Slaughter (4 page)

“L
ennon was shot there,” Sal Vitali said to Harold Mishkin, as they walked along Central Park West toward where they'd parked the unmarked car.

Before them loomed the ornate stone building that occupied an entire block.

“The Russian or the singer?” Harold asked.

Not sure whether Harold was playing dumb, Sal growled simply, “The singer.”

Harold's expression of detached mildness didn't change as he made a slight sound that might have meant anything.

They'd finished interviewing Lois Graham's pertinent neighbors, catching some of them after work hours but before dinner. People didn't like to have their meals delayed or interrupted.

The two detectives thought it might be worth talking to the victim's upstairs neighbor again, a guy named Masterson, who had seemed more than a little nervous the first time. But maybe that was because his apartment smelled strongly of weed. He and a busty twenty-three-year-old girl named Mitzy, who'd spent the night with him, swore they'd been in bed all evening the night of the murder. They'd been listening to CDs of Harry Connick Jr. songs. Harold thought that was unlikely, though he himself liked Connick Jr.

Tonight when Masterson (“call me Bat—everyone does”) opened his door to them, Mitzy was nowhere to be found.

Bat motioned for Sal and Harold to sit on the sofa, and sat down across from them in a ratty old recliner that creaked beneath his weight. Harold noted that Masterson was a larger man than he'd first thought. Broad and muscular.

“Where's Mitzy this evening?” Sal asked.

Masterson shrugged. Not easy to do in a recliner, but he managed. “At her quilting bee. She belongs to this gang of women who sit around and gossip and make quilts. Give them to people they like or love. I've got so many I don't know what to do with the damned things.” He shrugged again, exactly like the first time. “I'd be happy to see a Christmas tie this year.”

“You mean between two of the women in the quilting bee?” Harold said.

Masterson looked at Harold the way Sal had. Harold seemed not to notice.

Sal thought Masterson was going to shrug a third time, but he just sat there, as if the brief conversation and two sitting shrugs had been enough to exhaust him. Harold could do that to people.

“Would you like to amend your account of last night in any way?” Harold asked.

Masterson raised his eyebrows in a practiced way, as if he'd had enough of shrugs. “You mean have I thought of anything else?”

Sal and Harold sat still, waiting.

“I remember riding down in the elevator with Lois Graham. She had a bag of popcorn with her. She is—was—an attractive lady. The sort anybody would remember.”

“She and you were alone in the elevator?” Sal asked.

“Yes, just the two of us. We both got out at lobby level. I went to pick up my mail at the boxes. She started walking off as soon as she stepped on the sidewalk.”

“Did she know Mitzy?” Sal asked, not knowing quite why.

Masterson wasn't thrown by the question. “The two never met that I can remember. I mean, Lois Graham and I didn't really know each other. We were what you'd call nodding acquaintances.”

“Then the two of you never dated?”

“Never anything like that. I mean, you saw Mitzy.”

“She has a certain glint in her eye,” Harold said.

“Well,” Sal said, closing his notepad, “we won't arrest her just now as a suspect, but she should see a doctor about that glint.”

Bat Masterson and Harold both looked momentarily startled, then relaxed, realizing Sal was joking. Fedderman wandered in from his interview in another unit, saw the smiles and joined in.

The detectives thanked Masterson for his cooperation, then left the building and walked toward their unmarked car, finished after a long day.

As they passed where John Lennon had been shot, two young girls were standing and gawking. One kept snapping photos with her cell phone. The other stared at the sidewalk approximately where Lennon had fallen and seemed about to cry.

“Where the Russian was shot,” Sal said dryly.

Harold said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

A ragged figure stepped out from the narrow dark space between two buildings and limped toward them. Fedderman moved his unbuttoned white shirt cuff and rested the heel of his hand on his gun in its belt holster.

The man was one of the homeless, in a stained and ripped ancient gray sport coat and incredibly wrinkled baggy jeans. He had a lean face with a long, oft-broken nose, and a deep scar on the side of his jaw. He might have been forty or ninety. The street did that to people. Once they gave up, the street was in charge of time.

He stopped a yard in front of Sal and Harold, so that they had to stop.

“I seen what happened,” he said in a voice almost as gravel pan as Sal's. “All of it. Whole thing started with the popcorn.”

The two detectives looked at each other.

“What's your name?” Harold asked.

Sal rolled his eyes. He was tired and his feet hurt. He didn't feel like dealing with a nutcase.

“I just go by Spud.”

Harold made a show of writing the name in his leather-covered notepad as if it were vitally important. “You understand we're with the police?”

“I knew he was a cop,” Spud said, pointing at Sal. “I wasn't so sure about you.” Spud used the back of his hand to wipe his nose. “You look like the kind that never played sports as a kid.”

“Looks can fool you,” Harold said, obviously hurt by Spud's analysis.

“He was a star quarterback at Notre Dame,” Sal lied.

Spud looked dubiously at Harold. “That true?”

“I don't give away the plays,” Harold said. He hitched his thumbs in his belt so his holstered gun was visible. With his bushy gray mustache and hipshot, slender frame, he was magically changed into an old West gunslinger. “Now what's all this about popcorn?” he asked.

Spud seemed unimpressed. “The woman was sitting on a bench, and for some reason the pigeons didn't like the popcorn she was trying to feed them.”

“Maybe it was stale,” Harold said. “Some pigeons are particular.”

Spud rubbed his bristly chin. It made a lot of noise. “Now, that's how I see it, too. You and me, we think alike.”

“Who was the woman feeding popcorn to the pigeons?” Sal asked.

“Don't know her name. Never seen her before. Then this guy came along, and they started talking.”

“The girl and the new arrival?”

“The girl and the pigeons,” Sal said. Harold could be excruciating.

“Describe him.”

“Kinda little guy, wearing faded designer jeans, a pullover shirt with the collar turned up in back. Had on a Mets baseball cap, had one ear inside it, another outside it. That ear stuck straight out and was kinda funny looking.”

“Funny looking how?”

“Pointed, it was.” He looked thoughtful. “I was drunk once and seen a leprechaun had ears like that.”

“Right ear? Left ear?”

“Right one, I'd say. Maybe both of 'em. Hard to know, the way he had his cap tilted.”

“Where did the popcorn come from?” Harold asked.

“Hell, I don't know. Woman had it but the pigeons wouldn't touch the popcorn till she stood up to leave. Then a couple of them got close and pecked at it.”

“The man?” Sal asked.

Spud wiped his jutting chin again. Harold couldn't decide whether Spud smelled like gin or diesel fuel. “Oh, they musta known each other, or else he was an awful good talker, 'cause they left together. He picked up his bag and off they went.”

“Bag?” Sal asked.

“Sure. Big blue bag with a lotta straps.”

“Did it look heavy?”

“Not at all.”

“Where did they go? Did they leave the park?”

“No. I'm sure of that. I kinda followed them, for some reason.”

Sal could guess the reason. If the opportunity arose, Spud could throw a sucker punch, snatch the man's wallet, and run. The man might not be in any position to follow.

“This woman,” Sal said. “Do you think you could identify her?”

Spud went into his chin rub again. Smiled the ugliest smile Sal and Harold had ever seen. “You mean her head?”

 

 

Spud objected, but Sal and Harold drove him to Q&A and he signed a statement. He wasn't too worried, because he didn't see Sal or Harold or any of these people as real cops. If they were, they wouldn't have been so nice to him. He might even be up on a vagrancy charge.

To Spud, these were play cops, but not cops playing games.

Sal and Harold wrote their own reports, while Quinn and Fedderman drove Spud to the morgue in Quinn's old black Lincoln.

Quinn figured maybe they had something here, but probably not.

“I feel like the mayor,” Spud said, leaning back in his plush seat and crossing his arms. “My kingdom's right on the other side of this window.”

Quinn wondered what the real mayor would think of that. He drove faster.

Fedderman figured the entire car might have to be fumigated. Quinn didn't seem to mind. The man could prioritize.

Spud, it turned out, was an ex-marine who'd seen the worst of it in Desert Storm. He didn't react when they showed him the morgue photos of Lois Graham. Simply said, “Uh-huh. Same woman. Damned shame.”

Quinn said, “You might have seen her with her killer.”

Spud raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “Mr. Popcorn?”

“The same.”

“Maybe. Didn't get a clear look at him, though. Told you he looked like a gremlin.”

“Leprechaun.”

“Did I say that? Shoulda said
gremlin
. Leprechauns ain't always bad. Gremlins are the worst. Too curious and up to mischief all the time. No pot of gold involved.”

“Some mischief,” Quinn said.

“There a reward?”

Quinn stared at his raggedy witness in the backseat where Feds could keep an eye on him. “If you throw a net over him, I'll pay you something out of my own pocket.”

“How much?”

“Negotiable. And remember, your testimony wouldn't be much good if we paid you for it.”

“Wouldn't make me no difference what brand it was.”

Quinn realized they were talking about bottles, not dollars. He gave a half smile. Spud didn't have the ambition and balls to be mayor of what was outside the car. Good for him. “You net this gremlin and we'll talk.” He handed Spud his card. “Give me a call and let me know if you learn anything important.”

Spud accepted the card and gave a sloppy salute.

They left the morgue and drove him back to the park where he'd first been accosted by Sal and Harold. A street vendor was set up near the 81st Street entrance. Quinn treated Spud to a knish and orange soda. He noticed that the vendor also sold popcorn.

Quinn thought of warning Spud to be careful, especially where he slept.

Then he figured Spud was careful all the time anyway. On the streets, being careful was his life.

 

 

The package Quinn found in the mail at Q&A hadn't been delivered by the post office. There was no stamp on it, and Quinn's name and address were printed neatly in black felt tip pen. Oddly, there was a return address, also neatly printed, in the package's upper left hand corner: Return to Jack Kerouac. There was no actual address.

“This Kerouac the writer?” Renz asked, when Quinn called him and described the package.

“Must be,” Quinn said. “It was obviously hand delivered.”

“So why are you calling me?” Renz said. “Why aren't you out there trying to find whoever put the damned thing in your mail?”

“Three reasons. I wanted you to know about the package before I opened it.”

“And?”

“I want you on the phone while I'm opening the package.”

“And . . .”

“I want to tell you what I think about in my few seconds left before a bomb goes off.”

There was silence on the phone.

Finally Renz spoke. “You really think there might be a small bomb in that package?”

“Could be.”

“The department does have a bomb squad. Why don't we let them open the package?”

“I'm not sure the risk justifies all that,” Quinn said. “I can examine the package carefully, see what we got, then if need be we can call in the experts.”

“That's insane. If that is a bomb, or something that shoots white powder, we have people who know how to—Just a minute, Quinn.”

Within about two minutes, Renz was back. “Stay put, Quinn. And don't touch that package. The bomb squad is on the way.”

“What's going on, Harley?”

“I just got my mail put on my desk. It contains a package just like the one you described.”

Quinn sighed. “Okay, Harley. I guess we'd better treat this for what it is.”

“Considering who must have sent the packages. Or maybe hand delivered them himself.”

“Probably paid some poor dumb schmuck to deliver them,” Quinn said.

“Yeah. Well, you better get outta your building, make sure everybody else does the same. They'll think it's a drill.”

“You doing the same?”

“Not right away. If you get anthraxed or blown up, I'll know what to do. One thing, Quinn, in case we don't see each other again. You think the phony return address name on the packages means the real Jack Kerouac? The author?”