“Or when he got here which would have been, what? A little after twelve maybe?”
Cody nodded. “Get lucky, Frank. We can use a little help.”
29
Victoria Mansfield turned slowly in bed and pulled the silk sheet over her shoulder. The phone rang again and she groaned. Her sleeping mask had slipped sideways across her face and she angrily whipped it off and threw it across the room. Squinting her eyes to shut out the light sneaking through the blinds, she reached out a hand to find the phone, knocked an ashtray on the floor, and the phone receiver rattled as it fell off the carriage.
“Shit!” she muttered as her hand fluttered around the night table until she found it. She pulled the sheet up over her head.
“Uhnn?”
“Wake up, kiddo,” Hamilton’s voice ordered.
“Umm. Wha’ time’s it?”
“A little before nine. We’re halfway home. Should be there in an hour or so. It’s Saturday, no traffic coming into the city.”
She threw back the sheet, suddenly wide awake, and sat naked in the middle of the bed.
“Shit,” she cried, “I forgot the paper. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She jumped out of bed and ran naked from the bedroom, through the living room, to the alcove by the front door, peered through the peephole into an empty hallway, and unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the door. The newspapers were stacked in front of the door where Louie, the doorman, had left them. She snatched the neat pile inside, bumped the door shut with her naked behind, and ruffled through them until she got to The Post. Dropping the remaining papers on the floor, she ran back to the bedroom, jumped on the bed like a child, and grabbed the phone.
“Still there?”
“No, I’m on the planet Mars. Where do you think I am?”
“You sound a little surly,” she said, flipping through the newspaper to page six.
“You’d be surly, too, if you had to spend an evening with that bunch of dull assholes. Thank God for my ability for self-amusement.”
“Naughty, naughty. Be nice to your peers.”
“I do not consider them my peers.”
“I know darling,” she said condescendingly while reading the item. “You are a peer unto yourself.”
“I’m glad you realize that,” he said, superciliously.
She giggled gleefully to herself as she read the item then said to Hamilton, “I’ll be right back.”
“Where the hell’re you going? Victoria? Al…Damn it!” He clicked off the phone.
She went into the kitchen and retrieved a china cup from the cupboard. The automatic coffee maker had done its job and she poured herself a cup, threw a spoonful of sugar in it, stirred it briefly, tossed the spoon in the sink, and went back to the bedroom where she settled in comfortably before picking up the phone.
“Had to get a cup of coffee, the odor was driving me… Hello? Hello? Well, damn you.”
She punched in his number.
He let it ring a couple of times before answering. “What are you doing?” he snapped.
“Getting my coffee, do you mind?”
“Well, you keep running off in the middle of a sentence and…”
“Do you know what I’m wearing?”
“Of course I know what you’re wearing. Your skin, as usual.”
“And don’t you wish you were here to share it?” she purred. She leaned back against the padded headboard of the bed and started to run the fingernails of one hand across her flat stomach. “Guess what I’m doing?”
“Vic, are you going to read the article to me?”
“Say please.”
“God damn it…”
“Uh uh, be nice. You don’t want to make the pussycat sulk, do you?” She looked up at the mirrored ceiling and gently scratched the mouthpiece of the phone.
“You’re shameless.”
“Don’t you just love it?”
The thought of her, stretched out on the bed, toying with herself stirred him.
“Jesus, read the damn article before you run out of breath.”
She laughed heartily, sipped her coffee, and said, “Tell Dave to speed it up.”
“Screw the article.”
“No, screw me, darling. Oh, I know, I know, Dave can hear you and we can’t have any fun, right?”
“Very perceptive.”
“Okay, and did I hear please?”
“Please, for Christ sake.”
“Ahh, that’s my boy. Want me to finish what I’m doing before I read it?”
“Victoria!”
“Ohhh-kay.” She sat and smoothed out the tabloid. “My God, they even have a picture.”
“They shot it before dinner. They can send photos from a laptop in two minutes these days.”
“The headline reads: ‘Has Literati Bad Boy Gone Soft?’ Are you soft, sweetheart?”
“Stop it, just read on. And it’s literatus.”
“Look at you, all dressed up in your little tux. Aren’t you cute.”
“Just read what it says, okay?”
“’kay. ‘Ward Lee Hamilton, best-selling author of enough books to fill a small library, who has never met a human being he didn’t insult, proved to be a tame tiger at the Philip Marlowe Award banquet in Philly last night as he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from a full house of his peers.
“’Hamilton, known for his condescending attitude, his whiplash tongue, and his flamboyant couture, was an absolute dear as he praised several fellow nominees whom he said, ‘deserved the honor’ adding ‘they should all be standing beside me here tonight.’
“’Hamilton was dressed in an elegant and conservative, black tuxedo, a rad departure from his usual attire. The only thing missing was gal pal, socialite Victoria Mansfield, who was at a charity affair here in the city. What a shame. She would have been proud of her usually boorish play toy.’”
“Play toy! That bitch!”
“Oh, calm down, sweetie, you know Sophie has to get her digs in. Maybe that cop will be a little friendlier if he thinks you’ve turned into Mister Nice Guy.”
“I’m on to something about him. I’ll jump on the computer when I get home and…”
“You even go near that office and pussycat is gonna close shop.”
“Blackmail?” he said, feigning shock.
“Listen you, when you walk in the door I’ll be wearing that eight hundred dollar peignoir I bought yesterday and I expect your full attention and appreciation. Understood?”
He chuckled. “A bit waspish, aren’t we?”
“We? I am going to turn this boudoir into a bordello, darling boy,” she said. “Single-handedly if need be. Have you forgotten?”
“I don’t forget anything.”
“Good,” she whispered, fondling the phone. “It’s Story Lady time.”
30
The corpse was floating sideways in a deep tub, still in a sitting position, hands still frozen in its lap, its eyes staring half open through melting ice crystals that floated by and then shrank and vanished into small veils of rising steam from the water, which was being maintained at exactly 98.6 degrees. Max Wolfsheim, who finally had checked his phone messages, had arranged for the large gray plastic container to be delivered before he even got to the lab. Annie had set up the thermostatic faucet which delivered the water to the tub so the temperature would stay consistent as the icy contents melted. It was beside the stainless steel slab on which the systematic dissembling of the body would take place.
“He was a classy, old fella,” Wolf said sadly and to nobody in particular.
Annie was at a long lab table nearby preparing a chemical analysis of the red wine in the bottle found beside the dead man. The rest of the crew was in the adjoining big room, preparing the briefing.
“How long will this take?” Cody asked.
“Can’t say for sure,” the wizard answered. “Right now he’s floating because ice is lighter than water. When he goes down and is fully immersed, he’ll thaw fas
ter. Normally the lungs, which are ninety-percent water, would thaw first but we have to wait until the body and skin temperature rises to about 82.4 degrees to preserve the tissue before we start cutting. So blood will thaw first; it’s eighty-three percent water. He was probably dead by the time his temp dropped to 82.4. How long you figure he was in the icebox?”
“I’d say, roughly, 2 a.m. to 8:30 when we started moving him.”
“Six-plus hours at zero Fahrenheit,” Wolf muttered. “I’m guessing he was dead, hell, little guy that size, in probably two hours max. Depends on some other things. What he ate, if there was anything else contributing to death, stuff like that.” He paused and added, ”That was cruel, undressing him like that.”
“And no signs of a struggle,” Annie said.
“That’s because he was heavily drugged,” said Wolf. “Hypothermia begins at about ninety-five degrees. There would be intense shivering. By the time it drops to ninety-three the tremors would be severe, other abnormal body reactions would also set in—-hallucinations, delirium. Look at him, totally relaxed, hands in his lap. He was deeply unconscious when all the bodily reactions normally start. Perhaps he was dead before he was put in the freezer.”
Cody said, “That was Si’s guess.”
The Wolf turned to Simon. “Based on what?” he asked.
“Hunch.”
“You mean the idea just floated into his head?” Wolf said with a grin.
“Well, look at the set up. I don’t think this was a revenge killing or some impulsive thing. It’s just weird. So, I’m guessing it’s Androg’s work and if it is, the obvious cause of death will not be what killed him.”
Wolf looked back at the body which was slowly beginning to roll on its face.
“Good guess,” Wolf said, turning his attention to Annie Rothschild. “You ready for the toxicology tests?”
“Uh huh. I’m doing an analysis of the wine while we wait for blood samples and stomach contents. I think it was spiked.”
“How come?”
“I think that’s why the bottle and glass were next to the body. Like Si said, sooner or later Androg’s going to start bragging. Smell the bottle.”
Wolf picked it up, looked at the label. “Nobile di Montepulciano, 1986. Good year.” He took a sniff, lowered the bottle for a second, then took another. “It’s very faint.”
“Yeah. I didn’t notice anything until I started setting up the test sample.”
Wolf handed Cody the bottle.
“Take a whiff.”
Cody held it a few inches from his nose and moved it slowly back and forth, then leaned close and took a hefty smell.
“Chlorine, maybe?”
“Hardly discernible.”
“But it’s there,” Annie said and Wolf nodded agreement.
“So you’re guessing what? Chloral hydrate?” Cody said.
“Good old-fashioned knockout drops,” Wolf nodded. “If so, our killer slipped Uncle Tony a pretty strong mickey. It kicked in when he started eating and he fell face forward right into his dinner. Make that number one on the toxicology list, Annie.”
“Already have,” she answered.
“So the immediate cause of death was freezing,” Wolf said. “We’re looking for the proximate cause—what really killed him. I’m guessing we’ll find that in the blood sample.”
“And it won’t be drugs or thermal,” said Cody.
Annie nodded agreement. “Too obvious,” she said.
Cody thought for a moment and then pressed the button on his headset. “Hue?”
“Right here.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Ready for you.”
“Good. We’ll be over in a few minutes. Bring up Wolf’s list on the big board.”
“Gotcha.”
31
Sunday, October 28
Lou Stinelli was finishing his first cup of coffee and perusing the Sunday Times obits when he stopped at a headline.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“What is it?” Valerie asked, as she refilled his cup and doctored it with the usual three sugars and a generous dose of heavy cream.
“Remember Steamroller Jackson?”
She rolled her eyes. “Steamroller Jackson! How could I ever forget Steamroller Jackson, your old high school buddy? Our second date and almost our last, Mister Macho. I hated prizefighting then and I still hate it.”
Stinelli laughed, recalling the disastrous evening.
“Steamroller decked Jersey Kaminsky in the first round. You could hear that right connect in Albany and old Jersey went straight to the canvas…limp as a bag of marbles, and you…”
“Don’t start…”
“….almost fainted. I had to put your head down around your knees…”
“I said…”
“Okay, okay, darlin’.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Christ, that was over thirty years ago. You got a memory like an elephant.”
“Are you kidding, Louis? That’s one night I’ll never forget.”
“Well, you can forget old Steamroller. Poor guy died late Friday night. Found in an alley yesterday morning, slumped against a brick wall. Apparent heart attack. Says he probably o.d.’d on cocaine or alcohol. He was only sixty-one.”
“Oh!” She said, covering her lips with her fingertips. The private phone line rang, interrupting any further conversation. Stinelli scowled at it.
“Damn it,” he said, “it’s Sunday morning. I haven’t finished the God damn paper yet. Take a number. Tell whoever it is I’m in the shower or something.”
“You’d have me lie my soul into hell just so you can finish the paper,” she said sternly as she lifted the receiver.
“Hello,” she said sweetly.
“Good morning, Mizz Stinelli, this is…”
“I’d know that voice in my sleep, Micah. He says to tell you he’s in the shower—or something.”
“I’m sorry, Val, but it’s important.”
She looked over at Stinelli. “Is it going to ruin his day of rest?” Cody hesitated a second and said, “Just tell him I said Androg.”
“Androg?”
Stinelli looked up sharply. He jumped up and took the receiver.
“Micah?”
“Good morning, chief. Sorry to…”
“What about Androg?”
“He hit again.”
“How do you know it’s Androg?”
“Cause of death disguised. But that’s not the really bad news, Lou. The victim is Tony Crosetti.”
“Uncle Tony? My God what happened? When?”
“About one-thirty or two yesterday morning. Jimmy Farrell and I found him at about eight. Mama Crosetti called Jim because Crosetti didn’t come home Friday night. I happened to jog by Venezia while Jim was sitting there so we made a crime scene entry. We found Tony in the meat freezer. He was naked, sitting in a chair, frozen solid as an iceberg.”
“Oh, my God! Where are you?”
“At the Loft. Wolf’s doing the autopsy. So far it’s a state secret. We got him out of there fast. There aren’t many people around there at that time of day. The sign in the window of the restaurant says it’s closed due to illness in the family.”
“Christ, Cody, you can’t keep this quiet.”
“Jimmy’s going to front it. I expect the autopsy shortly but Farrell will make a prelim report that the cause of death is pending an autopsy tomorrow. He’ll blame it on the weekend.”
“Every cop in the lower end of Manhattan knows Tony.”
“None of the cops know any details and Jimmy won’t be talking; he’s busy helping with the funeral arrangements.”
Stinelli rubbed the back of his neck as he paced the kitchen.
“You know you got one helluva Monday coming up, pal. Two murders plus I promised you’d meet with that guy Hamilton about the Cramer case.”
“Don’t worry, chief, I’ll take care of it. Look, we got a very slick killer on our hands. The longer we keep it in the
closet the better.”
Stinelli thought for a moment or two more.
“Okay…okay. But keep me up to speed on this. You turn up anything new, anything, you call me.”
“Maybe the less you know the better.”
“You let me decide what I should and shouldn’t know. Just keep me informed, kid. We clear on that?”
“Clear.”
Stinelli cradled the phone and sat down. He and Valerie had a rule: He never discussed business with his wife. But she knew Lo Zio and Venezia was one of their favorite restaurants. It was less than a mile from his office at One Police Plaza.
“Uncle Tony’s dead,” he said. “That’s all we know so far.” He took her hand as she sat down beside him, her eyes tearing up.
“Who’s Androg?” she asked.
“One of the bad guys.”
Δ
Vinnie Hue was ready for the Sunday morning briefing. He had all the photographs and comments from the scene of Tony Crosetti’s murder as well as the exterior front and rear shots of the Venezia prepared for projection on the big board.
There was another addition: an alphabetical list of the categories with which forensic pathologists break down and identify how homicide victims are killed. They varied from one pathologist to the next but basically were pretty much the same. It was typical of the mordant humor of the enclave, much of it initiated by Vinnie, that the list, in his comic book script, was headed “Wolf’s Biggest Hits”:
1. Blunt trauma
2. Cutting, stabbing, piercing
3. Drowning
4. Drugs, including poisons
5. Gunshot
6. Suffocation
7. Thermal (electric, freezing, fire)
Individually, serial killers usually employed the same method to kill; strangulation and stabbing were popular because they enjoyed watching their victims die. Ted Bundy, one of its more prolific practitioners, once described serial killing as “a contact sport.”
Seven Ways to Die Page 20