The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (102 page)

He looked at Marty.
 
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up, though.
 
Body piercing is bigger than ever.
 
I can’t tell you how many young men and women I’ve come across in the past few months with rings through their nipples and gold rods through their genitalia.”

“I get the twentysomethings,” Marty said.
 
“But on an adult judge?
 
And the tattoo on her clitoris?
 
It sets her apart from the rest.”

“Not really.
 
You don’t see what I see on a daily basis.
 
The poorest person can be wheeled in and they have none of that shit.
 
The wealthiest person can be wheeled in and they have all of that shit.
 
Kink doesn’t differentiate between social boundaries, Marty.
 
People lead secret lives, which you likely see in each case you take.
 
Until we know what that tattoo is supposed to be, you’re out of luck.
 
We’ve sent photos to VICAP hoping they can match it to something in their files.
 
But if they can’t, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You were there last night, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“What did you see?”

It began to sprinkle, the light breeze driving the rain against their backs, the cars parked at the curbside, the trees dotting the sidewalk.
 
“I could tell you, but I won’t because it wouldn’t do you any good.
 
I was there for three hours last night.
 
If you can swing it, this one you need to see for yourself.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

At first glance, the townhouse on East 75th Street was as elegant as its counterparts—narrow casement windows shielded by heavy lace curtains, leaded glass windows in the carved mahogany door, a gleaming brass knocker above the brass nameplate, which read, rather simply, K. Wood.
 

But upon closer examination, cracks could be seen in the bricks and the foundation, the black iron bars that protected the windows from possible intruders were beginning to rust, and high above on the roof, birds were nesting in the white eaves.
 

Marty stood in front of the house and wondered about the secret lives of Judge Kendra Wood.
 
She’d been a respected judge, she’d amassed enough power and wealth to live just off Central Park, and she had risked it all for a world darker than most could comprehend.
 

He looked up at the birds circling above him, watched them hover and peck insects from the side of Wood’s house, and wondered when it was that she let them roost on the roof.
 
When had she ceased to care?

A door clicked shut behind him.
 

Marty turned and saw a woman leaving the house opposite Wood’s.
 
She looked at him, then at Wood’s house, then slowly back at him, her eyes narrowing.
 

Marty nodded at her.
 
The woman’s lips formed a tight line that dropped the temperature in Midtown fifty degrees as she walked away.
 
Tall and diet-slim, her silver hair framing an oval face that would defy age as long as medically possible, she moved with all the grace and cool aloofness of a woman who only had known privilege.
 

She was everything his ex-wife wanted to become.

A car horn sounded beside him.
 
Marty turned just as a black Dodge Charger pulled to the curb, music pumping, bass thumping, low fans of water rising at the wheels as the driver parked in a Tow Away Zone.
 
Earlier, it had stopped raining.
 
Detective Mike Hines, his angular face chiseled and tanned, looked through the open passenger window.

“Jesus, Spellman.
 
Don’t you eat?”

He shut off the engine, threw open the door and stepped out of the car.
 
Mike Hines clearly ate enough for two.
 
At six feet eight and pushing three hundred pounds, he was one of the tallest, most physically fit men Marty knew.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

Hines shrugged.
 
“Provided the deal’s the same, it’s my pleasure.”
 

It hadn’t always been so easy.
 
Eight years ago, when Marty first approached Hines for help, the man insisted on knowing who hired Marty and why, sensing that the person might somehow be connected to the victim’s death.
 
But Marty refused to tell, claiming client confidentiality.
 
Hines only acquiesced after Marty agreed to divulge everything he learned in a report, given exclusively to Hines, and from which Hines ultimately solved the case.
 
It was the beginning of their friendship.

Hines reached into his pants pocket, produced a key attached to a yellow evidence tag and unlocked the front door.
 
He pushed it open.
 
Marty followed him inside.

The entryway was small, dim and opened to a larger room with cathedral ceilings.
 
Hines went into the gloom, but Marty remained at the door, looking around, the damp, heavy air enclosing him like a fist.
 

“There was no forcible entry,” Hines said in the foyer.
 
He turned on a desk lamp and the room took shape, exposing mahogany-paneled walls and a sweeping staircase that curved to the second floor.
 
A layer of dust coated everything.
 
The air smelled of old books and leather.
 
“The alarm didn’t malfunction, either.”

Marty looked at the keypad on the wall beside him, saw the flashing red button that indicated the alarm wasn’t in use, and then glanced up at the high gray ceiling, where a video camera was trained down on him.
 
The system was one of the best on the market.
 
“You’ve viewed the contents of the DVR?”

Hines nodded.
 

“What was on it?”

“Just Wood coming home and deactivating the alarm, which cuts off the camera.”

“She didn’t reset it?”

He shook his head.
 
“Let’s just say she wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“What time was this?”

“Oh five hundred hours,” Hines said.
 
“The time and date’s imprinted on the footage.”

Marty nudged the front door shut with his elbow and stepped into the foyer. “She was just getting in at five in the morning?”

“That’s right.”

“From where?”

“No idea.
 
But wherever she went, I’d say she had one hell of a time.
 
You should see her on the DVR.
 
She could barely work the alarm.
 
By the looks of her, I’d say she was crashing hard from whatever drug she was on.”

“Can I see the footage?”

“Absolutely.
 
I’ll get a copy to you later.”

“What about her neighbors?” Marty asked.
 
“Anyone see anything?”

“The people in this neighborhood would rather eat off Chinet than talk to the police, Marty.
 
They shut us down with the standard B.S. about seeing and knowing nothing.”

Unfortunately, Marty knew that was true.
 
This area of Manhattan was a haven for old money and older secrets.
 
If they could avoid it, few people here would get involved in a any kind of police investigation.
 
Still, he would try on his own.
 
People tended to open up to him.
 

“What about work?” Marty asked.
 
“Wood ever go in?”

“Are you listening to me?” Hines asked.
 
“She was in no condition to work.
 
And besides, she had the day off.
 
I’ve seen her calendar.
 
Wood took every third Friday off.”

Hines took a step back toward the winding staircase, anxious for Marty’s reaction to the bedroom.
 
But Marty didn’t move.
 
He looked through the shadows at Hines.
 
“Who found her?
 
If the alarm wasn’t set when she returned home, then someone must have called it in.”

Hines started climbing the stairs, his back to Marty as he spoke.
 
“You and I both know who it was.
 
The same person who severed Wood’s head dialed 911 with the news.
 
We got here in five but Wood’s head was already missing.
 
You want to see the rest, then I suggest you follow me.”

Marty followed.
 
“The person who dialed 911—man or a woman?”

“Whoever called used a device that altered their voice.
 
We’re looking into it.”

Wood’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, to the right of the balustrade, through a door that had been left open.
 
Hines stepped inside.
 
Marty remained in the doorway.

The human body contains six liters of blood, enough to paint a small apartment.
 
Over the years and through countless investigations, Marty had come into the homes of strangers and seen just that—blood covering the walls, blood slicking the floors, blood staining the furniture, blood everywhere.
 

But Wood’s bedroom was different in that she had died hours before decapitation.
 
Her blood, thick and cool and pooled in the well of her buttocks, had remained mostly in her body.
 
Only a small amount leaked from the wound at her neck, staining in an almost perfect black oval the bare, pale yellow mattress.
 

But it was not this that rooted Marty to the doorway.
 
It was what was smeared in blood above Wood’s bed that caused him to pause and wonder about the human soul and all the darkness that could lurk within it.
 

November 5, 2007

NEVER

FORGET!

Marty looked at the date and those words and wondered how they fit into the puzzle of Wood’s death.
 
He looked over at Hines and saw on his face a range of emotions that mirrored his own—empathy for Wood, disgust for the person who had desecrated her body, irritation for his own limitations as a detective.
 

“Collins dusted this place twice,” Hines said, referring to Sharon Collins, the chief fingerprints examiner.
 
“She found nada, nothing, zip.
 
Wood must have been a fucking recluse by the looks of things.
 
Except for a few partials, her prints were the only ones lifted.”

Marty stepped inside and shook his head.
 
“Wood was no recluse,” he said.
 
“She may have lived here alone, she may have refused company, but people don’t party alone, especially if they’re shooting heroin.
 
On that crap, you want to be seen.”
 

He looked around the bedroom.
 
It was here that Wood must have spent most of her time while at home.
 
Her computer was here, as were her law books, a photocopier, a printer and a flat-screen television.
 
There were two telephones, an exercise bike and even a small refrigerator, which sighed at him from the far corner of the room.