Mirror Maze j-4

by William Bayer

  Janek was moved. He immediately stood up. "I'm the one who'll be honored."

  "We had the test. It's going to be a girl."

  "God, that's so great." He hugged Ray. "As if I'd even dream of saying no!"

  At nine that night he was watching an old Bogart movie when his telephone rang loud. He must have moved the volume knob by accident.

  He nearly jumped as he fumbled for the receiver.

  It was Sue. Even before she explained why she'd called, he knew something was wrong. She was over at Kirstin Reese's studio. She'd arrived to find the door unlocked and Kirstin's body on the floor. "She doesn't look too good," Sue said. "I mean-" Sue paused. "She's dead."

  When he arrived he found three police cars in front. Also, the med examiner's car, a meat wagon and a Crime Scene van. A small crowd had gathered on the street. People in adjoining tenements stood at their windows staring down. Ninth Avenue traffic, bound for Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel, was snarled, with trucks and cars honking helplessly, trying to squeeze their way through the bottleneck.

  Janek made his way up the narrow stairs, particularly ripe with the smell of fish. Near the top he heard Stiegel's rusty voice. As he drew closer, he found the old cop in a heated argument with Sue.

  "I'm the one put you on to her. Next thing-"

  "You didn't put us on to shit, Stiegel. You didn't even know her name!"

  "So, how'd you find her?"

  "I'm a detective, asshole!"

  When they saw Janek, they broke it off.

  "She was cut bad, Frank," Sue said. "Then shot in the head."

  "It's gotta be the same guy cut her before," Stiegel said.

  Sue turned on Stiegel. "You haven't been listening. It wasn't a guy who cut her. She told us who it was. It was the woman who runs the bad girls."

  Stiegel turned to Janek, eyes pink. "You kept that to yourselves! "

  "We didn't think you'd be interested," Sue said.

  "Interested! Bad girls is my case!"

  "That why you took such great notes?"

  Janek studied Stiegel. He was drunk and about to get violent. "Take it easy," he said as soothingly as he could. Then to Sue: "Did you call him?"

  Sue nodded. "Out of courtesy. Now I'm sorry I did."

  Stiegel stared at her. "You don't like me, do you, Missy?" "What do you think?" Sue asked.

  It was time to separate them. Janek put his hand on Stiegel's shoulder.

  "Come on, Detective-I'll walk you downstairs. "

  Stiegel's eyes glassed over. Then, docile, he allowed Janek to escort him to the street.

  "I'm overworked, Lieutenant. I told you the other night. I couldn't give priority to this… specially when the girl wouldn't talk. Then, out of the blue, your Missy Detective c@ills-I mean, Jesus! What the hell was I supposed to think?"

  Janek wanted to show Stiegel sympathy, but he found it difficult. "Go home," he said. "Like you said-the girl wouldn't talk."

  Stiegel nodded, stumbled onto the sidewalk. He mumbled: "Still think it was the same guy… When Janek had trudged his way back up the five flights, he found Sue in the stairwell, head and hands pressed against the wall. She was shaking, crying softly to herself. Janek didn't say anything, just took her in his arms.

  "You'll be okay."

  "Oh, shit," she moaned. "I meant to come see her this morning. Then I got busy and couldn't get to it." She pointed at the floor. "See, I brought her my old air conditioner. Got two uniforms to carry it up.

  They set it down there, I rang the buzzer and the door popped open.

  There she was, lying by the couch."

  He knew there wasn't anything he could say that would make her feel better, so he fell back upon a standard consolation: "It's not your fault. Don't think it is, even for a second."

  When she was calmer, he entered the apartment to check in with Lois Rappaport. As usual, her face was sour, her smile crooked and her report toneless.

  " Shot in the head at close range. Like Dietz down at the Savoy.

  Wounds indicate It twenty-two. Still looking for the bullet."

  Rappaport beckoned Janek to join her beside the body. He complied although he didn't want to-to him Kirstin wasn't an ordinary victim.

  He'd spoken to her, seen her pain, had felt connected to her. Looking at her now-her pale broken face, her large, ghostly Nordic eyes-he thought he saw a less troubled person than he had interviewed three days before.

  Then, as Lois Rappaport traced the old scars on Kirstin's cheeks, he felt weighed down by grief.

  "The way these cuts are drawn-you can see they were made carefully. Sue told me this girl was deliberately disfigured. But these new incisions … " Rappaport pointed. "These weren't done to mar her beauty. These are torture cuts, Frank. Looks to me like someone was trying to make her talk." As Janek considered what Rappaport had said, he was struck by a thought: What if someone had tried to make Kirstin tell what she had refused to reveal to him and Diana's full name and address? If that's what this is about, he thought, it's very likely she did talk. How could she resist with a knife held to her face? And the fact that she'd been shot through the head suggested her torturer had gotten what he'd wanted.

  He was angry. He had lost his only lead in the Dietz case. He was not waiting until the morning to go on. He phoned Aaron and Ray at home, told them to meet him at Special Squad. At eleven-thirty, when he and Sue arrived, the two men were waiting.

  "Here's my theory," he said. "Someone was tracking us, hoping we'd lead him to the Omega. He followed us to Kirstin's, then came back later and finished up our interview. Now he's a step ahead."

  "Who're we talking about?" Aaron asked.

  Janek turned to Sue. "You were with Kane when he went through Deitz's effects?" Sue nodded. "What'd you think of him?"

  "Cold. Arrogant. He tried to get me to talk about the case." Sue paused.

  "Do you think he killed Kirstin?"

  "Maybe. Kane wanted to work with us. Deforest and I said no. Later that day, he met you. Suppose he started stalking you hoping you'd lead him to someone helpful. Suppose he saw you meet me and then the two of us go into Kirstin's building. It wouldn't have been hard to figure out who we were seeing."

  Aaron shook his head. "But not Sonoron-?"

  Janek agreed. "As much as they want their Omega, they probably wouldn't be party to a thing like this. But suppose Kane's gone into business for himself? In the L.A. sheriff's office he was suspected of being a double agent. The Omega's out there. If he finds it, it can make him rich.

  Sue shook her head. "If that bastard-"

  "It's just a theory," Janek said. "Now let's go to work and see if we can prove it."

  He quickly gave orders. Ray was to search for Kane.

  "Start at the Savoy. If I'm right, he's checked out, but the hotel will have a record of his calls. Maybe you'll get lucky-maybe he did something stupid like use his room phone to make a reservation at another hotel."

  Aaron was assigned to dig deeper on Kane.

  "If he killed Dietz and Kirstin, he's probably been violent before. Find out."

  Sue was to keep looking for Diana.

  "Kirstin gave us two important leads. She said Diana used a doctor named Feldstein and a lawyer named Thatcher. We gotta talk to them. To do that we need their full names. Check out all the Feldsteins who are MDs. If he's '' the way Kirstin said, he probably works out of the upper East Side. Then check out all the Thatchers who do criminal defense."

  "What about you, Frank?" Aaron asked.

  "I'm going to have a little talk with that Sonoron chairman, Cavanaugh."

  It was midnight New York time, nine P.m. in San Jose. Sonoron was closed for the day, but a night operator at the company's answering service gave Janek an emergency number. When he called it, he was connected to a Ms. Isabelle Brooks, who identified herself as Eliot Cavanaugh's executive assistant. Ms. Brooks said that she was speaking to him from her home and that she was hesitant to bother Mr. Cavanaugh after business hours.
r />   "He's in San Francisco this evening. He and his wife went there for dinner and the opera," she explained.

  "Has he got a beeper?" Ms. Brooks acknowledged that the chairman did.

  "Beep him," Janek told her. "Tell him to call me. This is an emergency."

  He gave her the Squad Room number, then settled back to wait.

  Twenty minutes later, Cavanaugh called. "This better be good," he said.

  "When did you send Kane to New York?"

  "You paged me out of the opera to ask me that?"

  Janek imagined him standing in his tuxedo at a pay phone outside the men's room at the San Francisco Opera House.

  "Yeah, that's why I paged you," Janek said. "Answer the question, please."

  "I don't remember exactly when we sent him. What difference does it make?"

  "Here's the difference," Janek said. "A few days ago a detective named Sue Burke from my office called to tell you Dietz had been shot in the head. You told her you were sending your security man, Kane, to New York to try and retrieve your stolen chip. Wanna know what I think, Mr.

  Cavanaugh? I think that wasn't true. I think you sent Kane here to look for Dietz before we told you he was shot."

  A pause on the other end. Janek imagined Cavanaugh's forehead popping sweat as he tried to dream up a decent response.

  "And why would you think that, Lieutenant Janek?"

  "Because I think Kane killed Dietz. Now I think he's killed someone else."

  "That's wild!"

  "Maybe. But if it turns out you lied about when you sent him, you could be implicated, too."

  Janek heard a quick intake of breath. "This is really absurd."

  "Then clear yourself by answering the question. Or would you rather consult counsel first?"

  "You must be out of your mind!"

  "It's a simple question-did you lie or didn't you?"

  Cavanaugh went silent. When he spoke again his voice was calm. "As soon as Dietz's wife told us he'd gone to New York, we sent Kane there to look for him." "That was before Detective Burke told you Dietz was dead?"

  "I don't recall. Events were occurring fairly fast."

  Slick bastard!

  "Okay, Mr. Cavanaugh, we'll leave it like that for now. As for your Omega-wanna know what I think?"

  "Tell me."

  "Kane's gone rogue. If he finds it first, he's going to shop it around for his own account."

  At noon the next day, with the squad reassembled, each of the detectives related his results.

  Ray, stroking his mustache, reported that Kane had checked into the Savoy the evening Dietz was killed, and had checked out the day he'd met with Janek. Hotel records showed he hadn't made any calls from his room.

  Ray had begun a methodical check of all hotels and motels in the city, so far with no result.

  Sue had found only one criminal defense attorney named Thatcher. His first name was Gilford and he was known as an efficient and very high-priced lawyer. As for Feldstein, there were numerous doctors with that name, so Sue, after consulting with Aaron, had called the Bureau of Controlled Substances in Albany. According to the bureau's computer records, a Dr. Isaac Feldstein, with offices at 780 Park Avenue, had written a large number of prescriptions for triazolam.

  Aaron had found out more about Kane's last days in the L.A. sheriff's office. After he was reassigned, there was noticeable deterioration-suspected drug use, then an assault on a fellow officer.

  The incident was ugly. The assaulted officer was female. Kane had picked up a pair of scissors, threatened to slash her up. Charges were filed.

  When it was clear that Kane was going to be dismissed, he resigned and moved to Northern California.

  "I talked to the victim," Aaron said. "She says Kane took a swipe at her breasts."

  Janek thought a moment. He had only Kane's and Cavanaugh's word that Sonoron's research department had developed the Omega. It seemed just as likely that Sonoron had stolen some of the ideas incorporated in the Omega, or had obtained them by bribing the employees of competitors.

  "Right now it doesn't matter why Cavanaugh hired Kane," he said. "All that matters is that he's probably killed two people and he's out there now looking for a third."

  Janek began to pace. "Think about it. For a double agent, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. First, Dietz steals the Omega. Then Sonoron sends Kane after him to get it back. Meantime, purely by coincidence, Dietz wanders down to his hotel bar, where he gets picked up by our redhead, Gelsey. Dietz invites her upstairs, she drugs him, cleans him out and, in the process, finds the Omega. She takes it and leaves. "

  "At this point Dietz is still alive?" Sue asked.

  "Yes. But then Kane shows up. He's been tracking Dietz. Maybe he saw the bar pickup. Maybe he even saw Gelsey leave the room. So, okay, he finds Dietz drugged out asleep. He tosses the room, but… no Omega. What goes through his mind?" "The redhead took it," Sue said.

  Janek stopped pacing. He turned to his squad members. Their eyes were on him. "What's Kane going to do?"

  The detectives looked at one another.

  "The moral choice is to wait until Dietz wakes up, then enlist his help in tracking down the girl. What would be his odds? Probably not too good, considering we haven't found her yet." They nodded. Janek continued.

  "There's also the criminal choice. Pump a bullet into Dietz, turn the robbery into a homicide, then stand back and let us do the legwork.

  Suppose we find the redhead, or at least turn up a lead. All Kane's gotta do is tag along, and then, at the right moment, jump ahead. If I'm right, that's just what he's done." Janek paused. "If Kane finds Gelsey and gets the Omega, he's got no motivation to return it to Sonoron.

  Instead, he'll do the very thing he says Dietz was going to do-sell it to the competition. If Kane does that, he'll never be suspected. After all, he didn't steal the Omega-Dietz did. Who'll know he found it? No one. So, if he's successful, he's home free." Janek asked what they thought.

  "Pretty theory," Aaron said, "but if you're right, and Kane forced Kirstin to tell him where to find Diana, then he really is ahead of us."

  Aaron paused. "What do we do now?"

  "Play catch up," Janek said. "We're in a race. The winner gets to Gelsey first. We've got to get to her before Kane kills her for that lousy chip."

  When he returned from lunch, Stoney was waiting for him. The short bomb squad investigator, looking solemn, asked to speak to him alone.

  "Okay, what's up?" Janek said after he closed his office door. "We're busy. We're working a double homicide. So, if you don't mind… "

  Stoney stared at him. "I'm working a homicide, too."

  "Whose?"

  "Howard Clury's." Janek sat down. "Tell me more."

  "A car bomb is handmade. You don't buy one at your local sporting-goods store. Every guy who makes one has his own way of doing it. That's what we call the bomb maker's signature."

  "Go on."

  "The bomb set under your car and the bomb that blew away Clury nine years ago-without getting technical about it, they were similarly signed."

  Janek picked up the police sketch of Gelsey. He remembered what Kirstin had said-that Gelsey referred to writing on her marks as "signing" her work.

  "What does that mean?" he asked.

  "It kind of eliminates the possibility that Clury was killed in a narcotics hit," Stoney said.

  "There probably weren't all that many people who thought that's what happened even back then."

  Stoney stared at him, then exhaled. "You and I have a problem, Frank."

  "What's that?"

  "You're working the Mendoza case and I'm working the Mendoza case. But we're not working as a team." Shit! Here it comes! "You never asked me about Mendoza. " "I asked you to tell me anything relevant."

  "You didn't-"

  "Don't con me, Frank. You were a bomb target. So was Clury. Lately you've been investigating the Mendoza affair. Whoever bombed your nice little foreign car was trying to tell you to s
tay away from it."

  "That occurred to me."

  "Of course it did. It occurred to me, too, the night the bomb went off.

  But I didn't say anything. I waited for you to talk. When you didn't, I went out to Nassau County and spoke to the bomb people there.

  I wasn't with NYPD when Clury was blown. They filled me in. Now I'm asking why you didn't say anything."

  "Look, Stoney, this thing's got a life of its own. It's bigger-"

  Stoney stood up. He was a short, stocky man, but in his anger he projected considerable size.

  "I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear any more bullshit about the Mendoza case-how it's bigger than all of us, how it's got a fucking life of its own! Hear me, Frank? I'm sick of that shit! Far as I'm concerned it's a bombing case. Only thing special about it is nine years ago a cop was killed and this week another cop was warned.

  I'm telling you this so you understand where I'm coming from. I'm going to find out who made those bombs-with your help or not."

  He glared at Janek, then turned, walked out and slammed the door. Janek stared after him.

  So now the bomb squad's working on the goddamn thing. Do I mind? He decided that he didn't.

  Mirror Madness Once, to frighten her, her father told her there was a creature called a Minotaur hiding in the maze. From that day she believed the creature was real. Over the years, in her mind it took many forms. Always it was malevolent… She knew at once that something was wrong. When she rang the bell the response was not Dr. Z's. Instead of his eccentric much-too-quick buzz followed by one much too long, she received a normal, rationally timed response that told her someone else was ringing back.

  With trepidation, she pushed open the door, crossed the small foyer and entered the little waiting room.

  She had just sat down in her usual chair, was scanning the table for new magazines, when she heard someone emerging from the office. She looked up to find herself facing a woman she had never seen before. This stranger middle-aged, slim, with handsome features and lovely glowing black-and-gray hair-showed her a warm smile.

  "You're Gelsey, aren't you?" Gelsey nodded. "I'm Dr. Bernstein. I'm filling in for Dr. Zimmerman today."