“Then the vacation?” I asked, still feeling my anxiety over the added separation. “The four-week joyride with your cousin that you tacked on to it?”
“That part never happened, kid.”
“Want to tell me where you were?” I was tapping my fingers against the rusted pipe.
“Look, Scully made me—”
“Where were you?”
“Rhode Island. Newport, Rhode Island,” Mike said, almost sheepishly.
“Damn. I could probably have seen you if I stood on one of the tables at the Bite. A yachting adventure, perhaps?” Steam was more likely to come out of my ears than from the pipes alongside my head.
“The Naval War College. In Newport.”
“Really?”
“The college ran a special program this summer. A monthlong course in counterterrorism techniques. They offered Scully five spots, and I got lucky.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that—?”
“Secrecy was the hallmark of the whole thing. There are only two or three bosses in the entire department who know the names of the participants. The other detectives are the ones doing two-year stints abroad, brought back in from Singapore, Cairo, and Mumbai. Nobody wanted to blow their cover, and connecting me to any of them could have served to do that.”
It was my turn to be sheepish. “I—I wish I had known.”
“Do you understand what a risk Scully was taking? I stepped on my private parts with that psycho judge—all my own doing—and there was the police commissioner himself, wanting to rehabilitate and send me back to learn the most state-of-the-art techniques in fighting the bad guys. I mean the big bad guys.”
“Who better to train than you? So much of it is military, paramilitary stuff. You’re ahead of the curve on that to begin with.”
“We did the first week in Newport,” Mike said. “Then we were each sent out in the field. I was actually in a new office that opened in Kfar Saba.”
“Where’s that?” I felt so petty and small for having held a grudge for the last few weeks.
“It’s a suburb of Tel Aviv. The NYPD has a one-man office there,” he said, lifting my chin with his forefinger to get me to make eye contact with him again. “I’m not kidding you, Coop. That’s why I couldn’t call or write to you. It was a crazy time for everyone involved.”
“I understand that now.”
“There was actually chatter about a threat from Hezbollah, with a very soft target, and I got to work through the entire operation.”
“That must have been great.”
“You know what it’s like to save lives, Coop. Well, I don’t. I always get there too late, you know? Damage done. Bring on the body bags.” Mike was trying to get me to smile, to lighten up. “This time I helped do that, and I gotta tell you it feels better than anything else.”
“So you were successful.”
“And here’s how we knew it. Because nothing happened. Nothing.” Mike paused, grimacing at my forlorn expression. “How’s that for a good day on the job, Coop?”
“It should make you very proud of yourself,” I said. “It makes me proud of you.”
“Then stop sulking.”
“Why’d you choose this moment to tell me?”
“’Cause the last thing I wanted to do the other night was to walk into that crime scene at the Waldorf and find you there. I—I didn’t know what to say in front of everyone else.”
“Your mother’s heart condition kind of rolled off your tongue.”
“Okay, okay. I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing. It just sort of unnerves me that you can be so facile when you lie.”
“I didn’t think I had a choice. I figured you’d call me out ’cause I had no business being at a homicide in Manhattan South. Out of bounds for me. Not my jurisdiction.”
“You tap-danced around that pretty well, too.”
“Scully didn’t want me there because of the dead girl. It’s only that the president is coming to the hotel and he’s going to have me working with the terrorist task force from time to time, whenever he hears there’s new thinking, new methods of policing to bring to the table.”
“This killer,” I said, squirming a bit to get Mike to move back from me, “this Blunt guy, you think he’s involved with terrorists? Is that why you came back to talk to me? Or are you just trying to tie up your string theory? Try and control me like a big puppeteer?”
“No strings on you, Coop,” Mike said, stepping away. “Blunt’s acting more like a crazy man, not that the two are mutually exclusive. But this is the greatest train station in the world, and if his plan is to paralyze this city, he’s going to start that from right here.”
In the narrow hallway beyond the situation room, I was able once again to hear the loudspeaker system from the concourse below.
The lady with the automated voice had been given the night off. Someone from law enforcement had taken control of the microphone.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’d like your attention, please,” the deep baritone greeted evening travelers. “Due to some emergency repairs that need to be made on the tracks this weekend, Grand Central Terminal is going to be cleared earlier than usual.”
“Thanks for coming up to try to make this right,” I said.
Mike held a finger over his lips, telling me not to talk.
“The last train will leave the station at ten P.M. That is ten P.M. We suggest you check schedules for the next train to your destination. Again, please check the schedules. After ten P.M., there will be city buses outside the terminal on the Lexington Avenue side to take passengers to the outer boroughs, where you can pick up your connections. And remember, folks, if you see something, say something.”
“That will make some commuters most unhappy,” I said.
“It’s meant to start them moving and fill the trains without causing a stampede. Nobody wants to alarm them before we need to.”
“Hardly necessary to add any fuel to the fire after today’s headlines and the news about Lydia.”
“Cops are herding people out of the food court already and planning to shut the doors—at least the ones that shut—a little before the clock strikes ten.”
I made an attempt at good cheer. “Thank you—I mean that—for letting me know about the last month, about the great big white lie. It’s for such an important reason that you were gone,” I said. “I should have trusted you.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice broke in again. “Time to step lively. Your attention, please. Grand Central Terminal will be shutting down at ten P.M. this evening.”
“How about if I throw in some bacon with the eggs?” I asked.
“Crisp. You know the way I like it.” Mike patted down my hair and kissed me on the crown of my head. “I’ll see you on your way home. Thanks for listening.”
“Then you just wait here for him to do something else?”
“Oh, no. We’ve got some messages planned to go out over the loudspeaker shortly after ten o’clock, designed to rattle the cage of Nikolay Blunt, wherever he is in this maze. We need to smoke him out, Coop, and bring him down. His killing spree is over.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
I had given up finding any more information online about Nikolay Blunt and was about to call it a night. “Ready to go, Yolanda. Who takes me down to the detail who’s driving me to Vickee’s house?”
She picked up the landline to call her command, spoke to someone on the other end, then answered me. “My partner is on his way up to fetch us,” she said. “Seems Lieutenant Correlli has the suspect’s sister in the station. They want you to talk to her before you head home. Do you mind?”
“It’s exactly what I’d prefer to do. It makes me feel useful.”
I thumbed through Walter Blunt’s Metro-North employment records. It listed three childre
n as his dependents at the time he was employed here. Nikolay was the eldest, with a younger brother and sister.
I studied the senior Blunt’s file until Yolanda’s young partner appeared in the doorway. “I’m supposed to bring you to down to the stationmaster’s office, okay?”
“Should we take the laptops?” I asked Yolanda.
“You can leave your stuff here, Ms. Cooper. I think your supervisors want to fill you in on what’s been going on. Then I’ll escort you back up along with the young lady you’ll be interviewing. They want you to keep working up here, ’cause it’s good space and it’s away from the commotion on the concourse.”
“Commotion?”
“You know. They’re trying to shut this place down soon.”
I gave Yolanda a thumbs-up. “Looks like I bought myself an invitation to work in the sandbox with the guys. Do you want to wait for me here?”
“I’m on you like glue, Ms. Cooper.”
We wound our way back to the elevator. The young cop unlocked it with what looked like a master key, and it creaked its way down to the bottom of the ramp below the main floor.
The three of us exited and started our way up. At the intersection on top, where a right turn led to the old waiting room and the left toward the concourse, it was obvious that even more uniformed officers from a cross section of agencies had arrived.
Some of the men and women looked like SWAT team members, with guns and helmets and bulletproof jackets obvious to all. There were more K-9 patrols than I had ever seen in one place. Everyone seemed to be herding civilians to exits on the sides and ends of the vast terminal.
“Attention, please,” the rich male voice spoke sternly to the stragglers. “Grand Central Terminal is closing down in fifteen minutes. You have fifteen minutes to get yourself to the platform if there is a train headed for your destination, or to make your way back onto the street. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause. Watch your step, ladies and gentlemen. Watch your step and remember to mind the gap.”
We stopped for a minute to let a group of men who seemed slightly intoxicated weave past us prodded by two agents, who were in street clothes with their badges flapped over their pockets. They appeared to be coming up from the Oyster Bar, unhappy to have their revels interrupted.
“That voice sounds so familiar to me,” I said to the cops.
“It’s one of the men from Homicide,” the young man said. “He’s taken over the controls in the stationmaster’s office and seems to be having a mighty fine time of it.”
We made the left turn and headed for the concourse. There was indeed a commotion, and most of the officers seemed to be struggling to respond to angry and confused commuters who were standing their ground.
I had never been in Grand Central when the information booth that was in the center of the floor was empty, but those employees had obviously been dismissed for the night. Cops with dogs were standing along each of the departure gates on the far side of the room, guiding passengers to the last trains waiting to pull away from the platforms.
Police had even taken over the carts that sanitation workers used to scoot around the station. There was a small fleet of machines, zigzagging across the floor, trying to round up the more stubborn people who weren’t moving toward the exits. They looked like a fleet of Zambonis clearing the ice after a hockey match.
I glanced up at the constellations painted on the ceiling. The majestic celestial figures seemed to be the only part of the terminal undisturbed by all the activity below.
As we crossed the floor, headed for the stationmaster’s wing—out of sight behind the staircase to Vanderbilt Avenue—I was conscious of stares from many of the officers patrolling the terminal. I must have looked a bit bedraggled at this late hour, in my sloppy outfit, escorted by a pair of cops—more like a belligerent passenger than part of the law enforcement team.
Rocco Correlli saw me coming and waved me into the office.
“Good work. You found a sibling already?”
“Pug did it, believe it or not. I’m not sure it’s such a good thing.”
“Why?”
“It’s Blunt’s kid sister, twenty-three years old. Same name as the mother, so she wasn’t that hard to find. And she’s a waitress at a joint in the theater district, six blocks from here.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“She’s refusing to talk. I got Chapman in there, hoping he can use some of his charm to weasel something out of her. Then I thought maybe you being a woman and all, she might open up to you.”
“Feels like that’s the only use you have for me, Loo. It doesn’t always work that way, but let me give it a try.”
Rocco walked me down the short hallway to the office in which Mike was sitting with Zoya Blunt.
“Hey, Coop. C’mon in. Meet Zoya.”
“Good evening. I’m Alex Cooper.” I held out my hand, but she wouldn’t take it.
“Pug found her on Facebook. Drove right over to the west side and picked her up. Isn’t that right?”
Zoya Blunt was slight and small in stature. Her dirty-brown hair was short, framing her pale, unsmiling face with waves. She was wearing a tight black skirt over opaque black stockings, a white T-shirt, and a short apron with pockets, which still held order slips from the restaurant at which she worked.
“I don’t want to be here, miss. I want to go back to work.”
“I’ve explained to you, Zoya,” Mike said, “you’re not going anywhere until you talk to me about your brother.”
The girl couldn’t have been here very long, but already Mike was short on patience.
“Maybe I could sit down with you for a while,” I said. “There’s a private room upstairs. We could just be talking there, out of the way of these—uh, bullies.”
She looked from me to Mike.
“Really, Zoya, Mike’s got a tough job to do. He’s not unreasonable. I can make you comfortable upstairs, where I’ve been working.”
“I’m not going to be comfortable anywhere. I’ll get fired for leaving the floor during a Friday night dinner hour.”
“We’ll see that you don’t get fired,” I said. I leaned in toward her and tried to cut through the scowl on her face. “Young women have been murdered, Zoya. We have every reason to—”
“I read the newspapers. I know about the murders.”
“If for some reason it’s not Nikolay—”
“You can’t even pronounce his name right.”
“Sorry for that. But if for some reason we’re wrong, you can help clear him.”
Mike was standing behind me now. “I’ve told her all that, Coop. She’s determined to stand by him, I guess. If that’s her game, there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
“Let me work with her a while.”
“Maybe she had a hand in it, you know? I never thought he got this done all by himself. Didn’t I always say I thought he had an accomplice?”
Zoya Blunt threw her head back in disgust. When she faced me again, there were tears streaking down her cheeks.
I needed Mike to lay off the “bad cop” stuff, but I feared that it might not be an act.
“Why don’t you give us some time, Mike?” I said. “Leave us alone in here.”
“Time isn’t gonna change anything,” Zoya said. “You’re both too stupid to know that.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been called ‘stupid,’” Mike said. “I usually like to know why.”
“You actually think I might have had something to do with these killings?” she asked. “Or with my brother?”
Mike took his handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Zoya. “Maybe so. Maybe that’s why you’re all clammed up.”
“You really think you can keep me here against my will?”
“That’s the last thing we’d want to do,” I s
aid. “But the commissioner might direct me to get a material witness order.”
“What the F is that?”
I wouldn’t have a prayer getting one for Zoya Blunt at this point in time. “It means a judge would agree with us that you have information about your brother that’s too important to us to let you go.”
“Screw it. You can’t find a judge in the middle of the night,” she said, blowing her nose, as her mood went from tearful to defiant.
“I can’t tell you how good Detective Chapman is at doing just that.”
Mike pulled on the back of my shirt collar.
I let her take a few breaths before I went back to what she had said a minute ago. “Why shouldn’t we think you’d have something to do with your brother? Aren’t you close?”
“Nobody’s close to him.”
“When’s the last time you saw him, Zoya?” I asked.
She lowered her head and twisted Mike’s handkerchief into a ball.
“I haven’t seen Nik in more than a year, okay?”
“You remember when it was?” I asked, pressing her harder than she wanted to be pressed. “Do you remember if you’ve heard from him since then? We need to know everything about him we possibly can.”
“We need your help trying to find him,” Mike said. “There are dozens of cops out here looking for him. If you don’t give us a hand, he’s likely to get hurt.”
“You think that matters to me, Detective?”
The tears were flowing again.
“He’s your brother,” Mike snapped back. “I’m sure it matters.”
“Here’s why you’re stupid, Detective. I don’t give a damn if he gets hurt,” Zoya Blunt said. “The last time I saw Nik was the night he raped me.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Why don’t you leave us alone for a few minutes?” I said to Mike.
Zoya Blunt had put her head on the table and cried to the point that her shoulders shook.
“I didn’t mean to be so rough on you, Zoya,” Mike said, kneeling beside her to try to get her attention. “I—I didn’t know.”
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