In the Shadow of Gotham (38 page)

Which meant he was nearby.

He would be agitated. Nothing happening now was proceeding according to his plan. He would not have expected to be caught at all—especially not now.

With greater confidence than I actually felt, I spoke up in the darkness. “Horace, it is finished. I am placing you under arrest for the murders of Michael Fromley, Sarah Wingate, and Stella Gibson.” I paused. “Release Isabella now, and you will avoid making your situation worse than it already is.”

Silence followed.

I heard no sound that would indicate where he was. My fingers circled my Colt revolver in preparation.

At my side, I was aware of Alistair as he fumbled for a match. He finally managed to relight the lantern that had been extinguished just moments before.

In its light, we saw Isabella again, though now the dark figure of Horace Wood loomed over her, pointing a gun at her head.

I issued a stern order. “Drop the gun now, Horace.”

He stared at us, unmoved.

I stepped forward and showed my own weapon. “I’m a far better shot than you, Horace. Be sensible and drop the gun.”

“Not so fast.” That voice came from behind us.

I turned to see the barrel of a Smith & Wesson revolver held by Fred.

Horace laughed—a wild, terrible cackle.

I will always remember the terrible sadness in Alistair’s face as he, too, turned to face Fred and said, “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand, old boy?” Fred cocked his head and made a crooked half smile. “That you’ve been bamboozled? Or that I have aligned myself with—well, let’s call it a better-paying job opportunity, shall we?”

Alistair stifled his shock enough to whisper a single word. “Why?”

Fred shrugged. “No need to be so surprised, Professor. You think you’re the only one who craves the good life? Who wants the luxuries that money—and I mean a good heap of money—can buy? Of course you’re not. Horace has his own reasons, but mine, I tell you, are quite simple.”

“You did it because of vile greed.” Alistair’s voice seethed with condemnation.

“Let’s just say Horace and I agreed that the resources of your trust fund were not being put to their best use,” Fred responded lightly. “Why spend all that money on a depraved sociopath when we could envision far better purposes?”

Alistair’s face reflected a steely resolve now that he had begun to understand the gravity of our situation. He drew himself up and issued a command. “Horace. Fred. You must both put your guns down now.”

I winced, for though I admired his fortitude, it was the wrong approach. The knowledge and training Alistair might normally bring to this situation were compromised by his emotions. He had been cruelly betrayed by two of his closest associates. And it was not an anonymous hostage they held; it was Isabella.

“Still trying to give me orders, Professor?” Horace replied with a belligerent sneer. “Look around. I don’t think you’re in charge right now.”

Horace was agitated, sweating profusely despite the frigid chill of the stone vault where we stood.

I had little experience with hostage situations, but everything I had learned suggested we needed to keep both men talking and feeling in control. Once that was accomplished, we might turn them against each other, which would improve our chances of defending ourselves.

I interceded calmly, as if there were no danger at all. “You’re right, Horace. Alistair is most certainly not in charge here. You are.” I put my gun away and began to walk toward him, slowly, with my hands in my pockets so I would appear relaxed and at
ease. “It’s a painful symptom, the restlessness, isn’t it? It keeps you from sleeping at night. And the sweats that come and go must be rather embarrassing.” I lowered my voice and took a few more steps toward Horace. “But the worst part of all must be how badly you want it.”

Another step forward and my voice took on a sharper edge. “What has you hooked, Horace? Is it the drug?” I paused. “Or is it the game?”

Horace glared and jabbed Isabella with the gun. “Move another inch and she dies now.”

I turned to Fred. “Did you know he needed to feed a terrible habit when you joined him in this scheme?”

Fred smiled wickedly. “My dear boy, if it hadn’t been for Horace’s unfortunate addiction to cards, he would never have contrived such a plot. It was his inspiration, truly.”

“And you?” I asked.

“Merely an innocent bystander who happened to notice both Horace’s problem and his unique method of solving it.” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “It seemed unfair for Horace to share the spoils of Alistair’s riches by himself—especially when they were ample enough for two. So I suggested a partnership.”

“You mean,” Horace interrupted, “that you began blackmailing me for half the proceeds.”

There it was: a rift in their partnership that I could exploit. Interests in this kind of pairing were never perfectly aligned.

I made a calculated decision. “I’ll bet,” I said to Horace, “that he didn’t even help you last week when goons from the Golden Dragon showed up to demand payment—and took it out of your skin.”

Horace merely grunted in reply, but he appeared less agitated than before, so I continued. I was developing this theory
as I talked, but as I listened to myself, I knew my reasoning was sound.

“No doubt it started innocently enough. Playing for money made the game more fun. And then the next step, playing in a gambling parlor, made the game even more exciting.”

Fred interrupted. “Horace got hooked on faro, the current favorite of all the gambling houses. When it got too expensive, he discovered its cheaper, Lower East Side version: penny stuss.”

“But playing for pennies must have been unsatisfying. Only larger bets gave you what you craved,” I said. “So that’s when you discovered some Lower East Side houses actually extended loans—on terms favorable to them, of course. You borrowed money from a ruthless loan shark and fell behind in your payments. You must have been desperate for money to pay off your moneylenders and get back in the game. With no legitimate way of doing that, you began to explore other means. Clearly, you already knew that Alistair funneled significant sums from his vast wealth into university funding for his research center. So you hatched a scheme to take advantage of that.”

“But I gave you money, time and again,” Alistair said to Horace. “I’d have helped you.”

“Your help would have come with conditions, though,” I said quickly before Horace could respond. “You’d have wanted him to stop playing.”

Fred added his own interpretation. “It was an interesting psychological study to observe. Horace was destroying his own life. He more or less abandoned his thesis, drove his fiancée to break off with him, and fell thousands of dollars into debt. And still, he thought of nothing but gambling. To sit at the table and place a bet gave him a rush of power. It was so intoxicating that theft led to more theft. And then one day, it led to murder.”

I was familiar with the storyline. I’d seen variations of it destroy many lives, including that of my own father. Always desperate for money to stay in the game, he usually found help in the form of a woman. But those without my father’s charm and good looks turned increasingly to crime, like Horace.

“So it was Horace who killed Sarah?” I asked, my voice quiet.

Neither answered.

“Why don’t you both walk over there to the wall?” Fred waved his weapon in Isabella’s direction.

We needed to stay apart until I had a better plan. I caught Alistair’s eye and he followed my lead: a few baby steps to suggest cooperation, but no real movement.

Alistair cleared his throat. “Horace may have killed Sarah, but Fred must have planned it. Horace simply isn’t bright enough.”

Horace grumbled, though his words were unintelligible.

I picked up where Alistair left off. “Yes, parts of the plan were quite brilliant. For example, your coercing Michael Fromley to write that letter confessing to Sarah’s murder was excellent planning. You must have forced Fromley to write the letter just before you shot him. When you mailed it in the box with real crime-scene evidence, it was utterly convincing. Then you dumped his body in the Hudson River, and assumed you had successfully created the perfect scapegoat for the next crime you intended to commit: the murder of Sarah Wingate. Framing Fromley was easy; you knew so much about him. Taken together with the signed letter of confession, Fromley’s guilt would appear certain. Yes, you were remarkably smart in your planning. But I assume Fred takes all credit for that.”

“He certainly does not.” Horace contested the idea hotly.

“No?” I continued talking, moving ever so slightly closer to Horace. “Then tell me, which of you missed the obvious flaw in your planning? One of you didn’t foresee the risk that Mother Nature would wash Fromley’s corpse ashore so quickly. You probably counted upon him staying underwater the entire winter. By springtime, the body would be so thoroughly decomposed that even an expert autopsy would not be able to pinpoint his time of death.”

“Come now,” said Fred in protest. “The plan was a stroke of genius, undone only by the whim of nature and your own foolish persistence.
Most
detectives”—he emphasized the word—“would be pleased to wrap up a case so satisfactorily. After all, Fromley was scum of the earth. The world is a better place being rid of him.”

“Maybe so,” I said, agreeing, “but it wasn’t your call to make. And what about Sarah Wingate? And Stella Gibson? They certainly did not deserve to be killed.”

“Yes,” Fred said, “that was unfortunate. But the Wingate girl had become a problem, hadn’t she, Horace?”

I took a deep breath and moved yet another few steps closer. “Why, Horace? Why did you have to kill Sarah? Because I know you did. Fred doesn’t have the physical strength. And while Fred was happy to partake in the money, I’m not sure he was as motivated to kill for it. He doesn’t share your need—or your sheer desperation.”

Horace was seething with anger as he looked at me. His voice choked as he said, “She didn’t know it was me taking the money—not at first. Her coming to me was a gift, a stroke of good luck. She’d noticed the budget discrepancies. How signatures didn’t match. How funds requests were unsupported.” He circled the back of Isabella’s chair, drawing closer to me.

“Imagine,” he said, his face twisting at the irony, “she asked for my help. I agreed, said I would take care of it, talk it over with Alistair for her. I promised to see that the proper forms were submitted. But stubborn girl, she wouldn’t take my word for it. She kept checking into things. And to this day I don’t know how, but she managed to figure out that I was the one embezzling the money.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “That’s when I realized I would only be safe—and free to continue as before—if I could make her go away. So I decided that, for once in his life, Michael Fromley might serve a useful purpose.”

“But when Fromley washed up dead, ahead of schedule,” Fred added, “Horace panicked, and has been making a mess of things ever since.”

I inched another step closer.

“And Stella was simply part of the mess?” I asked. “Is that how you saw it?”

“Isabella telephoned me this morning, asking troublesome questions. And she mentioned you were meeting Stella in the park. I went to find you there, and I overheard parts of your conversation,” he said. “I couldn’t take the risk that Stella might later remember something important.”

“I doubt she would have. She thought you were someone else,” I said lightly. “So you’ve shed blood this morning for nothing.” Another inch closer. “But it’s over now. And you have to let Isabella go. By holding her, you only make your situation worse.”

Horace laughed. “Nice effort, Ziele. But—” He put out his arm as if to halt me, and his voice was suddenly harsh and serious again. “Stop right where you are; don’t come even a single step closer.” He jabbed the gun into Isabella’s back, and we recoiled as she winced in pain.

“You won’t shoot her,” I said. “Or else you already would have done it.”

“Nonsense.” His face contorted into a sinister grin. “She’s alive only because I was unavoidably delayed when Fred first secured her down here in the crypt.” He brandished his gun. “Foolish girl. She went rummaging through my desk and found evidence of my large debts. From the moment she put two and two together, her fate was sealed. I’ll do whatever is necessary to stop all of you from destroying me.” Now he was livid, speaking quickly.

Horace grimaced, then steeled himself. “I know what you want. You want to misconstrue everything I’ve said into a confession,” he continued, waving the gun toward us, “but it would be nothing but your word against mine.”

I made a quick calculation and could only hope it would pay off.

“I cannot see any difference, Horace, between you and Michael Fromley. Except possibly that you’ve outdone him. You’ve killed three people, whereas—as best we can tell—he only killed one.”

“That’s disgusting,” he said. “You think I am anything like that animal? I didn’t even use all the money I embezzled for myself. I donated some of it to good causes.”

“Yes,” I said easily, “the Hearst election. You used that quite nicely to distract us from the truth. We all thought you were distressed about the election. You were beaten up by the Bottler’s toughs. But you had ready the perfect lie: You were hurt at the polls while voting for the wrong man. And now, you try to persuade us there was something noble about your theft, because you gave some money you stole to a politician.”