface, collected every fiber they could find, every lint ball and piece of grit.
D’Agosta’s eyes continued to roam, his mind continuing an interior film of the crime. Eventually, Smithback lost so much blood that he weakened sufficiently for the killer to deliver the coup de grâce: according to the M.E., a knife through the heart that went half an inch into the floor. The perp had twisted it violently to get it out, splintering the wood. At the thought, D’Agosta felt himself flushing with a fresh mixture of anger and grief. That board had been cut out, too.
Not that all this attention to detail would make much difference—they already knew who the perp was. Still, it was always good to pile on the evidence. You never knew what kind of jury you might draw in this crazy town.
Then there was the bizarre shit the killer left behind. A mashed-up bundle of feathers, tied with green twine. A piece of a garment covered with gaudy sequins. A tiny parchment bag of dust with a weird design on the outside. The killer had floated them in the lake of blood, like offerings. The SOC boys had taken them all away, of course, but they were still fixed in his mind.
Still, there was the one thing the SOC boys couldn’t take away: the hurriedly drawn image on the wall, two snakes curled around some strange, spiky, plant-like thing, with stars and arrows and complex lines and a word that looked like dambalah. It had clearly been drawn with Smithback’s blood.
D’Agosta walked into the main bedroom, taking in the bed, bureau, mirror, window looking southeast onto West End Avenue, rug, walls, ceiling. There was a second bathroom at the far end of the bedroom and the door was shut. Funny, last time he was in here the door was open.
He heard a sound from the bathroom. The water turned on and off. Somebody from the forensic team was still in the apartment. D’Agosta strode over, grasped the door handle, found it locked.
“Hey, you in there! What the hell you think you’re doing?”
“Just a moment,” came the muffled voice.
D’Agosta’s surprise turned to outrage. The idiot was using the bathroom. In a sealed crime scene. Un-frigging-believable.
“Open the door, pal. Now.”
The door popped open—and there stood Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast, rack of test tubes in one hand, tweezers in the other, a jeweler’s loupe on a headband.
“Vincent,” came the familiar buttery voice. “I’m so sorry we have to meet again under such unhappy circumstances.”
D’Agosta stared. “Pendergast—I had no idea you were back in town.”
Pendergast deftly pocketed the tweezers, slid the rack of tubes into a Gladstone doctor’s bag, followed by the loupe. “The killer wasn’t in here, or the bedroom. A rather obvious deduction, but I wanted to make sure.”
“Is this now an FBI matter?” D’Agosta asked, following Pendergast as the agent moved through the bedroom into the living room.
“Not exactly.”
“So you’re freelancing again?”
“You might say that. I would appreciate it if we kept my involvement to yourself for the moment.” He turned. “Your take, Vincent?”
D’Agosta went through his reconstruction of the crime while Pendergast nodded in approval. “Not that it makes much difference,” D’Agosta summed up. “We already know who the dirtbag is. We just have to find him.”
Pendergast gave a quizzical rise to his eyebrows.
“He lives in the building. We got two eyewitnesses who saw the killer enter, and two who saw him leave, all covered with blood, clutching the knife. He attacked Nora Kelly on the way out of the apartment—tried to attack, I should say, but the fight had attracted neighbors and he ran away. They got a good look at him, the neighbors I mean. Nora’s in the hospital now—minor concussion, but should be all right. Considering.”
Another faint incline of the head.
“He’s a creep named Fearing. Colin Fearing. Out-of-work British actor. Apartment two fourteen. He’d hassled Nora once or twice in the lobby. Looks to me like a rape gone bad. He probably hoped he’d find Nora home alone, got Smithback instead. Chances are he lifted the key from the super’s key locker. I’ve got a man checking on that.”
This time there was no confirming nod. Just the usual inscrutable look in those deep, silvery eyes.
“Anyway, it’s an open-and-shut case,” D’Agosta said, starting to feel defensive for some unknown reason. “Wasn’t just Nora’s ID. We got him on the building’s security tapes, too, an Oscar performance. Coming in and going out. On the way out we got a full-frontal shot, knife in hand, covered with blood, dragging his sorry ass through the lobby, threatening the doorman before splitting. Gonna look beautiful in front of a jury. This is one bastard who is going down.”
“Open and shut, you say?”
D’Agosta felt another twinge at the doubtful note in Pendergast’s voice. “Yeah,” he said firmly. “Open and shut.” He checked his watch. “They’re holding the doorman downstairs, waiting for me. He’s going to be a star witness, a reliable, solid family man—knew the perp for years. Want to ask him any questions before we send him home?”
“Delighted to. But before we go downstairs…” The agent’s voice trailed off. A pair of spidery white fingers reached into the breast pocket of his black suit and withdrew a folded document. With a flourish of his wrist, he proffered it to D’Agosta.
“What’s this?” D’Agosta took it and unfolded it, taking in the red notary stamp, the Great Seal of New York, the elegant engraving, the signatures.
“It is Colin Fearing’s death certificate. Signed and dated ten days ago.”
3
D’Agosta entered the security nook of 666 West End Avenue, followed by the spectral figure of Pendergast. The doorman, a plump gentleman from the Dominican Republic named Enrico Mosquea, sat on a metal stool, hammy legs spread. He sported a pencil mustache and a marcel wave. The man sprang to his feet with surprising nimbleness a
s they came in.
“You find this son bitch,” he said passionately. “You find him. Smithback, he was a good man. I tell you—”
D’Agosta gently laid a hand on the man’s neat brown uniform. “This is Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI. He’s going to help us out.”
His eyes took in Pendergast. “Good. Very good.”
D’Agosta took a deep breath. He hadn’t quite absorbed the ramifications of the document Pendergast showed him. Maybe they were dealing with a twin. Maybe there were two Colin Fearings. New York was a big city, and half the Brits in town seemed to be named Colin. Or maybe the M.E.’s office had made a hideous mistake.
“I know you’ve already answered a lot of questions, Mr. Mosquea,” D’Agosta went on, “but Agent Pendergast has a few more.”
“No trouble. I answer questions ten times over, twenty times, if it help get this son bitch.”
D’Agosta pulled out a notebook. What he really wanted was for Pendergast to hear what the man had to say. He was a very credible witness.
Pendergast spoke softly. “Mr. Mosquea, describe what you saw. From the beginning.”
“This man, Fearing, he arrive when I was putting someone in a cab. I saw him come in. He didn’t look too good, like he been in a fight. Face swollen, black eye maybe. Skin a funny color, too pale. He’s walking kind of funny, too. Slow.”
“When was the last time you saw him—before this?”
“Maybe two weeks. I think he been away.”
“Go on.”
“So he walk past me and into the elevator. A little later, Ms. Kelly come back to the building. Maybe five minutes pass. Then he is coming back out. Unbelievable. He all covered with blood, holding knife, lurching along like he been hurt.” Mosquea paused for a moment. “I try to grab him, but he swing at me with knife, then turn and run. I call police.”
Pendergast slid an ivory hand across his chin. “I imagine when you were putting the person in the cab—when he came in—you got a fleeting glimpse of him.”
“I get good, long look. Not fleeting. Like I said, he was walking slow.”
“You said his face was swollen? Could it have been someone else?”
“Fearing live here six years. I open door for that son bitch three, four times a day.”
Pendergast paused. “And then, when he came back out, his face was covered with blood, I imagine.”
“Not face. No blood on face, or maybe just a little. Blood all over hands, clothes. Knife.”
Pendergast was silent for a moment, and then said, “What if I were to tell you that Colin Fearing’s body was found in the Harlem River ten days ago?”
Mosquea’s eyes narrowed. “Then I say you wrong!”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Mosquea. Identified, autopsied, everything.”
The man drew himself up to his full five foot three inches, his voice assuming a grave dignity. “If you don’t believe, I ask you: look at the tape. The man on that tape is Colin Fearing.” He stopped, giving Pendergast a challenging stare. “I don’t care about any body in river. The murderer is Colin Fearing. I know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mosquea,” said Pendergast.
D’Agosta cleared his throat. “If we need to speak to you again, I’ll let you know.”
The man nodded, keeping a suspicious eye on Pendergast. “The killer is Colin Fearing. You find that son bitch.”
They stepped out into the street, the crisp October air refreshing after the sickening confines of the apartment. Pendergast gestured toward a ’59 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith idling at the curb, and D’Agosta could see the stolid outline of Proctor, Pendergast’s chauffeur, in the driver’s seat. “Care to take a ride uptown?”
“Might as well. It’s already half past three, I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”
D’Agosta climbed into the leather-fragrant confines, Pendergast slipping in beside him. “Let’s have a look at the security tape.” The agent pressed a button in the armrest, and an LCD screen swung down from the ceiling.
D’Agosta removed a DVD from his briefcase. “Here’s a copy. The original already went down to headquarters.”
Pendergast slid it into the drive. A moment later, the lobby of 666 West End sprang into wide-angle view on the screen, the fisheye lens covering the area from the elevator to the front door. A time stamp in the corner ran off the seconds. D’Agosta watched—for perhaps the tenth time—as the doorman went outside with one of the tenants, where he presumably flagged down a cab. As he was outside, a figure came pushing in through the doors. There was something ineffably chilling about the way he walked—strangely shambling, almost rudderless, heavy-footed, with no trace of hurry. He glanced up once at the camera, his eyes glazed, seemingly sightless. He was wearing a bizarre outfit, a gaudy, sequined garment over his shirt, multicolored designs on a field of red, with curlicues, hearts, and rattle-shaped bones. His face was bloated, misshapen.
Pendergast fast-forwarded it until a new person entered the camera’s field of view: Nora Kelly, carrying a cake box. She walked to the elevator, disappearing again. Another fast-forward, and then Fearing lurched out of the elevator, suddenly wild. His outfit was now torn and smeared with blood, the right hand clutching a massive, ten-inch scuba knife. The doorman came forward, tried to grab him; Fearing slashed at him instead and shambled through the double doors, disappearing into the night.
“The bastard,” D’Agosta said. “I’d like to rip his nuts off and feed them back to him on toast.”
He glanced at Pendergast. The agent appeared to be deep in thought.
“You have to admit, the tape is pretty damn clear. You sure the body in the Harlem River was Fearing?”
“His sister identified the corpse. There were a couple of birth-marks, tattoos, that confirmed it. The M.E. who handled the case is reliable, if a bit difficult.”
“How’d he die?”
“Suicide.”
D’Agosta grunted. “No other family?”
“The mother is non compos mentis, in a nursing home. No one else.”
“And the sister?”
“She went back to England after identifying the body.” He fell silent, and then D’Agosta heard him murmur, sotto voce: “Curious, very curious.”
“What?”
“My dear Vincent, in an already puzzling case, there is one thing about that tape that strikes me as especially baffling. Did you notice what he does when he enters the lobby for the first time, on his way in?”
“Yeah, what?”
“He glances up at the camera.”
“He knew it was there. He lived in the building.”
“Precisely.” And the FBI agent lapsed once more into contemplative silence.
4
Caitlyn Kidd sat in the driver’s seat of her RAV4, balancing a breakfast sandwich from Subway in one hand and a large black coffee in the other. Her nose was buried in the issue of Vanity Fair that lay propped against the steering wheel. Outside, the morning rush-hour traffic on West 79th Street hooted and blared in an uncomfortable ostinato.
A police radio set into the dashboard crackled to life, and Caitlyn glanced down at it immediately.
“… Headquarters to 2527, respond to a 10-50 at corner of One Eighteenth and Third…”
As quickly as it had flared up, her interest vanished again. She took another bite of her sandwich, flipped the pages of the magazine with a free fingertip.
As a reporter covering Manhattan’s crime beat, Caitlyn found herself spending a lot of her time hanging out in her car. Crimes often occurred in out-of-the-way corners of the island, and if you knew your way around, your own car beat the hell out of riding the subway or hailing a cab. It was a business where the scoop was everything, where minutes counted. And the police-band radio helped make sure she stayed on top of the most interesting stories. One big scoop—that’s what she was hoping for. One really big scoop.
On the passenger seat, her cell phone blared. She picked it up and snugged it between chin and shoulder, p
erforming a complex three-way juggle involving sandwich, phone, and coffee. “Kidd.”
“Caitlyn. Where are you?”
She recognized the voice: Larry Bassington, an obituary writer with the West Sider, the daily throwaway tabloid where they both worked. He was always hitting on her. She’d agreed to let him buy her lunch, mostly because money was short and payday wasn’t until the end of the week.
“In the field,” said Kidd.
“This early?”
“I get my best calls around dawn. That’s when they find the stiffs.”
“I don’t know why you bother—the West Sider ain’t exactly the Daily News. Hey, don’t forget—”
“Hold a sec.” Once again, Kidd turned her attention to the police radio.
“… Headquarters to 3133, reports of a 10-53 at 1579 Broadway, please respond.”
“3133 to Headquarters, 10-4…”
She tuned it out, went back to the phone. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“I was saying, don’t forget about our date.”
“It’s not a date. It’s lunch.”
“Allow me my dreams, okay? Where do you want to go?”
“You’re buying, you tell me.”
A pause. “How about that Vietnamese place on Thirty-second?”
“Um, no thanks. Ate there yesterday, regretted it all afternoon.”
“Okay, what about Alfredo’s?”
But once again, Kidd was listening to the police radio.
“… Dispatch, dispatch, this is 7477, on that 10-29 homicide, note that victim Smithback, William, is at present en route M.E.’s office for processing. Supervisor leaving the scene.”
“10-4, 7477…”
She almost dropped her coffee. “Holy shit! Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“It just came over the car-to-car channel. There’s been a murder. And I know the victim—Bill Smithback. He’s that guy who writes for the Times—I met him at that journalism conference at Columbia last month.”
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