Iron Orchid

FORTY

HOLLY STOOD AND WATCHED the young man through the one way mirror of the interrogation room. He looked worried and baffled; the contents of his pockets lay on the table before him. She opened the door, walked into the room and sat down, opening a thin file folder and regarding it for half a minute before speaking.

“Your name is Bernard Taylor?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“Bernard, you own a Vespa motor scooter with the New York State tag number 1059, is that correct?”

“Yeah, uh, or at least it was until earlier today.”

Holly tried to look disgusted. “Come on, Bernard, you’re not going to tell me it was stolen earlier today.”

“No. Uh, I sold it. Earlier today.”

Holly shook her head. “Let me put you straight, Bernard.”

“You can call me Bernie; everybody does.”

“Listen to me, Bernard. You’re about to be arrested as an accessory to a murder. Do you know what sentence you could get as an accessory?”

“No. Uh, I mean, I didn’t commit any murder.”

“We’re not saying you pulled the trigger, Bernard, just that you supplied the motor scooter. As an accessory, you get the same sentence the murderer does, and in New York, that’s the death penalty.”

“All I did was sell my motor scooter!” Bernie wailed.

Holly poked among the pile of his pocket contents on the table and her finger stopped on an envelope. “What does this envelope contain?” she asked, though she already knew.

“The money from the sale of the scooter,” Bernie replied.

Holly opened the envelope, removed the contents and quickly counted thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. “Three thousand dollars,” she said. “Bernard, is that your price for participation in a cold blooded murder? You came cheap.”

“No, ma’am,” Bernie said, “It’s my price for my scooter. That’s what the guy paid me.”

“All right,” Holly sighed. “Tell me your story for the record. Just for your information, you’re being recorded.”

Bernie related the details of the sale of his motor scooter, while Holly took notes.

“His name was Jeff Snyder?” Holly asked.

“That’s what he said.”

“What I.D. did he show you?”

“Nothing. I didn’t ask for nothing. He had the money; that was all the I.D. I cared about.”

“Describe this Jeff Snyder.”

“About my height, with a big nose and a handlebar mustache. On the thin side.”

“The mustache?”

“No, that was thick. His build was on the thin side.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A kind of car coat and a cap, you know, like golfers wear? Like Ben Hogan?”

“Where did you meet?”

“At the entrance to the subway station at Twenty-third and Lex. He came out of the subway, I think.”

“What do you mean, you think?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly see him come out of the subway; I just assumed that’s how he got to the corner. I didn’t see him get out of a cab or a car.”

“And he paid you three thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills for your scooter?”

“It was a fair price; the scooter had only twelve hundred miles on it. Not a scratch. Pristine.”

“And you’re sticking to this story?”

“Lady, it’s the only story I got,” Bernie said heatedly. “It’s what happened.”

Holly got up and walked out the door. Lance and Kerry were waiting for her on the other side of the mirror.

“What do you think?” Lance asked.

“I think he’s telling the truth. It was a slick way for Teddy to get the scooter he needed without stealing it and running the risk of getting pulled over. Obviously, the big nose and the handlebar mustache were a disguise. A witness would concentrate on features like that. I’m surprised that Bernie, here, gave us as good a description as he did.”

“Cut him loose?” Lance asked Kerry.

“Sure,” Kerry replied. “We’ll know where to find him, if we need him again.”

“Oh,” Lance said, “the NYPD found the scooter, and they’re processing it for prints.”

“They won’t find any,” Holly said. “Where did they locate the scooter?”

“Parked between two cars on East Twenty-fourth Street, off Lexington.”

“It’s the subway,” Holly said.

“What?”

“Bernie said he met Teddy at the subway entrance at Twenty-third and Lex. That’s how Teddy got there, and it’s how he went home. I’ll bet you he lives within a block or two of the Lexington Avenue subway.”

“Possibly,” Lance said. “How is that going to help us?”

“Let’s put somebody on the subway eight hours a day and have him photograph every possible person who fits Teddy’s description as to height, weight and age.”

“You’re talking about thousands of people,” Kerry said.

“All right,” Holly said, “skip rush hour at both ends; Teddy probably would, since he doesn’t have to be at work anywhere. Photograph all the sixtyish, tallish, slenderish men between, say, ten and four, every day for a week, then run… no, we don’t have any photographs to compare them to… show the photographs to people who worked with Teddy at the agency. Maybe somebody will give us a positive I.D., and if we get that, then we’ll have a photograph to circulate.”

“That’s a lot of work for a slim hope,” Lance said.

“It would be, if we weren’t so desperate,” Kerry replied. “Even with a new murder every few days, this investigation is drying up. We don’t really have all that much for our people to do.”

“All right, Holly, you set it up,” Lance said. “We’re probably going to need more than one body on each train.”

“I’d suggest picking up every train at Ninety-sixth Street and riding it to Twenty-third,” Holly said. “I don’t know how many trains there are, but I’ll find out. When our people get to Twenty-third, they’ll turn around and go back to Ninety-sixth Street, and we’ll do it for five days.”

“Sounds good,” Lance said. “I’ll call a meeting and assign you everybody who isn’t already following another lead. But I warn you, if we get something new, I’ll pull off as many people as it takes to run it down.”

The new assignment was received in stony silence by the group of eighteen unassigned agents in the conference room. Lance made his little speech, then turned the meeting over to Holly and left.

“Questions?” Holly asked.

“Yeah, just one,” an agent said, raising his hand. “Are you nuts?”

“Have you got a better idea?” Holly asked. “Have you got another lead? Are you too busy for this?”

The agent looked at the ceiling, and nobody else spoke.

“All right, listen up,” Holly said, and she began reading a list of names from a clipboard. “You’re being issued concealed cameras; the lens can be worn in a lapel or on the brim of a baseball cap. We’re looking for full-frontal shots, here, folks, no backs of heads or pulled-down hat brims. We need faces, got it? Isn’t intelligence work fun?”

She got back a collection of grumblings she was glad she couldn’t quite hear.