Cuts Through Bone (22 page)

“Would you have a way of knowing if someone asked that question?”

“If the question came from inside the firm, we can ask Ms. Roscoe,” she replied. “If the question came from outside the firm, we will need to be lucky.” Reed, Whitaker & Down used a secretarial and reception pool for the junior partners, associates, and routine work. Miss Walterberg felt that some of them were less than competent; the use of computers was eroding office habits. She watched the phenomenon with James Rondell, who occasionally decided that he could, by computer, prepare a presentation or organize materials more efficiently than a secretary. She then found it necessary to open windows and air out the stink of flaming failure. The firm's pool had some similarly inclined members. Even education didn't seem capable of eradicating the belief in a labor-free shortcut. Miss Walterberg led them with the crisp stride of a martinet.

An old-fashioned memo spike held a sparse handful of messages. Walterberg sighed as she searched the messages, then offered one to Guthrie.

The note identified a plumbing service in Brooklyn—Lackland Brothers—and detailed an inquiry on whether the firm would recommend Dallen as an investigator of someone they believed was defrauding them.

“Ms. Jenkins initialed the message,” Walterberg said. “I have her number. Perhaps she will have more details.”

On the phone, the secretary revealed that a foreign-sounding caller had asked for Rondell's investigator; she had given him Dallen's name because Rondell preferred him over the firm's other investigators. Then Guthrie called the number noted for Lackland Brothers, but reached a pizzeria in Gravesend. He listened to the pitch, then hung up without offering a reply.

After they left the quiet marble building on Wall Street and were walking down to the car, he dialed another number on his phone. He handed the phone to Vasquez. “Gimme the keys,” he said. “You make friends with Sergeant Murtaugh from the two-four, and tell him what we got.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thirty-fourth Street was quiet when Guthrie and Vasquez returned to the office.

Guthrie ordered a pizza for lunch. Not long after, a shadow slid onto the frosted glass panel of the office door and the knob rattled. The sound fell into a lull where the detectives were both studying monitor screens, or chewing the ends of pens. The little old man frowned and sat forward in his chair.

The office door opened and a young blond man of about average height stepped into the office, followed by a heavyweight with a flattened face and wearing a wide-brimmed black Stetson. “Please to excuse me,” the man said, “but I was recommended to inquire to engage your services. I believe someone is stealing from me.”

The young man wore an earnest expression, but he glanced quickly around the office as he spoke, walking along the length of the oxblood couch toward Guthrie's desk. The heavyweight's eyes slid over Vasquez, then locked on Guthrie and didn't waver. He followed the smaller man along the couch.

“I think that's what I was missing,” Guthrie said to Vasquez. He stood up, and his hand dropped onto the heavy glass paperweight on his blotter. He smiled and continued: “You two can have a seat while you tell me about it.”

After he rounded the end of the couch, the blond man strode past Guthrie's desk. His hand dipped into the back pocket of his dark trousers to retrieve a flip knife and opened it:
tat-a-tat.
The heavyweight wearing the black Stetson grinned and rushed forward.

Guthrie lifted the paperweight from his blotter and threw it like a shortstop firing for first base. The heavy blob of glass collided with the big man's cheek and wiped away his grin. He missed a step while he shook off the blow, but his Stetson stayed square on his blocky head. A trickle of blood streaked down his face. Guthrie jumped up onto his desktop. Notepaper, pens, and paper clips showered onto the low coffee table framed inside the couches and desks.

The blare of horns from Thirty-fourth Street leaked through the windows. The blond man swerved around the coffee table without looking back at Guthrie. He wagged his gleaming knife blade at Vasquez and turned the corner of her desk with a rush. She spun from her chair, then flung it at his knees. He slashed at her ponytail as it whipped by his face, grinning as he disentangled his legs from the light chair and kicked it aside.

The big man swept Guthrie's computer monitor from the desk with one wide hand, roaring a guttural insult, and snatched for the little detective's ankle. Guthrie leaped from his desk to Vasquez's, scattering paper, coffee, and more pens, then bounced from the desktop to dive onto the blond man. The man's blue eyes flared wide with surprise.

The detective was too small to tackle him to the floor, but they collided with the wall. Guthrie kept his feet by hanging on to the larger man. The blond's hand whipped. Guthrie smashed elbows with him to stop the knife. They howled curses in different languages. The heavyweight charged through the mess between the desk and couches like a defensive end aiming at a scatback.

“Draw!” Guthrie shouted.

The little detective's shout startled Vasquez, but her hand moved automatically. For her first month, he had repeated the same command hundreds of times with a stopwatch in his hand. Each time, she used a thumb to hook aside the zipper of her windbreaker, slid her hand palm out around to her kidney holster, and drew her Chief's Special for five shots at short distance. After a pause to examine the target and reload, they did it again.

The small pistol fit Vasquez's hand perfectly. Her frown vanished when she stretched out her arm. Her first shot with the .40-caliber pistol froze the moment like a strobe light, but the sound was flat, not sharp. The bullet smashed into the side of the big man's head, lifting his Stetson over the furry brown couch. He staggered, plowed into the arm of the couch, and tumbled into an ass-up pile.

Vasquez grinned. The blond man muttered a curse and stepped to use Guthrie for cover while he dug at something tucked behind his belt, but the little detective dropped suddenly into a crouch. The blond dived for the furry brown couch, with gunshots chasing him. A hit wrung out a high-pitched scream.

“Fuckmother!” the blond man shouted from behind the couch. His shoes squeaked on the wooden floor as he crawled. The heavyweight untangled himself and stood up, then felt for his hat—or maybe to see how much of his head remained. A second trickle of blood decorated his face. The short black hair on his head was as stiff and matted as an unwashed goat. He looked around the office to take his bearings.

Vasquez switched gun hands and pulled her other pistol. Guthrie spun along the floor without leaving his crouch, grabbed her belt, and snatched her to the floor. He crawled across her legs like a monkey and turned the corner of his desk to open the big bottom drawer. Vasquez took aim from the floor and shot the heavyweight in the stomach with the soft-loaded .40-caliber. He yelped and folded. The slide on the Smith & Wesson locked open; the clip was empty.

The blond rose from behind the oxblood couch and fired two quick shots with an automatic pistol before he realized no one was standing. One bullet drilled a hole through Vasquez's computer monitor. He hissed a string of curses and rushed back down the length of the office. The tip of his pistol wavered between the two open doors flanking Guthrie's desk. The heavyweight rolled to his feet, silhouetted in the light of the street windows. He drew a large automatic pistol from beneath his jacket.

The hard-loaded .40-caliber boomed with a heavier sound than the young blond man's automatic; Vasquez fired three shots. The bullets drove the big man back to the window sash. His shoulder cracked a pane of glass before he slid down the wall and slumped forward. His hand brushed at the hardwood floor for a moment, as if he was smoothing a place to lay his head. The blond man turned the corner of Guthrie's desk while Vasquez was still firing. The little detective was lying on the floor, with his heavy Colt revolver in his outstretched hand.

“Fuckmother!” the blond shouted again, firing twice.

Guthrie's shot squeezed in between the lighter bullets like a zesty piece of roast beef sandwiched between two slices of plain light bread. The blond's first shot clipped splinters from the desk, and the second burrowed into the floor. The little detective's shot hammered the blond against the painted wall; he sneezed a spray of blood, then curled up on the floor, holding his pistol like a teddy bear.

The horns blaring on Thirty-fourth Street mixed with the wail of approaching sirens seemed quiet after the gunfire. Guthrie muttered curses as he rescued papers from the puddle of coffee on his desk. Vasquez laid her pistols on her desk and tucked her hands into her armpits. She stared at the crumpled heavyweight beneath the window. The body had fallen at an awkward angle, unrecognizeable at first glance as something human—like a picture in
National Geographic
meant for a reader to puzzle over before flipping the page to read the identifying caption. Flecks of blood on the painted wall looked like a heavy shake of red pepper. Guthrie walked over and righted her chair, rolled it behind her, and gently tipped her into it.

“Maybe now is a good time to give you a raise,” he said.

*   *   *

For a long time, the approaching sirens were only an empty threat. The light from the windows dimmed under the weight of a heavy bank of clouds. Guthrie poured himself another cup of coffee and rummaged in his desk drawer for a card to give Vasquez. He left the computer monitor on the floor.

“We gotta cover a few things before the police get here,” he said.

“They shot first! Kind of—”

“I'm not talking about that. Those guys were looking for us, the ones who killed Henry Dallen last night. I don't know what happened, but it's connected to James Rondell. We stirred something up, but I can't see what it is yet.”

“So what do we do?”

“Somebody talked, or somebody noticed. We know some things that nobody else knows—they have to stay that way. Jeannette Overton, she's one. I think she saw our guy.”

“The deliveryman,” Vasquez said. “I got you.”

“Right. And the sex pics. Maybe that's behind it, but we can't just throw it out. I warned Inglewood there was some dirt at Columbia, but now that I know what it is, it's worse.”

Vasquez frowned. The sirens were on the street outside. “But that's probably who's behind it.”

“Even so,” the little detective said.

“So we're sitting on this?”

“That's it. Dummy up and call the lawyer on the card.”

Quick footsteps sounded in the hall outside. The office door opened wide and a dark-uniformed patrolman pushed through behind an extended gun. Guthrie and Vasquez raised their hands. They took a ride to the Midtown South, courtesy of the NYPD. After a wait for the lawyers to drive into the city from Brooklyn, the questioning began.

Guthrie's lawyers were Italians, and they had sharp teeth. Guthrie and Vasquez accounted for their pistols but otherwise left the NYPD detectives to guess. Guthrie let the lawyer suggest that the killing could be connected to the murder in the 24th Precinct, since there seemed to be a connection through James Rondell.

That brought Sergeant Murtaugh for a visit, and then a detective from Major Case named Wilkins. Murtaugh looked as neat as he had that morning: Even a murder couldn't get his hair out of place. Wilkins was a skinny black man a few years into middle age, and he shaved his head to hide oncoming baldness. He didn't like the idea that the 102nd Street killing might not have a robbery motive, and he liked it even less that Clayton Guthrie was mixed into it. The little detective was a bad stink in their squad room because of the Bowman murder investigation.

Wilkins sat, angrily silent, when the chief of detectives ordered Guthrie and Vasquez released. The canvass in the 24th Precinct had turned up witnesses for two suspects, roughly matching the bodies in the office, and Murtaugh had interviewed the secretary at Reed, Whitaker & Down. Unless something else came to light, the shooting was clean, and it was rolled together with the 102nd Street killing.

Guthrie's lawyers gave them a ride back to the Garment District. The lawyers surprised Vasquez by not being nosy; they looked her over, then talked about the Knicks. They walked up to the office with the detectives. The bodies were gone. Guthrie broke the yellow tape, took a look to see if ISU had touched anything they shouldn't, and brought out their palmtops. The good-byes were brief, because the air smelled like approaching rain. The clouds were as dark as iron, pushing fast over the city, chased by a cold wind from the Atlantic.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I think we made some progress,” Guthrie said into the phone as he flipped it to speaker. “But I doubt you've heard anything on the news, unless you follow it close.”

“What do you mean?” Michelle Tompkins asked.

“Henry Dallen was murdered last night,” Guthrie said. “Did you ever meet Henry Dallen? No? He was one of the investigators who worked for Reed, Whitaker & Down. No bells yet? That's James Rondell's firm, the lawyer who's representing Greg Olsen.”

Vasquez turned the old Ford onto the Bowery. They were going to Brooklyn. The rain began as a gentle speckling on the windshield, but before she could turn on the wipers, the drops whooshed into a hissing roar. The city around them faded behind gray curtains, while the wipers shaved helplessly at the sheet of water on the glass.

“I don't understand,” Tompkins said.

“Are you sure?” Guthrie asked. “You've been doing a champion job of playing dumb since we started. I'm not a dentist. I'm not going to pull your teeth if you open your mouth.”

“I'm studying,” she said sharply. “I don't have time for jokes.”

“I wish this was a joke. Two thugs from Brighton Beach tried to rub me out a little before lunch, and I bet you don't know anything about that, either. So let me help you. You asked us to find Camille Bowman's killer, or prove Greg Olsen didn't do it. Somebody doesn't want us to do that. I think they wanted to find out how much we know first—that being a good guess based on that they talked to Henry Dallen before they killed him. They tied him to an oven door and branded his hands with hot knives. Then I'm pretty sure they asked him for my name, because their next stop was my office.”