Blind Sight (A Mallory Novel) (37 page)

Before her partner had a chance to speak, she was on the move, car keys in hand. Crossing the squad room, she pulled out her cell phone to contact another detective on duty at the Upper East Side Post Office. Rubin Washington had been entrusted to open and read all of the mayor’s incoming mail. Over the phone, he confirmed that the batch released for delivery to Gracie Mansion contained only letters, very dull ones, and a slew of birthday cards. “No boxes. . . . What? . . . No shit!” he said, when she explained why he needed to track down the mayor’s local mail carrier, a mule for a contraband heart, and scare him, break his fingers—maybe shoot him a few times.

“Whatever it takes,” said Mallory.

—

ANDREW POLK
had stepped away from his mansion office only a moment ago. As long as a minute? Surely not. Yet this young cop had a sense of permanence about her, as if she had been lounging in the chair behind his desk all day, leisurely reading his copy of
The Wall Street Journal.

With no hello or even a glance to acknowledge him, Detective Mallory asked, “Is there something you’d like to tell me? Anything the police should know?”

“Not a thing,” he said.

“Really
.
”
She had just called him a liar, if only by inflection. The detective laid down the newspaper to plug a small device into her cell phone. “Mr. Mayor, you’re being recorded.” When she was done with a mention of the date, the time, the parties present in the room, and,
best for last, a reading of his rights, she said, “Now let’s try this again. Have you had any recent communication from the killer?”

Was she running a bluff? “No, nothing at all.” He smiled, daring her to contradict him.

She idly turned a page of the
Journal,
saying so casually, “I’ve come for the heart.”

He
liked
her style. After taking a seat in the facing chair, the one reserved for people seeking an audience with
him,
he crossed his legs, folded his arms and asked, “What heart?”

The detective continued to read the newspaper,
her
paper now, thus inspiring him to name this game Who Would Twitch First?

She did.

Leaning forward, holding out her cell phone, Detective Mallory showed him a picture of his pose with the mailman, and then she offered the proviso, “Don’t play me. Just get it.”

“There
was
a package delivered. . . . I haven’t opened it yet.” He looked around the office, as if he expected to see it lying around in plain sight. “Where
did
I put it?” He gave her an apologetic smile. “It was a small package. Such a big mansion, so many rooms.”

She leaned back in the desk chair and stared at the bookcase lining one wall. “Get it.”

This cop had an eye for detail. She was looking at the middle row of volumes, no doubt taking interest in the five books that had been hastily replaced upside down. Searchers from the Crime Scene Unit had also found this hiding place, and within only minutes of entering his office, though the CSIs had found it empty on that occasion.

A gracious loser, he removed the small safe that was disguised as a fused block of volumes and sized to fit numerous dirty documents—or just the one human heart. After removing the contents, he was startled by the quick flash of a cream-white hand. Red fingernails. Long ones. And now the small cardboard box was hers.

“It’s been opened,” she said.

“Must’ve happened at the Post Office. They’re opening all my mail. I didn’t look inside yet. I was going to hand it off to—”

“The mailman told us the package was sealed with tape when he gave it to you. We have his sworn statement.”

“Well, then . . . one of my bodyguards? Maybe after I—” Oh, why bother? It took a player to know one. He made a slight bow of appreciation.

She pulled up the loose cardboard flaps and, with no show of surprise, looked down at the blood-red heart in plastic wrapping that was marked with the words,
PROOF OF DEATH
. “What about proof of life? Where’s the ransom demand?”

“No idea what you’re— That
hurts!”
His right arm was jammed up behind his back as she bent him over the desk.

—

MALLORY MARCHED THE HANDCUFFED
mayor down the stairs to see Courtney, the younger detective on the protection detail. He stood before the front door on the other side of the foyer. He avoided her eyes.

She ignored him, turning with her prisoner to enter the hall leading to the Wagner Wing, her planned route to East End Avenue. The senior man, Detective Brogan, blocked her way down this narrow passage. His face was grim, his arms folded to put her on notice that he would not be moved from his post. Polk smiled at this bodyguard and gave him a nod that said,
Good doggy.
But Brogan seemed unaware of the mayor of New York City standing there in irons.

Brogan’s eyes were locked on Mallory.

Showdown
.

But why? He had to know there was a squad of reinforcements one phone call away. It was a fight he could not win. Mallory held up the
small cardboard box. Each word carried equal weight as she said, “This is the bloody body part of a little boy. . . . Step aside.”

The man had no bristle to him, only the tired stance of a cop who did not take orders from her. He was already saying goodbye to his shield and his pension. He might not mind if she shot him. Too many rules broken, too much gone past him, and now this. A piece of a dead child had been walked in the door on his watch. And—he—had—missed—that.

“Proof of Jonah Quill’s death.” She opened the box flaps to show him. “It’s his heart.”

Brogan looked sick.

He held his ground.

“This is the deal.” His eyes were on her again, and he spoke cop to cop. “There’s not gonna be any perp walk through that media circus out there. And no handcuffs, Mallory. This goes down real quiet. Me and my partner,
we
bring him in, not you. Where the mayor goes, we go with him—that’s the job description. That’s
our
job. It
sucks,
but—” His eyes drifted back to the small box.

Brogan’s arms unfolded and dropped. The man’s career would end today or tomorrow. That was a sure thing. But this, his last stand, was left hanging.

And his dignity.

In Lou Markowitz’s confrontations with politicians, feds and cops, the old man had always shown great generosity to the losers. Mallory was more inclined to treat this detective like the grafting screwup that he was. Yet she unlocked the mayor’s handcuffs—and stepped aside.

—

IGGY CONROY
stood near the edge of the roof, his binoculars trained on the sidewalk across the street. Dwayne Brox was leaving his apartment building in company with the same two cops who had made last
night’s arrest at the diner. No handcuffs? The little twit was grinning, having his fun with them. That could only mean the police had no evidence to charge him—not today.

When the unmarked Crown Victoria had pulled away, more cars of the same make were double-parking along the street. He counted six men in suits—
more
detectives. A search party! Would they find a cell-phone connection? If Gail was suddenly worried about the burner number, that meant the cops
could
backtrack Brox’s calls.

Gail, you shit!

How many more loose ends could there be?

—

THE UNMARKED POLICE CAR
had reached its destination. Dwayne Brox heard the double click of lock releases and a clear invitation to “Get out!” But he waited in the backseat until Detective Gonzales was forced to play chauffeur, opening the rear door for his passenger.

At his leisure, Dwayne climbed out to stand on the sidewalk in front of the SoHo station house. Reporters were corralled behind wooden sawhorses, no doubt invited here by the police. He grinned and waved to every camera lens.

Detective Lonahan pointed him toward the entrance to the police station. At the stop of the stone steps, Dwayne waited until a uniformed officer finally stepped forward to do butler duty and open the door.

For all this, he was still invisible to Detective Riker, who stood only inches away, leaning back against the brick wall and taking a long drag on a cigarette. All the reporters and every camera turned to this cop. In response to a shouted question, Riker said, “No, Mr. Brox isn’t being charged. He’s only a
person
of
interest.”
And that last phrase was every TV cop’s code for
He did it! He’s guilty! We got him!

Glorious.

It was all the pressure that anyone could ever ask for. Oh, dear God, could the day get any better than this? Dwayne laughed as the door closed behind him.

—

THE DETECTIVES
had finished with the filing cabinet that held only the detritus of two lives, the dead parents. Even the pile of junk mail and unpaid bills were addressed to the late Mr. and Mrs. Brox. No scrap of paper could be found with any helpful notation—like maybe a phone number for a hit man.

The suspect seemed to have damn little use for paper. Better luck was had by Detective Sanger, the most computer literate among them today, as he scanned the files of a laptop computer. “The guy’s an idiot. I don’t even need a password. Dwayne never logged out.”

Sanger clicked the icon that would give up an address book of contacts, and he recognized one name. It was an old movie title for his girlfriend’s favorite chick flick. “I dunno,” said Sanger. “Our hit man
might
be Anna Karenina. Or maybe he’s one of these guys.” He pointed to the given names, Dmitri, Alyosha, Ivan and Pavel, each followed by the initial
K
. Given a bias from his days in Narcotics, he liked every tie with a Russian-mob flavor.

Janos, who favored books over movies, leaned close to the screen to read that segment of the contact list. “What a showboating jerk. He screwed up, too. Pavel’s last name begins with an
S,
not a
K
. He was the old man’s bastard.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sanger diddled the keyboard as he waited for someone else to jump in and say,
“WHAT?”

—

“
WELL
,
THERE
’
S NO
reporters in the house,” said Jack Coffey. “I want him cuffed before Mallory brings him up here.” The lieutenant ended
his call with the desk sergeant, having settled the downstairs argument with the mayor’s protection detail.

Appearances were important today. He had arranged for the two men to meet in passing. Dwayne Brox was seated at a desk in the squad room, one that had been moved to face the stairwell door. He was filling a sheet of paper with samples of his block lettering. One line might match the box that contained the child’s heart, though printing was only the next best thing to no good in handwriting identification. But that was busywork while waiting for—

The stairwell door opened, and there was Mallory, holding the arm of the handcuffed mayor of New York City. For this historic interrogation, no lesser lawyer than the Manhattan DA was en route to the station house.

When Brox looked up to see Polk in handcuffs, the lieutenant anticipated fear and anxiety. What he had not expected was their exchange of smiles, each man so happy to see the other—
in custody.

This was fun for them?

The lieutenant turned to the tall psychologist beside him, saying, “What’s up here?”

Charles Butler looked worried. “I should’ve guessed. . . . I’m so sorry.”

—

THE SOLE OCCUPANT
of the interrogation room, Mayor Andrew Polk, was smiling at some little joke he had told to himself.

Next door was District Attorney Ambrose, who had arrived with no entourage for this special occasion of bringing down a political enemy. Best to gloat alone.

And so there were smiles on both sides of the one-way-glass window when Riker entered the watchers’ room to say, “We’re just waitin’ for the mayor’s lawyer to get here.” After that, if need be, the detective
would spin a few lies to explain any further delay, while Mallory sat with Charles Butler behind the closed door of the lieutenant’s office.

—

“
TALK FAST
.”

This psychologist was prone to carefully considered wordy responses, and Jack Coffey broke the long silence, saying, “A little faster than that, okay?”

“I’ve never set eyes on the mayor before today,” said Charles, “But still . . . I should’ve seen it. Polk and Brox, they’re
both
high-risk sociopaths.
Dueling
sociopaths. You might call this the ultimate game of chicken. Neither of them is going to back down. It’s not about money anymore—if it ever was. It’s the power play, the
game.
All along it was headed this way. I should have realized . . . given who they are,
what
they are. It could only have ended badly . . . and now the boy is dead.”

Charles might be the saddest man in New York City. He was taking on all the guilt and responsibility for Jonah’s murder. And the lieutenant could see that this man’s self-inflicted torture was just fine by Mallory.

She was so quiet. A bomb with no tick. Could she be any angrier?

Her cell phone rang. After reading lines of text on her screen, Mallory was out the door and gone. And, yes, she could be and
was
a damn sight more angry.

—

DR
.
EDWARD SLOPE
dropped his cell phone into a pocket of his lab coat. Kathy Mallory was on the way here, or so she said.

She damn well
better
be.

There had been an improbable, inexplicable error, and someone was going to answer for it, but he was determined that no one in the Medical Examiner’s Office was going to take any blame. Well, maybe one person. Yes, certainly one. It was predictable that she would first blame him. What were friends for?