Chill of Night

62

Beam noticed movement down the hall and saw three figures approaching. Nell, Looper, da Vinci.

“I caught these two hard at work,” da Vinci said.

When they’d arrived at Knee High’s address, Beam had instructed Nell and Looper to talk to the doorman or any of the other cops stationed in or around the building, and find out if they saw anything suspicious in the time frame of the shooting.

“We came up together in the elevator,” da Vinci explained. Beam figured Knee High’s death had to have hit him hard. And he wouldn’t be feeling kindly toward Beam, who’d talked him into using Knee High as “the cheese.” He looked quietly angry, and frustrated. His usual smooth, tanned complexion was mottled and flushed.

Nell started to speak, but da Vinci held up a hand to quiet her.

“I wanna take a look at this debacle before I hear more about it,” he said.

He walked to the door, careful to avoid the spilled egg foo yung, and looked down at the body, then peered into the apartment where the crime scene unit was working.

“Take-out food?” he asked Beam.

Beam nodded. “Chinese. Neighborhood restaurant. Delivery guy’s over there.” He motioned with his head toward the patient and stricken Raymond, still seated on the bench. “He made his usual delivery to Knee High, only difference was, when he got here the door was open and Knee High was the way you see him.”

“He the one raised the alarm?”

“Yeah. Name’s Raymond Carerra. He went down in the elevator and alerted a uniform. Alfonse, over there.”

“Good man, Alfonse,” da Vinci said. Ignoring Nell and Looper, he looked piercingly at Beam. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, not unless there were two bodies-Knee High’s, and the Justice Killer’s.”

Beam didn’t have an answer, or offer one.

“There’s a god-awful smell in here,” Looper said. “Anybody mind if I smoke a cigarette?”

“Everybody in this city minds,” da Vinci said. “From the mayor on down.”

Nell gave Looper a cautioning look, tempered by a slight smile.

“How do you figure all this?” da Vinci asked Beam, making a swinging motion with his arm to take in the entire crime scene.

“The killer somehow found out Knee High was going to get take-out delivery,” Beam said, “and either beat the delivery here or was already in the building. He knew Knee High was expecting dinner and would open the door because of the call-up on the intercom-then pop. Killer got here to knock on Knee High’s door before the deliveryman. Must’ve used a silencer. Nobody else on this floor, or above or below, heard a gunshot.”

“Looks like he used a thirty-two,” da Vinci said, glancing over at Knee High.

“Could be,” Beam agreed. “Once he shot Knee High, the killer must have moved fast to get away before word of the shooting spread. Probably he was going down on one elevator while the deliveryman was coming up on the other. He’d have no more than a few minutes to get clear of the building.”

“Or get back inside an apartment on this floor, or maybe even one of the other floors.”

“We’re covering that,” Beam said. “I have uniforms making inquiries. I think it’s more likely the killer’s miles away from here by now. That’s been the pattern.”

“You’re probably right,” da Vinci said. He looked at Nell and Looper, who’d been standing quietly by, respecting rank. “Let’s hear what Frick an’ Frack have to say.”

Beam hoped one or the other would have something. So far, Knee High’s death was simply another clean job by the Justice Killer. That he’d managed to outsmart and elude so much security, what amounted to a police trap, would make the bastard that much more of a hero. Odd how the public rooted for the underdog, even if it was a jackal.

“The doorman was one of ours, undercover,” Nell said. “He’d seen Raymond the deliveryman here before, had checked him out, and knew he was genuine, so he told him to use the intercom and go on up with the take-out order.”

“At this point the killer must’ve already been in the building,” da Vinci said. “On his way to do Knee High.”

“Question is,” Beam said, “how did he know Knee High had a delivery coming?”

“Maybe found out at the restaurant,” da Vinci said. “He knew Knee High got take-out from there, so he hung around the place till he heard a delivery was on the way. Got himself in gear and left the restaurant before Raymond.”

“Except that no one entered the building for ten minutes or so before Raymond got here with the food,” Looper said.

“Doorman tell you that?”

“Yeah. Our guy and the other one.”

“Other one?” Beam asked.

“Working at the building across the street. Name’s, believe it or not, Dorchester. He saw Raymond enter the building. Then he saw a uniformed cop leaving the building just after the time Knee High got shot.”

Beam felt a twinge of uneasiness.

A homicide investigation goes where it goes.

“This Dorchester’s a sharp guy,” Looper continued. “He said he’d gotten used to seeing all the cops on the block the last several days and nights. He wouldn’t have thought much of this cop, except at the time he was leaving, most of the other cops he saw were entering the building. Dorchester said cops were flooding in.”

“That would’ve been right after Raymond raised the alarm,” da Vinci said.

Beam looked at Looper. “You mean this cop stuck in Dorchester’s mind just because he was leaving while other cops were going in?”

“No, something else. He said this cop wasn’t dressed quite like the others. He couldn’t put his finger on it at first, then he figured it out. It’s a hot night, and the cop he saw was the only one wearing a jacket with his uniform, a kind of baggy blue or black jacket.”

“One large enough to conceal a gun with a silencer,” da Vinci said.

“Something else Dorchester said was the cop’s uniform cap was a little different. He couldn’t say why-like it didn’t quite fit him right, maybe, was all I could get out of him.”

“But he saw a uniformed cop?” da Vinci asked.

“Definitely,” Looper said. “No doubt in Dorchester’s mind about that.”

“He mention this cop’s description beyond the uniform?”

“Yes, sir. Average size, average weight.”

Da Vinci snorted in disappointment, as if most killers were giants or midgets and they’d caught a bad break.

“That’s it?” Beam asked.

“’Fraid so, sir.”

“Sounds like the cop’s uniform was a costume,” Nell said.

“I sure as hell hope so,” da Vinci said. He looked at Knee High’s body, Knee High with a neat. 32 caliber-size hole in his head, and shook his own head in frustration. “This psycho’s so smooth at what he does, we never seem to get any kind of traction.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Beam told him. “We know how the Justice Killer managed to sidestep security to get to Knee High, and how he might have blended in to make his getaway. And maybe he also dressed as a cop to get to Cold Cat or some of the others.”

“It’s possible,” da Vinci said. “But we’ve got just one eyeball account from across the street. We’re not even sure he dressed as a cop at all.”

“It’s something, though,” Beam said. “We’ll canvass costume and used clothing stores in the city, find out who sold or rented a cop uniform during the last several months.”

“What if he’s a real cop?” Nell asked.

“We’ll run through the costume and rental shops before going down that road,” Beam said.

“She’s right, though,” da Vinci said. “It’s a friggin’ appalling possibility, but the Justice Killer might actually be a cop. We have to admit it makes a certain kind of sense. There’s plenty of resentment in the department about the revolving-door nature of the city’s judicial system.”

“Ask Helen if she can think of a serial killer who was also a cop,” Beam suggested.

“Point taken,” da Vinci said.

Nell thought, Ask Helen if there’s ever a first time for everything.