Seven ways to die

8

Kate Winters stood in front of the oblong brick building and straightened out the wrinkles in her tan pants suit. She was about five-five, a shapely African-American woman in her mid-forties, with handsomely etched features and black hair trimmed in a bob. The strap of her dark brown purse was hooked over one shoulder but she held the purse itself in a tight fist, a not uncommon pose for a woman who had lived in Manhattan for more than a decade. A snatch thief would need a pair of vice grips to get it away from her.

It was an unimposing building, an old two-story warehouse that filled a short block bordering Little Italy and was surrounded by bustling commerce: restaurants, grocery stores, a deli across the street, a pizza parlor up the way; a structure so unobtrusive the world hustled by like it was an obscure eyesore waiting for the wrecking ball. Its windows were bricked over. The entrance was a single steel door with a small, thick, opaque glass window nestled between four large, steel garage doors. There was no number on the door. No mailbox. Nothing to indicate what might be inside the place.

She pressed a button close to the door jamb.

“Yes?” A gruff voice inquired from within.

“Kate Winters to see Captain Cody,” she told the window.

The door buzzed and was opened by a large man with his thumb holding his place in a tattered Even Hunter paperback, his blue uniform unadorned by any semblance of identification. She entered a miniscule box of a room with a chair, a reading lamp, a door to her left, and another facing her, both attended by a video camera. The big man pressed a button and said, “Kate Winters for the captain.” The door in front of her popped open to reveal a narrow staircase leading to the second floor.

“Top of the stairs on the left,” the attendant said, sat down on his chair and returned to his reading. A sawed off shotgun was leaning on the wall beside him.

“Thank you,” she said and climbed the stairs. The door on her left was labeled “Office.” The printing on the door to the right said simply “Keep Out.” Both had small one-way glass windows.

She entered a bright, sprawling room that was as cheerful as the trip up was drab. It encompassed half the second floor. Flush ceiling lamps cast a bright, shadowless light over the room.

No power naps in here, she thought.

It was also unlike any precinct station house she had ever seen. Kate was a quick study. One sweeping glance around the room revealed a dozen metal u-shaped desks scattered about in no particular order. But, she also noticed, not quite as haphazardly as would appear. All of them had a clear view of the wall behind her.

Seven men were at their desks. They looked up at her, smiled, gave her the once-over, and went back to what they were doing. They all were equipped with desk top computers and widescreen plasma viewers, DVD and video players, small desk lamps of every imaginable variety and shape, telephones that were jet black and accompanied by headsets, and a cup holder on every desk.

Very smart, she thought. Prevents spilling.

The desk chairs were as varied as the lamps; swing around chairs, stuffed chairs, straight back chairs, chairs with arms and chairs without arms, a tall movie director’s type canvas back with WOW printed on it, and a cocktail bar stool with a red leather seat and no back.

Perfect, she thought. A room ruled over by a man who was all business but had a strong respect for individuality.

“Hi,” said a young Asian about her height. He was thin, nicely buffed, had dark curly hair, and a smile that would melt a snowman. He took off the headset he was wearing and dropped it on the desk as he jumped up and stuck out his hand.

“Vinnie Hue. We’ve met. The wicker chair case?”

“Of course. You got more objections that day than any witness I ever had.”

“Yeah,” he said proudly. “I drove that lawyer nuts.”

“Yes, you did. And you drove me nuts objecting to his objections.”

“Hey, it worked,” he said and winked. “We won.” Then he spread out his arms. “Welcome to The Loft. Cody extends his apologies. He’s on his way. He’ll do the introductions when he gets here.”

“You call him Cody?”

“You can call him Cody or Cap or even Captain. Micah he doesn’t like too much.”

“Why not? It’s a lovely name.”

“Morphs too easily into Mickey. C’mon,” he wiggled a finger leading her toward a table in the rear of the room where coffee, tea, sweet rolls, and bagels beckoned.

She glanced at his cubicle as she followed him. It was a dazzling array of electronics: audio recorders, both digital and analog; another bank of six flat video screens with recorders attached; an audio/visual editing board; a keyboard interfacing the awesome display that was a remote controller’s nightmare. Buttons everywhere.

“Just out of curiosity, does anybody else understand all this stuff?” she asked.

“Si-that’s Larry Simon-can sit in for me. Sometimes we operate it together. The crew knows as much as they need to know. We have our own network. Like a mini CNN or ABC. Ten satellite dishes on the roof, wireless links constantly scanning for viruses or hackers. Nobody can bust through, we got better security than the CIA. And all our cell phones and laptops are interfaced and simul-recorded with my main frame up front.

“I can tape phone conversations, tape recorders, video, still photos off the laps. Everything. Also the vehicles are all bugged so whoever’s driving them can push a foot-button and tape anyone in the car and it transmits back to me immediately. All vehicles are GPS connected so we track them twenty-four seven. In short? Instant communication and no repetition. And nobody ever gets lost.” He stopped and smiled, as if awaiting applause.

“Turn around,” he said.

She turned to face the front of the room. Mounted in the middle of the wall was a huge eight-foot screen on which was displayed a satellite scan in real time of Manhattan and part of the lower Bronx. On each side of the main screen, mounted vertically, were three flat 42-inch TV screens.

Near the bottom of the map of Manhattan squeezed in among the tightly interwoven streets near Little Italy was an oblong block outlined in black. Using a complex remote controller, Hue zoomed into the area. The block slowly morphed into the headquarters building and filled the screen. Then the image tilted and she was looking at the front door she had entered.

“I can’t see through walls,” Hue said. “But I can put you on the doorstep of any building, house, park or structure in the city, from the Battery to the Bronx Zoo.”

He zoomed back until the screen was filled with a photograph of lower Manhattan. A green icon was moving south down Broadway.

“That’s Cody,” he said. “Heading home.”

The scanner panned up to Central Park and to the right to 73rd Street and zoomed down to Madison Avenue and then to the east. Hue settled the screen on a single house and zoomed and tilted the satellite image until the front of the brownstone nearly filled the screen.

“That,” he said, “is the scene of last night’s crime. Now I can overlay the still shots of the interior that Wolf emailed me from his laptop and that’s how we brief the squad.”

“You’re working a case now?”

He pointed to a timer in the upper corner of the big screen. It read: “01:43:” and the seconds were clicking off.

“Cal Bergman made the case at 7:02. We’re an hour and forty-three minutes into it already. When that timer hits 48:00 it turns red and we’re on the killer’s time.”

“Not a job for sissies,” Kate murmured, remembering what Phyllis Martingale had told her when she decided to interview for the position Phyllis was leaving.

“That’s about it,” Hue answered.

Kate looked back at the big board with astonishment.

“And you designed all this?”

“Yeah,” Hue said. “Took about eighteen months to get it running, another six to work out the bugs. The side screens are used to exhibit the case in progress. One lists suspects, another, evidence, one for the timeline, etcetera. Every aspect of the case in progress can be accessed as it develops. The same information is available to each of the squad members on their desktops and laptops as well as audio of interviews or comments by the investigators.”

“Is everybody as smart as you are, Vinnie?”

He shrugged. “All I did was the dog work. The concept was the Captain’s.”

“You call this dog work?” she said, sweeping her hand toward the huge display.

“Oh, I don’t mean it negatively,” he replied quickly. “I’m not thirty yet. Most guys in my business would never have a chance like this. I mean, to have the resources and opportunity to do something this ambitious? Hey, that’s the dream of a lifetime.”

“How long have you known Cody?”

“Since the beginning. Six years ago. I was one of the first guys he hired. I was in the Master’s Program at Rensselaer. One of my teachers is Cap’s best friend. He knew what the Captain wanted to do and he recommended me. Cap flew up to Boston, told me the mission of the squad and what he wanted me to do.”

“’Can you do it?’ he said.”

“And I didn’t even think twice. I said ‘Absolutely.’”

“You were that sure of yourself?”

“Nope. But I didn’t think I couldn’t either. And he didn’t want to hear maybe. I moved down three days later.”

He nodded toward an elevator in a corner of the room. “Here he comes now. Grab some coffee or tea. Excuse me.” She watched him walk briskly toward Cody.

Whew, she thought and poured herself a cup of coffee.

Cody started talking as Hue reached him. “Here’s what we need to know,” he said hurriedly. “The victim made a stop somewhere downtown on his way home last night. He cut his limo driver loose at eleven-fifty. Call Annie and have her check his overcoat pocket for a sign-off receipt. I want to know where Handley got out and we don’t want to set off any alarm bells in the driver’s head. You and Si start calling every hack company in town and find out what time a taxi dropped Handley off at the 73 ^ rd Street address. If you get a hit find out where the cabbie picked him up. If we get two arrivals at the 73 ^ rd Street address we may have a line on the killer but don’t count on that. I need ten minutes with Ms. Winters. Get on it.”