Seven ways to die

5

At the same time Micah Cody and Cal Bergman were preparing to enter Raymond Handley’s apartment, crime writer Ward Lee Hamilton was seated in the Eames chair of his 59 ^ th Street penthouse apartment overlooking south Manhattan. It was a breathtaking view. The corner room had two floor-to-ceiling windows from which he could see five bridges, the spires of the city, and the heart-breaking emptiness where the Twin Towers once stood.

As always, and regardless of the season, he was dressed in his three-piece white linen suit. It was his trademark. With a lavender shirt and a dazzling yellow tie to complete the ensemble, he was aware that his exaggerated appearance attracted attention, that there were some who looked at him as a foppish popinjay.

He couldn’t care less. He had earned the right to set his own unique standards of dress and attitude. He marked his detractors off as silly, untalented, jealous fools. Ward Lee Hamilton was a snob in the truest sense of the word.

Hamilton had authored more than a dozen true crime narratives in twenty years, most considered the best of their kind in literary history. His first book, written when he was nineteen, had leapt to the top of the bestselling lists in its first week of publication. It had been followed by fifteen scrupulously researched books, flawlessly detailed examinations into the malicious minds of killers whose sexual, avaricious, and otherwise depraved cravings had resulted in some of the most grisly crimes in history. He was relentless in his search for facts, always digging for that one last clue to justify every word, as tenacious as a hungry-eyed hyena stalking another animal’s kill.

The room was filled with memorials to his success: Plaques, proclamations, awards, framed letters, all tributes to his achievements. Plus, an old-fashioned barber’s chair, complete with adjustable foot rests, anchored to the floor of the apartment. Ward sat in the chair for his weekly manicure, with the manicurist kneeling before him to finish his nails-and sometimes providing further service as well, whether he needed it or not. Yes, he was smug with success.

He was the Lord of the Literati. The Beau Brummel of the greatest metropolis in the world.

But today he had a little problem, which somehow annoyed him even more than his big, deadly problem.

He took out his pocket watch, snapped open the cover and checked the time. He got up, threw a tan, cashmere coat over his shoulders, set a gray homburg on his head, and strolled forth to the elevator that would carry him down to the streets of the city of which he considered himself a peerless prince.

His car arrived at the Regency precisely on time. He checked his coat and hat and strolled into the elegant dining room where he immediately became the focus of attention. This was a room where the power brokers of the town met for breakfast, dueling with each other before taking on the challenges of the day, like athletes warming up for a big game. He walked arrogantly to a corner table where his editor awaited. As was his fashion, he ignored the nods of the other diners.

The waiter held his chair and he sat down.

“Good morning, Jacob,” he said as the waiter poured him a cup of coffee.

“Morning, Lee.”

The waiter offered Hamilton a menu which he slapped away.

“Where’s Humphrey?” Hamilton snapped without looking at him. “Humphrey always attends my table.”

“He’s got the flu, sir. My name’s Gus.”

“Well, Gus, tell the chef Mister Hamilton will have the usual.”

“Yes sir,” the waiter said and vanished.

Jake Sallinger, the editor of Metro Magazine, shook his head. He was a man in his early fifties with graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard, a veteran of the highly competitive publication wars who had earned his position as head of the hottest magazine in town, which he had conceived with a keen sense for both word and story. He was accustomed to Hamilton’s superior attitude and was neither intimidated nor impressed by it. Most of the writers he dealt with were experienced journalists, professional and jocular by nature. But Hamilton’s name on the cover sold magazines so he endured the man’s insufferable ego.

He also had Hamilton against the wall and Hamilton knew it. Four years earlier, the writer had decided it was time to venture into novels. But he had written two which were critical and financial disasters. Now he was forced to return to the field which he had dominated for two decades.

Sallinger was a tough editor and a conceptual genius. He was demanding, a hard sell, and Hamilton knew that. He had interested the editor on a series of articles tentatively called “Chasing Demons,” a series of sometimes arcane, sometimes recent, unsolved or unsolvable cases. They would then be compiled into a book by the same name, co-owned by Metro.

This time they would be playing by Sallinger’s rules, a tough and bitter pill for the pampered writer to swallow. And his book publisher, knowing that Hamilton would sometimes spend months on research, was uncomfortable with a concept which might take several years to complete.

But Hamilton had convinced them that his files contained much of the research and had agreed to produce eight articles, one every other month for the magazine, and a new and lengthy prologue and epilogue for the book, a task he had agreed to complete in less than a year.

The thing was that Sallinger had him on the spot. He would be approving the articles and editing them and the writer despised making pitches as much as he hated being edited, considering them demeaning. But Hamilton had accepted the terms, like it or not.

It wasn’t the money; he was a rich man.

Vanity had dictated the terms.

He had to redeem his two failures. Thus he had picked a daunting challenge.

The only control Sallinger had allowed him was the due date of the first installment: Halloween. Hamilton had chuckled morbidly as he suggested it.

Gus arrived with their food, a bagel and cream cheese for Sallinger, Eggs Benedict for Hamilton. The writer took a fork and lightly punched the poached egg.

“This egg’s a little on the hard side,” he growled to the waiter. But he noticed Sallinger’s immediate exasperation and quickly added, “They’ll do.”

“I can take them back, sir,” the waiter quickly replied.

“I said they’ll do,” Hamilton snapped and dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

Sallinger looked down and disguised a smile with a bite of bagel. Clearly Hamilton was nervous and on the defensive.?

“So, Lee, what have you got for me?” He asked, spreading cream cheese on the bagel.

“It’s got everything,” Hamilton boasted.

“Forget the tease, okay? What’s the story?”

“Ever heard of the NYPD TAZ?”

Sallinger frowned. “Some kind of back-up squad, isn’t it? Jimmy wanted to do a piece on them a while back but he dumped the idea.” He took another bite. “I thought we were talking about unsolved cases?”

“I’ll get to that. TAZ stands for Tactical Assistance Squad, an understated moniker if I’ve ever seen one. They have more power than God. Everything they do is on the Q.T. They hide police reports, crap all over the media, violate open records laws. Push good, decent cops around. A regular Gestapo, Jacob.”

Sallinger glared at him. “First of all, stop calling me Jacob. Forget the Biblical bull shit and make your point.” He could see Hamilton bridle at his harsh tone, and didn’t give a flying damn.

“Nobody will talk about them. The precinct boys won’t mention them. Stinelli has a clamp on them. They can step into any homicide, any homicide they want. Just take over the investigation. The head of it was a kid when they formed the outfit about five years ago. That’s unheard of. They have their own headquarters downtown, a loft that’s harder to get into than Fort Knox. It’s a block from the old police station down around Little Italy.”

“You are pushing my envelope, Lee.”

“You remember a case about two years ago? Her name was Melinda Cramer. A sometime dancer. It went down as a suicide. Then it turned out she was snuffed and thrown off her balcony.”

“It rings a bell.”

“Well, the whole point of the TAZ is that they can step into any case immediately, for any reason-or none whatsoever. The theory being that if a homicide gets to be forty-eight hours old and there’s no leads, it starts icing up. So they form this squad with this young guy running it.”

“What’s his name?”

“Micah Cody.”

“Hey, so he’s young. It’s a young person’s world. Rock stars and singers are in their teens. What the hell, Custer was a general when he was twenty-two or something.”

“And look what happened to him.”

“Lee…”

“Just let me finish. Cody joins the force when he’s twenty-one. He makes detective by the time he’s twenty-eight, sergeant at thirty and lieutenant at thirty-two. Most cops are still in patrol cars when they’re thirty.”

“You got a hard-on for this guy or something?”

“No, granted he was a hot shot. But here’s what makes this a great story. Cody rises to captain and head of an elite squad in his thirties! They stepped in and took over the Cramer case when it was still unsolved. A headline case with a twist and they never had a decent suspect. Then, out of the blue, Cody has the body pulled out of the ground and re-autopsied. Jake, I keep a scrapbook filled with murder cases from all over the world. This one has everything. It’s perfect for the lead article. A beautiful young dancer, a suicide that turns into murder, a hotshot cop who’s never lost a case but one. A famous pathologist working it.”

“Who?”

“Max Wolfsheim.”

“Him I know. Somebody wanted to do a piece on him but he wouldn’t cooperate.”

“He doesn’t have to cooperate. I’ve got everything on him. I sat in on his lectures at NYU. The nuns in Guatemala, the Bhopal case in India, a dozen serial killers. Think about it. Great characters, a backroom squad nobody talks about, a case that’s colder than the Antarctic. And no files. I checked. Zip. The thing about cold cases? A lot of them the police know who the killer is, they just can’t prove it. Eventually they go cold. ‘Why’ is what makes them interesting. What’s the ‘why’ here? It didn’t even make the obit section when she was a jumper. It barely got to page three in The Post when it turned out to be a homicide. Couple of weeks later it dropped off the radar. I’ve got notes on a dozen cases, but this one? This one’ll be the most interesting hook we could ever come up with for the book. I’m nearly done with it, just one more hurdle.”

Sallinger finished his bagel and sipped his coffee. He stared at Hamilton. “I’m thinking maybe you see this as an entree to get inside this squad you’re so needled about.”

“I’ll admit that’s part of the story. But the victim herself is interesting. A beautiful young dancer, can’t make it with the New York Ballet Company, ends up a hoofer in the chorus line of a couple a Broadway shows, starts hanging out in rave clubs, singing at cabarets, and teaching in the daytime and anything else she can do to hold it together and then bingo, she gets murdered in what was obviously planned to look like a suicide. Who could possibly have wanted her dead?”

Sallinger had to admit it was an interesting yarn. He thought about it over his second cup of coffee.

“It’s not bad, Lee. But it sounds like a lot of back story with no payoff.”

“That’s what makes cold cases interesting. The back story is the story and sometimes it shakes up the pot and they land a killer. Which is very good publicity for us.”

“What’s your back-up on this if it fizzles?”

“I’ve got a dozen of them. Let’s not talk about ‘what if’. Let’s talk about ‘what about.’”

Sallinger thought about a minute or two more.

“What’s the hurdle?” He finally asked Hamilton.

“I need a look at the file. I don’t know Lou Stinelli but he’s a friend of yours. Just a phone call. Tell him you’re doing a piece on cold cases and the writer can’t find the Cramer file. It’s a fact check thing.”

Sallinger thought about it. The story did have meat, it wasn’t just bones. And Metro was known for its demanding standard of accuracy. It wasn’t an unreasonable request.

“Okay, Lee, I’ll give it a try. But remember, I’ve got this piece scheduled for the February cover with the attendant publicity. You blow your deadline and I’ll end up with pie all over my face. Halloween is just around the corner.” His threat was implicit.

“Why, I wouldn’t dare blow it,” Hamilton said, nastily, and leaned back with a grin. “I was fated to write this one. It’s a matter of life and death.”