Strong 03 - Twice (16 page)

The metal staircase was surprisingly strong and didn’t creak under their weight even slightly. They climbed carefully and then edged their way along the catwalk, backs flat against the wall. At the landing, Dax stood on the far side of the door examining the hinges.
He was glad to see that the door opened in; it made for a much easier and more surprising entry. The heavy gray metal door had a latch for a padlock but was unlocked from the outside anyway. Dax touched it with his finger and it moved just slightly. It was open.

Jeff held up one hand and counted to three on his fingers, and before he’d reached go, Dax had pushed open the door with one hand and was moving in with his gun aimed in the other.

“Get down on the fucking floor,” yelled Dax at no one, as Jeff followed him in, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other. His booming voice echoed against the walls.

The room was empty except for a large rat rustling through a Balducci’s bag. The rodent looked up resentfully at the intrusion. Beside the bag lay a copy of Lydia’s first book and a piece of notebook paper on the floor.

“Mother
fuck
,” said Dax, feeling his face flush. He picked up the piece of paper and held it up for Jeff. It read, “You didn’t really expect it to be that easy, did you?” Then he crumpled it in his fist and threw it against the wall. The rat moved past them slowly, unafraid.

“Looks like that game of ‘Telephone’ goes both ways,” said Jeff, staying in the doorjamb in case someone was looking to surprise them from behind.

“He’s slippery. I’ll give him that,” said Dax, trying to keep his voice light but unable to control the tight line of his mouth. Jeff saw the anger in his eyes, how it turned his normally affable face cold and hard.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Jeff, the walls suddenly closing in on him. He took a last glance at the room, shining the light onto the walls and up onto the ceiling. There was no other exit from the room. Jed was gone before they had arrived. Just as Jeff was about to turn around and leave, he caught sight of something on the wall … pieces of masking tape with shreds of paper stuck beneath. It looked as if something had been affixed there and then ripped from the wall in a hurry.

“What’s that?” asked Dax.

“I don’t know,” Jeff answered, moving in to examine the pieces. He could see the edges of some type of drawing, but couldn’t begin to make out what it might have been.

“Shit,” he said, the frustration of Jed McIntyre slipping through their fingers raising his blood pressure.

As Dax and Jeff moved down the stairs, Jeff shone the flashlight over to where Violet had been standing, but he didn’t see her there. He wanted to call out her name but thought better of it, not sure who was skulking in the darkness. He suppressed a feeling of panic when they rounded the corner and Violet was nowhere to be seen. They stopped and looked at each other.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Dax quietly, grabbing the flashlight from Jeff and shining it down into the tunnel they had come from. The light seemed like the tiniest thread in a field of black.

“Violet!” Dax yelled, his voice bouncing all over the tunnels. They were answered by a low laugh that seemed to come from everywhere. Then a giant form melted out of the tunnel walls and into the beam of their flashlight. It moved slowly toward them, seeming to glide rather than walk. Jeff and Dax held their ground with guns drawn.

“Freeze or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” yelled Jeff, in his best stop-’em-in-their-tracks voice, leveling the Glock against his target, though his heart was racing in his chest.

“This is no time for bravery, boys,” came a voice behind them suddenly. “Run. Follow me.”

T
he Midtown North Precinct was a circus of activity, phones ringing, perps yelling, civilians waiting to file police reports, as Lydia and Ford entered through the tall wooden front doors. The desk sergeant with a unibrow and a permanent scowl buzzed them through the gate. Both Lydia and Ford checked their weapons with the rookie who sat guarding the lockers. It was over warm in the precinct to
combat the dropping temperature outside and a large, sloppily decorated Christmas tree wilted in the corner of the room. They were buzzed through another door and they began the climb up the stairs to the third floor to homicide.

The homicide office was dark and quiet in comparison to the cacophony that followed them up the stairs. Computer screens glowed green in the dim light and somewhere a phone was ringing. Lydia glanced at the window and noticed that the last moment of light had passed from the sky and it was officially dark, officially night, with no word from Jeffrey. She checked her cell phone again to see if she’d maybe missed a call. She fought a feeling of dismay that lingered, waiting to push its way through as soon as she let it. Walking toward the back of the offices behind Ford, she focused on the task at hand, knowing anything else was pointless.

Two men sat in the audiovisual room, which was really just an interrogation room where they kept a television, VCR, and tape cassette player on a metal cart that could be rolled out if the room was required for its original purpose.

“What have we got, guys?” said Ford, entering the room and shedding his raincoat. Lydia kept her cashmere coat on, wanting its warmth around her in the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. She sat at the table after being introduced to Detective Joe Piselli, a short, dark-haired man with girlishly long eyelashes, a bright smile, and a strong handshake, and Detective Al Malone, an awkward man with bad acne scarring and stooped shoulders. Neither of them looked older than twenty-five, and if they’d seen any kind of action at all, Lydia would have been surprised. They still had that bright and eager look in their eyes, the shine of idealism about the job they were doing.

“We’ve watched it over and over and we can’t figure out what we’re seeing,” said Piselli as he walked over to the television. He pressed play, then fast-forward, and Ford took a seat beside Lydia.

The tape showed a row of ten washing machines that faced a
row of dryers. The camera, which must have been mounted over the door, captured most of the large laundry room. The room was washed in a harsh fluorescent light and as the time-elapsed play progressed, a short, plump woman in a maid’s uniform skittered in, threw in a load of wash, and left in under a second, her fast-forward movements making her look like a windup doll. She returned and changed the wash to the dryer a few minutes later.

“Can we speed this up?” said Ford impatiently. “It’s a laundry room. If all you have is a bunch of people doing laundry—”

“Just a second—” said Malone. “There.” He reached over and put the machine back to play. Lydia leaned in closer and saw the ghost of a movement, the edge of something that was just out of reach of the camera’s lens. Then the screen went black.

“Is there another entrance to that room?” asked Lydia.

“Not that we saw,” answered Piselli. “It’s just that one door. And the super says there’s no other way in.”

“How much of the room can you see on the tape?” asked Ford.

“I’d say about seventy-five percent. You can’t see under the camera and the far back of the room. And apparently there’s an area to the right of the camera that’s out of range.”

“So someone familiar with that could have come in the door and stayed to the right, out of range of the camera?” asked Lydia.

Piselli gave a nod and a shrug.

They rewound the tape and Lydia watched it again, leaning in close to the screen. The fluid nature of the movement and the faint pattern Lydia saw on second look made her think it was fabric.

“It’s a hem,” she said, putting her finger on the screen. Piselli rewound the tape again and they all leaned in. “It’s the hem of a dress. See … it’s a dark color with tiny hearts.”

“So why would someone be skulking around the laundry room at two-thirty in the morning? And why would they be purposely staying out of range of the camera?” asked Ford, thinking aloud.

“It would have to be someone pretty small to be able to stay out of sight,” said Malone.

“And how did the camera get turned off without our seeing who did it?” asked Piselli.

“So maybe it’s down here where we’ll find our missing murder weapon and Stratton’s ring … not to mention his finger,” said Ford.

“Well, we’ll find something down there,” said Lydia, getting up and moving toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“
W
ith a cure like you guys, who needs disease?” said Rain with a short disdainful laugh. “I thought you boys had an edge, were going to take care of the problem. Instead I have to save your sorry asses.”

“What was that back there?”

He didn’t answer, just kept moving on ahead of them. Rain was an older man with smooth chocolate skin and a full white beard. His liquid eyes were clear and sober, but his face was etched with the lines of struggle and pain. Without the robes, he was just a stooped old man who walked with a limp. Most people didn’t live to be his age in a place like this, and Jeffrey wondered what his story was but declined to ask. Ahead of them, he could see some kind of light; it looked like the glow from a street lamp shining through a grating. They couldn’t get there fast enough as far as he was concerned.

“Now he’s on the move and it will take time for us to locate him again,” Rain went on. “You boys have made a mess down here.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Dax testily. He’d just about had his fill of street people and their tirades.

“And I’m not going to,” answered Rain, stopping and turning to Dax with a frown and a pointing finger.

“How did he know we were after him?” Jeff cut in.

“Someone tipped him off. I can’t be sure who. But I’ll find out and I’ll deal with it, believe me.”

“What are you, like the Mayor of the Tunnels or something?” asked Dax with a smirk.

“Something like that. I don’t like your attitude, boy,” said Rain. If Bill Cosby were dirty, very crabby, and lived below the streets of New York City, he’d look like Rain.

“What happened to Violet?” asked Jeff, moving between Dax and Rain.

“I don’t know,” he answered, looking away from Dax, concern darkening his features. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and looked Jeff in the eye.

Then he turned, casting a warning glance in Dax’s direction, and started walking again. Soon they stood at the opening in the wall that would lead them out the way they had come in, and Jeff had never been so happy to see a subway track in his life.

“Remember your promise,” said Rain to Jeff, moving away from them.

“Wait a second. We didn’t get what we came for.”

“That’s not my problem,” he threw behind him as he continued on his way with a thug’s saunter.

“I think it is,” called Jeff. “All we have to do is tell the FBI that we know he’s down here somewhere and they’ll tear this place apart.”

Rain stopped in his tracks and Dax smiled. “Won’t be much of a mayor without your city, will you?” he said.

“What do you want from me?” he said, turning around. “Goddammit, I knew that one was going to be trouble the minute I heard about him.”

“Then why didn’t you take care of it yourself?” asked Jeff.

“Because that’s the code down here, man. Everybody gets a chance to be a part of this community. Up there, they’re losers—drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals, nuts. They got nothing and no one to give them respect. Down here, there’s a place for everyone, as long as you obey the rules, don’t hurt nobody, and don’t ever talk to the police or anyone topside about what goes on down here.”

“This man is a murderer, Rain,” said Jeff. “He’s going to hurt more people. All we want is a line on him and we’ll take care of the rest. When you know where he is, let us know. That’s all we ask.”

“And you’re gonna take care of it? Like you did today?”

“You have a week,” said Dax. “If we don’t hear from you, we come down here with the Feds and you can kiss your little kingdom good-bye. You’ll be in a shelter or a nuthouse or wherever it is that you belong.”

Jeff shot Dax a look that was lost on him in the darkness and probably would have been anyway. They had different ways of dealing with people. Jeff believed that all people, regardless of their circumstances, deserved to be treated with respect until they proved themselves unworthy. Dax felt exactly the opposite. Dax was fiercely loyal to a few people and everyone else could just go to hell as far as he was concerned.

“Look,” said Jeff, hoping to soften the blow of Dax’s words—but Rain was walking away. “Rain, let’s talk about this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Dax, moving through the opening and stepping onto the comparatively bright track on the other side. “He’ll get in touch with us.”

“Fuck,” said Jeff, watching the only lead he had on Jed McIntyre disappear into the darkness of the tunnels.

“Trust me, mate,” said Dax with the winning smile that always made Jeff forget what an asshole and a wild card he could be. “I
know
these people. If he’d promised to get in touch with us,
then
I’d be worried. Let’s get topside so we can call Lydia. She’s going to kick your ass back
fifty
feet underground. And I want to be there to see it.”

T
here were few things Lydia hated more than arguing in front of other people. She hated the feel of eyes on her at the best of times but least of all when she was angry and vulnerable. People were judgmental and she didn’t want the baggage of someone else’s energy in her personal life. It was for this reason and this reason alone that she kept her voice light and measured as she spoke to Jeffrey on her cell phone. Her whole body had felt electrified with relief when she’d seen his number on her caller ID. When the relief drained her, anger and dread filled her back up.

“Hi,” she’d answered. She was conscious of Ford sitting next to her and Detectives Piselli and Malone riding in the backseat. In the dark silence of the car all ears were on her.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he said, voice tentative, guilty. The line crackled and he sounded like he was on the moon. And he might as well be, for as close as she felt to him right now.