The Frenzy Way (5 page)

“Don’t mention it, brother. But if this potato is as hot as you say, stick to the book. Take it from me, you don’t need any problems with public perception when you’re new to your position.”

The line went dead and Mace hung up. He reviewed the homicide reports from the previous night and this morning’s assignment sheets, then estimated the week’s overtime.

Willy called his cell phone again. “The safe man cometh.”

Mace looked at his wristwatch: almost 10:00. “Give me half an hour.”

Mace parked his unmarked blue Chevy Impala at the mouth of Bedford. The RMPs had been joined by a camera van from New York One News, and a small crowd had formed on the sidewalk.

It’s starting
, he thought. A neighbor had probably telephoned the cable news station. He turned off the Impala’s engine and got out. The ambulance and the van from the coroner’s office had departed, and the sun had been swallowed by clouds. Mace hoped the reporters faced a downpour. A strange energy balled at the base of his skull.
Anticipation?

Crossing the street, he saw that new crowd control officers had replaced those on the scene earlier. The shift had changed at 0800 hours, and the patrol sergeant for the Sixth Precinct had decided to relieve his men and save on overtime. It was going to be a long day.

Suzie Quarrel from CSU stood smoking a cigarette within the perimeter of the yellow crime scene tape but away from the male officers.

Mace slipped through the crowd and ducked beneath crime scene tape that had been stretched from the building to two trees.

A PO moved to intercept him, then stepped back with recognition on his features.

“Captain Mace!” a voice called behind him.

“Captain!” called a second voice. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Wishing he hadn’t worked so many high-profile cases, Mace walked faster, ignoring the reporters. The glass door closed behind him, muffling the reporters’ voices, and he rapped on one of the inside doors.

The PO stationed at the elevator came over and admitted him.

“Any idea who tipped them off?”

The PO, a medium-sized man in his twenties, said, “No, but it was a real zoo when the EMTs removed those body parts.”

Mace digested the information. The coroner must have orderedspecific body parts to be kept separate from others to avoid confusion and error later on. If Mace had remained on-site, he would have made sure the situation had been handled differently; at least the bags would have been arranged in the shape of a human form within the body bag.
Mistake number one.

The elevator door opened before he thumbed its button, and a short, elderly woman in a floral print dress and a straw hat stepped out. She looked at Mace and the PO, then at the crowd outside, and shook her head. As the PO opened a door for her, Mace boarded the elevator and pushed the third-floor button.

When the elevator door opened again, the sound of a loud drill came from Glenzer’s condo. Mace nodded to the new recorder stationed outside the door and went inside. Deepak Maheebo stood gazing out one of the living room windows. Mace pulled a fresh pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket, stepped around the pile of books, and entered the bedroom. The body parts had been removed from the bed and the floor, which had been covered with a plastic tarp, but the sweet smell of blood still permeated the air.

Hector, Patty, and Willy stood before the bed, watching a burly man in blue jeans and sneakers burrow into the closet safe with a metal drill the size of a baseball bat. The man, who looked a few years older than Mace and wore a Yankees cap over his gray hair, needed two hands to control the massive drill, which had been plugged into the left wall beneath the bloody graffiti.

The deep, dark closet appeared larger than Mace had guessed. The sound of the drill bit chewing into the safe’s iron door split the air. Mace couldn’t hear his latex gloves snap as he pulled them on. Joining his detectives and Hector, he saw that the safe man wore protective goggles. Fine metallic particles blew away from the dull black safe like tiny flying insects. Mace assumed the missing handle and combination dial had been tagged and bagged as evidence. Scores of scratches crisscrossed the door like angry welts on smooth skin.

A sudden hollow grinding sound filled the room as the drill penetrated the safe, and the safe man pitched forward. He switched off the drill, which continued to whir for a moment, then pulled it free of the safe, laid it on the floor, and removed his goggles. He reached into the compact tool kit at his side and selected a small precision instrument with which he proceeded to probe the hole he had drilled.

“You take all of your measurements?” Mace said to his detectives.

Patty nodded. Willy held up his notebook and flipped the pages, indicating sketch after sketch detailing the locations of various body parts, some of which he had identified with question marks.

Hector turned to Mace. “We got a couple of black hairs off the bed that don’t match the gray ones in the bathroom.”

Patty gestured at the safe. “See those scratches on the door?”

Mace inspected the safe. Several sets of five scratches ran from the top of the door to its bottom.

“They’re spaced out like they were made by fingers, but they’re too thin to be from human fingernails. They look more like claw marks.”

“They could have been made by some kind of tool,” Mace said.

The safe man looked up from his task. “Not any kind of tool used for cracking a safe.”

“You Robbins?”

The man nodded. “Yes, sir. Detective Robbins.”

Just so there’s no misunderstanding
, Mace thought. “We don’t know when those marks were made.”

Hooking a thumb into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit, Hector gestured with his free hand. “We scraped shavings of black paint off the floor right in front of the safe. Most likely, they’re recent.”

Patty said, “Glenzer probably painted the safe black so it would be harder to see in the dark.”

A clicking sound came from the safe as an internal tumbler fell into place, followed by a sound like a lever being thrown. Robbins returned his tool to his kit and replaced it with a screwdriver, which heinserted into the drilled hole. Leaning on the screwdriver, he pried open the heavy metal door, which creaked on its hinges. He peered inside the safe, and behind him the three detectives leaned forward, trying to see over his broad shoulders. When he stood, sticky bloodstains covered the knees of his jeans.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, stepping to one side of the closet door.

Mace, Patty, and Willy crouched before the safe, and Hector leaned over them. Sunlight glinted off an object on the bottom of the otherwise empty safe. Mace glanced at Patty, then reached inside and grasped the object.

The dagger weighed more than he expected. Rather than grasp the handle firmly, he eased the fingers of his other hand beneath the blade and removed the weapon from the safe with great care.

Mace raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t holding a dagger at all but a sword with a broken blade. The hilt appeared medieval, the blade two and a half inches wide and a foot long to its broken point. A carving adorned the middle of the handle: a man’s nose, mouth, and chin jutted out from beneath a hood that masked his eyes.

Patty frowned. “What the hell?”

Turning the sword over, Mace sensed Hector behind him straining to get a better look. On the other side of the handle, a second carving stared at him: the head of a wolf with snarling demonic features that included two small and fiery red jewels for eyes.

“Damn,” Willy said.

Patty reached out with both hands. “May I?”

Mace eased the hilt into her open palms. “Careful. It’s heavy.”

Patty inspected the tarnished metal and turned it over. She touched the sculpted heads on each side of the hilt. Then she looked at Mace with incredulity in her eyes. “This whole thing is made of
silver.”

Pedro stood halfway down Bedford Street in the midst of a crowd, with Miguel beside them. The car ride over the Queensboro Bridge had been uneventful, though Miguel’s inane chattering had spoiled Pedro’s pleasure in sightseeing. As soon as they had reached Bedford and Pedro saw the crowd milling around the emergency vehicles in front of the apartment building, he knew his plans had been disrupted.

“Tienes que ver lo que paso,” he told Miguel. See what’s happened
.

“Si.”
Miguel moved between spectators to the crime scene tape stretched between a streetlight and the building.

Pedro watched Miguel speak to a heavyset black woman wearing a short wig. Observing his companion’s body language, he almost admired his chicanery.

A few minutes later, Miguel returned. “Some old dude who lived in the building was snuffed. Crackhead probably did it.”

Pedro’s gaze followed the building’s architecture to the third floor. There, between the limbs of a tree that grew from the sidewalk, the wind sucked a curtain through a shattered window, allowing him to glimpse a figure moving around inside.

No crackhead
, he thought, keeping his suspicion to himself.

“Does this have something to do with your appointment?”

Pedro nodded. His contact lived on the third floor of this building, just like the murder victim. At sixty-two, Professor Glenzer qualified as an old man.

“What do you want to do?”

“Wait.”

So they did. Soon the building’s front doors opened, and an Italian-looking police official exited. The crowd of reporters surrounded him.

“What gives, Tony? When can we see the crime scene?”

“Yeah, why all the secrecy, Captain?”

“What’s the big deal?”

The captain raised one hand. “I have no statement at this time, people. When CSU has finished their work, you’ll be admitted to the crime scene. Not before.” He pushed his way through the crowd of groaning reporters, dismissing them, then stopped at his car, an Impala.

Pedro saw that the captain carried an object in a large padded envelope in the crook of his other arm. He knew the man had found
Salvation.

“Navajo men who used witchcraft were known as skinwalkers. Dressed in wolf hides, they dropped the powdered bones of dead babies through the smoke holes of huts, bringing sickness and death upon the residents. They were also known to run wild through cemeteries, engaging in necrophilia.”

—Navajo Cultural Superstition
, Terrence Glenzer

They sat huddled around Mace’s desk, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. Landry sat with his back to the door, and the broken sword lay on the center of the desk, sealed in a plastic evidence bag. Each detective spoke between hurried mouthfuls of food.

“Glenzer taught a course on Native American mythology,” Patty said. “He was considered an expert in the field and wrote more than one book on the subject. I’ve already confirmed that copies of each book were in the pile on his living room floor. His personal inventory, most likely. He used to teach full-time—Native American history, Native American culture, Native American religion—but then he took atwo-year sabbatical to travel around the world, researching his most recent book. When he returned, he went to a part-time schedule. According to the dean, he had trouble finding a publisher, so for the first time in his career he resorted to self-publishing.”

“What’s that book called?” Mace said.

“Transmogrification in Native American Mythology.”

Mace brought
Amazon.com
up on his screen, then keyed in the title. An instant later, a book cover appeared, covered with the brown and white features of a wolf. “‘Terrence Glenzer takes readers on an informative tour through the history of Native American mythology, focusing on shape-shifters, manitou, and other American Indian spirits.’” He whistled when he saw the book’s price. “Twenty-nine ninety-nine. ‘This title usually ships in 2 to 3 business days.’”

Patty sat straight. “It took a little prodding, but the dean admitted he was trying to have Glenzer shit canned. Seems the professor returned from his travels a little overenthusiastic about his subject matter. Students complained to the head of his department about erratic behavior, and a number of them dropped the class.”