Washington straightened gracefully, shaking her fur coat out around her. 'As for the woman, she must not have known what hit her. It doesn't appear as if she even tried to fight off her attacker. Someone took her by surprise. You're looking for a guy with a sharp knife or possibly a pick, maybe an ice pick, possibly someone she knew.' The ME gazed at the door of the restaurant musingly, then shrugged. 'I'll know more tomorrow. Meanwhile, see what kind of sharp instruments they have in the bar and in the kitchen. Someone might have put it back. Then again, he might have thrown it out.'
'Thanks.' April was grateful for the input.
3
It did not look like a sentimental postcard of winter at 2:30 A.M., which was when Sergeant Mike Sanchez, after less than an hour of sleep, showered, dressed, and stumbled out in the storm to scrape snow and ice from the front and back windows of his red Camaro, which turned out not to be fully protected by the roof in the parking lot provided by his building. The job only half done, he tried the ignition key and discovered that the battery still had life. Then, with the windshield wipers noisily squeaking their protest, he slowly limped out of the borough of Queens, grateful he had been awakened now instead of three or four hours later when he might have had to dig the car out, or worse, resort to public transportation.
For the last several weeks Sanchez had lived on the twenty-second floor of a building complex less than ten years old. His new apartment consisted of an L-shaped living room with a terrace the width of the picture window, from which the magnificent skyline of Manhattan alone was worth the rent; a bedroom with a view of the parking lot where his car had its own designated spot in all weathers; a bathroom with faucets that didn't drip and pipes that didn't clank when the water was turned on; a kitchen with both a dishwasher and a window.
There wasn't much more in it than the queen-sized bed he'd yet to share with anyone, a table he'd eaten at once, and a quite new secondhand sofa covered in beige tweed he'd gotten from a detective whose wife decided to take him back after a year's separation that didn't end in divorce. The Garden Towers, as it was called, was seven minutes from the Midtown Tunnel, which in turn was close to the precinct on Twenty-third Street where Sanchez was now headquartered in the Homicide Task Force. The Twenty-third Street location put him around the comer from the Police Academy building where many of the labs were still located pending the completion of new and better facilities in Queens.
One advantage of Mike's new life was that his hours were now a civilized 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. five days a week unless he was working off the chart on a major case. As a specialist he covered the whole city and was no longer confined to whatever came down in a single house. He worked out of one of the cubbyholes each precinct provided for Special Cases, was one of those people he used to resent when he was in a precinct detective squad and an outsider came in to 'help' them. So far he hadn't had those kinds of problems of too much hostility directed at himself and liked the constant change of scenery. On the personal front, he now had a home of his own in which to spend time with the woman of his dreams, but hadn't gotten her there long enough for the
Night for a cop was not supposed to be downtime. These days Mike had more downtime than he was used to and it was driving him nuts. That night he had asked himself how he could possibly get through his second day off with nothing to do but relax. It seemed as if he hadn't been asleep for more than a minute or two when the phone rang and he was apprised of the situation at Liberty's Restaurant. Double homicide. He understood there was nothing official on his possible involvement yet—the call was just a tip in case he got assigned the case later—but if he wanted to see the scene before the bodies were removed and to stake a claim, he'd better head into Manhattan right away despite the inclement weather.
Mike's head cleared of all his miseries and doubts as he drove as quickly as his car would take him through the storm. He had something else to worry about now. Frederick Douglass Liberty had been a hero of his, always came across in the press and his TV interviews as a really upright kind of guy, the thinking man's athlete. Mike had been impressed by him every time he saw him, but then everybody had been impressed by Liberty. Even when he was only twenty-two, he'd had class. He'd been in another stratosphere from the other players. Rick Liberty had never shaved wedges into his hair, tattooed his arms, or pierced any part of his body. He hadn't been a brawler. He hadn't made a franchise of himself when he left football and didn't appear in movies or commercials. He'd explained that he didn't want the celebrity life. He'd wanted to be a regular working guy—some regular guy! He'd become a rich banker. Sanchez knew because Liberty was quoted in the newspapers in the business section now. He was married to a soap opera star, and she was apparently one of the victims. Mike wondered where Liberty was when his wife was murdered. He hoped it was far, far away.
No other car was either in front of him or behind him in the mile-long tunnel. He couldn't remember another time when his had been the only car in the Midtown Tunnel. It felt eerie, almost as if the tunnel had been shut down in preparation for the end of the world. On the other side of the river in Manhattan, the streets were almost deserted in the sheeting snow. It took nearly thirty-five minutes to get across town.
Mike was relieved to see that the ambulance and Crime Scene station wagon were still at the site. And not so happy to see that farther down at the end of the block two news vans were set up to film what they could of the removal of the bodies. Spots lit up the street. He left his Camaro behind the ambulance and ducked under the Crime Scene tapes to take a look at the restaurant garden. A makeshift tent had been erected over the area to protect it from the weather as it was being photographed and sketched and gone over by the CSU. Saul Bernheim, the skinny criminologist who claimed that he didn't eat much because food was bad for you, was gnawing on a hunk of what looked like cornbread.
'Ah, Mike. I'm glad to see they've sent in a big gun. We're going to need a razor brain on this one. How ya doin', man? You come in from the Bronx? I hear it's real bad up there.'
Mike smiled at the compliment. 'I live in Queens now. It's fine in Queens.'
'No kidding. Well, take a look. You're in luck, they're about to bag 'em.' Saul waved what was left of the bread at the bodies.
Mike crouched down under the heavy plastic that had been suspended over the two victims and now was covered with snow. He stared at the corpses for a long time. Both looked like large, very well-dressed mannequins that had been carelessly dirtied and mangled. Mike particularly noted how big both were. Two big people who looked to be in good shape. His first thought was that it was an odd setup. Death had come to these two swiftly, and was the more shocking for it. The front of the woman's body was covered with blood. It was smeared everywhere. At first he couldn't see its source.
'Gunshot wound?' he said.
'Naw, take a look at her neck.'
'Jesus.'
Saul frowned at the precise placement of a small hole above the woman's jugular vein, which must have been pierced in one blow.
'Any other wounds?'
'Might be. Can't tell.'
Mike cocked his head, looking sideways at the male lying faceup but not bloody like the other victim. Head wound? he wondered. Two attackers, maybe, one with an ice pick, the other with a blunt instrument. He straightened up and heard some bones crack. 'What do you think we have here?'
'A mess, a real mess.' The skinny criminologist had finished the bread and was blowing on his bare fingers. A beaver hat with flaps came down low on his forehead and covered his ears. His nose was running and he needed a shave.
'Another weird one,' he added. 'There's something . . . intimate about this hit, know what I mean? Doesn't have the feeling of a stranger thing. Ice pick killing, maybe only one strike—' Saul shook his head, activating the beaver flaps around his ears. 'Usually a guy that works with a pick, he'll choose an isolated location, then stab the victim more than once. It's a rage weapon, know what I mean? I saw one once— female resisted a rape, guy stabbed her with a screwdriver sixty times, maybe more. It was hard for the ME to count because the guy was in such a frenzy he hit in the same place over and over. One strike just right, that's not something you see every day, especially when there are two victims. Doesn't look like either one fought back. . . . Stinking weather, too,' he mused. 'Someone had to want to hit her pretty bad, wouldn't you say?'
