‘The blind guy is the one we caught,’ Meyer said. ‘Ten thirty last Wednesday night.’
Bald and burly, shirtsleeves rolled up and shirt collar open because the squadroom’s air conditioner wasn’t working again on one of the hottest days this June, he hunched over Carella’s desk, consulting the DD report.
‘That would’ve been?’
‘June sixteenth.’
‘Fifty-eight years old. Two in the head,’ Meyer said.
‘From a Glock?’
‘A Glock. Apparently, nothing was stolen from him. His wallet still contained a check for three hundred dollars, and a hundred and change in cash, presumably tip money.’
‘And the next one?’
Carella walked over from the watercooler. He moved like an athlete, though he wasn’t one, his skills limited to stickball when he was a kid growing up in Riverhead. He picked up the Nine-Eight’s report, and studied it again, together with the other detectives this time. Standing side by side, reading the report, the men could have been accountants looking over a client’s weekly payroll report - if only it weren’t for the shoulder holsters.
And the nine-millimeter Glocks in them.
Just like the one that killed the omelet lady and the blind guy.
‘Friday night,’ Carella said. ‘Calm’s Point. The Nine-Eight phoned this morning, right after they got a Ballistics match.’
‘Sure, the word’s out,’ Parker said. ‘Dump it on the Eight-Seven.’
‘Perp climbed in the window and shot her while she was cooking an omelet,’ Meyer said.
‘What kind of omelet was it?’ Genero asked.
Parker looked at him.
‘I’m curious.’
‘Who was the vic?’ Parker asked.
‘Woman named Alicia Hendricks. Fifty-five years old.’
‘Point is,’ Byrnes said, ‘Steve and Meyer can’t handle it alone. We’re looking at overtime here. Two homicides in as many…’
‘Like I said, we’re the garbage can here,’ Parker said.
‘How do you want us to divvy this, Loot?’ Carella asked.
‘I thought Andy and Richard could get on the latest one…’
‘Who caught it again?’ Genero asked.
‘The Nine-Eight. Detective up there named Kramer.’
‘Like in
‘There’s other Kramers in this world, Richard.’
‘Like I didn’t know, Andy.’
‘You and Meyer stick with the violin player. And head up the team.’
‘We better hope there ain’t another one,’ Parker said.
‘Another violin player?’ Genero asked.
‘Another
This was truly a pain in the ass.
* * * *
Calm’s Point could have been a foreign nation. Took them forty minutes downtown from the Eight-Seven and then over the bridge to the Nine-Eight, where the most recent Glock murder had occurred. Was what they were already calling them: the Glock Murders. In the dead woman’s apartment now, the inheriting detectives felt like they’d just crossed the Euphrates.
The body had been removed long ago, but its chalked outline was still on the kitchen floor. Frying pan on the stove, cold mushrooms and eggs in it, lady’d been cooking an omelet. Big carving knife on the floor, where she’d dropped it when the killer aced her. Fire-escape window open wide, they assumed this had been the point of entry.
What troubled them was that this time he - or she -had been invasive. The blind violinist had been shot on the street. This time, the killer had entered the vic’s living space, which meant this wasn’t just a random killing, this was a chosen target. Which could or could not mean that the previous vic had been deliberately selected as well. In which case, the killer had so far picked targets in disparate parts of the city. The blind guy all the way uptown in the Eight-Seven’s turf, and now the omelet lady, here in her own apartment in Calm’s Point.
No apparent theft this time, either. Lady’s jewelry still in her top dresser drawer, money in her handbag. Credit cards ID’d her as one Alicia Hendricks. Neighbors told them she worked for some cosmetics company in ‘The City’ - which meant back across the river and into the trees again. One of the neighbors thought the name of the firm was Beauty Blush. But a laminated card in her wallet identified her as a sales rep for a firm called Beauty
* * * *
The salesman was telling him that the sticker price on the car was $74,330…
‘Standard features include the four-point-two-liter V-8, two-hundred and ninety-four horsepower engine…’
Baldy kept circling the car like some kind of hawk about to pounce on a rabbit.
‘… six-speed automatic transmission with overdrive, four-wheel antilock brakes
Guy didn’t look like he could afford seventy-four
‘What colors does it come in?’ Baldy asked.
‘I have the chart right here,’ the salesman said. ‘Your exteriors come in the Topaz, the Ebony, the Midnight, the Radiance, the Seafrost…’
Guy kept circling the car, running the palm of his hand over the fenders, the hood, the sleek sides…
‘For the interiors, you have a choice of the Cashmere, the Dove, the Ivory…’
‘When can I take delivery?’
‘Depends on whether you plan to buy or lease…’
‘Lease,’ Baldy said.
‘… and whether we can find the vehicle in the colors you…’
‘Find it,’ he said.
* * * *
The sales manager of Beauty Plus’s Lustre Nails Care Division was a man named Jamie Dewes. He was surprised to find two detectives from uptown on his doorstep at four P.M. that twenty-first day of June, because he’d already been visited by detectives from Calm’s Point last week.
‘Terrible thing,’ he told Parker and Genero. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Alicia?’
But in the very next breath, he told the detectives that Alicia thought someone was following her. Veronica Alston, his assistant, confirmed this.
‘Some creepy bald-headed guy,’ she said.
‘When did she tell you this?’ Genero asked.
‘Last week sometime?’ Jamie said.
‘No, before then,’ Veronica said. ‘Around the beginning of the month.’
‘What a month,’ Jamie said. ‘Hottest damn June I can remember.’
‘Said someone was following her?’ Parker said.
‘Said she’d spotted this guy following her, yes.’
‘Where, did she say?’
‘Just following her.’
‘Here? This neighborhood? Or where she lived?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘How many times did she spot him?’
