The Finishing School (2 page)

“What about household help? These people must have a maid or something.”

Albano pulled a small notebook from his back pants pocket and consulted it. “Uh, there’s usually a live-in housekeeper, but she’s in Manila for the holidays. Rest of the staff consists of a day maid, cook, driver, and—get this—laundress–slash–ironing lady. Last person left at about six-fifteen tonight. None present on the scene when any events of interest occurred.” He put the notebook back in his pocket. “So…ready to take a look?” Albano asked.

Melanie drew a breath to steel herself for viewing bodies but just ended up with a noseful of death smell. As if an animal had died in a damp basement, except more so. No point in hesitating. Not like they would smell any better if she waited.

“Let’s go,” she said, and stepped through the door.

THE LARGE CORNER BEDROOM was crowded with cops and bitterly cold. The windows lining its two exterior walls had been thrown open to the freezing night air. Melanie clapped her hand violently over her nose and mouth. Even with the cross-ventilation, the room reeked of vomit, feces, and spoiling meat.

The ghoulish face of the girl on the bed drew Melanie’s eyes like a magnet. She’d collapsed half sitting against the headboard, her skin mottled and blue, her eyes open, bulging nearly out of their sockets. Vomit spilled from her slackened mouth, yet her long blond hair and classic features suggested she’d been beautiful in life. She was clad only in a skintight sweater and tiny thong panties, her long legs bare but rigid and inert.

“The other one’s here,” Albano said.

Melanie stepped around the bed. A pretty brunette lay splayed out stark naked on the floor near the bathroom door, her head turned sideways and her vacant eyes staring right at Melanie. Her cheek rested in a pool of congealed blood and white foam. Melanie took a step closer. A familiar-looking fleshy pink object lay in the pooled blood on the floor.

“What’s
that
?” she asked through her fingers.

“Tongue,” Albano replied matter-of-factly. “She bit it off. You can actually see a perfect impression of her teeth if you look close.”

“Thanks, I’ll take your word for it.”

“The blonde on the bed is Whitney Seward, the bigwig’s stepdaughter. This one’s Brianna Meyers. Her mother’s some famous interior decorator,” Albano said, practically rolling his eyes. “Oh, lemme introduce you to the case agent. Ray Wong from DEA. Ray-Ray, c’mere.”

A short, muscular guy with close-cropped hair and a military bearing came over and shook Melanie’s hand. She forced herself not to wince at his powerful grip.

“Ray-Ray’s one of the best, if you don’t mind your people wound a little tight,” Albano said. “First guy through the door on every raid. Every now and then, we just take his gun away for a few days to make sure he don’t hurt nobody, right, Ray?” Albano punched Wong on the arm and chuckled, but Wong didn’t look amused.

“Do we know why these girls are undressed?” Melanie asked. “Is there some sexual aspect to this?”

“Did you talk to that black girl from the M.E.’s office yet?” Albano asked Wong, gesturing at a young woman in cornrows and funky glasses who was conferring with some Crime Scene detectives.

“She’s been occupied, sir.”

“Let’s ask her,” Albano said.

Shavonne Washington, the investigator from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, was speaking to Butch Brennan from Crime Scene, a cheerful old-timer whom Melanie knew from other cases. Melanie greeted Butch warmly, then turned to Shavonne.

“What’s your assessment?” she asked.

“I’m not allowed to certify cause of death without an autopsy unless it’s natural causes, but I
could
,” Shavonne said. “This one’s a no-brainer. All the classic signs of narcotic drug overdose. You got vomiting, loss of control of the bowels. You smell
that
, right? Nasal and lachrymal discharge. Severed tongue on the brown-haired girl, who’s also got white powder under the nostrils, indicating nasal ingestion. No visible track marks on the arms, but that’s no surprise. Kids in this socioeconomic bracket are squeamish. Shooting up’s too street for them—they prefer it up the nose. So I’m gonna say with ninety-nine percent certainty heroin’s the culprit here.”

“You’re sure it was heroin? Why not cocaine if there’s white powder under the nose?” Melanie asked.

“Cocaine ODs are pretty rare,” Shavonne explained, “and they usually happen because the victim had some undetected cardiac problem. With cocaine you never see people OD’ing simultaneously like this. Whereas with heroin, if the stuff’s powerful enough, it’s not uncommon to get a couple bodies at a time just from snorting. More, even.”

“One’s nude and the other’s half undressed. Any signs of sexual abuse?” Melanie asked.

“No visible trauma consistent with defensive wounds. But the autopsy’ll look for evidence of recent sexual intercourse, forced or consensual. If there
is
evidence, we’ll take swabs and DNA-test the semen. That’s probably not why the bodies are naked, though. It’s normal for ODs to be missing some clothes. They rip ’em off while they’re freaking out.”

“Did we find the missing clothes?” Melanie asked Butch.

“The brunette’s are in a pile on the bathroom floor, so that looks consistent with what Shavonne’s saying. The blonde’s skirt and sneakers were in the kitchen. Why there, is anybody’s guess.”

“Did we recover any heroin from the scene?” Melanie asked.

“Looks like they snorted it all before they kicked off,” Butch said. “But we found the empty glassines, so the lab’ll test for residue. Take a look.”

Butch handed her two clear plastic evidence envelopes that had already been heat-sealed and dated. Each one in turn contained a tiny pouch made from waxed paper with a fold-over flap, precisely sized to hold an individual dosage unit of heroin. Known as glassines or “decks” in cop parlance, these particular pouches had been stamped with the word GOLPE, in bright red ink.

“The decks were found right next to ’em, like they snorted the junk one second and keeled over the next,” Butch said. “One was found on the bed next to the blonde’s right hand and the other on the floor next to the brunette’s right arm.”

“Hmm, that’s odd,” Melanie said.

“Why do you say that?” Butch asked.

“If the dark-haired girl snorted the heroin and fell over in a seizure the next second with the glassine still in her hand, why are her clothes all the way in the bathroom?”

“Maybe she snorted more than one deck,” Butch offered.

“Then we should’ve found another empty, right?” Melanie examined the glassines. “
Golpe
,” she intoned, giving the word its Spanish pronunciation.

“You recognize the stamp?” Lieutenant Albano asked.

“Stamps” were the brand names of the drug trade. Knowing the brand name would make tracking down the supplier a whole lot easier, since certain gangs tended to specialize in certain brands of heroin.

“No. Just that it’s Spanish. It means ‘slap’ or ‘punch.’ In this context it’s more like ‘hit,’ a hit of dope. The Spanish name is unusual, don’t you think?” she asked.

“Well, no offense there, Counselor, but the major heroin distributors in this town are all PR or Dominican. The Spanish sell the shit, so they put it in a language they understand.”

“Not true, Lieutenant,” Melanie said, struggling to keep her tone polite. “Spanish-speaking drug dealers typically use English brand names. They reach a larger customer base that way. To me the Spanish stamp means these drugs were intended for a Spanish-speaking market. That could help us narrow things down.”

“We’ll get on it, run the stamp through the databases,” Ray Wong said.

“What about fingerprinting the glassines?” Melanie asked.

“We’re dusting everything. We’ll need to print the bodies for comparison, though,” Butch said.

“No problem. The bodies are still fresh enough to get prints, especially with this cold air slowing decomp,” Shavonne said, gesturing toward the open windows.

Bodies. Melanie hated the sound of that. They weren’t just bodies. They were human beings, young girls with names and personalities, somebody’s children. Or at least they
had
been.

“How old were the victims?” Melanie asked.

“High-school juniors, so you gotta figure sixteen, seventeen. Everything ahead of ’em,” Albano said, shaking his head.

“
They
should be our focus,” Melanie said. “Who were they? Who were their friends? Where did they go in the past few days? We need to get to know them. That’s the way to solve this case.”

THE OBVIOUS FIRST STEP in learning more about the victims was interviewing Whitney Seward’s stepfather, in whose apartment they’d drawn their last breaths, and who’d apparently discovered their bodies. Speaking to Seward’s wife, Charlotte, would have to wait, since she was under sedation and unable to talk.

Melanie and Ray-Ray found James Seward seated at a marble-topped table in the lavish kitchen, speaking to his campaign manager on a cell phone. His gray-blond hair, lashless pale eyes, and aristocratic nose were familiar to anybody who watched the six o’clock news. Seward was now in the process of trying to buy himself a Senate seat, which was turning into an expensive and messy proposition. He was one of many candidates in a crowded primary field. Allegations swirled around him—from questionable trading practices on Wall Street to fund-raising scandals during his tenure as state party chairman—and he was trailing badly in the polls. Melanie recognized that she had a preexisting impression of this guy as slippery and dangerous, so she warned herself to keep an open mind.

Seward ignored their presence for as long as he possibly could, then put his hand over the mouthpiece irritably. “
Yes
? What is it?”

“Melanie Vargas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Special Agent Raymond Wong from DEA,” Melanie said as they both flashed their credentials. “We need to ask you some questions, sir.”

“I’m busy right now. Phone my campaign headquarters in the morning,” he said.

Melanie and Ray-Ray looked at each other. Was this guy kidding?

“Sir, we’re investigating federal narcotics violations that resulted in two deaths. If you don’t cooperate voluntarily, we’ll subpoena you to the grand jury and place you under oath,” Melanie said.

Seward’s pale eyes seemed to focus on her finally. Something in their expression changed subtly, and he got off his phone call.

“Do forgive me, Miss—What did you say your name was?” he said after hanging up.

“Vargas. Melanie Vargas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“I’m under terrible stress tonight, as you can imagine. My stepdaughter is dead. My wife is devastated. And the press is all over me, screaming for blood.”

“We’ll do our best to keep this brief.”

“Thank you. I would very much appreciate that. It’s been a difficult night.”

“You have my deepest sympathy. I’m a parent, too.” From what Melanie had observed so far, Seward wasn’t exactly overcome with emotion, but who knew? The guy was an uptight WASP. Maybe this
was
grief-stricken on him. He certainly looked haggard anyway.

Seward took them to what he called his library to get away from the bustle of emergency personnel in the main part of the apartment. It was a large, paneled drawing room with lots of lavishly upholstered sofas and shelf after shelf of the type of gilt-edged books that decorators bought and nobody actually read. A desk sat in one corner, big and shiny as an ocean liner. Seward settled himself behind it in an imposing leather chair.

“Please, have a seat.” He nodded toward two high-backed, uncomfortable-looking wing chairs facing the desk, and Melanie and Ray-Ray sat down. Ray-Ray opened his notebook, pen poised.

“I’ll be happy to tell you anything I can,” Seward offered.

“Let’s start with the basics. What time did you discover the bodies?” Melanie asked.

“It wasn’t actually me who discovered them. It was the building super, Luis Reyes. He has a master key, and he’d come up here looking for his daughter, who’s a classmate of Whitney’s. I wasn’t home at the time. Charlotte and I were at a benefit at the downtown Guggenheim.”

“Oh! I was under the impression you’d found the bodies yourself,” Melanie said.

“The police may have assumed that, since I was here when they arrived. But I never said so. You’re the first person who directly asked me whether I discovered them or not.”

“But it
was
you who called the police?”

“Oh, yes. Not just the police. The
commissioner
.”

“I’m surprised Mr. Reyes didn’t just call 911 when he found the bodies. That’s the usual reaction.”

Seward hesitated for a millisecond. “Yes. Well. You see, I told him not to. Frankly, I didn’t trust Luis to handle things properly. Given the sensitive nature of the situation, I preferred to pursue it with my own contacts at a…uh,
higher
level. Many of the 911 dispatchers take money to feed tips to the tabloids, you know.”

“I see. All right, we’ll speak to Mr. Reyes also. He’s here?”

“No, he went downstairs to his apartment. In the basement. He was quite upset, so I told him to go lie down.”

“You told him to leave the scene before the police arrived?”

“Yes. I hope that’s not a problem. I can get him right back up here if you like.”

“That won’t be necessary. We’ll go downstairs and speak with him after we’re finished interviewing you. But I’m curious as to why you didn’t tell the police that Mr. Reyes was the one who discovered the bodies?”

“I guess I just didn’t realize it was important. I apologize if I’ve caused any confusion.”

Seward’s pale eyes gazed at Melanie steadily. There was nothing that odd in what he was saying. It hardly surprised her that someone like him would choose to pull strings rather than let the building custodian dial 911. He obviously felt 911 was for the little people. Still, she got a strange vibe from him.

“Do you know what time Mr. Reyes found the bodies?” she continued.

Seward drew a slim silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket and extracted a European-looking cigarette, lighting it with steady hands. He was neither uncooperative nor nervous, yet his pauses before answering were odd, as if he were buying time to think. Then again, give the guy a break. It was almost four in the morning, and his stepdaughter was dead.