by Mark McNease
Chapter 33
The Katherine Pride Gallery
Corky was sitting behind the front desk when Kyle and Linda hurried into the gallery. It was nearly two o’clock and there was only one person there, a woman looking intently at one of the collages in the open showroom as if she were meditating upon it. Customers were sparse even on a busy day, it was just the nature of the beast. The survival of a gallery like Kate Pride’s depended on a slow but steady stream of sales, not volume, and certainly not discounts. People who bought the artists on exhibit here were getting the best discount they could hope for, although it came with a gamble: someday, the sooner the better, the artists whose work they purchased would be further up the fame ladder, going from unknown to heard-of to must-have, at which point the painting or the photograph they bought for $1500 would be worth many times that. It didn’t always work that way and there were just as many artists whose art depreciated as there were whose works tripled in value, but that’s the way it went. No risk, no gain, and Kate Pride had founded her gallery on risk.
Corky looked up, surprised to see Kyle and the lady cop. He put his copy of Architectural Digest on the counter. Fantasizing living in homes he would never set foot in was one of his favorite time killers.
“Is Kate here?” Kyle asked, clearly agitated.
“No, she went out. Isn’t it bad luck or something for you to be here before the opening?”
“That’s weddings, or something, and no, it’s not bad luck. Do you know where she went?”
“She’ll be back in an hour,” Corky said. One of his boss’s rules was to never tell anyone where she was, unless she had an appointment with them. She thought the world had become entirely too invasive, with smartphones tracking you everywhere and Google Maps vans driving around videotaping every street corner. It gave her the creeps, and she didn’t want anyone knowing her whereabouts who she hadn’t told herself.
“This is important, Corky,” Kyle said. He had not made any attempt over the previous weeks to befriend the young man and now regretted it.
“I’m sure it is, but ...”
“It’s a police matter,” Linda interrupted. She’d noticed earlier the deference Corky paid to authority. “We think she’s being followed and there’s really no time to waste.”
“Let me call her.”
“I’ve been doing that for the last fifteen minutes, Corky.” Kyle tried his hardest not to let his irritation show. “She’s not answering.”
By then Corky had already grabbed his desk phone and dialed Kate’s cell number. He held a finger up to tell them to wait just a moment; Kyle imagined bending it backward and breaking it. Corky frowned and held the receiver away from his ear, letting them hear the sound of Kate’s recorded voice asking the caller to leave a message.
“She’s with Stuart, her husband,” Corky said, slapping the phone down. “How much safer could she be?”
Kyle and Linda looked at each other. If she was with Stuart, all should be fine, at least for now. It would buy them precious time.
“He’s showing an apartment to one of Javier Velasco’s friends.”
Kyle stopped cold. “Javier Velasco?”
“Yes. He’s in town. She got a text from Stuart just awhile ago, this Velasco guy met them at the condo and Stuart asked her to come by. He probably thinks it will seal the deal, he’s all about selling his apartments.”
“Where is this condo?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t know. She didn’t give me an address.”
“Call his office and find out,” Kyle said. “Please, Corky. Now.”
Corky picked the phone up and began to dial Stuart Pride’s real estate office.
Linda leaned in, impressing on Corky the urgency of the moment. “And once we have the address, we need you to call the police and have them meet us there.”
“Does this have something to do with ...” Corky said, his voice trailing off. “Oh my God.”
His hands were shaking as he grabbed a notepad and pen, waiting for an answer at the realtor’s office.
“Janet?” he said. “This is Corky at the gallery, I need to know where Stuart is. The condo he’s showing. I know it’s not on his calendar! Just give me the address, please, this is official police business.”
Kyle turned to Linda. “Get us a taxi. Tell him I’ll be right out.”
Linda hurried out of the gallery as Corky began to write furiously. As soon as the address and apartment number were on the notepad, Kyle reached over, grabbed the top sheet and ran for the door.
Chapter 34
Twelve Floors Above SoHo
Kate Pride had lived in New York City for twenty-five years and never feared for her life until this moment. Manhattan had remained for her a place of dreams, the Emerald City far in the distance, but not so far she couldn’t get there if she tried hard enough and believed in her own potential. Some would call her life charmed; she had not, upon reflection, experienced much difficulty here, no real obstacles to her ambitions. She’d set the trajectory for her life early and mostly just held on for the ride, picking up Stuart along the way, her years learning from the best in the business, her gallery that had never really struggled, and here it all was coming to a sudden and terrifying end.
Stuart was secured to his chair on the terrace with duct tape Kieran had bought on the way from the Hotel Exeter. Along with a spindle of clothes line rope, the purchase had left him with $75 and change to his name; even a bus wouldn’t get him far for that, but he had stopped worrying much about his future plans when he left Javier Velsaco’s body in an Argentine landfill. Kieran, too, had led a charmed life, at least the last two months of it. The killings had been easy; he’d not taken great precautions, just covered his face and kept his presence unknown to most but his victims, yet here he was, twelve floors above SoHo, on a terrace with a spectacular view that could not be viewed – in New York City, of all places! – and no authorities were coming. No police hot on his trail. He was as much a phantom as a man can be, come back to haunt the ones who whispered. Call it lucky, call it charmed, everything had finally gone his way, and he felt great.
Kate had arrived thinking she was meeting Stuart, Javier and a friend of his looking to buy an expensive apartment. Roscoe the doorman had let her pass without even calling up. Stuart was one of three real estate agents authorized to sell in the building, and Roscoe had seen him come and go dozens of times; there was no reason to bother using the intercom, so he let Kate breeze by and take the elevator to the twelfth floor. He was calmly going through deliveries from the dry cleaners, logging them into the building’s online system, while Kate was being bound to a chair next to her husband.
When she got to the apartment the door was open a crack, and Kate should have hesitated then. Stuart was meticulous about these things and never left apartment doors open, even in buildings as secure as this one. She knocked and called out. “Stuart? Are you there?” At first there was no response, and she checked her text message to make sure she had the right address. Stuart brokered a half dozen buildings in this area, there could be a mix up.
“We’re on the terrace,” a strange man’s voice said. It was her second missed opportunity to back away. Why would a stranger answer when she called out her Stuart’s name?
Remaining outside in the hall, she said, “Is Stuart there? Am I at the right apartment?”
Kieran opened the door, startling her. “Yes, yes, you must be Kate Pride. Stuart and Javier are on the terrace, it’s an amazing view. Come in, please.”
Kate still felt something was off, but the man seemed nice enough, and his voice was gentle, his smile sincere. There was also something familiar about him. She entered the apartment, distracted by the sheer size and comfort of it. Just as Kieran closed the door behind her, she remembered with a sudden shock where she’d met him and who he was. She had tried to describe him just an hour ago to that woman detective, tugging at her memories to remember what he looked like. And now she knew.
; By then Kieran had placed himself between Kate and any hope of escape.
“How do you not fear for your life riding taxis in this city?”
Linda was completely sincere in her question. This was the third time in two days she had ridden in a cab and each time had been a thrill of the worst kind. “Please put your seatbelt on,” she added. “I haven’t known you long enough to lose you to a traffic accident.”
Kyle was leaning up against the partition, staring at the street ahead as if he could magically make them go faster. The taxi was already speeding, veering from lane to lane as it barreled toward SoHo. Kyle had offered the driver an extra $20 to get them there in ten minutes.
“Relax,” he said. “New York City streets are among the safest in the world. Very few people die in traffic here.”
Linda found that hard to believe. She’d observed since arriving that walk lights had no meaning here. People swarmed along this way and that, paying no mind whatsoever to traffic lights. It seemed like orchestrated chaos, with cars hurtling through lights and pedestrians walking between them, somehow gauging the distance available and the time it would take them to cross in front of the cars without being hit. It was almost mystical, but unnerving, and she wanted no part of it. She had dutifully waited for a ‘walk’ light at every corner she’d been on. As for taxis, the sooner she was out of this one the better, and she planned to familiarize herself with the subway system and buses on any future visits.
Kyle had called and texted Kate twice to no avail since they got into the cab. He had also called Corky to make sure he’d notified the police. Corky assured him they were on the way, but that he’d had a hard time explaining the emergency to them. “Someone could get killed” struck the 911 dispatcher as vague and overly dramatic. Corky spent five minute convincing her it wasn’t a prank. The best the dispatcher would do is promise him she would send a cruiser to check it out.
“Here!” Kyle shouted. “First building on the left, that’s it.”
The taxi swerved to the curb, nearly hitting an elderly woman walking an equally elderly Jack Russell Terrier. Once again Linda was awed by the symphony of anarchy, as the old woman didn’t so much as glance at the cab that nearly took her life. She tugged on the dog’s leash and walked down the sidewalk.
Kyle grabbed two twenties from his wallet and handed them to the driver, a man of Middle Eastern descent and demeanor who had whispered illegally into a headset all the time he was driving. No acknowledgment had been made of his passengers other than to agree to the extra $20. He had gotten them to their destination with a minute to spare.
Linda and Kyle hurried into the building. Roscoe stepped from behind the front desk to stop them when he saw them rushing in. “Excuse me, are you here to see someone?”
“Kate Pride,” Kyle said. “She’s here with her husband, showing an apartment.”
“I’ll have to call up,” Roscoe said.
“There’s no time.”
“I can’t let you go. Just a moment, please.”
Roscoe walked back behind the desk and picked up the phone. Kyle and Linda could hear it ringing as Roscoe held it out from his ear. “That’s odd, there’s no answer.”
“Please,” Kyle said. “There’s no time.”
“Maybe they’re on the terrace,” Roscoe continued. “I can try calling back in a few minutes.”
Linda pulled out her New Hope detective’s badge for the second time. “This is a police matter, we really don’t have time.”
Roscoe nodded, of course, please, go right ahead.
“We need the keys,” Kyle said, knowing every doorman kept keys to the empty apartments. Roscoe hesitated again. It was in his training to be cautious, to not assume anything was as it seemed. The city was too full of scammers and con artists, you had to be vigilant.
“Now!” Linda shouted, shocking the doorman into action. He could lose his job for this, or be a hero. He said a quick prayer and fumbled in the closet for the keys to 12D.
Kate had never imagined her life ending on the terrace of an apartment in SoHo, in full view of anyone who had been able to see them, but no one was. The terrace was on the top floor facing south, and no other building overlooked it, nor were any close enough for people in the windows to see without using binoculars. It was the perfect terrace to kill someone on, and Kieran thanked Stuart for providing such an outstanding location. Stuart only looked at him in terror, his mouth sealed with the same duct tape that bound his hands and feet to the chair. His wife, the love and center of his life, was equally helpless, confined to a chair just a few feet from him. They could only stare at each other, attempting to communicate with their eyes as they wavered between fear and hope, determination to survive and unspeakable grief at the certainty they would not.
Kieran snapped another photograph of the couple with his camera. He’d been waiting to use it, and regretted not thinking to buy it before. He would have loved to make a slideshow of photos from the hotel rooms in Buenos Aires and Philadelphia, the landfill and the rain-soaked sidewalk in Brooklyn. Oh well, he told himself, you can’t have everything.
“I know you were one of the whisperers,” Kieran said to Kate, leaning in and snapping a close up of her terrified face as she shook her head, denying any part in his crazed ideas. “I even think you started it.”
She shook her head again. She knew the man was insane, and she knew he was capable of killing because he already had. She needed to convince him of her innocence.
“Oh, yes, Katherine, you’re the queen bee, it’s your gallery. I saw you. You and Javier, Richard Morninglight, Devin and that Shiree woman. Talking and whispering, laughing and whispering. I watched you closing night at the restaurant celebrating. I wasn’t invited. Did you know that?”
She remembered then: a congratulatory dinner with the people he’d named. The other artists didn’t join them. It wasn’t planned, just an impromptu meal at Trattoria Del Amo. They’d walked there the night of the New Visions closing to celebrate their success and toast their futures.
Kieran saw that Kate remembered, and he smiled. “Now it comes back. You and the others. Talking about your triumph. Telling Javier he would be better off without me. I was a stone around his neck. What’s the word? ‘Albatross.’ What a strange thing to wear around your neck, a dead bird. I don’t want any albatrosses around my neck, but I’m happy to be one around yours. And I am sorry your husband has to pay this price. At least you’ll be on camera together.” He showed her the small camera he’d spent too many precious dollars on. “It takes video, too. I’m going to be the next YouTube sensation. Well, you are, anyway. It may be the first snuff film to make the morning news. How’s that for high art?”
Kate’s mind was turning round and round. She began to twist her wrists, knowing it was futile but hoping to somehow break free. She looked across at Stuart and saw he was doing the same, and had begun to buck in the chair as if he might be able to leap up still fastened to it but furious enough to free them while they still had time.
Kyle and Linda burst from the elevator into the 12th floor hallway.
“Every front desk has a set of keys,” Kyle said, explaining why Roscoe had them.
“For most of the apartments, tenants like knowing someone can get in if they have to. And definitely the ones for sale. He has to let the brokers in.”
Linda didn’t care why they had the keys, only that they did. They rushed to apartment 12D.
Kieran heard them fumbling with the lock, then bursting into the apartment. It was both a surprise, and expected. He had fantasized the final kill, the tableau he’d set over and over in his mind that would play out on computers and televisions around the world, yet he had wondered with each successive murder why he had not been caught. At first he had truly believed he had the power of invisibility, but then he thought he was just very lucky, that God was on his side, the side of right. And yet, he knew the time may come, he may find himself in exactly this situation, having raced so far but unable t
o make it the last few yards to the finish line.
With no time to think it through, no moment to wonder who was rushing toward the terrace, Kieran stepped around behind Kate Pride and placed his knife at her throat, the same knife he had used to stab Devin sixteen times.
Linda and Kyle ran onto the terrace – and froze.
“Ah,” Kieran said, holding Kate’s head back with one hand, the knife with the other. “The photographer. I recognize you. I watched you from the coffee shop across the street. No camera today? It’s okay, you can have mine.”
Kyle wanted to reason with an unreasoning man. Knowing it was about buying time and not doing something that would get Kate Pride’s throat cut, he said, “I didn’t realize who you were.”
Kieran stared at him, his expression growing darker. “You still don’t,” he said. “No one realized who I was until it was too late. Javier certainly didn’t know who I was. He thought I was just another throwaway. And the fuckers who told him that made him sure of it, including the woman you’re about to watch die.”
“Kate never said anything about you. I was there.” Kyle recognized him now from some of the photos he’d taken at the New Visions opening. “You were against the wall. No one understood how important you were.”
“You’re not serious,” Kieran said. “You think this is a movie? You think you can just flatter me or pretend you have the slightest idea who I am and I’ll, what, give you the knife? Surrender? Let’s hear what Kate thinks about that. I’m going to take the tape off her mouth, and if she so much as breathes too deeply, I’m going to kill her.”
Kieran reached down with his free hand and yanked the tape from Kate’s mouth. “Tell them,” he said.
She tried not to gasp for air, worried it would set him off. “Tell them what?” she managed.
“The same things you told Javier, the same things all of you told him, why he tossed me away like a tissue he’d just cum on, why I left his body in a landfill.”