Fare Play (15 page)

“If he's still able to talk.”

Hibler was slumped down on the concrete floor, his back against a pillar. About Robin Muller's age, thin, pale. His face was a mixture of confusion and pain.

Marian hunkered down beside him. “Hello, Larry. My name is Lieutenant Larch. I'm sorry to bother you at a time like this, but there are a couple of things I have to ask you.”

He gave her an unfocused look. “Larch. That's a tree.”

“Yes, it is.” She paused, and then asked, “Did Robin ever mention the name Oliver Knowles to you?”

Hibler frowned in concentration, shook his head.

“What about Rosalind Bowman?”

“No.”

“Who's that?” Gloria demanded.

“Bowman hired Holland's agency to follow Knowles. But now she's disappeared.”

“Oh yeah,” Gloria said. “I heard there was a private op on that bus.”

Marian turned back to Larry Hibler. “Are you sure you don't know those names? Oliver Knowles. Rosalind Bowman. Think back.”

He shook his head again. “I never heard of them. Oh, man, I didn't even know she was working.”

The remark struck Marian as out of context. “What about this Virgil? Did Robin ever tell you about him?”

“I never even heard the name before today. On the phone. The last time I talked to her.” He started crying.

Marian put a comforting hand on his shoulder. After a minute she withdrew it and stood up. She said to Gloria, “Have you called for a graphics tech?”

“Right before you got here. He should be at the stationhouse by now. Wanna come? Gotta get those descriptions while they're fresh.”

“Yes, we're coming.”

At that moment two men from the Medical Examiner's office rolled a wheeled stretcher off the subway car, its body bag strapped into place. Larry Hibler, sitting with his head drooping on his chest, didn't see. One of the Transit Authority officials came hurrying up to Gloria Sanchez.

She held up a hand to forestall him. “Let 'em get the body out first,” she said softly. “Then you can open for business.” The man grunted and turned away.

Marian and Buchanan watched as Gloria gentled Larry Hibler to his feet, explaining that they'd need a statement from him but that could wait until tomorrow. She signaled a bluesuit to drive him home.

The three detectives followed them up the stairs to the street. The crowd of frustrated passengers had fallen momentarily silent when the corpse in its body bag was trundled past. Gloria told the officers guarding the entrance to the subway to let them in.

“Where's Roberts?” Gloria asked, looking around for her partner as the crowd surged past them down the subway steps. “Hey, Marian, if you're lucky Captain DiFalco will still be there. You can catch up on old times.”

Marian rolled her eyes.

Buchanan watched the exchange with interest. “Don't get along with your old captain?” he asked Marian with a grin.

“It's nothing serious,” she said. “We merely hate each other's guts, that's all.”

“I'd laugh,” Gloria said heavily, “but I'm still stuck with him.”

“And whose fault is that?” Marian asked unsympathetically. “As long as you refuse to take the Sergeants Exam, you're going to stay right where you are.”

“Don't start.”

“I've already started. We're short a sergeant at Midtown South right now. I'd put in a personal request for you myself. And Captain Murtaugh would add his own request, I'm sure.”

“Hey, I told you before. I don't wanna be no sergeant.”

“What's wrong with being a sergeant?” Sergeant Buchanan asked.

“I don't wanna talk about it, okay?” Gloria was adamant.

Her partner chose that moment to come running up, out of breath. “Back-up is on the … way.” His voice faded as he saw people going into the subway entrance.

“Great timing, Roberts,” Gloria said sardonically. “You better stay here and tell 'em they're not needed. We're going to the stationhouse.”

“Shit,” Roberts said.

Gloria turned to leave and called back over her shoulder to Marian, “You know the way.”

“Unfortunately,” Marian said with a sigh. “Come on, Buchanan.”

They headed toward their car, leaving Detective Roberts standing by the subway entrance and glowering at a world that moved faster than he did.

21

Marian drove. The distance between Astor Place and the Ninth Precinct stationhouse was short and she could probably have driven it in her sleep.

Buchanan cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, I know this is outa line—but can you tell me what to expect from this Captain DiFalco? If I'm gonna be the liaison, I gotta know what I'm walkin' into here.”

Marian didn't think the question out of line, although Buchanan was clearly uncomfortable asking one superior officer about another. “DiFalco has all the necessary stuff to make a good cop,” she said. “He's smart, he's quick, he's observant. He has a way of burrowing through extraneous detail and putting his finger on precisely the one thing that matters.”

“So what's the problem?” Buchanan asked.

“The problem is ambition,” Marian answered tightly. “He's let it get out of hand. DiFalco's more interested in building up his record of cases solved than he is in making sure the right perp is behind bars.”

Buchanan whistled two notes. “One of those, huh.”

“It's what we had our final falling-out about,” she went on. “It was a big case, an important one. And so complicated that Major Crimes wouldn't touch it. Have you ever heard of that happening before? DiFalco wanted to bust that one so bad it was killing him. So he fingered one man, declared the case closed, and called a press conference. And all the time I kept yelling that he had the wrong guy. DiFalco didn't like that.”

“Who was right?”

Marian gave him a big grin.

Buchanan laughed. “Which made him love you all the more. Okay, I get the picture.”

They pulled into the police parking lot across the street from the Ninth Precinct stationhouse on East Fifth Street. To her bemusement, Marian found she didn't want to go in. There were people still working there that she knew and liked, but the place just had too many bad associations for her.

It was strange. The desk sergeant was surprised to see her, started to say “Hey, Marian,” and changed it at the last second to “Hello, Lieutenant.” She got that same awkward reaction from everyone she knew. She spoke pleasantly and called everyone by name—the ones she could remember. Buchanan took it all in, said nothing.

Gloria Sanchez was on the phone when they went into the detectives' crowded squadroom. Marian perched on the corner of Gloria's desk and waited until she'd hung up. “Is the graphics tech here?” she asked, looking around.

“We had to put her in the lieutenant's office,” Gloria said. “No room out here. Let's go—uh-oh.”

Marian turned her head to see Captain DiFalco headed their way.

He stopped about a foot away from Marian. “Lieutenant.”

She stood up as gracefully as she could in the space he left her, forcing him to take a step back. “Captain.”

“Murtaugh just left,” DiFalco said. “We're going to make this a joint Ninth Precinct/Midtown South investigation. It's official now.”

Marian introduced Sergeant Buchanan. “The sergeant will be acting as liaison.”

DiFalco barely spared him a glance. “We need your reports on the Knowles shooting and we need them now.”

She counted to ten. “I've already told Gloria we'll forward our reports.”

“Today, Lieutenant. I want this thing nailed down.”

Marian smiled, with her mouth. “Oddly enough, Captain, that's what we want too.” Reminding him she was no longer under his command.

“Don't get sarcastic with me, Larch,” the captain snapped. “You may have moved uptown, but you're on
my
turf now. I call the shots here.”

Feel my muscles?
“You and Captain Murtaugh, yes. On this case.”

He dismissed Murtaugh with a wave of his hand. “Just get those reports over here!” He charged away.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Marian said to his retreating back.

Gloria waited until DiFalco was out of sight and then hugged herself in an exaggerated shiver. “Brrr. Somebody turn up the heat.”

“Yeah,” Buchanan agreed, “the temperature did drop about twenty degrees, dinnit?”

“What are you, a comedy team?” Marian growled. “Let's go see what the tech's got.”

The lieutenant's office where the graphics tech was working was smaller even than Marian's office. The three witnesses who'd said they could describe the man who'd sat next to Robin Muller on the subway were crowded around the woman seated before her laptop computer, all three of them arguing about how wide the man's face was. The smallest printer Marian had ever seen was set up on the desk and waiting.

The tech was Paula Dancer, the same one who'd tried to put together a composite of Rosalind Bowman's face from André Flood's unhelpful description (and ended up with a picture of herself). She looked up and saw Marian. “Hello, Lieutenant. What are you doing down here?”

“Same killer as in the Knowles case,” Marian told her. “Or at least the same MO. Have you got anything?”

“I'll show you what we have so far.” Dancer hit a few keys and turned the laptop so Marian could see the small screen.

“His face is narrower than that, I tell ya,” one of the witnesses said, a man wearing coveralls with the name “Jerry” stitched over his heart.

The face on the screen had no mouth yet. Its most prominent feature was a hooked nose, thin and sharp-looking. Marian asked Buchanan, “You ever run across that face before?”

He said no. “I'd remember that nose.”

The small room was hot and crowded, so the three detectives went outside to wait. Not too much time passed before Paula Dancer emerged carrying a stack of pictures she'd just printed out. She handed one copy each to Marian and Buchanan and gave the rest to Gloria. “They're all agreed this is pretty close, although they're not all three happy with the face width and the hairline.”

The computer-generated portrait showed a clean-shaven man with black hair and eyes, the hook nose, and lips so thin they made his jaw appear more prominent than it probably was. “Naw, I don't know this guy,” Buchanan repeated. “New talent in town, maybe.”

Dancer pointed to the mouth. “This is unusual. Most people's lower lips are larger than the upper, but all three of the witnesses were vehement about the equal sizes here. They said he had almost no lips at all.”

“This is great,” Gloria said, studying the picture. “
Two
distinguishing features, nose and mouth. I'll get the pictures distributed to the bluesuits.”

“We'll cover the airports,” Buchanan said. “Bus and train stations too, although I'd bet this guy is used to first class. He don't know we've got his face on paper, but he could get spooked.”

Gloria asked, “How many copies can that little thing you've got in there print out?”

“As many as you want,” Dancer said.

“Then you take these.” Gloria handed the stack of portraits to Buchanan. “I'll get more.”

Marian said, “Gloria … discreetly?”

The other detective placed her hand over her heart. “My middle name, woman! Now I gotta get the witnesses' statements—are we done for now?”

“For now. I'll call you tomorrow.”

On the way downstairs, Marian checked her watch. “You're off duty, Sergeant.”

“So are you, Lieutenant.”

Rush-hour traffic slowed them down. While they were waiting for a green, Buchanan said, “That Sanchez. Why won't she take the Sergeants Exam?”

Marian eased the car forward as the light changed. “Beats me. I've been after her to take it—but she always puts me off and never says why.”

“I thought she was black when I first saw 'er. But with a name like Sanchez—”

“Black mother, Puerto Rican father,” Marian explained. “Gloria can be black or Hispanic, as the mood takes her. You happened to catch her on one of her black days.”

The minute they were back in the Midtown South stationhouse, Buchanan headed straight for the phone to get the airport watch set up. Even before taking her coat off, Marian went looking for one of the clerical workers to arrange for copies of the Knowles case reports to be delivered to Captain DiFalco.

Sergeant Campos was working late too, sitting at his desk and trying to catch up on the paperwork that constantly threatened to drown every police detective. Marian told him she needed two men from his squad to work on the Knowles case.

He objected. “We're all overloaded now. I can't dump the casework of two men on somebody else.”

“I know you're overloaded and I'm sorry about this. But there's been a development.” She explained about the Robin Muller shooting and the almost one hundred percent probability that it was the same shooter they were looking for in the Oliver Knowles case. “He's a hired killer with god knows how many other contracts in his pocket. We've got to stop this guy.”

“Take somebody from Buchanan's squad, Lieutenant.”

“I've got Buchanan himself. Now, I want two men from your squad.”

“Can't the Ninth Precinct provide some manpower?”

Marian sighed. “Campos, everything I say to you, you argue with me about it. Two men. Eight o'clock tomorrow morning. My office. Got that?”

He looked disgusted, but he nodded.

Marian shucked off her coat, made a quick trip to the ladies' room, and gathered her notes together. The last thing she did before going in to report to Captain Murtaugh was call Holland and cancel their dinner date.

22

Captain Murtaugh examined the computer-generated portrait Marian had handed him. He nodded, pleased. “An easy face to spot. But no one actually saw him pull the trigger, right?”