Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  Normally, he only watched the news or sports, but last year he’d become involved in a show he never would have thought he’d watch. It was a guilty pleasure for him, in the true sense of the definition of the phrase—something he’d never want anyone else to know.

  He found the right channel, then set the remote down and settled in for a new season of America Idol.

  Chapter 11

  The Observer knew that the Ice Man was anxious for another victim. But the Ice Man wasn’t out here looking for them. This was his job. It was only after the intended victim was turned into an actual victim that the Ice Man got the body.

  So the Ice Man would just have to wait until the Observer found the perfect victim. In order to do this he had to be out there, out in the streets where the people were. He had to watch them, and wait for the likely ones to point themselves out by their actions. This wasn’t just a simple matter of trolling for victims. This was a very careful selection process.

  He was sitting in the window of a new coffee shop in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, watching the people go by. Inside, they were enjoying their lattes and other fancy, foamy coffee drinks. Outside, they were bundled up against the cold, but they didn’t know what true cold was. To the Ice Man the cold was a tool, and he wielded it very well. The Observer sometimes envied the others. They got to act, and all he ever did was watch,

  observe,

  choose.

  The one he most envied was the Killer.

  Chapter 12

  By the time Bailey Sommers walked from the train station to the precinct her nose was bright red. If this assignment was going to last she was going to have to think about moving to Brooklyn, just to be closer. Maybe get a car, too. She’d recently taken the sergeant’s exam. If she passed, the extra income would allow for the car, but she didn’t have time to wait to decide about the move. She’d have to find a place to live, once she was sure she’d be staying in Homicide.

  Women had come a long way in this department, but there were still no squads with a woman in command. In fact, there were no women above the rank of captain, and there was only one of those. However, all she wanted at the moment was an assignment she’d find interesting, and become good at.

  When she got to the squad room McQueen was already there. The door to the lieutenant’s office was closed, and she’d already learned that meant he wasn’t in.

  “Sarge,” she greeted McQueen. He gave her a look. “I mean, Dennis.”

  “Morning, Sommers,” he said.

  “What’s on for today?”

  “We might have an ID on our victim from Coney Island,” he told her. “That call you put in to the Arson Task Force panned out. That was good work.”

  “Thank you.”

  He told her about the call from the task force detective, and the case file fax.

  “I put it on your desk, but you won’t have time to look it over,” he added. “We have to go and talk to the mother. She’ll have to make an ID on the body.”

  “Shit,” she said, then, “sorry.”

  “That’s how I feel, too,” he said. “I’m gonna call the morgue and alert Dr. G that we’ll be bringing someone down to view the body. Then we’ll get going.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Might as well peruse the file while I do that,” McQueen said.

  “Mind if I take it in the car?” she asked.

  “You can,” he said, picking up the phone, “but you’re gonna be driving.”

  He dialed the morgue and when the phone was answered asked for Dr. Bannerjee.

  Evelyn Wingate lived in a house in Marine Park, a large, two-story home on a large corner lot. It was over thirty years old, which is why so much land went with it. Most people in the area were living in tiny houses on small twenty-two by a hundred lots, the homes built claustrophobically close together. Some of them were even semi-attached, so they were sharing the lot. However, just a few blocks away the dynamic changed. The streets were wider, the homes larger and fewer, and none of them were attached. There was also a decent amount of space between them.

  The Wingate house was in the section that nestled between the two dynamics. It was larger than any of the neighboring homes.

  Sommers parked McQueen’s car in front of the house and put on the emergency break, even though the car was not on an incline. It told him something about her.

  During the ride she’d asked him for some advice about finding a new place.

  “I’m the wrong guy to ask,” he’d said. “I’ve got a small apartment in the Six-One precinct and it took me a long time to find it. Plus, you’re younger than I am, you’d be looking for something different.”

  “Maybe not,” she’d said. “I just want some place quiet.”

  “Ask some of the other women working in the precinct,” he’d said. “They can help you better than I can.”

  Now they got out of the car and walked up the path to the front door. McQueen rang the doorbell, then turned to look around.

  “Quiet neighborhood,” Sommers said.

  “Changes every few blocks,” he said. “Old homes, newly renovated homes, people who have lived here forty years, others who have just moved here. Some clubs over on one of the streets, older ships the other way.”

  “What’s the ethnic mix?” she asked.

  “Lots of Russians of late, some Hassidics . . . sort of a microcosm of the whole borough.”

  “Have you lived in Brooklyn long?” she asked.

  “All my life,” he said. “I don’t live all that far from here, right now. I used to live—”

  He stopped when the door behind them opened, and they turned to face the woman in the doorway. She appeared to be in her sixties, but well-preserved, well-dressed, makeup expertly applied to fend off the years. Her hair was brown, streaked with gray.

  “Yes? Can I help you?” she asked, without opening the storm door.

  “Ma’am, we’re with the police,” McQueen said. “I’m Sergeant McQueen, this is Detective Sommers.” He held out his ID and badge for her to see.

  She opened the door and asked, “Is this about Thomas? About my son?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took one step outside.

  “Did you find him?” she asked. “Is he all right?” The worry on her face was giving the makeup a run for its money, and she suddenly looked her age. “Please . . .” she said.

  She reached a hand out. McQueen backed away from reflex, but Sommers reached out to the woman and grabbed her hand.

  “Mrs Wingate,” she said, gently, “we need you to come with us.”

  The woman stared at Sommers’s face, then said, “Yes, yes . . . of course. I—I just need to get my coat and my purse.”

  Sommers said, “I’ll come inside with you.”

  The two women went into the house and McQueen waited on the doorstep.

  McQueen drove them to the morgue. Sommers sat in the back with Mrs. Wingate, holding tightly to her hands. When they came out Sommers had whispered to McQueen that there was no Mr. Wingate. The woman lived alone. She had a daughter, and she allowed Sommers to call her and ask her to meet them at the morgue.

  By the time they arrived the daughter had not yet shown up.

  “Do you want to wait for her?” Sommers asked.

  “No,” the woman said, “but . . . would you come in with me?”

  “We’ll both come in with you, ma’am,” McQueen said. He felt bad for backing away from the woman when she reached out.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The three of them went in to view the body. The woman collapsed when she saw her dead son, and this time McQueen reacted and caught her before she hit the floor.

  “Miss Wingate?” McQueen asked.

  There was a strong resemblance between mother and daughter. Same height, same jaw line. It was entirely possible the mother had been as beautiful as this woman thirty years ago.

  “I’m Mrs. Dean,” she said. “Mrs. Wingate is my mother.
Where is she?”

  “She’s all right, Mrs. Dean,” McQueen said. “She’s lying down. My colleague is with her.”

  The daughter had the same expertise with makeup, only it wasn’t hiding anything, it was enhancing what she had.

  “My name is McQueen,” he said, “Sergeant McQueen.

  “Sergeant,” she asked, “do you have my brother here?”

  “I’m afraid we do, Mrs. Dean.”

  “Then he’s dead.”

  “He is.”

  She was wearing a long fur coat, beneath it an expensive-looking suit. She had her purse clasped in both hands, and now she held it even tighter.

  “Did he die in the fire?” she asked. “Where’s he been?”

  “He did apparently die in the fire, Mrs. Dean,” McQueen said. “Smoke inhalation, according to the medical examiner. As to where he’s been, that’s one of the things we’re going to try to find out, along with who killed him.”

  “Oh, I know who killed him.” When she said it she looked as if she was in a trance.

  “What?”

  She stared straight ahead, then suddenly seemed to come to. She looked directly at him.

  “I’d like to see my mother now.”

  “Of course,” McQueen said. “We can talk later.”

  He took her into the room where the doctor had allowed the woman to lie down. Sommers watched as the woman entered and went to her mother’s bedside. She stood up so the woman could sit down next to her mother, and even handed her mother’s hand to her.

  “Thank you.”

  McQueen crooked a finger at Sommers, who followed him into the hall.

  Chapter 13

  McQueen pulled Sommers aside and told her what Mrs. Dean had said.

  “Did you find out who she means?” Sommers asked.

  “No,” McQueen said, “but I don’t want to let her leave here without calling her on it.”

  “How do you want to play it?”

  “I want you to take the mother, talk to her,” McQueen said. “I’ll do the same with the daughter.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Where will you be doing this?”

  “The hospital has a cafeteria for the employees,” McQueen said. “I thought I’d take her there.”

  “Is there a place I can take the mother? She can probably use a cup of tea.”

  “There’s also a trendy sort of snack bar or coffee shop at the front of the hospital,” McQueen said. “Take her there. When you’re done, meet me back here.”

  “Okay.”

  When the two women were ready they led them away from the body of their son and brother, and the two detectives separated them.

  “I need to stay with my mother,” Mrs. Dean said.

  “Detective Sommers is very sensitive, Mrs. Dean,” he said. “She’ll stay with your mother while we talk.”

  “Talk? About what?”

  “Ma’am,” he said, “just a few minutes ago you told me you knew who killed your brother?”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman pressed two fingertips to the center of her forehead. McQueen had a feeling this was a practiced gesture on her part.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Ma’am, I’m sure you want to do all you can to help us find whoever killed your brother.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “I suggest we have a talk now, while we have the chance,” McQueen said. “Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of tea.”

  “I’d prefer coffee,” she said.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

  “My mother—”

  “Like I said, Detective Sommers is very compassionate. She’ll look after your mother. This way . . .”

  McQueen led the way to the cafeteria. He’d been there many times before alone and with Dr. Bannerjee on occasion. It was a good place to eat because everything was free for employees—and if you were eating in there, they assumed you were an employee, especially when your face was familiar.

  “How you doin’?” one of the cafeteria women asked him as he went to get coffee for himself and Mrs. Dean. He thought he probably should have taken her to the trendy new place in the front of the hospital and let Sommers take the mother here.

  “There you go,” he said, setting the coffee in front of her.

  “Thank you.” She had removed her coat and set it on one of the other chairs. McQueen figured her for a very well-preserved thirty-five or so, maybe more, but she had a well-toned tennis body—or maybe Pilates.

  “Mrs. Dean,” he said, “do you have any other siblings?”

  “No,” she said. “For a lot of years I was an only child, but then . . . Thomas came along late in life. I was almost nineteen when he was born.”

  “And how old was Thomas?”

  “He is . . . was twenty-two.”

  McQueen did the math. She was older than he’d originally thought, but still very attractive.

  “You’re doing the math,” she said.

  “What?” Caught, he felt his face flush.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I’m not. I’m forty-one.”

  “You look very . . . I mean, you don’t—”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m well-preserved, Detective?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You know, women my age are not considered old anymore,” she interrupted him. “Fifty is the new forty now, so I’m considered to be the new thirty.”

  “Ma’am, who am I to say anything,” he replied. “I’m older than you are, and I look my age.”

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” She reached into a small clutch purse for a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter. On the front of the purse was a stylized silver L.

  “I believe this is a nonsmoking cafeteria,” he told her.

  She didn’t say anything, but her mannerisms betrayed her annoyance. She set the cigarette pack and lighter down with a thump.

  “Detective,” she said, “I’m sure my mother needs me.”

  “I’ll make this quick then, ma’am,” he said. “Earlier you said you knew who killed your brother. What did you mean by that?”

  She fidgeted uneasily, picked up the cigarettes as if to take one out, then remembered she couldn’t and put them down again.

  “Well, I didn’t mean that I literally knew who killed him,” she said, finally.

  “What did you mean, then?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before replying.

  “I think—I believe—that my husband was responsible for the fire that killed my brother.”

  “In what way? Did he actually set the fire?”

  “No,” she said. “He owned the building. It was our business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Clothing.”

  “Selling or manufacturing?”

  “Both,” she said. “I’m a designer. My husband did the manufacturing, and controlled the sales force. We’ve had some . . . setbacks recently.” She touched her forehead again in that way that she had.

  “You believe your husband had the building torched for the insurance?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

  “Then I guess I’d better speak with your husband, Mrs. Dean,” he said. “Where can I find him?”

  “You can’t,” she said. “When he heard that the fire department found the fire to be deliberate, he disappeared.” She looked McQueen right in the eye then, for the first time, which caused him to believe her last statement more than any other.

  “I have no idea where he is.”

  Chapter 14

  When McQueen and Mrs. Dean returned to the morgue area, Sommers was already there with the victim’s mother. As soon as they approached her the woman reached out and grabbed hold of McQueen’s forearm. Her hand felt like a claw and the touch creeped him out in that moment. He wanted to pull away, but resisted the impulse.

  “You’ll find who killed my son?” she asked.
“Please? Promise me?”

  “We’ll find the killer, Mrs. Wingate,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Come along, Mother,” Mrs. Dean said, and she pried her mother’s hand off of McQueen’s arm. Before leaving though, she fixed him with a hard stare and said, “We’ll hold you to that promise,” and then led her mother away.

  “What did you get?” McQueen asked Sommers when they got in the car.

  She started the engine, pulled away from the curb and said, “Mother and daughter definitely have problems. The son, Thomas, was the baby, and the favorite.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Not in so many words,” she said. “I mean, a mother never admits to favoring one child over another, but I was able to read between the lines. How about you?”

  He told her what Mrs. Dean had said about her husband paying to have the building professionally torched, and disappearing when the word got out.

  “What was the boy doing in the building?”

  “Mrs. Dean says her husband gave him a job,” McQueen said. “Apparently, he has a habit of getting fired from jobs.”

  “Well,” she said, “if that’s true, and he did have someone start the fire, who took the body out of the building, kept it stored somewhere on ice for two weeks, and then discarded it two weeks after the fire?”

  “That’s a very good question, isn’t it?”

  “I guess now that we’ve found the body and identified it,” Sommers said, “and it originated from the crime scene in Brooklyn North we’ll have to hand the case over, right? So somebody else will be getting those answers.”

  “Technically speaking, I suppose that’s true.”

  She stole a look at him—something he’d noticed she rarely did while she was driving—”Technically speaking?”

  “I find this case interesting,” he said. “When there’s this many squads involved—Arson, ours, Brooklyn North, and the fire department—it gets to be a real mess if one person doesn’t keep control.”

  “And you want that to be you? How are you going to manage that?” she asked.