Double Scotch

by Steven Henry

  Vonnie shrugged. “He was just a guy.”

  This wasn't the first time Erin had needed to jog a witness's memory. She started fishing for info. “Was he white? Black? Asian?”

  “He was a white guy.”

  “How tall?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Taller than me?”

  Vonnie laughed. She and Erin were about the same height. “What guys aren't taller than us? I guess maybe five-ten or so.”

  “Was he a big guy? Broad in the shoulders?”

  “No, he was kinda thin.”

  “Good-looking?”

  Vonnie grinned at her. “Yeah. He looked nice. Pleasant. He had a good smile. Good hair, you could tell he took care of himself. And kind eyes.”

  Erin pictured a good-looking man injecting poison into a girl, watching her die. She wondered if his eyes stayed kind while the poison took effect. “What color hair?” she asked.

  “Dark. Black or maybe really dark brown. Dark eyes, too.”

  “How old?”

  Vonnie thought about it. “Hard to tell. More than twenty, less than forty?”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Sport coat and slacks.”

  “Color?”

  “Khaki pants, dark blue coat,” Vonnie said. She remembered more than she'd thought, which wasn't uncommon.

  “Necktie?”

  “No. Open collar. Button-down shirt under the coat, light blue I think.”

  “Did you see his hands?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Were there any marks on them? What were his fingernails like?”

  “Clean hands, no wedding ring,” Vonnie said and giggled. “He'd shaved recently, too. I could smell his cologne. There was another smell on him, too. Faint. Some kind of perfume, maybe?”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Erin asked.

  “Of course. I was kind of hoping I'd run into him.” Vonnie giggled again. “We're not supposed to date guests, of course, but I thought if he was only in town for a couple of days, maybe we could go out, have some fun.”

  “Yeah,” Erin said dryly. Her skin was crawling. “I'll bet you're just his type.”

  “Can I pet him now?” Vonnie asked. She was making baby faces at Rolf again.

  “Sure,” Erin said. “I'll need you to fill out a statement in a minute, though. Rolf, sitz.”

  Rolf knew his duty. He obediently sat and accepted a few pats on the head.

  A quarter of an hour later, armed with Vonnie's written statement and the manager's promise that he'd e-mail her the list of former employees, Erin left the DoubleTree. She was feeling pretty good. The killer had been clever, but he'd made mistakes. She was closing in. Vonnie had agreed to sit with a sketch artist as soon as her shift ended. Then the NYPD might be able to put a face on the murderer. Lost in her thoughts, she walked toward the police space where she'd left her Charger.

  Rolf suddenly froze. Then, wagging his tail, he angled hard right, into the street. Erin's arm was jerked sideways. Caught off guard, she stumbled and nearly fell.

  “Rolf! Hier!” she snapped, startled, annoyed, and a little scared. Her K-9 was well enough trained to know better than to go haring off in the middle of Manhattan. Fortunately, she'd stopped him before he could lunge into the path of traffic.

  The Shepherd briskly returned to stand at her hip, looking up at her. He knew he was being scolded, but he seemed more confused than ashamed. His ears were perked forward and his tail waved uncertainly.

  Erin shook her head and smiled down at him. One of the first things they'd taught her in K-9 training was that when a dog misbehaved, it was at least as much the handler's fault. She'd been distracted and had probably given him a signal without meaning to. “It's okay, boy,” she told him, rubbing the base of his ears. It was time to get back to the precinct and catch up with the rest of the squad. She loaded Rolf into the back of the car and went to the driver's door.

  “Erin?”

  It was her turn to freeze in surprise, one hand on the door handle. She knew she recognized the voice, but couldn't place it out of context. Then, just as she saw him, she remembered.

  “Trevor?”

  The perfume-store clerk was standing on the curb just a few feet away. He had a Smartphone in his hand and a pleasant smile on his face.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Sightseeing,” he said with a sheepish little shrug. “I like to walk around Manhattan. I've lived here my whole life, but there's always more to see. Mostly I watch people. What brings you to the neighborhood?”

  “Work.”

  “I hope I was able to help with your investigation,” he said.

  That earned him a quick smile. “You were. We're on the scent.”

  “Literally, or figuratively?”

  “Both,” she said. “That perfume sample may have busted the case open.”

  Trevor looked at Rolf, who craned his neck toward him but stayed where Erin had told him to, at her side. “Can he really track perfume?”

  “Rolf can track anything,” she said. “Human scent and explosives are his specialty. Look, Trevor, I'm on the clock here. I'd love to stick around and chat, but I have to get back to the precinct.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Look, Erin, I want to say something about when we spoke on the phone earlier. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable. I wouldn't want to do that. I'm not very experienced with women, and I may have given you the wrong idea.”

  “It takes more than that to make me uncomfortable,” she said. “You seem like a nice guy, Trevor, but I really am busy right now.”

  “Maybe I'll see you again. Another chance meeting?”

  “Guess we'll find out,” she said absently, getting in the car.

  Chapter 15

  As she pulled out of her parking space, Erin got a text. Ignoring all rules of safe driving, she glanced down at her phone. The message was from Kira and just said “Get back to the office NOW.”

  That could only mean one thing: Rüdel. Erin engaged her Bluetooth with one hand, activated her flashers with the other, and started moving as fast as possible through downtown Manhattan. This wasn't really very fast, but it was the best she could do.

  “You rolling?” were the first words Kira said over the phone.

  “On my way,” Erin said. “I'm leaving the hotel. I'll be there in fifteen. What's up?”

  “We got Rüdel's file. Vic just pulled it off the wires from Interpol. Pictures, history, the works.”

  “Great,” Erin said. “What's our next move?”

  “We've already put out a BOLO. Webb's called in reinforcements. We've got uniforms gearing up to canvas pretty much everywhere on the south side of Manhattan. We're gonna put him on the evening news.”

  “You think that's a good idea?” Erin asked, swerving around a stubborn pickup truck that pretended not to see her flashing lights. “He sees himself on TV, he's gonna go to ground.”

  “We need the extra eyes,” Kira said. “We haven't got enough bodies to search everywhere, and we've got no idea where he is.”

  “What does Webb need me to do?”

  “Come in now. We'll form up at the precinct.”

  A motor scooter pizza-delivery guy abruptly swung across Erin's lane, nearly clipping her fender. She swore and hit the brakes, which brought a chorus of irritated honks from other drivers.

  “Get off the phone, Erin,” Kira advised. “Studies show that using the phone while driving, even hands-free, is comparable to moderate alcoholic impairment. It slows reactions by up to a second.”

  “Thanks for sharing,” Erin snapped. “See you there.” She was annoyed not least because Kira was probably right. Driving in Manhattan was dangerous enough already.

  Major Crimes was full of police. Uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, auxiliaries, some doing important jobs, some just milling around. In the middle of it, Erin found Webb talking to Captain Holliday.

  “O'Reil
ly,” Webb said. “Glad you're here.”

  “Sorry to pull you in like this,” Holliday said. “I know you're working another important case.”

  “It's okay, sir,” Erin said. She hadn't gotten much chance to know the Captain. He had a reputation as a tough, fair officer, but his management style tended to be pretty hands-off. That he was directing the manhunt in person told her how seriously the NYPD was taking the search. She looked at Webb. “Orders?”

  “Take a look at Rüdel's file,” he said. “See if anything jumps out at you. From what we've got, I feel like we could find him if he was hiding in Munich, but Manhattan? Damned if I know.”

  The whiteboard had been updated, but Erin didn't want the bullet-point version. She located Vic and Kira at Vic's desk. They had a bunch of computer printouts spread out in front of them.

  “So,” Erin said, coming up on Vic's shoulder. “Who is this guy?”

  He handed her a scan of a mugshot and the front page of an Interpol file. Erin took it and thanked God Interpol used English as one of its main bureaucratic languages. Her K-9 commands wouldn't help her navigate German bureaucracy. For the first time, she saw Hans Rüdel's face.

  She'd been expecting the sort of guy who played SS officers in old World War II movies: blond, blue-eyed, and arrogant. Rüdel's eyes were blue all right, but his hair was brown, buzzed down almost to the scalp. Most perps tried to look badass in their mugshots. Rüdel just looked bored. His eyes were unfocused and hooded, a little sleepy.

  Erin scanned his file. Hans Rüdel had packed a lot into his thirty-two years. He was former military, a combat engineer with the Deutsches Heer, the German Army. That was good, because it meant they had fingerprints, blood type, and personal history up to the time he'd left the Heer ten years earlier. But it was also bad. It meant he had professional military training. “Combat Engineer,” combined with the incident at the Barley Corner, indicated Rüdel knew his way around explosives. After getting out of the military, he'd joined an ultranationalist skinhead group, picking up a nice collection of white-supremacist tattoos in the process. He'd done thirteen months in Landsberg Prison for conspiracy to blow up a government building in Munich. While incarcerated, he'd studied electrical engineering.

  “The German prison system is designed for rehabilitation,” Kira said, looking at the sheet in Erin's hands. “They try to recreate the conditions of outside life for inmates, while protecting society from the prisoners until they're ready to re-enter the regular world.”

  “Doesn't look like he got very rehabilitated,” Vic said dryly. “He was only outside for six months, then he was right back in again.”

  “Don't judge the system based on him,” Kira said. “Germany has a much lower recidivism rate than we do.”

  Whatever the merits of Germany's criminal-justice system, Rüdel had gotten busted for assault less than a year after his release. He was in and out of prison until '09, after which he'd cleaned up his act, or more likely just avoided getting caught. He was suspected of racketeering, assault, murder, terrorism, hate crimes, and so on down the list, but nothing proven.

  “Christ,” Erin muttered, flipping through page after page of allegations. “This guy's a real son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah,” Vic said. “And he's here now. If we collar him, you think the Germans will let us keep him? Maybe he'll like Sing Sing better than Landsberg.”

  Erin got to the section on Rüdel's known associates. There were a lot of names, but all of them were native Germans. There wasn't a thing in the file that hinted at where he might be, who he was working with, or what he planned to do.

  “Where the hell is this guy?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

  “I think we can rule out Harlem,” Vic said.

  “No, Vic, a neo-Nazi with a swastika tattooed on his neck is not going to hang out in Harlem,” Kira said, rolling her eyes.

  Vic made an angry gesture at the pile of paper in front of him. “This is bullshit,” he said. “This asshole doesn't belong here. He's not connected to New York wiseguys. Why's he picking off Scotsmen in New York harbor? He run out of people to kill on the other side of the ocean?”

  “I need a cup of coffee,” Erin said. She started for the break room, then paused. “Kira, you said there was a new machine.”

  “Yeah, the guy who brought it already installed it,” Kira said. “Truth is, I think that's why half these guys are hanging around on our floor. We've already had to refill it twice. I'll show you.”

  Erin could've found the espresso machine by smell alone. After so many years of standard-issue police coffee, it was like her nose had gone from black and white Kansas into technicolor Oz. The machine was state of the art, all shiny stainless steel. A cluster of Patrol officers was lurking around it, bitching about Major Crimes getting all the new equipment. Erin and Kira shooed them away.

  As soon as the other officers were out of the break room, Kira closed the door and flipped the deadbolt. Then she crossed her arms and stared at Erin.

  “Okay, give,” she said. “Start talking. Where'd this thing come from?”

  Erin sighed. “I couldn't say for sure. And if it's who I think it is, we'll never be able to prove it. He'll have covered the paper trail too well.”

  “Laundering a coffee machine?” Kira snorted. “That's a new one. He a mob boss, or what?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Oh, shit,” Kira said. “You're telling me this machine's a gift from Morton fucking Carlyle?”

  Erin nodded. “A little thank-you for saving his life and his bar. Again.”

  “Great. Just great. We're getting kickbacks from the Irish Mob now.” Kira leaned against the wall and ran a hand through her hair.

  “So what do you want me to do? You want to send it back?”

  “No, I don't want to send it back. It gave me the best damn cup of coffee I've had in a month! That's not the point!”

  “What is the point?” Erin asked. “You don't need to tell me Carlyle's playing me. He danced all over the place when I tried to pin him down about Rüdel. He kept going on about how he couldn't tell me anything. I don't know why he was even talking to me in the first place!” Fuming, she turned to the machine and poured herself a cup of coffee. For a few seconds she just held it and enjoyed the smell, getting a handle on her emotions. Then she tried a sip. Kira was right. It was the best coffee she'd ever had in a police station.

  Kira hadn't replied. Erin looked up from her drink. The other woman was watching her thoughtfully.

  “I wasn't undercover with the gang task force,” Kira said. “It was more a sort of community-outreach thing. I tried to find out why boys got channeled into gang culture, worked on getting them out of the life. Spinning wheels, mostly. It's hard to pry them loose once they're in, and they get in early. Sometimes I'd meet kids who were ten, twelve years old, already in the system.

  “One of the biggest issues when dealing with gangs is that no one's willing to talk to the police,” she went on. “If word gets out that one of the gang's talking to the cops, next thing you know, Patrol's fishing him out of a dumpster with a hole in his head.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Erin said. “So why'd Carlyle want to talk to me?”

  “I've been thinking about that,” Kira said. She made a wry face. “I always think about how somebody in an organization may be trying to work the system. It's an Internal Affairs reflex, I guess. This is the second time you've stopped something major going down in Carlyle's bar. He couldn't pretend it was coincidence.”

  “But it was coincidence!” Erin protested. “They were totally unrelated cases. If I'd known Rüdel was going to hit the Corner, I'd have had ESU there. Hell, I'd at least have been wearing my vest!”

  “Not the point,” Kira said again. “You think anybody in the O'Malleys would believe that? Think about how it looks to them.”

  Erin thought about it. “It looks like Carlyle's got police cover.”

  “And since he doesn't really have it, h
e hasn't told the other O'Malleys about it,” Kira said.

  “Right,” Erin said. “Evan O'Malley probably thinks Carlyle's been hiding this from him. And that makes him look bad to his boss.”

  “So Carlyle couldn't pretend there was nothing going on,” Kira said. “He had to talk to you, but not alone. That would only cause more suspicion.”

  “That's why Corky was there,” Erin said, snapping her fingers. “Carlyle needed a witness.”

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “But isn't Corcoran one of Carlyle's best friends?”

  Erin nodded. “So?”

  “So he's already on Carlyle's side. Which means maybe Carlyle did want to tell you something after all.”

  Erin put down her coffee cup to rub her temples. “Now I'm just confused.”

  “Carlyle went to the trouble of setting up a meet, in front of one of his friends,” Kira said. “A friend who would probably lie for him if he asked him to. All so he could tell you he didn't know anything about the guy who tried to kill him.”

  “Wait,” Erin said. “That's not what he said.”

  “Well, something like that,” Kira said. “It doesn't matter—”

  “No,” Erin interrupted. “It does matter, because Carlyle doesn't ever say anything he doesn't mean to. He's the most careful man with his words I've ever met. He's like a criminal politician.”

  “Aren't all politicians criminal?” Kira retorted.

  “Ha ha. Be quiet a second. This is important.” Erin racked her brain to recall the exact words. “I asked who was writing Rüdel's checks. He said, 'I can't possibly answer that.' I asked, 'Can't, or won't?'”

  “What'd he say?”

  “He asked if the distinction was important.”

  Kira smiled. “I'd like to get this guy in an interrogation room sometime, see what I could shake out of him.”

  “I know the feeling,” Erin said. “He didn't answer. I pressed him and asked flat-out whether he knew who'd hired Rüdel. He said no. Then I asked who he thought had done it, and he said he couldn't say.”

  “Where's that leave you?”