Loud snores came from the bed against the far wall. Angelo wasn’t sure who was snoring, but once he was convinced both were still sound asleep, he motioned for Tony to follow him. Together they advanced to the bed.
It was a king-sized bed covered with a down-filled comforter. In the bed were a man and a woman of late middle age. They were both on their backs, their arms at their sides.
Angelo veered to the right to be on the same side as the woman. Tony went to the opposite side. The victims did not stir. Angelo motioned for Tony’s attention, pointing toward his Walther in the half-light of the bedroom, indicating that he was about to dispatch the woman and that Tony should keep his eye on the man.
Tony nodded. And as Angelo brought up his gun to bear on the sleeping, female head, Tony did the same across the bed. Angelo advanced the gun to the point where he’d be unable to miss, aiming at the temple, just above and in front of the ear. He wanted the bullet to penetrate into the base of the brain, approximately where it would end up if he were able to shoot her from behind.
The report was loud in relation to the silence that prevailed in the room, but when compared with normal noise, it was a soft, hissing thump, like a fist striking a pillow.
Hardly had Angelo recovered from the wince he made after pulling the trigger when there was another similar hissing thump. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man’s head rebound off the pillow, then settle back. A dark stain that looked black in the half-light began to spread.
“I couldn’t help it,” Tony said. “I heard you shoot and I couldn’t help pulling the trigger myself. I like it. It gives me such a rush.”
“You’re a goddamn psychopath,” Angelo said angrily. “You weren’t supposed to shoot the guy unless he moved. That was the plan.”
“What the hell difference does it make?” Tony said.
“The difference is that you have to learn to follow orders,” Angelo snapped.
“All right already,” Tony said. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Next time I’ll play exactly how you say.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Angelo said. He started toward the door.
“How about looking around for some cash or valuables?” Tony asked. “After all, we’re here.”
“I don’t want to take the time,” Angelo said. At the door to the hall he turned. “Come on, Tony! We’re not here to turn a profit. Cerino’s already paying us enough.”
“But what Cerino doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Tony said. He picked up a wallet on the night-table along with a Rolex watch. “How about I take a souvenir?”
“Fine,” Angelo said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Three minutes later they were speeding away.
“Holy crap!” Tony exclaimed.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s over five hundred big ones in here,” Tony said, waving the bills in the air. He already had the gold Rolex watch on his wrist. “Add that to what Cerino is paying us and we’re doing okay.”
“Just be sure to get rid of that wallet,” Angelo said. “It could finger us for sure.”
“No problem,” Tony said. “I’ll drop it in the incinerator.”
Angelo pulled up to the curb and put the car in park.
“Now what?” asked Tony.
Angelo leaned over and took the list out of the glove compartment. “I want to see if there’s anybody else in this area,” he said. “Bingo,” Angelo said after a brief perusal.
“Here’s two in Forest Hills. That’s right around the corner. We can do both before dawn no problem. I’d say that’d make it a pretty good night.”
“I’d say it’d make it a fabulous night,” Tony said. “I’ve never made this kind of money.”
“All right!” Angelo said, studying a map. “I know where both of these houses are.
Expensive part of town.” He placed the map and the list down on the center console, put the car in gear, and drove off.
It took less than half an hour for Angelo to cruise past the first house. It was a large white mansion set far back from the street. Angelo guessed the house sat on at least two acres. Several leafless elms lined a long, curving driveway.
“Which one this time?” Tony asked as he gazed up at the big house.
“The man,” Angelo said. He was trying to decide where to leave the car. In such a ritzy part of town there weren’t many vehicles parked on the street. In the end, he decided to drive right up the driveway since it looped behind the house. He could park so that the car wasn’t visible from the street. He turned his lights off as he came up the drive, hoping the darkened car wouldn’t attract any attention.
“Now remember,” Tony said as they prepared to move in. “This time it’s my turn.”
Angelo looked to the heavens as if to say, “Why me, God?” Then he nodded and the two went to the house.
The white mansion proved more difficult than the more modest stone house. The white mansion had several overlapping alarm systems that took Angelo some time to figure out as well as neutralize. It was a half hour before they broke out a whole sash in a window into a laundry room.
Angelo went in first to make sure there were no infrared detectors or lasers. When he determined the coast was clear, Tony climbed over the windowsill.
They stayed together and moved slowly through the kitchen, where they could hear a TV playing in a nearby room.
As carefully as possible they moved toward the sound. It was coming from a room off the front hall. Angelo went first and peered around the corner.
The room was a den with a wet bar built into one wall, a giant rear-projection TV in another. In front of the TV was a chintz-upholstered chesterfield. Asleep in the center of the couch was an enormously overweight man, dressed in a blue bathrobe. His stubby, surprisingly skinny legs stuck out from beneath the corpulent mass of his abdomen and were propped up on a hassock. On his feet were leather slippers.
Angelo pulled back to talk with Tony. “He’s asleep and alone. We’ll have to assume the wife, if there is one, is upstairs.”
“What are we going to do?” Tony questioned.
“You wanted to whack him,” Angelo said. “So go in and do it. Just do it right. Then we’ll check on the woman.”
Tony smiled and stepped beyond Angelo. His gun with the silencer in place was in his right hand.
Rounding the corner, Tony boldly strode into the den. He went directly up to the man on the couch. Pointing the gun at the man’s temple just above the ear, he purposefully bumped the man’s thigh with his leg.
The man sputtered as his heavily lidded eyes struggled up. “Gloria, dear?” he managed.
“No, honey, it’s me—Tony.”
The hissing thump knocked the man over onto his right side on the couch. Tony leaned over and placed the muzzle of his silencer at the base of the skull and fired again. The man didn’t move.
Tony straightened up and looked back at Angelo. Angelo waved for him to follow him. Together they went up the stairs. On the second floor they had to search through several rooms before finding Gloria. She was fast asleep with the lights on but with black eyeshades over her eyes and earplugs in her ears.
“Looks like she thinks she’s a movie star,” Tony said. “This is going to be a snap.”
“Let’s go,” Angelo said. He gave Tony’s arm a tug.
“Aw, come on,” Tony said. “She’s like a sitting duck.”
“I’m not going to argue,” Angelo snarled. “We’re getting out of here.”
Back in the car, Tony pouted while Angelo checked the fastest route to the next house. Angelo didn’t care how long Tony brooded. At least it kept him quiet.
The final house was a two-story row house with a metal awning forming a carport in front of the single-car garage. A small chain-link fence demarcated a postage-stamp-sized lawn that contained two pink flamingo statues.
“The man or the woman?” Tony asked, breaking his silence for the first time.
“The wom
an,” Angelo said. “And you can do her if you want.” He was feeling magnanimous with the evening’s work drawing to a close.
Breaking into the final house was a breeze. They did it from the alleyway, going through the back door. To their surprise they found the husband sleeping on the couch with an empty six-pack on the floor next to him.
Angelo told Tony to go upstairs by himself and that he’d keep his eye on the man. Angelo could see Tony’s eager smile in the half-light, and he thought the kid’s appetite for “whacking” was insatiable.
Several minutes later Angelo could barely hear the silenced report of Tony’s gun, followed quickly by another shot. At least the kid was thorough. A few minutes after that Tony reappeared.
“The guy move?” Tony asked.
Angelo shook his head and motioned for them to leave.
“Too bad,” Tony said. His eyes lingered a second on the sleeping man before he turned to follow Angelo out the door.
On the back stoop Angelo stretched and looked up at the brightening sky. “Here comes the sun,” he said. “How about some breakfast?”
“Sounds great,” Tony said. “What a night. It doesn’t get any better than this.” As he walked to the car he unscrewed his silencer from his gun.
7
* * *
7:45 a.m., Thursday
Manhattan
Although she hadn’t slept much thanks to her late-night call, Laurie made it a point to arrive at work a little early to compensate for having been late the day before. It was only seven forty-five as she mounted the steps to the medical examiner’s office.
Going directly to the ID office, she detected a mild electricity in the air. Several of the other associate medical examiners who usually didn’t come in until around eight-thirty were already on the job. Kevin Southgate and Arnold Besserman, two of the older examiners, were huddled around the coffeepot in heated debate. Kevin, a liberal, and Arnold, an arch-conservative, never agreed on anything.
“I’m telling you,” Arnold was saying when Laurie squeezed through to get herself some coffee, “if we had more police on the streets, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”
“I disagree,” Kevin said. “This kind of tragedy—”
“What happened now?” Laurie asked as she stirred her coffee.
“A series of homicides in Queens,” Arnold said. “Gunshot wounds to the head from close range.”
“Small-caliber bullets?” Laurie asked.
Arnold looked at Kevin. “I don’t know about that yet.”
“The posts haven’t been done yet,” Kevin explained.
“Were they pulled out of the river?”
“No,” Arnold said. “These people were asleep in their own homes. Now, if we had more police presence—”
“Come on, Arnold!” Kevin said.
Laurie left the two to their bickering and went over to check the autopsy schedule. Sipping her coffee, she checked at who was on autopsy besides herself and what cases were assigned. After her own name were three cases, including Stuart Morgan. She was pleased. Calvin was sticking by his promise.
Noting that the other two cases were drug overdose/toxicity cases as well, Laurie flipped through the investigator’s reports. She was immediately dismayed to see that profiles of the deceased resembled the previous suspicious cases. Randall Thatcher, thirty years old, was a lawyer; Valerie Abrams, thirty-three, was a stockbroker.
The day before she’d feared there’d be more cases, but she’d hoped her fears wouldn’t materialize. Obviously that wasn’t to be the case. Already there were three more. Overnight her modest series had jumped one hundred percent.
Laurie walked through Communications on her way to the medical forensic investigative department. Spotting the police liaison office, she wondered what she should do about the suspected thievery at the Morgan apartment. For the moment she decided to let it go. If she saw Lou she might discuss the matter with him.
Laurie found Cheryl Myers in her tiny windowless office.
“No luck so far on that Duncan Andrews case,” Cheryl told her before she could say a word.
“That’s not why I stopped by,” Laurie said. “I left word last evening with Bart that I wanted to be called if any upscale drug overdose cases came in like Duncan Andrews or Marion Overstreet. I was called last night for one. But this morning I discovered there were two others that I wasn’t called on. Have you any idea why I wasn’t called?”
“No,” Cheryl said. “Ted was on last night. We’ll have to ask him this evening. Was there a problem?”
“Not really,” Laurie admitted. “I’m just curious. Actually I probably couldn’t have gone to all three scenes. And I will be handling the autopsies. By the way, did you check with the hospital about the Marion Overstreet case?”
“Sure did,” Cheryl said. “I spoke with a Dr. Murray and he said that they were just following policy orders from you.”
“That’s what I figured,” Laurie said. “But it was worth a check. Also, I have something else I’d like to ask you to do. Would you see what kind of medical records you can get, particularly surgical, on a woman by the name of Marsha Schulman. I’d love to get some X-rays. I believe she lived in Bayside, Queens. I’m not sure of her age. Let’s say around forty.” Ever since Jordan had told Laurie about his secretary’s husband’s shady dealings and arrest record, she’d had a bad feeling about the woman’s disappearance, particularly in view of the odd break-in at Jordan’s office.
Cheryl wrote the information down on a pad on her desk. “I’ll get right on it.”
Next Laurie sought out John DeVries. As she’d feared, he was less than cordial.
“I told you I’d call you,” John snapped when Laurie asked about a contaminant. “I’ve got hundreds of cases besides yours.”
“I know you’re busy,” Laurie said, “but this morning I have three more overdoses like the three I had before. That brings the body count to a total of six young, affluent, well-educated career people. Something has to be in that cocaine, and we have to find it.”
“You’re welcome to come up here and run the tests yourself,” John said. “But I want you to leave me alone. If you don’t, I’ll have to speak to Dr. Bingham.”
“Why are you acting this way?” Laurie asked. “I’ve tried to be nice about this.”
“You’re being a pain in the neck,” John said.
“Fine,” Laurie said. “It’s wonderful to know we have a nice cooperative atmosphere around here.”
Exasperated, Laurie stalked out of the lab, grumbling under her breath. She felt a hand grip her arm and she spun around, ready to slap John DeVries for having the nerve to touch her. But it wasn’t John. It was one of his young assistants, Peter Letterman.
“Could I talk to you a moment?” Peter said. He glanced warily over his shoulder.
“Of course,” Laurie said.
“Come into my cubbyhole,” Peter said. He motioned for Laurie to follow him. They entered what had originally been designed as a broom closet. There was barely enough room there for a desk, a computer terminal, a file cabinet, and two chairs. Peter closed the door behind them.
Peter was a thin, blond fellow with delicate features. To Laurie he appeared as the quintessential graduate student, with a marked intensity to his eyes and demeanor.
Under his white lab coat was an open-necked flannel shirt.
“John is a little hard to get along with,” he said.
“That’s an understatement,” Laurie answered.
“Lots of artists are like that,” Peter continued. “And John is an artist of sorts. When it comes to chemistry and toxicology in particular, he’s amazing. But I couldn’t help overhearing your conversations with him. I think one of the reasons he’s giving you a hard time is to make a point with the administration that he needs more funding. He’s slowing up a lot of reports, and for the most part it makes little difference. I mean the people are dead. But if your suspicions are right it sounds like we could be in the li
fesaving business for a change. So I’d like to help. I’ll see what I can do for you even if I have to put in some overtime.”
“I’d be grateful, Peter,” Laurie said. “And you’re right.”
Peter smiled self-consciously. “We went to the same school,” he said.
“Really?” Laurie said. “Where?”
“Wesleyan,” Peter said. “I was two years behind you, but we shared a class. Physical chemistry.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t remember you,” Laurie said.
“Well, I was kinda a nerd then. Anyway, I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
Laurie returned to her office feeling considerably more optimistic about mankind with Peter’s generous offer to help. Going through the day’s autopsy folders, she came up with only a few questions on two of the cases similar to her question about Marion Overstreet. Just to be thorough she called Cheryl to ask her to check them out.
After changing in her office, Laurie went down to the autopsy room. Vinnie had Stuart Morgan “up” and was well prepared for her arrival. They started work immediately.
The autopsy went smoothly. As they were finishing the internal portion, Cheryl Myers came in holding a mask to her face. Laurie glanced around to make sure Calvin wasn’t in sight to complain that Cheryl had not put on scrubs. Happily he wasn’t in the room.
“I had some luck with Marsha Schulman,” she said, waving a set of X-rays. “She’d been treated at Manhattan General because she worked for a doctor on the staff. They had recent chest film which they sent right over. Want me to put it up?”
“Please,” Laurie said. She wiped her hands on her apron and followed Cheryl over to the X-ray view box. Cheryl stuck the X-rays into the holder and stepped to the side.
“They want them back right away,” Cheryl explained. “The tech in X-ray was doing me a favor by letting them out without authorization.”