“Shelly, there’s got to be a way to get him out of there without tripping up your investigation. What if I can take him quietly?”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the layout. Tell me where the club is, exactly, and I’ll get some bodies to circle the block.”
“Oh, perfect. Because nobody will ever suspect, with a dozen flatfoots hanging out, that something might be going on,” she spat. “Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?”
“Do you have any people you can depend on? Shouldn’t take more than a couple at the back and a couple in front.”
“Right. Unless the mobsters decide to start shooting.”
He frowned. “Then we go in hard. Kick down the front door, SWAT, the whole nine yards.”
“You’re not leaving me a lot of options.”
“Sorry.”
She sighed and checked the time. “I know a few guys I can call.”
“Fine. Get them in place, and we’ll try it soft, first. That fails, I drag the prick out by the hair.”
“Is this the softer, gentler Stanford I keep hearing about?”
“The rumors are greatly exaggerated.”
She eyed his outfit and tilted her head to the side. “I’ll say. You look like a mugger. I’ll make calls on the way.”
Half an hour later they were outside of a club that ordinarily catered to the gay and lesbian crowd, according to Shelly. But tonight the upstairs section had been rented out for the private party, and the organizers were responsible for its security. Once their backup had confirmed they were in place by the fire stairs in the rear, as well as sitting in a beat-up eighties-era sedan across the street, Shelly entwined her arm with Ron’s and walked him to the entrance, where about three hundred pounds of bald Samoan man with full facial tattoos glared at them before offering a grin. “You here for the soiree?” he asked, his voice surprisingly soft and high-pitched, given his appearance.
“That’s right,” Shelly said, and Ron gave him his best trooper smile. The man looked him over and pointed to an ancient airport metal detector.
“Take anything metallic out of your pockets. Change, keys, straight razor, .38 Special…” he said, handing them each a red plastic basket. Ron obliged, tossing his keys and phone into the container and handing it to another bouncer on the other side of the door. Shelly allowed the second man to do a cursory search of her purse, and then they were in the bar and making their way to a door at the rear of the club, where two more bouncers waited with crossed arms and cold stares.
“We’re here for the party,” Shelly said.
“Who invited you?” the larger of the pair demanded.
“Yvgeny told us about it,” she said, naming a low-level street pimp who worked with the Russians.
“Fifty apiece,” the man growled, and Ron’s eyebrows rose. Shelly nodded, unfolded a hundred-dollar bill, and handed it to him. The bouncer gave Ron the stink eye and nodded to her. “Got to search you.”
“We just went through that thing,” Ron said, pointing behind him.
“You want in, or you want to argue?”
“Fine.”
Two minutes later they were upstairs. A DJ booth was set up at one end of a darkened room, with colored lights strobing around it, sofas and beanbag chairs strewn about the space and a bar at the opposite end barely lit enough to make out in the gloom. Ron tried not to stare at a young woman off to his right suspended in a leather harness, her nude body glowing in the black lights, being penetrated by a skinny man wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a colorful Mexican Lucha Libre mask. The music was a pulsing techno beat, blaring loudly enough to peel the enamel from his teeth, and he leaned in to Shelly.
“That looks like it takes some agility,” he said.
“Not illegal if she’s of age.”
“She looks…experienced.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Nothing would surprise me anymore. Want a beer?” he asked.
“Sure.”
They passed a group of a half dozen men and women in various stages of undress, groping one another, but not yet to the main course, and Shelly took Ron’s hand. “Don’t get any ideas. But it looks weird if we’re not together,” she explained.
“I’ll lie back and think of England.”
He watched the DJ as the bartender withdrew two bottles of beer from a tub filled with ice and set them on the counter. “Twenty bucks,” the man yelled over the music. Ron’s eyes widened imperceptibly, but he paid without comment, tipping two dollars that the bartender pocketed with a sneer. Ron toasted Shelly and took a pull on the beer, and then whispered in her ear.
“That Endo?”
“Beats me. It’s a DJ. I’ve never seen the guy. This is your game from here on out.”
Ron nodded, took another swig of his beer, and led her toward the dance floor, where a dozen tranced-out twentysomething women were undulating in the best stripper tradition, their faces blank pouts, their Victoria’s Secret teddies making it clear they were part of the entertainment. Several men in their forties were dancing with them, stiff as only white men of a certain age tended be when trying to pretend they had game, and Ron found the spectacle more disturbing than the copulating couples in the shadows.
He pushed past a couple of slacker types leaning against the sound booth, looking bored as only New York hipsters at an orgy could, and sidled up next to the man working the twin turntables, his profile so gaunt that he looked like a prisoner of war. The man focused hooded eyes on Ron and tried a stoned grin.
“Endo?” Ron asked.
“What up, my man?”
“You DJ Endo?”
“I win the lottery?”
“Not quite. I need to talk to you. NYPD. Let’s do this the easy way.”
The DJ moved fast, considering how high he appeared to be, and was at the rear emergency exit before Ron could cover half the ground from the booth. The fire alarm sounded as Endo pushed the door open and bolted onto the fire escape, and Ron raced for the door, ignoring the curses and yells of the revelers behind him. Shelly was already on her phone, backing away from the commotion, following several partygoers who had gotten spooked by the excitement and decided to call it an early night to the front entrance.
Ron’s shoulder hit the rear exit door like a linebacker as the siren blared overhead, and then he was out in the night, high above the street on a corroding iron stairway that was bouncing like a ship in rough seas from Endo’s tromping down the steps two at a time. The thin man moved like a thoroughbred, Ron had to concede as he gave chase, cursing as he cut his hand on the railing on the way down.
The DJ tore off down the alley at astonishing speed, and Ron was worrying that he’d get away when a figure stepped into his path from the gloom and swatted him in the abdomen with a baton. Endo doubled over with a woof of escaping air and then went down on his knees as the figure with the club pointed it at his head and growled something Ron couldn’t make out.
When Ron arrived at his side, the DJ was struggling for breath. Ron nodded to the big man, whose club had vanished into the depths of his overcoat, and spoke softly. “Got a spare set of cuffs?”
The man’s face could have been carved from mahogany. He reached into his jacket and extracted a pair of gleaming handcuffs, which he tossed to Ron without a word. Ron pulled the DJ to his feet, frisked him, cuffed him, and then tossed ten pills in tiny plastic bags onto the street.
“You see these? Looks like our young friend here might be dealing,” Ron said.
“They’re for my back pain, man,” Endo said.
“Sure they are. You have the right to remain silent…”
“Oh, man. Come on. I wasn’t doing shit. Just playing my tunes, you know?” He looked down at his stained jeans. “You made me piss my pants. Why’d you have to hit me like that, bro?”
The cop turned away, disgusted, and Ron moved closer and stopped reciting his rights. “Maybe that was out of order. Seeing as I’m feeling generous, maybe you can a
nswer some questions, and all this goes away.”
Ron’s phone rang and he glared at the DJ as he pulled it from his pocket. It was Ben.
“Third body surfaced,” Ben said.
“Where?”
“In the park, by the Conservatory boat pond.”
“The pond? That’s weird. Forensics on its way?”
“Already there.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Figure half hour, tops. I’ll call you when I’m en route.”
Ron disconnected and faced the DJ again. The thin man stared at him through unfocused eyes, and Ron shook his head. “He’s too stoned. Take him to the station and write up the dope, but hold booking him until he and I can have a little chat. This might be his lucky night, if he decides to play ball. Otherwise…what’s possession with intent to sell what looks like hillbilly heroin bringing these days?”
“Oh, an easy couple of years if he’s got a jacket. More if he’s got similar priors.”
Ron eyed Endo and nodded. “Something to think about until I get there. Seems like a good time to be cooperative, Mr. Endo. In the meantime, enjoy being a guest of NYPD.”
Shelly was rounding the corner, fury in every step, as Ron walked toward her. “Nice going, Ron,” she spat. “Very subtle. There goes half a year of undercover work, up in smoke.”
“Sorry, Shelly. I’ll make it up to you. You can sweat him once I’m done. I’m sure he can give you a good account of any misbehavior.”
She glared at him as he brushed past her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I asked your buddy to read him his rights and take him to the station. I’ll be there later. He’s too wasted right now anyway.”
“You’re just going to take off and leave me with this handful of shit?”
He looked down the alley and then at Shelly. “Another body surfaced, Shelly. Again, I’m sorry about this, but I have to go.”
She watched him disappear around the corner, her mouth open, and then turned to where the DJ stood unsteadily, waiting to be transported to the precinct. The procedure had barely registered on him in his heavily altered state. She called for a squad car and shook her head at the disaster the night had become, the pungent smell of the DJ’s urine adding insult to the injury of a blown investigation, any illegal girls long since gone from the party at the first sign of trouble.
Chapter 21
Ron strode briskly through the park toward the flashing blue and red roof lights of the police cruisers at the southern parking area of the Conservatory pond. When he arrived, there were at least fifteen uniforms loitering around the area. Ben was standing with Amy near the edge of the pond by the boathouse, where the body was being worked on by the forensics technicians. He walked over and nodded a greeting.
“What have we got?” he asked.
“We only got her to the surface a few hours ago. Kid doing some early evening model boating thought he saw something in the water. He got more than he bargained for,” Ben said.
Ron frowned. “Why the pond? What’s the symbolism of her being left in water?”
Amy matched his expression. “Whatever it is, it’s going to make pinpointing an accurate time of death harder. This is a worst-case scenario, obviously, in just about every way.”
“What can you tell eyeballing it?”
“At least twenty-four hours. So last night, maybe longer.”
“We can narrow it down based on her performance schedule,” Ron said, and then looked away. “She was a dancer with the ABC.”
Ben made a face. “Wouldn’t know it to look at her now.”
“Put that on your list of things to do, Ben. Talk to the director of the company and find out if she performed last night, and if not, when she was last seen.” Ron shook his head. “We’ll also need to look at everyone who might have come into contact with her. Stagehands, musicians, dancers, you name it.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“I know. But it’s got to be done.”
“It’ll take a while.”
“I have no doubt.” Ron took several steps away from Ben, and Amy joined him by the water. “When can you perform an autopsy?” he asked.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday, Ron. Depending on the workload, Monday at the earliest – we’re jammed up right now. But with the body in this condition, don’t expect miracles.”
“This is a rising body count situation, Amy.”
“I’ll do what I can. But I can’t levitate, and there’s only so many hours in a day…”
“I have faith in you.”
“And I know how waterlogged bodies process. No high hopes, that’s all I’m saying.”
Ron nodded and Amy went back to work with her techs. He was lucky she was working the case and hadn’t shunted it off to one of the other pathologists. Even after their aborted relationship, he had a better rapport with her than any of the others, who varied in competence and level of hostility.
Ben approached, notebook in hand. Ron eyed him. “You notify the feds yet?”
“Yup. Put in the call a few minutes ago. Wouldn’t do to piss anyone off, would it?”
“Don’t suppose there are any nearby cameras?”
“A few. I’m going to pull footage from yesterday through today. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“How visible are they? Would he have spotted them?”
Ben shrugged. “He’s pretty savvy. Probably. I mean, there are plenty of ways to this area of the pond where you could avoid them, too.”
“Carrying a body?”
“Absent the head, feet, and hands, she probably didn’t weigh more than seventy-five pounds. If he used a travel dolly, or even a rolling suitcase, distance wouldn’t be a big deal,” Amy said.
Ben frowned. “I’d think that would stick out.”
Ron looked glum. “Depends. Lot of tourists in New York.”
“But in the middle of the night?”
Amy shook her head. “Assuming that’s when it was. Might have been more like just before dawn.”
“What do you make of this? The first site was at a school. The second, a church. Both obviously symbolic. What do you think it means?” Ron asked.
“Besides that he’s frigging nuts?” Amy said.
“Seriously.”
“I’m being serious, Ron. The guy hacks women up on camera. That’s crazy with a capital C. I think the rest is whatever the voices tell him to do.”
“Right. But what’s the meaning? And how does this one fit?”
Ben glanced at the pond. “Water? Perhaps it’s some sort of ritual baptism? Washing away the evil? Rebirth?”
Ron nodded. “Could be.”
“I wouldn’t stress over it too much. The truth is that we have no idea what all of this actually means to him. Leave that to the FBI chick to figure out.”
Ron’s frown deepened. “The video was almost exactly like the first two. So that’s not going to tell us much.”
“Yeah, well, he’s been careful.”
“Yes,” Ron agreed. “He has. And he wanted us to find her in the pond. So we need to understand why.” Ron looked around the dark area. “Why this, why here?”
Ron waited for the technicians to get done with the preliminary examination of the corpse, and when they had finished the gross inspection, he wished Amy luck before heading back to the precinct, where an angry message from Shelly had informed him that his suspect, DJ Endo, was on ice in a holding area, awaiting his arrival.
The DJ was still largely out of it when Ron arrived, and Ron eyed him with obvious distaste before taking a seat across from where he was cuffed to a metal ring on a steel chair mounted to the floor. The DJ glared at him with bloodshot eyes, making Ron’s skin crawl.
“Why you want to come down on me like this, man?” he asked.
“I need information, and I don’t have time to waste.”
“Info? I ain’t no snitch. Code of the street.”
“That’s great. What does the code say about being caugh
t red-handed with ten hits of oxycodone with obvious intent to sell?”
“I told you. That’s for my back. It’s all messed up. Skateboarding accident.”
“Right. I suppose you have hospital records to convince a jury of that.”
Endo’s eyes flitted sideways. “Long time ago, man.”
“That’s what you’re going to be telling your doctor in a few years when he asks about when you were first gang raped in the prison showers. I’ve seen your jacket. You’re small time, but I can arrange for you to do some seriously hard time if I want.”
“Why? What’s your beef?”
“You run girls.”
“I don’t do nothing illegal, man.”
“Spare me. One of your ladies was killed by the Rose Killer. I think you know all about it.”
“What? Who? When?”
“Dusty, real name Cindy Kerrick. Six days ago.”
Endo’s denial was too fast. “Don’t know any Dusty.”
Ron sighed. “See, that’s why I get tired of this job sometimes. It’s late, and a piece of human garbage like you is keeping me at work, wasting my time, when I’m trying to do you a favor and keep you out of Rikers.” He pushed back from the table. “Suit yourself, tough guy. I’ll be back later, nice and rested, while you go into the overnight holding cell with a bunch of fellas who will enjoy making your piss-soaked acquaintance. Enjoy that. And think long and hard about how much man love you want in the meantime, because with the court system the way it is, you could be in for months before your case even comes up for trial – not that you have any chance of pleading out or winning once I get done talking to the DA. No, you’re the guy who doesn’t know nuthin’ – who could even be an accessory to the murder of one of his girls. Hey, see what I did there? You just moved up from drug charges to homicide! Congratulations, Juan. You got a whole world of hurt coming at you like a freight train, and you’re too stupid to get out of the way. Fine by me.”
Ron left the man cuffed to the chair, and told the desk sergeant to stick him in the drunk tank until he returned. Ron wanted to get back to the pond and take another hard look at the scene and then stop by his apartment to get cleaned up before coming back and putting the screws to the DJ in the morning. There was no reason not to snatch a few hours of sleep, which he badly needed if he was going to be effective. DJ Endo could sit in his own urine with a cellful of reprobates and consider his lot in life. Ron hoped that with a hangover and no prospects come daylight, he might see the wisdom of coming clean.
Fatal Deception Page 11