Fifth Ave 02 - Running of the Bulls (17 page)

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.
 

“All right,” Hines said.
 
“Give it your best shot.”

“Wood was into kink,” Marty said.
 
“We know that from the tattoo and the piercings.
 
But where did she go at night?
 
Why did she take every third Friday off from work?
 
To recoup from every third Thursday night?
 
That’s a no brainer.”

“So, she belonged to a club."

“Absolutely,” Marty said.
 
“But which one?
 
This city is filled with underground clubs that feature an a la carte menu of anything you want.
 
Some are public, others are private.
 
Some even take food stamps, but you probably don’t want to go to those.
 
Or maybe you do.
 
The problem is that most are mobile--they rarely meet at the same place twice.
 
They rent a space, have their fun, shut it down when they're finished.
 
Have you talked to Vice?”

“Not yet.”

“When you do, mention the tattoo.
 
See if they can match it to anything in their files.
 
If they can, you might get your club.”
 
He nodded at the message scrawled in blood above Wood's bed.
 
“Maybe even the person who can't forget November 5, 2007.”

Hines’ cell went off.
 
He slipped his hand into his pocket and answered.
 

While he spoke, Marty looked at the bloody mattress that had become Wood's final imprint on the world, thought of the tattoo and the piercing, and wondered how a federal court judge, that bastion of morality and justice, could have become engaged in something so far on the fringe.
 
When had the balance of her personal judgment tipped?

He looked around the large room with its heavy velvet curtains and sturdy iron bed, its bookcases brimming with law books Wood either had memorized or written, the pale yellow wall smeared with its mysterious message, and wondered what secrets it held.
 
What did this room know about Judge Kendra Wood that the world was only just now finding out?

Hines clicked the phone shut, turned to look at Marty.
 
“Now this is getting interesting,” he said.
 
“That was the chief.
 
Remember Maximilian Wolfhagen?
 
The guy who was busted a few years back for insider trading?
 
The guy Wood sent to prison?
 
Guess whose head just showed up at his room at The Plaza Hotel?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hines's Charger was as neat as Marty had come to expect from a man who demanded order in everything.
 
Together, they got inside, shut the doors and drove across town.

 
“All right,” Hines said.
 
“Who'd send Wood's head to Wolfhagen?
 
Who'd know he was at the Plaza?
 
Grindle said he just got in last night.”

“What time last night?”
 

“A little past seven.”

“Why's he in New York?”

“Chief didn't say.”

Marty nodded and looked out the passenger window.
 
He wasn't comfortable with any of this.
 
Already, the investigation was turning into more than Maggie Cain had promised, more than he had planned.
 
But was it more than Maggie planned?
 
Had she sensed from the beginning that Boob Manly had nothing to do with the Coles’ deaths?
 
And if that was the case, why was she keeping quiet about it now?

Look at the facts
, he told himself.
 

This morning, she had sounded upset--not surprised--when she phoned to tell him about Wood and Hayes.
 
It was as though she had been anticipating their deaths, or, at the very least, expecting someone else to wind up dead who was connected to the others.
 
He wondered again why she lied about her relationship with Wolfhagen.
 
What happened between them that she was covering up?

“What do you know about Wolfhagen?” Hines asked.
 
“You two ever meet?”

“No.”

“But I thought you and Gloria knew everyone.”

“Gloria knows everyone.
 
She just took me along for the ride.”

Hines lit a cigarette.
 
“Wolfhagen comes to town and two people from his past wind up dead--the first a man whose testimony sent him to prison, the second the judge who put him there.
 
You heard about Gerald Hayes?”

“I was going to ask you about that later.”

“Why's that?”

“Because I have an interest in his death, too.”

“Think there's a connection?”

Maggie Cain certainly did.
 
"I don't know.
 
Why would Wolfhagen cut off Wood's head, send it to himself and directly associate himself with the case?
 
Either he's next or somebody is setting him up."

Hines shot across the Park.
 
“If I had plans to kill Hayes and Wood, sending myself Wood’s head might be exactly something I’d do.”

“Why?"

“Because, if I did do it, I’d need an alibi.
 
Sending myself the very head the cops are accusing me of chopping off is the perfect one.
 
Actually, if it turns out to be true, it's brilliant.
 
Wolfhagen wasn't caught with her head.
 
Instead, it was
sent
to him.
 
Big difference.
 
It makes it look as if he's being targeted."

Marty chewed on that for a minute and decided it made sense.

They turned onto Fifth and pulled behind one of several television remote-broadcast vans parked in front of the Plaza.
 
The entrance was peppered with reporters, among them Jennifer Barnes, who joined the rest of the crowd by surrounding the car and shouting questions Hines wasn't prepared to answer.
 

He stepped out of the car.

“Can you give us a statement?"

Towering over the crowd, he pushed forward.
 
"On what?
 
I haven't even gone inside yet."

"Word's out she died of an overdose."

"Can't confirm that."

"What can you confirm?"

"Nothing.
 
Now, please let me through.
 
I'll brief you when I know something."

But these people weren't budging.
 
Like a smashed nest of hornets, they rose up and enveloped him.

*
 
*
 
*

While Hines fielded the press, Jennifer emerged from the crowd and put her hand on Marty's elbow.
 
“So, maybe your hunch was right.
 
Wolfhagen clinches it.
 
These deaths are connected.”

“Seems that way."

She moved closer to him, her voice a whisper he had to strain to hear.
 
“Have you discussed this with anyone else besides me?”

He could smell her perfume.
 
“Just Hines.”

“What’s he thinking?”

Marty told her about Hines’ alibi theory.

“That's a twist,” Jennifer said.
 
“But I don't buy it.
 
Wolfhagen would have to be nuts to send himself Wood’s head.
 
He's not stupid.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Of course, we’re probably wrong, Hines will bust this case wide open, he’ll get a promotion and we’ll look like fools.”