You Have the Right to Remain Silent (9 page)

Marian gritted her teeth. “I never disagreed with you, Foley.”

“A superior sort of man,” Holland went on, ignoring them, “or at least he thinks he is. Never questions his convictions, always positive that he is right. He feels qualified to pass judgment and dispense justice. Arrogant. But a little jealous of his authority, I would say—thus his ‘signature' on the killings. The ritualistic shooting out of one eye, the linking of the four together to demonstrate their equal culpability in whatever happened to arouse our killer's godlike ire.”

Interesting, Marian thought, that it was the arrogant one who spotted the arrogance behind the killings. “Are you a psychologist?” she asked him.

He gave her an ironic smile. “In a murder investigation, I am whatever I need to be.”

Oh my
. “I'd say the killings were meant as some kind of warning.”

Holland spread his hands flat on her desk and leaned his weight on his arms, staring her straight in the eye. “
Of course
they are a warning.”

Marian stared right back. “So
glad
you agree.”

“Why else bother with the ‘signature' if not to convey a message to someone else?”

“Exactly. You don't have to convince me.”

“I'm delighted to hear it.”

Page had watched the exchange with mild amusement. “So how did our judge and jury manage it?” he asked, bringing them back to the point. “Gather them together and kill them all at once? Kill them at different times and places?”

“The autopsy report ought to tell us that,” Marian remarked. “We'd be better off—”

“Larch—pick up.” Foley was on the phone, gesturing at her.

Marian punched the number two button and lifted the receiver. She heard Gloria Sanchez's tired voice on the other end. “Bingo,” she said without enthusiasm. “We been checking the cab companies and got something.” Sanchez sounded as if she was in her black street-smart mode today. “We found pickups near three of the victims' addresses on Saturday,” Sanchez went on, “all of them after noon, around one o'clock, like that.”

“Which three addresses?” Marian asked.

“All but Jason O'Neill's.”

“Where'd they go?”

“You ready for this? They went to Jason O'Neill's place.”

“Jesus,” Foley said. “They were holding a, meeting!”

“Looks like,” Sanchez agreed. “Here's the good part. None of 'em took a cab afterwards. At least, there's no record at the cab companies of pick-ups near O'Neill's address.”

“Because there wasn't any ‘afterwards',” Foley growled. “That's where they were killed—in O'Neill's apartment.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Marian said. “Our detectives have been in that apartment—when they got O'Neill's address book? They'd have seen evidence—”

“Not if the killer cleaned up, they wouldn't,” Foley insisted. “We gotta get the Crime Scene Unit to check the place.”

“What's going on?” Page asked.

“We'll need a search warrant,” Marian said. “I'll get on it.”

“Can I go home now?” Sanchez asked wearily.

Marian said everybody could go home. Foley was out of the room before she'd hung up the phone. Marian held up a finger to tell Page and Holland to wait and punched out Captain DiFalco's number. She told DiFalco—and the two FBI men—what Gloria Sanchez had found at the cab companies. “We'll need a warrant to search Jason O'Neill's apartment.”

“I'll start making calls right now,” DiFalco said. “It's too late for a warrant tonight, but with luck it'll come through sometime tomorrow. What the hell were they all doing at Jason O'Neill's apartment?”

“He was the only one of the four who lived alone,” Marian pointed out. “Whatever they were meeting about, they wanted it kept secret. Conrad Webb and Herb Vickers both lied to their wives about where they were going. Sherman Bigelow probably did too.”

DiFalco was silent a moment. Then he said, “I want you to get on to the Crime Scene Unit first thing tomorrow morning. Make damned sure they understand we're looking not only for evidence that a murder—or four murders—took place in that apartment, but anything else they can find that might give us some hint as to what that meeting was about.”

“I'll see to it.”

“Things are beginning to break, Larch. Stick with it.” He hung up.

“Yes, sir,” Marian said to the dead phone. She grinned happily at the two FBI men, pleased with what had been accomplished during the first twenty-four hours of the investigation. “Did you get all that?”

Page nodded. “The killer must have found out about the meeting … and decided he'd never have a better chance? All four of them there together.”

Holland raised an eyebrow. “And four grown men just stood there obediently and let themselves be shot one by one? How very considerate of them.”

“The killer would have had help. You yourself said it was a two-man job, possibly three.”

Holland shook his head. “Too convenient. Our murderer just
happens
to find out about the meeting? And when he shows up uninvited with a sidekick hit man or two, the victims don't suspect a thing and ask them in for beer and munchies?”

“Don't be so quick to dismiss it,” Page said sharply. “For all you know, that could have been exactly the way it happened.
You don't know
, Holland.”

Holland's smile had a touch of menace in it. “Nor do you.”

Marian started to say something but then clamped her mouth shut. Their problem, let them get themselves out of it. Page and Holland were glaring at each other, some long-simmering conflict between them bubbling to the surface. Marian could taste the tension in the air. The cause was more than Holland's acerbic personality; these two obviously had a history.

It was Page who put an end to it. “There's no point in arguing about something we'll know for certain in the next day or two. The autopsy report will tell us if they all died at the same time. I don't see that there's anything more we can do until then.” He looked a question at Marian.

“No, we're finished here,” she said. “For now, at any rate. Once we learn what the Crime Scene Unit finds in Jason O'Neill's apartment, we'll have a better idea of what to look for next. Are you coming in tomorrow?”

“Probably,” Page said. He put a card on her desk. “If not, you can reach me there. I'd appreciate a call. And now, why don't you come have dinner with me?”

“Yes, we'd like you to come,” Holland added dryly—more to include himself than her, Marian thought.

Page didn't even blink. “Is there a place around here you like to go?”

“Oh,” Marian said, “I thought I'd just go home—”

“One hour. You can give us an hour, can't you? I'd like to talk about something other than corpses and murder for a while. We should get better acquainted if we're going to be working together.” He smiled—a big, open smile. “Besides, we're on an expense account.”

The smile was infectious; Marian smiled back. “Well, I'm not. One hour, you say? You're on. And thank you.”

She cleared her desk and left with the two FBI agents, well satisfied with the day's work.

8

They went to an Oriental restaurant two blocks from the precinct stationhouse; Marian told the two men she'd never eaten there but had heard the food was good.

“The word ‘Oriental' has multitudinous meanings in the restaurant business,” Holland said. He peered in through the window. “It looks like the sort of place that would fix you a moo goo gai pan pizza if that's what you wanted.”

Page sighed. “I'm sure it's just fine.” He opened the door.

The restaurant's only window was in the front, next to the door. The subdued lighting helped hide the smallness of the place, and a smiling waitress seated them at once. Marian ordered Mandarin, Page Cantonese, and Holland Szechuan—the latter making his selection by pointing a finger at the menu without looking at it.
Très
bored. Marian and Page chatted easily while waiting for their meal; Holland was brooding about something, wrapped in his own thoughts. He sat absolutely still, his head held high; Marian wondered if he was posing, showing his profile to the world. She rather enjoyed having dinner with two attractive men, even if one of them was a bit of a snot.

When the food came, conversation stopped as they all three dug in. Marian had taken only three or four bites when a smiling elderly Chinese appeared at her side wanting to know if her dinner was all right. She told him everything was fine; still smiling, he left without asking the men whether they were equally well satisfied.

“Like it or lump it,” Marian said with a smile.

“I guess we'll have to,” Page answered. “Fortunately, it is very good. Not at all greasy.”

Holland abruptly put down his fork, stood up, and headed toward the men's room.

“What a moody man,” Marian said. “Is something bothering him? Or is he always like that?”

Page smiled wryly. “He's always like that. Holland's all right—you just have to get used to him. His problem is that he doesn't want to work for the Bureau.”

“Then why doesn't he quit?”

“He can't.” Page turned the conversation in another direction, not wanting to talk about his partner behind his back. They kept to neutral topics, steering clear of both personal questions and the crime they were investigating. Page tended to be conservative in his politics, hardly surprising in an FBI agent; there were very few liberal cops. Page was a casebook hard-liner when it came to protecting the security of America; he was a little more casual about the use of force than Marian was. But by the end of the meal that was all she'd learned about him. When Holland returned to the table, he still kept his distance—as if refusing to waste his energy on inconsequential dinner talk. These two really played it close to the vest.

“Well, that was good,” Marian said. “I'm glad you talked me into—ahhhhhh
yeah
!”

“Ah yeah what?”

“Ah yeah I just thought of something. About the case, the meeting the four victims held Saturday. Hell, why didn't I think of that before? Jason O'Neill called his girlfriend at five minutes after three Saturday afternoon—the girlfriend here in New York, not the one in Washington. The meeting must have started at one-thirty or two—”

“So it was over by three?” Page interrupted. “Mm. Then the others had probably left by then, is that what you're saying? If that's the case, your Crime Scene Unit isn't going to find anything in O'Neill's apartment.”

Holland came back from wherever he'd been and focused on what they were saying.

“So we still won't know where the murders took place,” Marian concluded glumly. “Damn. But none of the other three took a cab when they left O'Neill's place. And I can't see Conrad Webb riding the subway.”

“Could they have walked home?” Page asked. “Started walking, I mean. How far did they live from Jason O'Neill?”

Marian closed her eyes and visualized the addresses in her mental file. “The only one who lived within reasonable walking distance was Herb Vickers, but he was so out of shape he'd never try it on foot. No, they all had to have some form of transportation—if they left O'Neill's apartment alive.”

Page grunted. “Maybe the killer showed up in his car and offered them a lift.”

Holland held up a hand to get their attention. “There is one other possible interpretation. What was it O'Neill called his girlfriend about?”

“He left a message saying he'd be late picking her up that evening,” Marian answered.

“How late?”

“Half an hour, I think. Why?”

“He knew at three in the afternoon that he'd be late picking her up at … seven? Eight, nine? At least four hours ahead of time, he knew he was going to be thirty minutes late.”

“What are you getting at?” Page asked.

“I'm saying they may have planned something, the four of them. Something that couldn't be done until several hours later, running close to the time O'Neill would normally have been picking up his girlfriend.”

“They got together a second time on Saturday?” Marian thought that over. “Or just stayed together until it was time to do whatever it was. You know, that sounds pretty good.”

Holland gave them a mocking smile. “Unless, of course, O'Neill made his phone call while the meeting was still going on. Perhaps he saw they wouldn't be finishing until late and he made the call as a not-too-subtle hint that they were taking up too much of his time.”

“He
could
have made the call during the meeting,” Marian said, ignoring the mockery and fixing on the content. “Depending on when the autopsy report says they died.”

“So we're right back where we started,” Page said. “Without the results of the autopsy and the Crime Scene Unit's examination of O'Neill's apartment, all we can do is guess.”

But Marian wasn't quite ready to give it up; she looked at Holland. “If they were planning something for later, what could it have been? Dinnertime, Saturday night. What could they do then, besides eat?”

Holland frowned. “Something they couldn't do when they met earlier? Universal Laser is closed on Saturdays, isn't it?”

“Yes. But the watchman could have let them in.”

“Then he could have let them in earlier as well. Why wait?”

Page cleared his throat. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, may I again suggest we wait for the autopsy report? The right explanation may be something we'd never think of in a million years, no matter how elegant our theorizing gets. Let's put it away until tomorrow.”

Marian smiled. “That's right—we weren't supposed to talk about the case over dinner.”