Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) Page 2

  “So how’d this whole thing start?”

  Basil shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. “I really don’t know. This woman just starts coming on to me. She touches my crotch, I grab her hand and tell her to stop. Then she slaps me, starts screaming at me, something like, ‘Get the hell away from me, you pervert,’ and this guy’s suddenly there, pushing her aside. He says, ‘You came on to my wife?’”

  “‘This guy’—you mean Gregor Persephone?”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen him around the neighborhood, but I’ve never talked to him.”

  “You sure you’ve never talked to him before? This isn’t from something that happened a week ago, a month ago—”

  “I never talked to the guy. Ever.”

  “Ever talk to his wife? About anything?”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing her before. And I’d probably remember.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Basil shrugged. “If you saw her, you’d know.” He must have seen the cop’s questioning look, because he added, “She’s real pretty.”

  Livana turned away, shook her head.

  “So,” Kennedy said, “then you can’t say for sure. About talking to her before.”

  Basil took a deep breath and then exhaled, the vapor trailing off into the cold air. “Look, let me put it this way. I’ve never made a pass at another guy’s wife. I’m married. Happily. So it don’t matter who this woman is, or what she looks like. Even if I did talk to her once—which I don’t think I did—I’d never come on to her. I’m not like that.”

  “You’re a good-looking guy and all. But you’re saying this woman you’ve never spoken to just walks up to you, touches you—grabs your crotch? A woman you say you don’t know?”

  Basil shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  Kennedy looked at him. “Does that sound right to you?”

  Basil spread his arms at his sides. “I’m just telling you like it happened. Maybe she had an argument with her husband and was trying to make him jealous, and I was the lucky idiot who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Kennedy offered a slight nod, like that would not be the first time he had seen such a thing happen. As he jotted a note, he said, “What happened after that?”

  “I told him, ‘You got it all wrong, it was your wife who came on to me. And I told her to leave me alone.’ He called me a liar and pushed me. I told him I was there with my kids and I didn’t want no trouble. He pushed me again and said I shoulda thought a that before I came on to his wife. I wanted to walk away, but he hit me in the jaw.” Basil brought a hand to his face and palpated the welt.

  “Go on.”

  “After I got back up off the floor, he tried to hit me again. But I got him first.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then … I don’t know. We fought. I was just tryin’ to keep from gettin’ hit. I yelled at him to stop, but he was nuts. Like he really believed I made a pass at his wife.”

  “Basil.” Livana shook her head in disappointment, as if scolding him.

  “What? What was I supposed to do, just let him keep hitting me?”

  “Who else saw what happened?” Kennedy asked.

  Basil rubbed his arms to ward off the chill. “No one else was there. Well, the woman behind the counter, I guess, but I think she was in the back getting our pizzas. Or maybe she was hiding. Gregor’s wife left, or something, I don’t know. I don’t where she was. But I was a little busy.”

  “That it?”

  “The kids were there. My son Dmitri and his friend Niklaus. Fedor’s son.”

  “Did they see what happened?”

  “They were playing around, chasing each other. But once that woman started screaming, yeah, they probably saw it.”

  “Can’t you leave them out of it?” Livana said, “They’re just kids—”

  “First things first,” Kennedy said. “We’re not done. What happened to Mr. Persephone’s face?”

  Basil hesitated. “His face?” he stammered.

  “Yeah. It was bloody, all cut up.”

  “I, uh, I grabbed a Coke bottle, I swung it at him, smashed it across his face. He went down. Knocked him out, I guess, when his head hit the floor.”

  Kennedy waited for more, then scribbled another note on his pad. “Anything else you want to add?”

  Basil’s eyes roamed the dirt-strewn street before coming to rest on the cop. “That’s it, I think.”

  Kennedy reached over and yanked open the fire door. “Wait inside while I sort this out.”

  As they descended the stairs into the warmth of the bowling alley, Livana grabbed his hand and pulled him to the side. “What are you not saying?”

  Basil looked up at the cop, who was now about twenty yards away. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something you didn’t tell the officer.”

  “I told him everything I know.”

  Livana examined his face a moment, then said, “I’m going to check on the kids, make sure they’re okay.” She shook her head in disgust, then headed off to find the children.

  WHEN LIVANA RETURNED, the officers were standing behind Basil, handcuffing him. Fedor appeared to be objecting, to no avail.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled.

  Kennedy grasped Basil by the arm and turned him around. “Taking him in for more questioning.”

  “But you’re arresting him. He didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “This ain’t right,” Basil said.

  Kennedy frowned. “Your husband assaulted the other man. Whether or not it was justified, or self-defense, or whatever, I don’t know yet.”

  Livana looked at Fedor, then back at the officer. “Maybe—maybe someone else saw what happened. Did you talk to everyone here?”

  “I don’t need you tellin’ me how to do my job. I talked to everyone there is to talk to. And there’s a discrepancy as to what went on before you walked in. We’ll sort it out at the precinct.”

  “I told you what happened,” Basil said.

  “But Mr. Persephone has a different story. So does his wife. And the woman behind the desk doesn’t remember hearing what you heard. Like I said, we gotta sort this out. Not gonna do that inside a loud bowling alley.”

  “I’ll take the kids home,” Fedor said. “You go along, make sure Basil’s okay.”

  Livana headed back to the lanes to gather their coats, frustrated at how a family outing ended on the brink of disaster, all stemming from a stupid incident that ensnared her husband.

  But she could not know that this night, and the events that were to come, would forever alter their lives.

  3

  >230 EAST 21st STREET

  Manhattan

  Wednesday, July 5, 1995

  Karen Vail could not get comfortable. Her stiff new uniform was not tailored to fit a female body, or at least not her body. But she could stand some discomfort because Vail had graduated from the police academy at the top of her class.

  Although some of the guys had a problem with that, she did her best to shrug it off. It’s 1995, assholes. Get over it. This isn’t your grandfather’s NYPD. A woman can be smarter than a man.

  Seated next to her in the Ford was a seasoned homicide detective, Sergeant Carmine Russo. It was unusual, if not unheard of, for such an assignment, but Vail had remarked to one of her instructors, Deputy Inspector Isidore Proschetta, that it was her career goal to become a homicide detective, and it’d be really great if she could find a detective who’d take her under his wing, show her how things worked. Proschetta liked her—he told her to call him by the nickname his best friend had given him during his academy days: Protch. Her instincts told her that Protch wanted her to get on top of his crotch, but she kept him at a safe distance, so it hadn’t become an issue. Yet.

  Regardless, she figu
red Proschetta said something to someone, pulled a few strings, hummed a few bars, played his organ or someone else’s—she didn’t care—because he somehow got her this gig with Russo. In department parlance, she had a “rabbi,” someone who looked after her interests and helped advance her career. She wasn’t complaining; she wasn’t even planning to bring it up. In essence, she was not going to look under the gift rabbi’s yarmulke.

  “Your uniform,” Russo said. “It looks very crisp. Very new.”

  “Thank-you, sir.”

  “Yeah, don’t thank me. You shouldn’t be wearing it. You should be in plainclothes.”

  Vail swung her gaze toward Russo. “Plain—uh, no one said any—”

  “It’s okay,” Russo said. “Tomorrow, no uniform. Got it?”

  “Got it. Sorry.”

  Russo turned right onto 30th Street and glanced over at Vail. “You know how this works, right?”

  How what works? Policework? “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  “You finished at the top of your class so they gave you a temp assignment as part of your field training. Deputy Inspector Proschetta did you a huge favor and put you in homicide. That’s a big deal, okay? Don’t screw it up.”

  “Yes sir. I won’t.”

  “So what do you think?”

  Vail sat up straight in her seat. “I think I’m excited. First day on the job. Dream come true.”

  “Dream, huh? Don’t examine that fantasy too closely, Vail. This isn’t a walk in Central Park. It’s tough work. A thousand decisions a day. You try to do the right thing but sometimes it’s not totally clear what the ‘right thing’ is. Things are muddy, the law is muddy, and sometimes you end up knee deep in a pile of horseshit. You follow?”

  “Yes sir. I do.” I’m not sure, but I think I get the idea.

  Russo glanced over at her and then nodded. “Good. You know where we’re headed?”

  “No idea, sir.”

  “Crime scene. Homicide.”

  Homicide. Holy shit. My first homicide? First day on the job?

  Vail lifted the mic off its mounting bracket and fumbled with the handset. It dropped in her lap but she recovered it by the coiled cord. “Should I call it in?”

  Russo shifted his gaze between the road and Vail’s escapades with the radio. “First of all, you push the button on the side. Don’t release it till you’re done talking.”

  Jesus Christ. This is embarrassing. Maybe it would’ve been better to ride with a patrol cop. He’d be more forgiving.

  “Second of all, no, you don’t need to call it in. Central knows where we’re going. I told them before we left. You wanna hit the siren, or should I?”

  Vail gave him a look. I may be grateful for this assignment, but I’m not going to act like a kid. “Sirens don’t excite me, sir. Have at it.”

  He reached down to a small box between the seats and flipped a switch. The whoop whoop sounded and, damn, if it wasn’t a rush. Hell with what I just said. Sirens do excite me.

  “And don’t call me sir,” he said above the wailing din. “I’m not your grandfather. Call me Russo. Or sergeant.”

  “Call me Karen.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. For now, you’re Vail. Or officer.”

  So much for being friendly.

  Russo navigated through a congested area of the city where construction had brought the flow of cars to a near standstill. Blasting their siren had little effect; there were limits on how fast you could move in a traffic jam. There was simply no place for anyone to get out of the way. Finally they pulled up to a fire hydrant and shoved the gearshift into park.

  “You’re blocking a hydrant?”

  Russo turned to her, his face contorted with disappointment. “Don’t tell me you’re one of these newbies who does everything by the book. Are you? Tell me now, because you can wait in the car and I’ll arrange for a fuckin’ patrol cop to come by and pick you up.”

  Well shoot me now and put me out of my misery. I just spent a couple of months memorizing all the rules—for what? So that I know which ones I’m breaking when I’m out in the field?

  “I’m fine. If you wanna block a hydrant, not for me to say. You’re the boss.”

  “Yeah, remember that the next time you try to bust my balls.”

  Keep your mouth shut, Karen. Just get out of the car.

  They met the first-on-scene officer.

  Russo nodded toward an area behind the cop. “What do we got?”

  “Young woman. ID’s missing but she matches the description the landlord gave us.”

  “Detective Thorne get here yet?”

  “Nope. Only the medical examiner and Crime Scene Unit.” He turned to face a CSU detective wearing gloves, booties, and white coveralls coming toward them.

  “How’s it going in there?” Russo asked as he approached.

  “It’s goin’. Still processing but you can go in.”

  “Borelli, right?” Russo asked.

  The detective’s face brightened. “Me in the flesh.”

  “Good to see you again.” Russo and Vail stepped into the brownstone, Russo talking ahead of him even though Vail was behind him. “There are never any curb spaces around here. Which means I gotta double-park. And if I do that, on that narrow side street, no one can get around me. So I block the hydrant. An FD engine needs to hook up, he can hook up. It ain’t ideal, but it is what it is. Got it?”

  “Got it. You’re the boss.”

  “Don’t keep saying that. You can think it, but I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  He stopped and turned to face Vail.

  “Sorry. Russo. You’re not my grandfather.”

  Russo frowned, then continued on down the hall to another officer, who was standing outside a bedroom. They walked in just as a photographer’s flash illuminated the area.

  “Oh, wow.” Vail hadn’t meant to say it; the words just kind of tumbled out of her mouth. Gotta watch that. Think before you speak, Karen. You’re already on his shit list.

  The murder scene was not like anything she ever imagined. Actually, she hadn’t imagined anything—she had only viewed slides the instructors projected during class. Ahead of her was a dead body—a “DOA” they called it in class. A real DOA.

  It was chalky white, the facial expression frozen in time. I shouldn’t think of her as “it.” Doesn’t seem right. She’s a person, not some inanimate object. “Does she have a name?”

  The ME’s assistant consulted his notes. “Carole Manos.”

  Vail knelt in front of the woman, who was sitting up in the bed, back resting against the headboard. Legs spread, dress drawn up and exposing her underwear. Her face was slashed and gashed, deep folds of flesh folded back at the margins. A chunk of jagged glass was sticking out of the right side of her neck. “Why did this happen to you, Carole?”

  “You’re not expecting her to answer you,” Russo said. “Are you?”

  Vail tilted her head. “I—I don’t know. I mean, the body can kind of like talk to us, right? Tell us a story.”

  “When she tells you who the villain is—or better yet, how that story ends—let me know.”

  Another man in the room, broad in the shoulders, back to them, laughed heartily. He turned around and winked at Russo.

  Vail gave the guy a disdainful look as she felt her face flush, then turned to Russo. “Well, I mean, we gotta start somewhere.”

  “We’ve already started. This here’s the medical examiner. Max Finkelstein.”

  What’s protocol? Shake his hand? She opted for a safer nod of acknowledgment. Cool. Detached. Like a seasoned cop. Right? How am I supposed to know? Best to just nod. No one could fault her for that approach. Besides, I already got off on the wrong foot with him.

  Finkelstein tilted his head and looked
at Vail over his reading glasses. “First day on the job?”

  Shit. Is it that obvious?

  “Indeed it is,” Russo said, turning to Vail. “Guess we should turn this into a little learning experience. First-on-scene secured the area, deter-mined the pretty friggin’ obvious that it was not a death by natural causes. I was called, then the medical examiner and the Crime Scene Unit. So what are you thinking?”

  Vail bit her lip. What am I supposed to be thinking? I just got here. And—oh, yeah. It’s my first day on the job.

  “I’m thinking that this isn’t gonna be a walk in Central Park.” She smiled.

  Russo looked long and hard at her before a grin cracked his face. “Fast learner. Good, I like that.”

  Borelli walked in, a kit in his hand.

  “Any latents?” Russo asked.

  “Lots,” he said. “Problem is, are any of them our killer? It’s gonna take awhile to print the deceased’s family and friends, match ’em up against what we’ve got in the apartment.”

  “Elimination prints,” Vail said.

  “Listen to the rookie,” Russo said. “You’re good at regurgitating the textbook, aren’t you?”

  Borelli chuckled. Finkelstein appeared to ignore them and go about his business, recording his findings on a form attached to his clipboard.

  Vail felt her face flush in embarrassment. She tucked her chin down and knelt beside the body. Hiding.

  “Cause of death?” Russo asked.

  “COD looks to be suffocation,” Finkelstein said. “Strangulation, to be precise. Can’t evaluate the ocular capillaries for microbleeding because the eyeballs are, well, destroyed. But the marks on her neck are quite severe and traumatic. Excuse me.” With a gloved hand he pushed aside Manos’s auburn hair, revealing red abrasions and purple bruises.

  A low groan emerged from Russo’s throat. “Yes, indeed. And the cut marks?”

  “Sharp object. What kind, I don’t know yet. The hunk of glass protruding from her carotid is an obvious possibility, but I can’t say at the moment.”

  “Stray hairs or fibers?”

  “None,” Borelli said. “At least, none we found. So far.”

  “What do you make of the way she’s posed?” Vail asked. She gestured at the woman’s left hand, which was palm up and fisted, with the index finger curled slightly.