The Rainy Day Killer (10 page)

17

Wednesday, May 1: mid-afternoon

Hank’s first clue that something was happening came immediately after lunch. He was on the phone with Ed Griffin, who’d responded to Hank’s earlier voice message. They were discussing his telephone conversation with the Rainy Day Killer when Hank began to hear sounds of a disturbance through the interior wall that separated his office from the empty captain’s office next door. When the noise showed no signs of letting up, he put Ed on hold and went out to take a look.

Workers
were removing all the furniture from Martinez’s old office. He asked one of the men what was going on.

“New stuff coming up from the fourth floor,” the man said. “This is all going to the warehouse.”

Hank went back to finish his call with Griffin. They’d sent the analyst a copy of the recording, and Griffin had been running through his impressions of the killer’s words, tone, and overall emotional state.

“Bottom line?” Griffin said. “It’s his early move in the chess game with you, not unlike the pattern he’s followed with the others, but like I said, there are a couple of interestin
g things we need to think about. First, I believe him when he says his first name really is Bill, and I agree with you he’s either a native of St. Louis or somewhere nearby in Missouri. That’s been my working assumption all along, and I think you played it well. In other cases when the detectives have said something that’s proven to be incorrect, he’s tended to jump on it and work it for all it’s worth like it’s actually true, just for the sake of throwing them off track. You gave him a chance to do that again and he ignored you, which leads me to believe you might have hit the nail on the head. You’re okay if I work that angle from this end? I’ll ask our St. Louis field office if they can take a look at it. They owe me a few favors.”

“Sure,” Hank said, “no problem.” Something crashed against the other side of the wall near his right elbow, causing him to jump.

“This other thing,” Griffin went on, “talking about Stainer and Montgomery specifically by name and suggesting he’s interested in them. I wouldn’t put too much stock in it at this point, if I were you. He loves to work the emotional angle. Chances are pretty good he’s pulling your chain just to raise the tension level and get you all hot and bothered. Still, I agree with your decision to tell them about it and, yes, I suppose they’re going to be looking over their shoulders for a while but, hey, they’re professionals. It goes with the turf.”

“
You think he’s bluffing? We’ve seen him elevating his own personal risk level from one case to the next. Do you think this might be the next level up for him? Stalking a cop?”

“It’s possible,” Griffin admitted. “With these guys, anything’s possible within the range of possibilities that go along with their type. As an organized offender who’s shown a somewhat higher than average intelligence, he’s definitely capable of upping the ante after he’s had continued success at a lower level of risk, but having said that, even if this is a new fantasy of his, I’m not sure he’s got the moxie to actually go through with it. Yet.”

The line was silent for a moment as Hank thought about it.

“Increased vigilance is never a bad idea,” Griffin said, “but I wouldn’t invest too much emotional energy in it
. He’s pulling your chain.”

“
Okay.”

Griffin ended the call by promising to send a written report for the Olsen c
ase file by the end of the day.

Hank hung up the phone and went for another look into Martinez’s office. It was now completely devoid of furnishings.
The movers were gone. He walked to the elevators, rode down in a crowded car to the ground floor, and went for a walk to get a cup of coffee at the chip stand he usually frequented.

He leaned against a telephone pole and watched the traffic, sipping.

Time passed.

He found himself scanning the pedestrians for a white male in a business suit, mid-thirties, well-groomed dark hair, short, slight build, not all that physically fit or strong but with good coordination.

He glanced up at the sky, which was beginning to fill with a flat sheet of cirrostratus clouds. A sign of approaching bad weather. Usually he paid very little attention to it, but now signs of rain on the horizon disturbed him. On the heels of that anxiety was annoyance that this guy had him watching the sky and scrutinizing passersby.

When his coffee was half-finished, he saw Detective Maureen Truly round the corner and walk down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. She wore a navy jacket
-and-skirt combination Hank hadn’t seen before. Her shapeless, straight brown hair was cut a little shorter than usual. When she reached a point directly across from the chip stand, she stepped between two parked cars and briskly jaywalked across the street. She bought a cup of coffee, stirred cream and sugar into it, and snapped on a plastic lid. Sipping, she strolled over to Hank’s telephone pole and looked up and down the street.

“How’s it going, Maureen?”
he asked.

“Well, Lieutenant. You?”

“Peachy.” He glanced up, hearing thunder. No, it was a jet taking off from the airport in Bering Heights. “How do you like it on the fifth floor?”

“Fine. Not much team work, but that’s the nature of the beast, I guess.” After having assisted Hank on the Jarrett case last year while on loan from the Cold Case Unit, Maureen had received a transfer to Intelligence, where she
’d been assigned the organized crime desk. It was work that better suited her information-gathering skills than did active homicide investigation, in Hank’s opinion.

“Something new this morning,” Truly said. “Peter Mah’s back in the country. He’s in New York right now. He actually flew in on Monday. It takes a few days for me to get these reports, so I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

“That’s all right, Maureen.” He knew that all intelligence related to the Triad was being funneled through Lieutenant Jarvis and his Chinatown task force before reaching her desk, thanks to the current direction in which the political winds were blowing. Truly was very low on the totem pole, and was in the difficult position of having to establish her own information network without much help from her peers.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I ran some checks this morning and it seems he’s still there. He
’s staying at the Westin in Times Square.”

Hank thought about it as he drained his coffee cup. When he’d saved the man’s life two years ago, Peter Mah was the 426, the
Hung Kwan
or Red Pole of the local Triad brotherhood, responsible for enforcement and, when necessary, execution. He’d fled the country when William Chow was elected Dragon Head, knowing that Chow would conduct a bloody purge of all his rivals, including Peter, to consolidate his power as head of the local lodge. If Mah had chosen to return to the United States now, it must be for a very good reason. This particular lodge held its elections every three years. Was Mah coming back to begin a campaign to replace Chow next year?

“Thanks, Maureen. I appreciate the heads-up.”

“Always, Lieutenant.” She hesitated. “I hear you’re getting a new captain.”

“Apparently.”

“It should be you. It’s a mistake. I know her; she’s a problem.”

“We’ll see.” He shifted his shoulder against the telephone pole. “It’s never a good idea to pre-judge a person.”

“Karen won’t like her. Not at all.”

They watched the traffic for a moment. Truly stepped fo
rward and glanced at him. “Take care.”

Hank nodded and watched her cross the street. She retraced her steps up the sidewalk and around the corner. He finished his coffee, threw the empty cup into the trash can
, and bought two more cups. He put them in a cardboard carrying tray, slipped a few packets of sugar, two creamers, and a stir stick into his pocket, and took them back to the ninth floor.

As expected, Helen Cassion was supervising the movement of her furniture into the vacant captain’s office. As he entered the busy Homicide bullpen, he watched her, arms folded, frowning at the movers who were jockeying a large cherry wood desk through the narrow door. He’d never met her before, but Martinez had
shown him her personnel jacket on Monday when Cassion’s secondment had been announced. It wasn’t exactly standard operating procedure for a subordinate to see the file of his new supervisor, but Martinez had repeated Bennett’s desire that Hank assist Cassion as best he could while she was occupying the captain’s chair.

“Do your thing, Hank,” she’d said as he flipped through the pages of the file. “Work with her. It won’t be easy, but then neither was Stainer, and look at the wonders you’ve accomplished with her.”

Cassion unfolded her arms, flicked a lock of hair out of her eyes, and stepped into the doorway, watching the movers like a hawk. She was tall and slender, and looked younger than thirty-one. She wore a black blazer, a white blouse, a black skirt, and black high-heeled shoes. The skirt was too short for business wear, reaching only to mid-thigh, but she obviously believed her legs were worth looking at and wanted to show them off. Her
medium-length hair was naturally dark and treated with blonde streaks, and it was cut in a careless-looking flyaway style that betrayed her love of the DC night life she reportedly enjoyed every weekend.

When she turned to look at him over her shoulder, Hank could see her Egyptian mother’s DNA reflected in her dark comple
xion, black arching eyebrows, dark eyes, oval face, and long, straight nose. Unpleasant lines ran from the corners of her nose to the corners of her mouth, giving her an expression of impatience and disapproval.

“You must be Donaghue,” she said, running her eyes up and down him before settling on the tray of coffee. “One of those better be for me. I need it right now.”

He held out the tray, and she grabbed one of the cups. “Cream or sugar?” he asked politely.

She shook her head, opened the drinking hole on the plastic lid, and sucked at it greedily. When she came up for air, she nodded. “Bring me one of these every morning and we’ll get along.” She stepped into the office. “Hey! Not on that side, over there! Didn’t you listen? Desk here, credenza there! Got it?”

Hank watched the movers wrestle the big desk back across the floor. He recognized it as having once belonged to Gerald White, the former chief for whom Hank had worked as a special assistant when he was younger than Cassion was now. It would have gone into storage when the new chief took over, but obviously had been plucked out again by someone in a senior position looking to furnish their office with the best available pieces without having to spend money that didn’t exist in their budget. It was a part of the bureaucratic game that some people played, scouring for furniture above what was normally allocated to their rank and rating, in order to suggest power and influence greater than the next person’s. That a former chief’s desk had ended up in the office of a lieutenant supervising the Missing Persons Unit suggested that Cassion indeed had some political juice within the department, or at least was working hard on it.

“We need to talk,” she said, walking up close to Hank. “Let’s go into your office.” She brushed by him, her breast making contact with his arm. “Now,” she said over her shoulder.

He followed her into his office and watched her sit down in his chair behind his desk. He dropped into one of his visitor’s chairs and leaned back comfortably, crossing his legs so that his left ankle rested on his right knee. He balanced his coffee cup on his calf and watched her look around the office.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” she said. “No ph
otos, no nothing. Typical guy. You’re not married?”

“No,” Hank said, “but attached.”

She shrugged, her eyes settling on him at last. “Older guys never know what to call it. They’re so embarrassed and awkward. Whatever. Let’s get a few ground rules settled right away before anything else. As supervising lieutenant, it’s your job to do all the paperwork for this unit and have it ready for my signature on time, and make sure it’s correct the first time. I’m not doing it for you, and I’m not signing anything that needs correction. Are we clear on that?”

“Crystal,” Hank said, sipping.

“I’ve heard the talk about you and the commander,” she went on, “and I won’t put up with you going over my head to her on everything because you two are cozy or whatever. If you have something she needs to know, you tell me and I’ll brief her on it as appropriate. Got it?”

Hank said nothing, but she plowed ahead without waiting for a reply. “I told her I disagree with you being the media contact on this serial killer case, because it should be the ca
ptain’s prerogative to talk to the press on something that important, but the chief’s signed off on it and there’s nothing I can do, so I expect a full briefing on everything you and the PIO come up with for public statements. Nothing goes out without my prior approval. Got it?”

“Sure,” Hank said.

“And another fiasco like what went down at the factory yesterday isn’t going to happen on my watch. You’re going to brief me ahead of time on every step you take from now on, and if I tell you to stand down, you stand down.”

Hank smiled, in a friendly sort of way.

She opened his top drawer and rummaged around in it. “Got any Aspirin? My head’s killing me.”