But now they had, perhaps, been his undoing.
Miguel Angel Morales was presently strolling through Central Park, making his way to a park bench where he regularly met his people. It was near the Sheep Meadow and therefore easy to spot anyone conducting surveillance.
He'd received a text from his lieutenant that the man had made some discoveries and wanted to relay them as soon as possible.
The gang overlord continued down the meandering path to the bench. He sat and scanned the area for any signs that he was being watched.
No, it was clear. Years of living a gang boss's life had given him acute senses, and he trusted these.
A glance at his watch.
Fifteen minutes until his lieutenant appeared, with, Morales prayed, good news.
Amelia Sachs was back in the armory, once again dressed in her crime scene coveralls.
And, as again, glad for the face mask. This was meant to prevent her DNA from tainting the evidence she might collect but it also had the added benefit of filtering out the overwhelming scent of mildew and mold and pee...and, of course, protecting her from the accompanying spores, which would do no one's lungs any good.
She paused and listened occasionally--the sounds of traffic. Other sounds too. Creaks and groans.
If you're ever inclined to make a horror film, that's the set for it...
What she was finding was helpful forensically but also troubling. Yes, it seemed that Echi Rinaldo had tried out an automatic weapon here. She was digging slugs out of the dirt about thirty yards from where his delivery truck had parked here. She might find fingerprints on them, which would lead to the seller of the ammunition--a perp in his own right, even if he had nothing to do with Rinaldo's death.
And the troubling part? With a grimace, she gazed at the bullets she'd bagged. They were "cop killers"--and of a style she'd never seen. They could pierce body armor but, once through the Kevlar, would expand inside the victim's flesh. A single shot, even to nonvital organs, would probably be fatal, thanks to massive hemorrhaging.
She collected more bullets, then, judging trajectory, looked for but did not find any shell casings. Rinaldo or the other truck driver would have taken those with them. She assembled the evidence and crouched to put the Baggies into a milk carton.
It was then that she heard a sound from the archway that led into the corridor circumnavigating the armory. And not a Friday the 13th soundtrack sound. A footfall. Somebody was there, moving closer, through the shadows.
Rising fast, she reached for her weapon.
Then from behind, a man's voice. "Don't bother."
She froze and turned to see a heavyset man, with salt and pepper hair and a large moustache of the same shades. He was holding a gun pointed roughly in her direction. It was a small Glock, the .380. She judged angles. Her own pistol, a larger one, 9mm, was strapped outside her overalls--yes, there was a risk of contamination but she would never be zippered away from her weapon.
But no, she judged, she couldn't draw in time to stop him from shooting. If he went for a chest shot, though, the vest beneath the overalls would give her time to drop and draw.
A double tap in her head--tactically wise but a harder shot--that would be the end.
But as it turned out there was no gunplay.
The man looked at the NYPD Crime Scene Unit logo on the overalls and slipped his weapon away. "I was saying: Don't bother with him." Nodding toward the archway where the sound had come from. "He's just some meth-head. Harmless."
Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a shield case. He displayed the badge and the ID.
"Stan Coelho. ATF." He gave a laugh. "Well, now ATFE, since they gave us explosives too. When I first saw you, I thought you might be working for some crews. But now--" He gestured toward her outfit. "--looks like one of the good guys. Well, gals." He frowned. "Or shouldn't I be using that word nowadays?"
Miguel Angel Morales saw his lieutenant striding briskly along the walk toward the bench.
Raphael Ortiz sat down on the bench, though three feet away.
"No," Morales said, "It's clear. I've been watching."
The skinny man, thirty to fifty, impossible to tell, moved closer. He pulled his gaudy yellow and brown checkered jacket closer. Morales paid the lieutenant good money. Why he dressed like this was always a mystery.
"We know Rinaldo took delivery of the guns at the armory eleven thirty or so. And we know as of four he'd hidden the delivery somewhere. And everything looked good."
They knew this from the texts, yes.
Ortiz continued, "In between he made a half dozen deliveries around Manhattan--all of them legit. A washer/dryer, some tomato sauce to a couple of restaurants. Auto parts."
That was part of the plan, staying legal. Morales didn't want him to get busted for some little drug drop off and the delivery of guns would get spotted in the process.
"Now I've reconstructed his route for most of the day. But there's no sign that he dropped off our delivery anywhere he went on his legit route. But--here's the thing--he was unaccounted for, for an hour between his last two deliveries. And it wouldn't take that long to drive from one to the other."
Morales's spirits were buoyed. If Ortiz and his people had been unable to track Rinaldo for the entire day, that would have been a problem. But just an hour or so of a gap? The man's diversion to the hiding place could probably be reconstructed.
"All right. Let's proceed. Like I was saying before."
Ortiz nodded. "I'll need a little time to make some arrangements."
It was harder and harder nowadays to get rid of bodies. You had to be absolutely certain that they disappeared completely. And it wasn't just dogs. They had special radar that could find a body twenty feet underground.
"You'll be ready by five?"
Ortiz considered. A nod.
Morales gave his man an address verbally and asked him to repeat it. Which he did. The mousy man had a great memory.
"Good."
And both men rose. Without a word of farewell they turned in different directions and walked away.
"We're not the only ones working the case."
Sachs was explaining to Rhyme and Cooper that an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, Stan Coelho, had been following the shipment of automatic weapons from the other end, the shipper. "They got a tip from some snitch in Chicago, and were following it east from a warehouse on the south side."
"Supply side investigating, you could say." Rhyme was pleased with the joke.
Sachs continued, "Came into the area by train. New Jersey. Coelho got a tip that it was being transferred at the armory but that was today. Rinaldo was long gone. They don't have any other leads."
"What was the source?"
"He said they think it came from Mexico or Canada, but intel there hasn't been helpful."
"This agent. Is he--"
"Legit. Yes." Sachs was at that moment online with the secure database, reading. Coelho was in good standing. She looked over at Rhyme. "His boss, the regional agent in charge, gave him the orders to find the shipment. Or heads will roll." She laughed. "This Coelho, he's quite a piece of work. Right out of the movies. He said his boss has a hard-on the size of Maine to find the shipment. Coelho said, 'Why Maine? I would've picked Texas.' He seemed genuinely perplexed."
"Any thoughts on who killed Rinaldo?"
"No. All ATF cares about is the shipment."
It was true, Rhyme reflected, that the victim in the murder case, normally the hub of an investigation, was presently almost an afterthought.
"So they don't have anything more than we do?"
"No. He's been in touch with Homeland Security, FBI, CIA. There's no terrorist connection that anybody knows about. ATF thinks it's a for-profit thing. He said the BK gangs might be looking for firepower like this."
Rhyme sighed. "Cop-killing rounds, big ones, two-twenty-threes. Fully silenced. Just what we need on the street."
"I kept the rounds I dug up, but Coelho took some pictures. He
's going to check their database and see what he can find."
Mel Cooper approached. "Hope they have better luck than I do. They're homemade. No known brand. Though built to high tolerances. Professional. Oh, and no prints. Whoever loaded them into the mag wore gloves."
Rhyme leaned his head back against the chair's rest. "And the evidence doesn't show any indication of where Rinaldo went after the transfer at the armory. Somehow we'll have to reconstruct his whereabouts during the day."
"You're forgetting," she said.
He looked at the evidence.
"Not that," she chided. "Rinaldo wasn't alone, remember. At least for a portion of the day."
"Oh, the boy."
"Javier."
"Javier." Rhyme grimaced. "An eight-year-old, though? Who's undoubtedly traumatized? What would he know?"
"At least he won't have a motive to lie."
He conceded that. "Well, ask him."
Sachs called the foster couple. Sally Abbott answered the phone.
"It's Amelia Sachs. The detective that brought Javier over to you."
"Sure. Yes. How are you?"
"Fine. You're on speaker with my partner here. How's Javier doing?"
Rhyme lifted his eyebrow, impatiently. Sachs ignored him.
"Quiet. Doesn't want to talk. But adjusting pretty well, all things considered." She was speaking softly and Sachs guessed that Javier wasn't far away. "He's drawing up a storm with those colored pencils of his and he and Peter watched some soccer."
Rhyme cleared his throat.
"Do you have some idea who killed his father?" A very soft whisper.
"No, but it would be helpful if he could tell us a few things."
"Sure." There was a rustling of the phone and Rhyme heard the woman call, "Javier, I've got Miss Amelia on the phone. She wants to ask you a few questions." She too hit the speaker button, Rhyme could hear.
"Hi. How're you?"
"Good, Javier. How you doing?"
"Okay."
"I'd like to know a few things."
"Sure, I guess."
"When did you meet your dad yesterday?
"I don't know. He came by the school and picked me up. Maybe eleven or twelve. He said I didn't have to go to school in the afternoon."
Sachs continued, "Did you go with him to armory on the West Side? Right after school."
"I don't know. What's that?"
"An old building near the river."
"I don't know. Building?"
The foster mother knew it. She said, "Javier, you know that big aircraft carrier on the river? That museum. Have you ever been there?"
"Yeah, I been." He added quietly, "I been with my daddy."
Sally added, "Well, where Ms. Amelia is talking about is a big building sort of near the ship. There's a McDonald's there."
Sachs said, "With your father, yesterday? Did you go there? A big redbrick building. Takes up the whole block."
"No. I never seen that."
So Rinaldo picked up the guns before he collected his son.
"Now, you drove around with him all day."
"Yeah."
"And he dropped his deliveries off. Did you help him?"
"I'm just a kid."
Sachs had to smile, and she heard Sally Abbott chuckle.
"You stayed in the truck."
"Yeah."
"Do you remember where he went to make his deliveries?"
"I don't know. Sorta."
"Tell you what: I know you like to draw, right?"
"Yeah. It's okay."
"Could you draw some pictures in your tablet where you and your father went? Maybe write down anything you remember too. I'll come by later and we can look at it together."
"I guess."
She added, "Sally? Could you help him?"
The woman agreed that they would and she'd call Sachs when the boy had some thoughts.
"Javier? You need anything?"
"No."
Sachs said goodbye and they disconnected. She looked at Rhyme with a coy smile. "You don't seem to feel that's a productive form of inquiry."
"An eight-year-old drawing pictures of his recollections in crayon? In a word, no."
"It's colored pencil," she corrected.
"Well, now, there's a difference for you. Can we get back to the evidence, please and thank you?"
Studying the windows, the dancing shadows.
Hidden in the below-ground alcove of an apartment across the tree-lined street, Raphael Ortiz gazed at the town house on the Upper West Side, the home of foster parents Peter and Sally Abbott. This was the address that Miguel Angel Morales had recited to him not long ago as they sat on the bench in windy Central Park. The arrangements for body disposal were complete and he was pleased to see he'd arrived here a few minutes early. It was 4:50 p.m. He imagined that Miguel Angel would be pleased too. The man appreciated punctuality.
The shades of the town house were up, but lacy curtains, wafting in the breeze, obscured the view inside. Occasionally, he noted, there came a flicker of light, blue and gray and white, and he knew the television was on. He wondered if Rinaldo's boy was watching the set, and what; was the kid interested in cartoons?
When Ortiz was Javier's age he hadn't watched much TV. The family had one--everybody in the Bronx neighborhood did--but cable was crappy and it went out frequently. Probably stolen by his old man. He envied the boys and girls at school who'd talk about episodes of Law and Order and Walker, Texas Ranger. The girls loved Blossom and Full House.
A car cruised past. Several more. Ortiz, though, stayed unseen. He was careful, watching the faint wisp of exhaust from the unmarked police SUV. He didn't know if the cop inside was constantly studying the doorway and the traffic on the street, or was there merely as a deterrent and he was content to listen to the radio or read.
But he would assume the cop was vigilant as a wolf.
Miguel Angel was never emotional, never raised his voice. But he was also a viper, known to kill easily, even those he seemed fond of. Thinking of the time Santos was smoking on a job at a warehouse in Hell's Kitchen. He tossed out his cigarette carelessly and it set a small fire. That set off the alarm, which brought the fire department.
The crew lost a smooth thirty thousand from what would have been an easy payroll check cashing service heist.
Miguel Angel had personally tied a weight to Santos's waist and pushed him into the East River, near the sewage treatment facility in Queens.
His hand close to the Smith and Wesson in his back pocket, Ortiz now slipped out of hiding and walked up the street to the intersection, turned left and into the alley behind the townhouse complex. Staying close to the back walls, he moved slowly forward, over cobblestones, the alley cleaner than most in the city. He was counting back doors. The Abbotts' was the sixth building on the left.
Ortiz had just reached the third when a shadow appeared fast from the right and behind him.
Shit...
He gasped as a massive set of fingers closed on his own hand--the one reaching instinctively toward his pistol. An arm gripped his shoulders and tugged him roughly backward and closer to the wall. He struggled to break free but the assailant was far stronger.
He smelled a whiff of some sour aftershave and a head was next to his ear, so close that he felt beard stubble against his lobe.
"Quiet," came the command, a guttural voice.
Ortiz nodded.
The pressure relaxed completely and he turned. His lids lowered briefly in relief. He'd thought, for a moment, that there'd been a second cop, one in the alleyway, who'd nailed him. But no, it wasn't a cop. Though technically he was a law enforcer. Stan Coelho, officially working for the ATF but making most of his money as an informant and all around badass for Miguel Angel Morales.
"Jesus. Almost shit my pants."
Coelho whispered, "The SUV in front?"
"Yeah?" Ortiz took to whispering too.
"It's empty." The ATF agent pointed up the alley. Ortiz co
uld make out, just barely, faint motion from the back service doorway of the Abbotts' apartment. Ah, it was the cop from the stakeout, Ortiz understood. Ah, not a bad idea. You leave an SUV running in front of the place you're guarding--and an SUV with darkened windows, hard to see inside. Then the driver slips behind the building. Anyone wanting to break in would avoid the front door and its General Motors bouncer...and then get busted by the asshole hiding in the back.
Coelho whispering: "Come on. Here."
The big man slipped into the back doorway of the apartment building they were closest to, a recessed area, on the same side of the alley as the foster parents'. He had, apparently, already snapped the lock and deadbolt here and gestured Ortiz inside. Then, with a glance toward the cop, followed, pulling the door shut.
The ATF agent said, "We gotta go up." Lifting his eyes toward the ceiling. "Onto the roof. We go over the building--"
"We have to jump?" Ortiz was not a fan of heights.
"From one building to the other?" The massive man seemed amused. "I look like I do that? No, they're all connected. We get to their place, then down. They have the whole building."
Ortiz nodded toward the Abbott's building. "And the kid's in there?"
The man didn't answer but his look said, why you think Morales called us both here if he wasn't.
"Let's get going."
In five minutes they'd made their way down the ladder and then the stairs into the Abbotts' townhouse. The top floor, where the two men stood, guns in hands, consisted of three bedrooms, all of them--Coelho checked and reported--empty.
From below were the sounds of a television and muted conversation. The agent nodded in that direction. They started down the stairs. Normally he'd be uneasy at times like this. But he felt more or less comfortable, pleased that Coelho was here. There was going to be, Miguel Angel had suggested, some killing and, while Ortiz shied from such work, the ATF agent--you might say--lived for it.
He forced himself not to cry out in shock.
Javier Rinaldo had come back from the bathroom and as he walked out of the john, he'd seen shadows from upstairs. He ducked into a spare bedroom and leaned out. He saw two figures coming down the stairs.
Holding guns.
No, no, no!
One of them was the guy had killed his father, he bet! Coming here to kill him too. And those nice people, the Abbotts!
Javier didn't have any idea how they'd found him but here they were. One Latino and skinny. One white and big.