Blood in Babylon Page 16

  “Yeah, it is. But it’s damned complicated to explain when I am doing a hundred miles an hour down the expressway.”

  “Stay left on the 278.”

  “I know.”

  “OK, don’t get mad. Drive. I ask, you answer. Good?”

  “Mh-hm.”

  We began to climb into spaghetti junction. “Stay on the I-95.”

  “I know.” I paused, then added, “So we’re looking for Ned.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not so easy to answer. He got an anonymous letter saying he was going to die.”

  “You got the note?”

  “It’s at the lab. Didn’t tell me much. Standard printer paper. The letters had been cut from a newspaper. Probably the Times.”

  She laughed unpleasantly. “That’s ridiculous. How could you know that?”

  “I read the Times. I know the fonts they use for headlines.”

  “Oh. So he ran?”

  “Disappeared last night.”

  She frowned. “When did he get the letter?”

  “This morning.”

  “But that…”

  “I know. I said it was complicated.”

  “So whatever reason he’s run, it isn’t the letter.”

  “No.”

  Her frown deepened. “So, he jumped in his car sometime between last night and early this morning and drove ten or fifteen miles to Mamaroneck and booked into a motel…”

  “Yup.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Unless he was meeting somebody.”

  “Huh, yeah.” She nodded. “Who?” She snapped her fingers. “His adoptive parents!”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Grounds.”

  “What?”

  “What are your grounds for that conclusion?”

  “Well, who the hell would he be going to meet?”

  “We’ll soon find out, Dehan. I just hope we’re not too late.”

  “Too late? I don’t get why you think he’s in danger.”

  “OK, baby steps. We have established that we believe he did not flee, because as he hadn’t received the note, he had no reason to yet. Also, he went no more than ten miles and stopped at a motel.”

  “Yes. That is not the behavior of a fleeing man.”

  “So from there, we reason that the most likely purpose for him to go to that motel in that way would be to meet somebody. There may be another explanation, but that is the most likely one.”

  I overtook a dark blue Audi that was only doing 90 miles per hour and was getting in my way.

  “Yup.”

  “OK, so the note. How does the note fit in to that? As I see it, we have a couple of options: one, it is totally unrelated; two, it is partly related and three, it is directly related.”

  She nodded. “Baby steps, OK.”

  “Stay with me, this is important. Scenario one, it is totally unrelated; logically it will not affect what we are going to find at the motel.”

  “OK, that makes sense. We still have to look into it, but it won’t affect what we are about to find, because they are unrelated.”

  “Exactly.” We were headed north now and on our right, the city gave way to the open, green parkland around the Huntington Woods and the Victory memorial. I saw the needle touch 110. “Now, scenario two: it is partly related. What does that mean? Maybe a white supremacist neighbor has heard that the cops are taking another look at the Al Chester case, maybe that has triggered old resentments, something of that sort. In which case, the timing of the letter’s arrival is purely coincidental.”

  “OK, I’m following you. In both scenario one and two, the timing of the arrival of the letter is a coincidence.”

  I nodded. “In my opinion, Dehan, it is one hell of a coincidence, in a case in which race just seems to keep cropping up in one guise or another.”

  “OK…”

  “However, be that as it may, in scenario three, they are intimately connected. So we need to ask ourselves the question, why was the note timed to arrive—it was, remember, delivered by hand—why was it timed to be delivered after he had left? Timing now becomes crucial.”

  She frowned hard. “Why would a note intended for him be delivered after he had left? The only explanation is that whoever sent it didn’t know he’d left.”

  “Then we are in scenario two, not three.”

  I turned onto the exit for Orchard Beach. Dehan said, “The I-95 is faster. Your speed is limited on this road.”

  “The traffic’s getting too heavy. No, in scenario three, the two events are intimately connected, Dehan. So, what are the implications of the note arriving after he has left? Whoever sent the note knows that he has gone. The two events are intimately connected, remember.”

  She shook her head, staring at me like I was crazy. “I don’t know, Stone! What are you driving at?”

  “It’s clear! If the note was sent after he had left, it was not intended to be read by him. It was intended to be read by his wife, his mother, us. But not by him.”

  “Why…?”

  “No, not why? What? What would make a person arrange to meet another person at a motel out of town, and send a note that says: We will kill you and your family, you black bastard? What purpose is served by doing that?”

  She screwed up her eyes. We sped through parkland and woodland onto the Pelham Bridge. Dehan stammered.

  “It… it’s a red herring! It makes us look for white supremacist, racist neighbors, it makes us assume he has fled…”

  “OK, good! Now focus on what you are saying, Dehan. Look for racist, white supremacist neighbors for what? What has happened if he has not fled?”

  She stared at me. “He’s dead.”

  “I hope not, but I fear he is.”

  “By why? Why would anyone want to kill Ned?”

  I sighed and looked at her. “Because he’s black…”

  “What?” She turned to stare at me. “You are deliberately trying to drive me crazy. You just got through telling me that was a red herring from scenario two!”

  “I told you it was complicated. You have to see it in the light of Ned’s being Al’s son.”

  “You mean all that crap Annunziata was talking about how a Chester could never be black or of mixed race?”

  I shrugged with my eyebrows. “That’s the context. It is the values, rules and strictures of that family that triggered this whole affair from the get go: Mexico, peyote, Brazil, ayahuasca, psychosis and finally murder.”

  We had left Larchmont behind and were entering Mamaroneck. It was pretty, green and clean, with a hint of sanity on the air wafting down from New England, just up the coast. We passed the Bank of America on our left, and then a grand old colonial building, and next thing, we were approaching the Mamaroneck Motel. Dehan had her cell out. She said, “We’re real close. It’s just up the road.”

  “You can see that on your phone?”

  “Jeez, Stone. Did you bring your club? We may have to fight a brontosaurus. Oh, no, wait. This is the twenty-first century AD, not BC! The car’s in the courtyard of the motel. Turn right here.”

  I turned in and saw Ned’s cream Ford pickup parked across the lot. I parked next to it and we climbed out and made our way across the courtyard to reception. A bell made an ‘Avon’ sound as we went in and a nice woman with a nice blue cardigan and a nice face framed by nice hair said, “Well, hello! How are you today?” like she didn’t want us to think she was asking about somebody else.

  I gave her a nice smile to go with her nice hair and showed her my badge.

  “Just great. Detective Stone of the NYPD, this is my partner, Detective Dehan. Can you tell me who owns that Ford pickup outside?”

  She looked past my shoulder to where I was pointing. “Oh, sure. That’s Mr. Brown, he arrived last night. He’s in room…”

  “Has he left the room since he arrived?”

  “Why, no! He left a message not to be disturbed.”

  “Has anyone been in to se
e him?”

  “Not that I’m aware, but then people come and go. We don’t keep tabs on them.”

  I nodded. “We have reason to believe the man in that room might be in trouble. We can go through all the red tape and contact the local PD…”

  “They’re just down the road…”

  “Or you can give us permission to go in and have a look. While we are here talking, that man could be dying.”

  Her cheeks colored, she reached under the desk, formatted a key and handed it to us. “I do hope he’s all right…”

  Dehan took the key and we ran across the parking lot to his ground floor room. She slipped in the card, the light turned green and she pushed in. I stepped in past her.

  The Venetian blinds were down on the front window and the one at the back, laying bars of dark light and shadow across the double bed. The bed was undisturbed apart from a small dent in the middle where somebody had sat on it. On the bedside table, rings where glasses had stood caught the light from the door. On the floor by the wardrobe, there was a black, overnight bag. Apart from that, there was no indication the room had been occupied.

  Two strides took me across the room to the en suite bathroom. I pushed open the door and stepped in. Dehan approached behind me and looked over my shoulder.

  Ned was in the bath. He was bloated, and he had risen to the surface of the water, where he bobbed slightly. Time of death is notoriously difficult to establish, and almost impossible to establish from the temperature or condition of the body. Too many factors come into play, both environmental and relating to the person’s own physical condition at the time of death. But one thing I could be sure of: if he had drowned, and been in the water long enough to generate enough gases to make him float, he had been dead a good while.

  Dehan muttered, “He’s still dressed, and he’s floating.”

  I hunkered down at the end of the bath, pulled out my pen and used it to pull back his collar. “No bruising or scratching on his neck.”

  “He was drowned, fully clothed, and he didn’t struggle.”

  I pointed at the floor. “There is some water, and wipe marks, like it’s been rubbed or mopped.”

  “We should get out of this room.” But as she said it, she pointed to the dirty linen basket. She took one long stride, opened it and lifted up a wet towel. Then she dropped it again and closed the basket. “Let’s get out, Stone, we’re contaminating the scene.”

  We moved back into the bedroom and closed the bathroom door. I called the inspector.

  “John, what news?”

  “We found Ned…”

  “Excellent! Good work!”

  “Yeah, he’s been murdered. We need the ME out here and a crime scene team. There’s a Ford pickup, too. They’ll need to take a look at that. I also need you to square jurisdiction with the local PD.”

  “Local where?”

  “Mamaroneck. The Mamaroneck Motel, 1015 West Boston Post Road. I’ll contact the local PD, you better call the chief, sir, and square it.”

  “Yes, OK… John?”

  “Sir?”

  “Who killed him?”

  “We need to examine the evidence, sir. See who was where and when. It’s complicated.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  He hung up. I gave him five minutes and Dehan called the local PD. They said they’d send a car over to close the area. While she waited for them, I went back to reception. The nice woman watched me come in. She looked worried. Like it was nothing personal, but she wished I wasn’t there. I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring.

  “The local PD are on their way. Mr. Brown was murdered sometime between last night and this morning. I am hoping you have CCTV covering the parking lot…”

  She had gone very pale. “Murdered? Here? In my motel?”

  “I’m afraid so, and with every minute the trail gets colder. CCTV?”

  “Well, we don’t get much crime in Mamaroneck. We have a couple of cameras, one in here…” She pointed to it behind the desk, up on the wall, and the other at the entrance to the parking lot. “It gets most of the cars.”

  “I’ll need the footage from last night, from the time Mr. Brown arrived until…” I glanced at my watch. It was four PM. “Until an hour ago. What time did he arrive?”

  She checked her computer. “Five minutes after midnight.”

  She went away and returned five minutes later with a DVD and handed it to me. “It’s all on there. I hope it’s OK.”

  I gave her a receipt. She looked at it like she really didn’t want it. “Is it drugs? I hope we’re not going to get a drugs war here or something…”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  When I stepped out again, there was a patrol car parked in front of Ned’s car, and a couple of uniforms were putting tape up outside the room. As I approached, I showed them my badge and pointed at the Ford. “I want that sealed off, too.”

  Dehan came to meet me.

  “Nothing we can do here, Sensei. Let’s grab a beer at the Boar’s Head ’round the corner.”

  We fell into step and she watched her boots a moment as we walked. “You know who did this?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t tell me! Is it the same person who killed Al twelve years ago?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “All right. I am going to tell you my theory, OK?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Don’t mock me!”

  “Mock you? I admire and adore you. You know that.”

  NINETEEN

  We sat outside at the cute Italian Deli and Grill, which seemed also to be called the Boars Head, and ordered a couple of beers while we waited for the ME and the crime scene team to show up. I waited in silence while Dehan sipped her beer, wiped her froth moustache from her upper lip and stared at the lawn and the trees that fronted the large, colonial building across the way.

  “So,” she said, apparently speaking to that elegant, colonial building, “there is a way of putting all this together that does, actually, make sense.”

  I nodded and sipped my own beer.

  “Don’t talk!” She raised a finger, still staring at the building.

  As I wasn’t allowed to talk, I took another sip and watched the traffic. Finally, she turned to me with narrowed, all-seeing eyes.

  “They are all insane!”

  I burst out laughing.

  “No, Stone! I’m serious! They all have a problem keeping a grip on reality. So Justinian and Annunziata live in this kind of ethereal half-light where nothing is quite real but everything is a bit real, but nobody ever really noticed because they played by the family rules of seemliness and were academically, and medically, brilliant.”

  “Sounds like a fair assessment to me.”

  “No, don’t talk!”

  I sipped.

  She continued. “Maximilian is the most apparently normal, which kind of gives you the measure, but, like the other two, he is quite prepared to have somebody killed if it is necessary. So, twelve years ago, it went down just like Annunziata said. Al decided to get married, the detective discovered, somehow, that Ned’s mother was the woman he had got pregnant eighteen years earlier. So they killed Al and silenced Ned and his mother with a pay off. In classic Chester style, they required the boy to, quote, ‘make something of himself.’ It wasn’t enough they had killed his biological father, he had to earn the compensation.”

  “That is quite a theory. I like it.”

  “So the case goes cold and twelve years later, just when everybody is happily getting on with their lives, along comes us and we start digging things up. If they had left it to Max, we might have wound up like Martinez, stumped…”

  “I doubt it.”

  “But Justinian panicked and felt the need to come and bare his soul to us, while making sure that we knew that he’d had nothing to do with the conspiracy. Panic, as always, spreads, and when Annunziata realized that Justinian had panicked, she had to panic too and come and tell us her version
of what happened. They are both as smart as Einstein, but they are both as crazy as a soup sandwich, and they made a hog’s dinner out of Maximilian’s best laid plans. So, what does he do? He arranges to meet Ned here at the motel and kills him. The letter was a lame attempt to direct our suspicions elsewhere. No doubt he had somebody else do it while he set himself up with perfect alibis.”

  “Alibis? In the plural?”

  “Sure. Time of death is going to be within a frame of about twelve hours. He has to cover himself for that time. Take note, my dear Stone, that he will have an unshakable alibi for each one of those hours.”

  “Ah, yes, I see.” I gave a little shrug. “I have a hunch Frank might be able to narrow down the time of death.”

  She frowned, then narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “You and those open questions. What am I going to do with you?”

  Her eyes went wide with ill-concealed impatience. “What makes you think that?”

  “See? Much more focused. What can you tell me about the 9mm used in Al’s apartment?”

  She looked at me blankly. “I don’t know. We had said…” She trailed off.

  “That was in the days when Ned was our prime suspect and he went along with Lucky to steal all that cash. Remember Chavez told us all about that? But now we are talking about a hit man employed by Maximilian. So who is our professional hit man shooting at in the kitchen? And what made him use a kitchen knife, of all things?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I smiled benignly at her. “In any case, I do believe…” I turned in my seat. “Yup, here comes the cavalry.”

  The ME, an ambulance and a crime scene van filed into the courtyard and we went over to talk to Frank and Joe. Joe and his team were climbing into white plastic suits while Frank’s boys, dressed in blue plastic, were unloading a gurney from the back of the ambulance. Frank didn’t say hello. He said, “There aren’t enough bodies for you in the five boroughs. You need to come out here to find them?”

  “He’s home grown, Frank. He just came out here to get killed. He seems to have been drowned in the bathtub, but he’s fully dressed and there are no scratches or bruises around his neck. So I’m wondering if he was drugged before he was drowned, or maybe he was killed some other way.”