Silent Night (Sam Archer 4) (12 page)

They came to a stop outside 4D. The corridor either side of them was long and empty.

Jorgensen looked at Marquez, who nodded, and he knocked on the door a couple of times.

‘Dr Kruger? This is the NYPD. Open up, please sir.’

Nothing.

‘Dr Kruger?’

He looked at Marquez.

‘Dr Kruger?’
she called.

Nothing.

Jorgensen thought for a moment, then stepped back. He dipped his shoulder and suddenly rammed into the door. Given his size and muscle memory from days on the
Rutgers
defensive line, the lock was no match for the force that all two hundred and twenty pounds of him generated. The door splintered open, smashed back like so many quarterbacks who’d played against him back in the day.

He recovered his balance and together, the two detectives moved inside.

The apartment was lavish, the living area straight ahead, the kitchen to the left.

But it was also empty.

They separated, checking the place, then met up a few moments later.

‘No sign,’ Marquez said.

‘You think he left town?’ Jorgensen said.

She shook her head. Looking around, she saw a wallet on the mantelpiece and a set of car keys on the marble counter-top. She pointed at them.

‘His stuff is still here.’

‘Maybe he stepped out. Maybe he’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, pulling her cell phone and calling Shepherd. As she did so, she opened the wallet on the counter and pulled out Kruger’s driver’s licence. The photo showed a handsome man, tanned and blond with a square jaw.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘We’re up at Dr Kruger’s,’ she said, passing the licence to Jorgensen. She looked around the empty apartment. ‘He’s not here.’

‘OK.’

‘Want us to stay and wait? See if he comes back?’

‘No. Get over to Dr Tibbs’,’
Shepherd said abruptly
.

‘Everything OK, sir? How are Archer and Josh getting on?’

‘I’ll update you later. I don’t have time right now. But find me these other doctors.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The call ended. Marquez slid the phone back into her pocket, then turned to Jorgensen, who was examining the driver’s licence.

‘We’re out of here. Dr Tibbs is next. Got his address?’

Jorgensen nodded, still looking around. ‘Be nice to have a place like this.’

‘With your salary? Maybe in twenty years.’

Jorgensen returned the licence to the wallet, then the two detectives turned and made their way out of the empty apartment. Marquez looked at the lock as she stepped outside. Jorgensen had annihilated it.

‘Make it twenty one years. They’re gonna make you pay for that.’

Jorgensen pulled the door back into place behind them, and jiggled it, trying to keep it closed.

Eventually it held and he slowly withdrew his hand. Then he looked at her and shrugged.

‘I tripped.’

Sitting in the back of a taxi, his heart pounding, Donnie looked back over his shoulder as the cab headed over the
Brooklyn
Bridge
out of
Manhattan
. He couldn’t have felt more relieved to have planted the bomb and got away. Carrying it around, he’d just been waiting for a cop to stop him.

He watched as
Lower Manhattan
moved further and further away.

It would go off any second now.

As luck would have it, Tibbs lived just around the corner from Kruger. The journey only took Marquez and Jorgensen a couple of minutes.

Unlike Kruger’s building, this one had a reception and they walked over to the counter, Marquez showing the guy behind the desk her badge and telling him the reason they were here. The man said he hadn’t seen Tibbs this morning, which meant he was probably upstairs. As a precaution Marquez asked him for a key-card, which he agreed to provide on the condition that he join them. Marquez understood. Scams like this would be a dime a dozen across the city, thieves coming up with elaborate ways to get access to someone’s apartment. If he came with them and watched their every move, his ass would be covered.

He walked around the desk to join the two cops, passing Marquez the key-card. She took it, then turned to Jorgensen.

‘Save you another doorframe.’

Together, the trio headed for the lifts. Two of them were already open and they rode one up to 13. Once the lift arrived they stepped out and the guy from the reception led them down the corridor. Soon they came to a halt outside a varnished wooden door, 13 E.

‘Dr Tibbs?’
Marquez said, knocking. ‘
NYPD. Open up please, sir.’

Nothing.

‘Dr Tibbs?’

Nothing.

She took the key-card and slid it into the lock, opening the door.

The moment she pushed it back, all three saw that Dr Tibbs was indeed inside the apartment.
             

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

He was laid out in the living area, a strip of duct tape across his mouth. He’d been shot a number of times, twice to the sternum, twice to the head, blood pooled around him and four empty shell casings lying in the red. As the hotel worker covered his mouth and stared in horror, Marquez and Jorgensen simultaneously drew their side-arms and moved into the apartment, their weapons up.

But just like Kruger’s, the place was empty.

Although the Counter-Terrorism Bureau standard-issue Ford Explorer had no light on the roof, it had blue and red lights behind the front and rear fenders. When activated, they sent a clear message to other drivers: get the hell out of the way. Taking the FDR, Josh roared downtown, weaving in and out of traffic as they moved at a controlled but furious speed. He swung off the highway to the right onto
South Street
and screeched to a halt at the South Street Seaport, alongside Pier 17.

Being the focal point of the entire area, the Pier had been transformed in the 1980s from an old fish market into a three-storey glass pavilion shopping centre, surrounded by a wooden boardwalk and promenade that looked out over the
East River
. It was one of the busiest shopping areas in
Manhattan
and also one of Archer’s favourite spots to spend his days off. He used to come down here with Katic and her daughter. It had something for everybody. The shopping centre on the Pier was an assortment of different stores, bars and restaurants, some of which served arguably the best seafood in the city. A large pirate ship was docked beside the Pier, acting as a great tourist attraction and entertainment for kids, a number of tour guides dressed up as pirates adding to the spectacle.

Beside the ship, a brass band and group of carol singers were standing on the promenade with their backs to the water. The choir was singing as a crowd watched, people stepping forward to slip money into donation boxes collecting for charity. As he slammed the car door and moved onto the boardwalk, Archer recognised the carol. It was an old classic.
Silent Night
.

Josh joined him, both of them looking at the Pier. A second ESU and CRT team were already here; the music was serving as a distraction, so not many people had noticed the quiet but efficient evacuation beginning around them.

Cursing, Josh pulled his cell, calling Shepherd.

‘Sir, we’re here. Where the hell are we looking?’

Given that the Seaport was merely a stone’s throw from Wall Street, the waterfront primarily catered for the wealthy. A number of stores had set up shop here in order to cash in on all that money. One of them was a trendy clothing brand which had worked increasingly hard for a number of years to establish itself as a provider of top-tier casual wear. Much of their clothing was slim or muscle-fit, a deliberate ploy to discourage anyone who was overweight wearing their stuff, and each article cost anywhere from forty to over a hundred bucks. You almost had to earn the right to wear their clothes. However, such design and marketing strategies has succeeded in giving the brand a certain image and prestige and their garments were popular, particularly with teenagers and young adults.

The store was about twenty five yards from the Seaport and the water. Inside, the manager liked to keep the lights low and the music thumping. Given that it was a week before Christmas the place was doing a brisk trade. They had eight very busy employees assisting customers and processing sales, all of them wearing store-brand polo shirts and jeans. The tills were working flat out and the clothes were flying off the shelves. One of the employees, a twenty two year old NYU student working at the store over the Christmas period to earn some extra money, was carrying some fresh merchandise from the storeroom out back. He laid out an assortment of shirts and jeans, draping them across a wooden stand and adjusting them neatly as he had been taught, displaying the items to their best advantage. As he was finishing, he caught a familiar whistle coming from the second level. He looked up and saw a colleague motioning for him to come and help her.

He quickly headed up the stairs. By the time he got there she’d already moved back to her position behind one of the tills, but he could see why she’d called him. There was a long queue of customers waiting to be served in front of her and the line was growing.

But as he walked over to log in to the till beside her, something caught his eye.

A white shopping bag was sitting on the floor by a table stacked with merchandise to his right. It was unattended. Someone must have put it down to check out some clothing, then walked off and forgotten it. It happened all the time.

He went over to retrieve the bag and put it aside for collection when the forgetful customer had realised what they’d done. But as he bent down to pick it up, he looked closer and frowned. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him in the low lighting of the store.

Some kind of yellow gas was seeping out of the bag.

‘OK,’ Marquez said, ending the call, still in Dr Tibbs’ apartment. She turned to Jorgensen. ‘CSU are already on their way. They should be here any minute. Apparently Archer and Josh are onto something downtown.’

‘Onto what?’

She shrugged. ‘Check the TV.’

Jorgensen turned, then using his sleeve to shield his fingerprints, grabbed the remote for the television off the couch and pushed the power button. Flicking channels, he found Fox News.

‘Holy shit.’

The report was showing footage from 34
th
and 7
th
, outside Macy’s. There were civilians, ESU, Hercules Teams and CRT specialists everywhere, as well as news crews. They looked at the headline.

Breaking: Macy’s evacuated after bomb threat.

‘Looks like we’re missing the party,’ Jorgensen said.

Outside in the corridor, the guy from the front desk was still recovering from the shock of seeing Tibbs’ corpse. He turned as the sound of approaching footsteps came from the corridor. Jorgensen flicked off the TV and tossed the remote back on the couch as a four-man CSU team quickly entered the room, each carrying a suitcase containing their gear. Both Marquez and Jorgensen knew the team. The lead investigator walked over and shook both detectives’ hands. Then she looked down at Tibbs’ body.

‘This is how you found him?’

‘Walked in and this is what we saw,’ Marquez said.

‘Four gunshot wounds. Tight groups. Must have been silenced, otherwise everyone in the building would have heard.’

Behind her, her team started pulling on their gear.

‘We’ll get to work,’ she said, hinting that she wanted them to leave.

‘We need to head out anyway,’ Marquez said to Jorgensen, who nodded. She looked out of the apartment and saw the guy from the front desk out in the hall. She turned back to the CSU investigator. ‘The receptionist saw the body when we did. He might need a few minutes.’

The woman nodded.

‘We’ll get him out of here. I’ll have someone stay with him.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’ll contact Shepherd when we get something.’

The two detectives nodded, stepping past the CSU team and walking out of the apartment, quickly headed down the corridor to the lifts. As they walked, Jorgensen pulled a pad from his pocket and checked the next address.

‘Frankie Glover. Lives across town on 70
th
and 3
rd
. Dr Number Three.’

Marquez nodded and they stepped into the open lift, pressing the button for the ground floor. In the silence, both of them thought about the dead doctor laid out in the apartment they’d just left.

A strip of duct tape across the mouth. Two to the sternum, two to the head.

‘Poor bastard,’ Jorgensen said. ‘Not a good way to go.’

‘Is there ever a good way?’ Marquez replied, as the doors slid shut.