The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (104 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

On the Plaza’s fourth floor, a young officer nodded at Hines and Marty as they approached room 406.
 
Sunburned and thin with an easy smile and an easier laugh, he was leaning against the door with an attitude that suggested none of this touched him, the fact that he was guarding a federal court justice’s head in one of the world’s most exclusive hotels.
 
He didn’t know Marty and stared openly at him.
 

“Who’s this?” he asked Hines.
  

Hines looked down at him, his patience still short from his run-in with the press.
 
“What the hell do you care?”

“I’m supposed to ask.”

“Is that so?” Hines said.
 
“Well, how about that.
 
You asked.”
 

He opened the door and they looked inside.
 
Carlo Skeen, the M.E., was standing at the far end of the room, changing the lens on his camera with gloved hands.
 
His eyes flicked up and met Marty’s.
 
They nodded at each other.

“You might want to plug your noses,” the kid said with a grimace.
 
“It’s pretty bad in there.
 
Smells like she’s been dead for weeks.”

Hines leveled him with a look.
 
“Remember that smell,” he said as they stepped past him.
 
“One of these days, it’ll be you.”
   

Despite the warning, nothing could have prepared them for the smell.
 
The air reeked of death.
 
Hines expelled a rush of air through his nose; Marty caught his breath and held it.
 
He was about to move farther into the room when a sergeant he’d known for years came forward to enter their names, time of arrival and Hines’ shield number into the crime scene log.
 

He nodded at Marty.
 
“How’s it goin’, Spellman?
 
Long time no see.”

“No offense, O’Hara, but I could have waited longer.”
 
He looked across the room to Skeen, who now was taking photos of the large blue Tiffany box placed in the center of a shiny round table.
 
In it, Marty could just make out the top of Judge Wood’s head.

“What time did it arrive?” Hines asked.

“Ten thirty,” O’Hara said.
 
“By messenger.”

“I don’t suppose anyone got an ID on the messenger?”

The man looked at him with raised eyebrows.
 
“You’re kidding, right?
 
The stuck-up pricks at the front desk say they know nothing.
 
Couldn’t even give us the color of the perp’s hair.
 
May have been brown, may have been black.
 
Some chick with a stick up her ass thought it was a woman, her hair pulled up in a cap.
 
Who knows?
 
Just dropped it off for Wolfhagen and took off out the door.
 
It’s not like they’re trained to notice these things, Mike.
 
They check people in, they check people out.
 
That’s their job.
 
That’s their miserable fucking lives.”

“They have surveillance cameras here,” Hines said.
 
“Did you get the footage?”

The surprise in the man’s eyes gave him away.
 
“Working on it.”

“Right.
 
Where’s Wolfhagen?”

“Downtown with the chief.”

“Have you seen him?”

“I was first on scene.”

“So, talk.”

“He’s scared.
 
Freaked out.
 
When I got here, he was standing in the middle of the room, starin’ at that box like it held the truth to every one of his nightmares.”
 
He pointed beside the unmade bed, where there was a dark stain on the carpet.
 
“He lost it after opening the package.
 
Tried to make it to the bathroom but couldn’t.
 
After washing out his mouth, he called the front desk, who called us.
 
We got here in ten.”

“Along with the press,” Hines grumbled.
 
He started toward the box.
 
Marty and O’Hara followed.
 
“Wolfhagen happen to mention what he did last night?
 
Where he went?
 
We know he checked in around seven.
 
I assume he didn’t stay in.”

“He didn’t,” O’Hara said.
 
“He ate dinner in his room, then left to visit his wife.
 
Or is it his ex-wife?
 
They divorced yet?”

“On the verge,” Marty said.
 
He looked at Hines, then at O’Hara as Skeen’s camera flashed.
 
They stopped just short of Wood’s head.
 
“What time did he get back in?”

“This morning,” O’Hara said.
 
“About an hour before he received the package.”

“He spent the night with her?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Has she confirmed that?”

“We haven’t contacted her yet.”

“Don’t,” Hines said.
 
“I’ll talk to her myself.”
 
He looked at Skeen, who was standing behind the table, writing something down on a note pad.
 
“Mind if we take a look, Carlo?”

Skeen shrugged.
 
“Why not?
 
Green’s your color.”

“Shit like this don’t bother me.”

“We’ll see.”

Hines peered inside the box.
 
Marty hesitated, then did the same.
 

Wood’s neck had been severed at such a steep angle that her head leaned back against the stained cardboard, her ruined face lifted to his.
 
In a flash, Marty saw the sagging curve of her grayish right cheek, the fleshy hook of her twisted nose, the torn lips drawn back in horror over teeth that had been smashed to dust.
 

Wood’s skull no longer had the gentle curve of the living—it had been crushed by something blunt.
 
Blood and bits of bone peppered her face in a swirl of scarlet.
 
Her light blonde hair was now a deep reddish brown and matted in thick, coagulated clumps.
 
Her eyes were missing.
 
Someone had gouged them out.
 

Marty looked away.
 
Wood had been dead nine hours and still someone had done this to her.
 
She cheated them of murdering her, so they smashed her face, ripped off her head and sodomized her to satisfy their rage.
 

This was personal.

But would Wolfhagen have done this?
 
The man had motive, but would he have gone this far after so much time?
 

Hines turned to O’Hara.
 
“Why’s Wolfhagen in New York?”

“Never said.”

“Didn’t you ask?”

“No,” O’Hara said.
 
“I didn’t.
 
The guy wasn’t exactly in one piece when I got here.”

“Neither was Wood,” Skeen said, and the young officer at the front of the room barked out a laugh.

Hines wanted to smack the kid.
 
“He thought the box was a gift?”

“It had pretty ribbons on it.
 
Wouldn’t you?”

“He must have smelled it.”

“Her head was sealed in plastic,” Skeen said.
 
“Likely to prevent leakage, but also to conceal odor.”

“Who’d he think it was from?”

“He didn’t know,” O’Hara said.
 
“People like him are used to getting gifts.”

“What was his reaction when he opened the box?”

“I told you,” O’Hara said.
 
“The man freaked.
 
Seeing Wood’s head scared the shit out of him.”

“And it’s your opinion that his reaction was genuine?
 
Not rehearsed?”

“Why?
 
You think he’s behind this?”

“I’m not thinking anything yet.
 
It’s just a question.”

“It really don’t matter what you think,” O’Hara said.
 
“I know people.
 
I know what I saw.
 
Wolfhagen didn’t get anything past me.
 
He was telling the truth.
 
There’s no way in hell he knew what was inside that box.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Once out of the Plaza and away from the press, Hines offered Marty a lift to Gloria’s. “I can get you there quicker than any cab.”

They climbed into the Charger.
 
Marty checked his watch.
 
He’d promised his daughters he’d be there at noon to take them to lunch.
 
Now, it was 12:30.
 
“I owe you one.”

Hines pushed a button and the windows receded, sucking warm air and exhaust fumes into the car as they sped away.
 
“You owe me more than that,” he said, “but we’ll discuss that later.”
 

For awhile, they were quiet.
 
Marty closed his eyes and leaned back against the hot seat.
 
He tried to clear his mind, but it was impossible.
 
All he could see was Wood’s smashed head staring up at him from the tight confines of the Tiffany-blue box.

“Far as I see it, we got three ways we can look at this,” Hines said.
 
“One—Wolfhagen’s guilty as hell.
 
He killed Hayes, chopped off Wood’s head and sent it to himself for the alibi.
 
Two—he’s being framed.
 
Somebody thinks he didn’t spend enough time in the hole and wants him to spend the rest of his life rotting there.
 
Three—Wolfhagen’s next.
 
Whoever killed Hayes and Wood wants Wolfhagen dead, too.
 
But they’re going to play with him first, send him squashed heads to scare the shit out of him, break him down before his own head winds up in a cardboard box.”
 

“It’s all possible,” Marty said.

“I’ll know more when I’ve checked Wolfhagen’s alibi and talked to him and Carra myself.
 
I can’t get you into see him, but I can get you a copy of everything he says to Grindle, along with a copy of Wood’s surveillance tape and the call to 911.
 
Tomorrow morning all right?”

“Tomorrow morning’s fine.
 
I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Hines said, cruising across Ninth.
 
“It’s part of the deal.
 
Remember?”

Marty remembered.
 
Soon, Hines would be expecting Marty to deliver something relevant to Wood’s case, or Marty would be on his own.
 

“If you want to know about Hayes, you’d do better to talk to the First P yourself,” Hines said.
 
“It’s their case.”

“Who’s assigned to it?”