Vendetta (22 page)

He told her everything. Then together they walked back down the alley. Vincent did a long, slow scan of the area, checking for observers as she pulled on a pair of Latex gloves; then he laced his hands together to crate a foothold for Catherine and she did a leg-up. Balancing on his hands, she found the gap in the shingle he had described and felt inside.

“Found something,” she reported. “I’ve got it.” He lowered her to the ground and she held out a tin bandage box. He shielded her as she opened it, taking care to ensure the contents stayed dry.

It was a strip of notebook paper with an unconnected string of numbers beginning with a 2. Below that was the word
Rikers
. Vincent didn’t immediately realize what it was, but Catherine did:

“This is a commitment number. An inmate ID.”

“Your father’s?” he asked and she shook her head with such certainty that he realized she had memorized Bob Reynolds’ prison number. She looked inside the can, then fished around with her gloved fingers. “That’s the only thing in here.”

“The cook wrote it and stashed it here,” Vincent told her. “I can smell him on the paper and the can. That’s why he brought the ladder into the alley.”

Turning the paper over, she inspected the other side, then held it in one hand while she fished in her purse for a pencil flashlight. He watched the care she employed to glean all she could from the clue. He had beast senses, true, but she was good at her job and often she put together the data he gave her in clever ways he hadn’t considered. He’d always admired competence—people who were good at what they did, and cared about the quality of their work—and Catherine never slacked or lost her edge no matter what was going on in her life.

She put the paper back in the can and looked toward the Dumpster, her brow furrowed.

“He was risking a lot to place it where someone could get to it. My money’s on Claudia,” she said.

“And she was killed before she could retrieve it.”

Catherine looked fierce. “I want justice for her, but more than that I want to find Angelo DeMarco. But I have to call in her body now. It’s just too much of a loose end if I don’t. I’ll say we were wondering why she hadn’t shown up. Tess went to check out Lizzani and I searched the diner. I spotted the body in the Dumpster and climbed in to see if there were signs of life.”

“Sounds good. Better if your DNA is in there.”

“They’re not going to sift through the trash. They’ll check her body. After I search her, I have to call the homicide squad for this part of town. I have to follow procedure. So don’t come into the Dumpster with me. I don’t want there to be any chance of our CSU discovering your DNA.”

“Got it.”

She put the bandage can in her purse, muttering to herself about evidence bags; then she opened the lid and snow powdered the contents. He gave her another leg-up and she clambered inside, into the filth. Just part of the job. Most civilians had no idea what New York’s Finest endured to solve cases. The good cops, that is.

She hesitated. “There could be surveillance. Go to your car and wait for my signal.”

“Makes sense.” He groaned inwardly, thinking of the mess he was going to leave in J.T.’s car. “How about I call Tess and debrief her about the cook and what you’ve found? She can officially request information about the diner’s employees. Or have J.T. do it and keep it quiet.”

“Yes. Good,” she said. “I’m thinking J.T.”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you here.”

She narrowed her eyes in irritation, but it was in jest. A little. “Don’t try to protect me. I’m just doing my job. You’ll endanger us both if you’re found with me.”

She was right and he knew it. But it was still felt as if he were abandoning her. He had saved her life eleven years before, and he could still remember the sight of her flat on her back, a gash across her forehead, disoriented and pleading for her life. He had watched over her ever since. For years he had dreamed of simply meeting her. Ironically, once they had connected, she had ordered him to
stop
protecting her.

But Catherine could more than hold her own. She had become a cop. Because she was strong. And a great fighter. If those gunmen approached her and her mom today, his money was on both Chandler women walking away alive.

He loped on, drawing more stares because he was so filthy. He took a circuitous route to the car, then popped the trunk in hopes of finding something to cover the car seat with. He was in luck: he found not one but two thick blankets and a towel from J.T.’s gym. He draped both of the blankets over the car upholstery and cleaned himself up as best he could with the towel. Then he sat in the car, locked it, and pulled out his phone, already impatient for word from Catherine.

He started to dial Tess when a text from Catherine came in.
BFT. I have her phone
. “BFT” meant that blunt force trauma was the cause of death. That was how he had seen it go down. He was glad she was taking McEvers’ phone. They might be able to identify McEvers’ murderer from her messages and texts, and to deduce if the crime was linked to Angelo’s abduction, and how Curt Windsor fit in.

Called it in
, Catherine texted next.
Waiting. Did you call Tess yet? If not, I will.

He texted back,
Go ahead.

He knew that NYPD CSU and the medical examiner would come to the scene. And a detective supervisor and detectives from the homicide squad. Cat was Special Crimes. She’d hand off the case and leave. Homicide would canvass the area for possible suspects and witnesses. Surely the texting waitress in the diner would reveal the abrupt departure of the cook. Vincent could be placed at the counter and wandering back to the bathroom, but he had kept his head down. Security cameras wouldn’t have been able to catch his face. Outside, witnesses had watched him, Vincent, go after the cook. One person had possibly recognized him.

He prayed that he and Catherine had been careful enough not to be linked.

She texted,
I can get a ride. Go look for cook.

He texted back,
KK
.

Careful.

O&O.
Over and out.

Vincent started the car and moved slowly into the traffic. Searching for the cook would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. There were over eight million people living in New York City. And yet, he and Catherine had found each other. They were destined, she had told him. She had insisted on that.

She had promised that.

If you were destined, that gave you an advantage over the cruel whims of fate. He knew that she believed it with her all her heart. He did too, although sometimes it frightened him to admit it. As if by owning it, he could lose it.

“So who are you?” Vincent mused aloud as he started the windshield wipers. He meant the cook. “What’s your part in all of this? And, more importantly, just where the hell are you?”

Searching for answers, he drove through the falling snow.

C
laudia had been a pro.

Cat thought of her as “Claudia” now that she had frisked her dead body and gone through her pockets. The phone Cat had lifted from the crime scene was a burner, but luckily for Cat, it contained the history of one other call besides the calls they had traded. It was a local New York number. Cat dialed it while she was waiting for NYPD homicide.

“Oh, my God, where the hell are you? Some guy was chasing me!” said a male voice. It had to be the cook.

“I can’t talk right now,” Cat whispered, trying to emulate Claudia’s voice. It was easier to masquerade as someone if you whispered. “Where’d you put it?”

“Like we agreed. The broken shingle.” The man’s voice was shaking. “Why can’t you talk? Where are you? You didn’t come to the diner.”

“
They’re
here,” Cat said, improvising.

“Bastards. God, I hope you can take them down. Joey’s number’s in the can. He’s willing to testify.”

Cat blinked.
Testify? About what?
She took a chance. “Heard anything about Angelo DeMarco?”

Tony DeMarco had managed to keep everything out of the papers, but Cat didn’t know how long that would last. Although the press might argue that the public had a right to know about such things, the better reason to go public was in case anyone could provide a viable lead. Hundreds of false leads would come in, maybe even thousands because the DeMarcos were so high-profile. But there could be gold buried among the dross. When a life was at stake, NYPD did everything they could. Cat had to assume DeMarco had told—not asked—the mayor to put pressure on the department. And on the Feds, too.

“Hello?” she said into the phone.

“The… TV’s on,” he murmured. “Hey… hey… what the
hell? Who are you
? Did you kill her?”

He disconnected. Cat heard a helicopter, then shouting and slamming doors at the end of the alley. The chopper was from a news outlet. Someone had alerted the press, or else a member of the press had successfully hacked a police call. Maybe they’d descrambled a scanner. At any rate, they were here before her homicide squad backup. Not good.

She grimaced, hoping the cook was too paranoid to tell anyone that someone had just called him using the dead woman’s phone. She pocketed the burner and stayed beside the Dumpster as she called Tess.

Cat explained everything and gave Tess Joey’s identification number. Then she said, “I really spooked the cook and I’m afraid he’ll try to call this Joey and warn him not to speak to anybody. Can you get down to Rikers and talk to this guy stat?”

“Yes. And it actually makes better sense if I go, since someone’s already tried to place you there once and you do not need to be asked why you went there again. If anyone asks me, I’ll just say I have a C.I. and they might leave Joey alone. But they do log visits, and it might be a tip-off to whoever did this.”

“It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Cat said. “Did you find anything at Lizzani’s?”

“I’m still there. The guy’s gone,” Tess said. “He left in a big hurry but I didn’t see signs of a struggle. Enough clothes were missing that I assume he packed a bag but he didn’t take care of business like someone is going away permanently. For starters, he left a cat.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. J.T. will take care of him.”

“He will?”

“I’ll convince him. Unless you want to take care of him,
Cat.
He’s really cute. He’s orange and he has little white socks, and his tail looks like it was dipped in white paint.”

“I’ve thought about getting a pet before,” Cat said, with a pang of temptation. “But with our schedules, I’m thinking it would be better for J.T. to take him.”

“As I figured. Okay, checking that off my list. Mr. Boston White Sox is taken care of. I’m checking with the post office after I go to Rikers, see if they have a forwarding address.”

“Any clues about where he went?”

“It doesn’t look like he had a car. I told Gonzales and Robertson we should have someone canvass to see if anyone saw him leave. Of course they probably hired him a limo.”

Cat heard a siren, a sure sign of the cavalry. They had probably realized the press was there and wanted to assert control as fast as they could so the crime scene wouldn’t be compromised. Speaking of which… she traversed the area, running her shoes over the surface of the alley to make doubly sure that Vincent’s footprints were erased. There should be no trace of him.

“Thanks for filling me in. It’s show time for me,” she told Tess.

“Break a leg,” Tess replied. “Preferably a bad guy’s.”

Then Cat put her phone away and went to meet her fellow officers.

* * *

Rikers

An island of four hundred thirteen acres situated in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx. It was not a place you ever wanted to find yourself. Overcrowded, dangerous. Desperation and rage coated the walls like cooking grease, and Tess had to remind herself to stay on topic, because she knew that some of the inmates had been unjustly convicted, and that some of those innocents were barely sixteen years of age. You could be tried as an adult at sixteen.

And you could be sentenced to hell.

Rikers.

She had gotten recalcitrant suspects to break down and confess by threatening to send them to Rikers. Of course that wasn’t up to her. She didn’t pronounce sentences, she just made the arrest. But she could put in a good word for someone who cooperated.

Let this guy be cooperative
, she thought, looking up at the gloomy sky. It was going to start snowing again any second. That would muddle the evidence at the Dumpster crime scene even more. That was convenient. It was also convenient that they had told Robertson and Gonzales that Claudia McEvers had wanted to meet with them. She and Cat hadn’t taken it all the way by telling the two FBI agents that she’d gone as far as arranging a rendezvous, but the dots would connect.

But maybe it had been too convenient.

Tess had a very bad feeling that they’d already known that, taken steps to ensure that McEvers would not make that meeting.

They’re dirty.

They were her prime suspects in Angelo’s kidnapping. Did they participate in Reynolds’ disappearance as well? That would give her and Cat more ways in to investigate them. And bust them.

Cops got fast-tracked to talk to prisoners, which was a good thing. She wanted to talk to Joey before he found out about McEvers’ death. As it was, he might have gotten a call from the cook, or seen it on TV, the way the cook had.

She saw security cameras everywhere, recording, watching. J.T. had not yet located the footage of Reynolds’ breakout. She wondered if it was being suppressed or if the cameras hadn’t worked during the blackout. Special Agent Gayle Thurman was the Special Agent in Charge. Aside from Hendricks from IA, no one from Thurman’s squad had questioned Cat about the case, which surprised Tess.

The badge was her golden ticket, and soon she found herself sitting at a Plexiglas barrier with a phone in her hand. On the other side of the barrier sat a very young, stressed-out guy with a thatch of red hair and matching eyebrows that made him look like Harry Potter’s friend in the movies, only if Harry Potter had lived in the Bizarro World.