by Judith Gould
“I’m sure, Anouk,” Lydia said somewhat wearily.
“You are a dear, Lydia. Monday, then? Same time?”
“Monday is fine.”
“Good. I’ll see you tonight, anyway. Ciao, darling!”
The phone calls out of the way, Anouk got busy with her makeup. She combed her hair back into a chignon, studded it with diamond-headed pins, and rubbed her face with collagen lotion. She brushed translucent pink-tinted loose powder over it and made her cheeks a pink-toned mauve. Brushed her eyebrows. Applied under-eye lightener. Used a plum eyeliner pencil. Finally, with an oversize brush, she “finished” her face with more of the loose powder and put on berry-bright lipstick and clear moist gloss.
She worked quickly and expertly, and within twenty minutes she was finished. Her face was a palette, and glowed like a painting. Her emphasized eyes challenged, her lips promised. She was a dazzling, brilliant, glossy woman—one in a million. She was Manhattan chic at its finest.
Moving her head this way and that, she inspected her reflection closely. Perfect.
Finally she got up and began to dress.
To kill, naturally. What other way was there?
Chapter 9
The portable light and siren of the dark blue sedan flashed and wailed as Detectives Koscina and Toledo screeched to a halt. In front of them, three hastily parked blue-and-whites, turret lights still whirling and spurts of radio talk still crackling, already blocked the one-way street. The station wagon from forensics was backed up on the sidewalk, and uniformed police officers had cordoned off the immediate area in front of the town house with lengths of yellow crime-scene tape to keep back curious onlookers, dog walkers, and members of the press.
“Shit detail,” Koscina murmured to his partner, and sighed. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”
Toledo, who had been driving, nodded absently and slid out from behind the wheel. They both looked up and down the affluent tree-lined block of town houses. The kind of street, just off Fifth, that gave an illusion of small-town peace.
“Hey, Fred! Whatcha got?” a reporter from the Daily News called out as Koscina and Toledo approached the building.
“No comment, Bernie, no comment,” Koscina called back lazily, ducking under the crime-scene ribbon and ignoring the reporter.
Detective First Grade Fred Koscina had put in twenty-one years on the force, the first eight spent walking a beat. NYPD blood ran in his veins. His father had been a New York City cop, and the Koscinas of the Lower East Side just like the Koscinas of Zagreb, Yugoslavia, were a fearless, methodical, and old-fashioned lot. Too old-fashioned to let pimps, prostitutes, thieves, rapists, and murderers get the better of them.
In his first eight years, Fred Koscina’s old-fashioned police methods had brought him infamy and respect—depending upon whether you were the general public or a fellow cop. He was known to shoot first and ask questions later—a talent that two of his partners, long since resting six feet under, hadn’t mastered.
The police commissioner had eventually kicked him upstairs into the envied ranks of the homicide detectives, figuring that sleuthing would keep the young Koscina off the streets and away from anymore OK Corral shoot-outs.
Koscina took his promotion seriously: he excelled as a detective. But a beauty he wasn’t.
Koscina used to be hard and chunky, but he was now going to mashed potatoes. His hair was a stiff white flat-top brush. A hearty appetite and a Yugoslav thirst for slivovitz left their mark in burst capillaries on his W.C. Fields schnoz and his meaty cheeks. His pale blue eyes, under the sharp angles of his bristly white brows, always glared accusingly out at the world.
Other than his wife, he had only one friend who genuinely liked and trusted him. That was his partner.
She was a thirty-four-year-old Hispanic who could have been cute, but fought it every inch of the way: her black hair was cropped to within an inch of its roots, her shiny dark eyes were cold and fiercely challenging, and even her button of a nose didn’t help. A perpetual scowl hid very white, very perfect Chiclet teeth.
She stood five feet, seven inches tall, weighed one hundred and thirty pounds, and was built like a steel whip; she had the wiry muscles of a female weight lifter and the bull-dyke stance of a trucker.
But looks can deceive. She had been happily married for eleven years, had five children, and was, to those most likely to know, a perfect mother and a perfect wife.
Her name was Detective Sergeant Carmen Toledo.
In the four years they had been partners, Detectives Koscina and Toledo had solved more murder cases than any other eight NYPD detectives.
Now, at 11:03 A.M. on December 14, the two of them hurried indoors, the collars of their coats turned up.
“Upstairs,” a rookie told them as they flashed their leather shield cases at the front door. “Third floor.”
Koscina stomped heavily up the stairs, Toledo right behind him.
On the third floor, an NYPD locksmith was installing a police lock above the other locks on the door of apartment 3B. Directly across the hall, a neighbor’s door was open as far as the safety chain would allow, and a curious ancient lady holding a tiny hairless dog peered out.
Koscina brushed his way past the locksmith, Toledo staying close behind.
The living room was twenty feet by twelve, with a kitchen counter across one end and two windows with matchstick blinds at the other. One wall was exposed brick, with a Victorian white marble mantel. A giant round paper lantern hung from the center of the ceiling. Soft modular furniture in pastel colors made a seating group around a Navajo rug and an oak-and-glass coffee table. Four bentwood chairs surrounded a round oak dining table. A blue parakeet fluttered in a suspended cage. Piles of clothing, sorted as though for the laundry, were heaped in the corners. Large glossy photographs, obviously pouty model shots, stared down from the walls.
It was a nice place. Homey and comfortable. A refuge from the mean city.
But the city had intruded.
The crime-scene crew, all wearing plastic gloves, was busy searching for physical evidence and dusting for prints. Hair, skin, blood samples, the contents of an ashtray, and two highball glasses had already been slid into labeled glassine evidence bags.
Shouldering their way past the men, Koscina and Toledo went down a narrow hall and into the bedroom.
They both recoiled.
“Holy Jesus!” Toledo gulped. “Aw, shit—” Clapping a hand over her mouth, she staggered around to find the bathroom and spent the next two minutes hunched over the toilet. Even Koscina, long inured to corpses, felt himself breaking out in a cold sweat. His stomach lurched.
A naked woman was sprawled across the blood-encrusted sheets, arms and legs painfully splayed in the contortions of a hideous death. She had no face. No nose. No eyes. From the neck up, she’d been unrecognizably slashed—like a carcass of bloody meat.
This does it, Koscina promised himself. From now on it’s vegetarian the whole way. Can’t stomach the sight of red meat. Not after this.
“Her hair—” His mouth gaped open.
Christ! And he thought he’d seen everything.
The girl had been scalped clean.
“Scalp’s entirely gone,” Joe Rocchi, one of the crime-scene men, agreed. “Every last hair. Joker cut it clean off and must’ve taken it with ‘im, skin and all. Think there’s a homicidal hairdresser on the loose?”
“What we got on her?” Koscina snapped crisply, tearing his eyes away from the slaughter and fighting the bile rising in his throat.
“Vienna Farrow,” Joe Rocchi said. “At least, that’s the name she went by. Model.” He poked a thumb at the framed photographs that lined the bedroom wall. “Sure was a looker, huh?”
Koscina glanced around and nodded. Vienna Farrow had been stunning, to say the very least. A blend of Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, and Paulina Porizkova. All ash-blond hair, flawless skin, and smooth features.
Koscina frowned. “She looks famil
iar. Should I know her?”
“Sure you should,” Rocchi replied. “She’s a cover girl. On this month’s Vogue.”
Koscina grinned humorlessly. “What, you into fashion now?”
“Naw. There’s a new stack of slicks on the bedside table. Next month’s.” Rocchi pointed his thumb at the nightstand.
“Finished dusting these?” Koscina raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
Koscina picked up the top copy and stared at the cover. It was typical Vogue, courtesy of Richard Avedon. God, but the woman was unconscionably beautiful. She had a squarish jaw, angled by blusher-touched cheeks. Gray-blue eyes tinged with color—pistachio and coffee bean, or however makeup was named these days. Perfect brows: on the heavy side, definitely not plucked. Hair casual and “undone”—imperfect and falling to one side. Moist full lips just slightly pinker than natural. Long shocking-pink plastic dangle earrings.
Vienna Farrow. Beauty. Model. Ravaged dead meat.
Toledo came back from the bathroom, her normally olive complexion now pasty and pale. She gestured at the body. “Christ, boss. What kind of monster would do something like that? Je-sus.”
“A beast,” Koscina growled. “Beauty here met the Beast.” He turned to a tall black man with black-and-gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses, who was taking scrapings from under the woman’s fingernails. “Hey, Braswell. What kind of weapon was used?”
LaRue Braswell glanced up and shrugged. “Too soon to tell, Fred. Some kind of knife, I’d say.”
“Rape?”
“Either that, or she voluntarily took him to bed.”
“Sure it was a him?”
“Autopsy’ll tell, but from the crust on her pubic hair, yeah.” Braswell nodded. “Yeah, I’d lay bets it’s semen.”
Koscina turned to another officer. “Sign of forced entry?”
“Nah. Downstairs door’s always locked, and the buzzers all work. We checked. Looks like she let whoever it was in. Maybe even brought him home.”
“Who found her?”
“We did. Her agency called 911—some outfit called Olympia Models. They’re over on Sixty-fifth, just off Madison. She didn’t show up for yesterday’s shoots, and this morning they started gettin’ worried. Two of our guys got hold of the super. He unlocked for them, and they found her in here.”
“I want the super’s story checked out. And the neighbors’. They hear anything?”
“We’re starting to canvas them now.”
“When d’ya think it happened?”
“Night before last. Early morning.” Braswell shrugged. “Sometime between midnight and six, I’d guess.”
“Shit. Must’ve been thirty, thirty-six hours ago!”
“Yeah,” the man from forensics commiserated. “I know.”
Koscina sighed and pinched the bridge of his bulbous nose. Nearly a day and a half had already gone by since the killing. In homicides, the first forty-eight hours were always the most crucial. After that, with every passing hour the chances of finding the killer were that much more remote. Another twelve hours—eighteen at the most— and those precious first forty-eight hours would be gone.
“The newspapers are going to have a field day,” Toledo mumbled unhappily.
“Tell me about it,” Koscina growled.
Carmen Toledo shook her head. “You know,” she said slowly, taking the Vogue from Koscina and staring at it, “whoever did this is a real sickie. I mean, no ordinary murderer would try to make such a pretty woman so ugly.” She gave her partner a haunted look. “It’s like he hated her beauty.”
“Yeah,” said Koscina grimly, shutting his eyes against the monstrous sight. “Or else he gets off on having a natural wig.”
Chapter 10
Le Cirque.
Lunch time.
The double-parked limousines started at the first elegantly rounded canopy of the restaurant and stretched halfway down the block like a sleek chrome-festooned train. A Women’s Wear Daily photographer skulked outside the entrance, camera in one hand, lit cigarette in the other.
“How do I look, darling?” Anouk de Riscal demanded of Dafydd Cumberland as her chauffeur helped her out of her midnight-blue Phantom V. As usual, she was coatless. Her Russian Barguzyne sable stayed in the Rolls. “My coat check on wheels,” she called it.
“Scrumptious,” Dafydd replied in his rich baritone. “If I were straight, I’d eat you.”
“Darling, if you were straight,” she retorted out of the side of her mouth as she posed briefly on the sidewalk for the WWD photographer, “I would head for the hills.”
“And if you were straight, Nookie my dear, I would likewise.”
They both laughed merrily, enjoying each other’s wicked repartee.
“Brrr . . . it’s cold.” Anouk shivered, hooked an arm through his, and huddled close. “Let’s hurry inside and knock them dead.”
“As only you can, my dear.”
She grinned with pleasure, unhooked her arm from his, and swept into Le Cirque as casually as if it were her corner watering hole, which, in fact, it was.
If anyone knew how to make an entrance, it was Anouk de Riscal. She had style, plus a killer instinct for being the center of attention, and, thanks to her fashion-designer husband, she had headed all the best-dressed lists for five years in a row.
Her entrance had the desired effect. Heads swiveled. Female envy rolled at her in spiteful waves.
Anouk reveled in every malevolent vibe.
“Madame de Riscal!” the famed restaurateur greeted her effusively. “How beautiful you look!”
But even without his compliment, she knew she did. Her nubby black wool Antonio de Riscal suit (“Special Label”) was one of a kind, and she’d warned Antonio what would happen to him if he made another like it for anyone else. The skirt had a high, tucked toreador waist, and the short, capelike matching jacket was offset by a canary-yellow silk blouse printed with magenta cabbage roses. For accessories there were the long black leather gloves, black seamed stockings and, instead of jewelry, a silk-rose-and-pearl corsage and matching earrings.
A huge-brimmed black hat and black custom-made patent leather pumps completed the outfit. The hat would remain on indoors— why else wear it?
She was without doubt the most elegant woman in a restaurant full of women who devoted their lives to their looks.
Dafydd touched her elbow as they were led to Anouk’s usual table. It was a very short walk, since it was at the front by one of the two big curtained windows.
Naturally, it was one of the two best tables in the house.
Anouk’s sharp eyes swept the dining room as she slid into the banquette under the towering arrangement of lilies that dropped extravagantly over her from behind. Her gaze panned past the sweat-beaded ice buckets and waiters holding out bottles of wine and champagne for approval, past the familiar bright dazzle of the wall sconces, fashioned like extravagant branches of tulips, and rested momentarily on the panel paintings of French court scenes set into the walls. Singerie, they were called in French, which loosely translated into “monkery,” an appropriate name. For in each, painted man-monkeys were camping it up, dressed as amusing eighteenth-century French courtiers wooing bewigged, begowned woman-monkeys.
The irony was not lost on Anouk. The diners sitting on the mouse-colored banquettes and on the chairs covered in old-rose velvet were the twentieth-century equivalents of the French aristocrats who had rattled in tumbrels on their way to the guillotine.
She noted, as she did wherever she went, the hand-sewn suits covering aging male bodies long past their prime, and the ageless women who kept time at bay through every conceivable method under the sun and who forever dressed in the very most expensive clothing and jewelry sold, changing for breakfast, lunch, cocktails, and dinner.
Snatches of conversation prickled and then receded from her ears.
“—Just imagine, first her mother stole her lover, and then she ran off with him and they got married!”
“—Why, I remember that little filly from way back when!” A Texas oilman guffawed. “She could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch!”
“—So I asked the pretentious asshole: is ‘majordomo’ New Jerseyian for ‘butler’?”
“—They just got a new Lear jet. Do you think they’ll actually do it at twenty thousand feet?”
“—Oh, he’ll tire of the frigging yacht in six months’ time, and then I’ll turn it into a frigging casino!”
Anouk had to smile. Some things never changed. She was certain that if she walked out now and returned a year later, she could pick up the conversations where they’d left off. The snippets of gossip and business were always the same. Only the characters sometimes changed.
Anouk drew her gaze back in. “Darling, do you see Doris Bucklin anywhere?” she asked Dafydd casually.
“Doris?” He was taken aback. “You mean that dreary pickle-livered puffball? Is she why we had to come here?”
“I will have my one glass of champagne,” Anouk told the waiter sweetly, then answered Dafydd with a little sigh. “I’m afraid so, darling,” she said, stripping off her gloves without once looking down at her hands. “You see, I never did receive an RSVP from her for my dinner tonight.”
“That, my dear Nookie, is because you didn’t send her an invitation.”
“Evil man.” His observation earned him a ripple of laughter. And a sharklike grin. “You are as astute as always. That’s why I love you so much, darling.”
He glanced up at the waiter. “A Scotch for me. Neat.”
“A heavy-duty drink at this early hour?” Anouk lifted her exquisitely plucked eyebrows. “My, my.”
“Something tells me I shall be needing it, my dear.” He was systematically sweep-searching the sea of faces. “Ah!” he said at last. “I think I see your Park Avenue princess.”
“Where?” Anouk turned her head, but slowly, so as not to be obvious.
“I can just barely see her—in Siberia with . . . well, well, well. It must be for security purposes, or else they’d have this banquette.”
“Well, who is she with?” Anouk’s neck was craned.