Chapter 32 #2
‘In a criminal case,’ I said, ‘the prosecutor has to prove all of the factual elements of a crime. Think about it. They need to prove how someone died. If these women died from head injuries, then removing the head completely robs the prosecutor of being able to prove the cause of death. They don’t have the skull and the brain to examine.
They don’t know if the victim was strangled, pummeled with a hammer or a rock, or a knife, or even shot.
All they know is the victim’s head was removed postmortem.
It means that even if the cops did find a murder weapon they wouldn’t be able to prove it was used to kill the victim. ’
‘That’s really smart, and ice cold,’ said Lake. ‘It also gives us a major problem. Even if we can conjure a miracle to prove that Jane Doe is Teresa Chase, we can’t prove she was killed the same way, or by the same person as Molly Green.’
I said, ‘Not right now, but the decapitation is enough to link Patrick if we can prove the body is Teresa Chase. We’ve a short window before Vanessa’s trial.
Julian is still going to pull every big lever he’s got to get this trial on quickly.
He wants it over and done with to put time between the verdict and the election.
He wants his son in power and nothing is going to stop him. ’
‘How are we going to prove any of this?’ asked Bloch.
‘Didn’t you say Teresa Chase had a half-sister?’ I said.
‘Willow Chase, but that’s a dead end. Winchester looked for her for years,’ said Bloch. ‘She was a junkie who moved away and dropped out of the world long before Teresa was murdered. Chances are she’s dead too.’
I said, ‘If she was a serious junkie, there’s every chance she was arrested. That means there might be a DNA profile for her somewhere. If she is dead, then we need to find her anyway. Maybe she had a husband, or a partner, someone who might consent to allow a DNA test.’
‘That’s a real moonshot,’ said Lake.
‘Then get your rocket fueled,’ I said. ‘Harry, can you go talk to Vanessa?’
‘Sure. Where are you going?’
‘Those pictures of Amy are still online. I have to make a call,’ I said, putting on my coat.
‘Who are you going to call?’ he asked as I headed for the door.
I stood at the doorway, everyone’s eyes on me, waiting for an answer.
I shook my head, opened the door and made my way down the steps to the street.
Once outside, inhaling the cold Manhattan air, I huddled into my coat and started walking. I didn’t have a burner phone, and I preferred my call to this number wasn’t located in a cell tower near my office. Protection for the team, not for me.
There was no going back now. I was in this with both feet. All I could hope for was that I was the only one who got burned.
It was five blocks before I found a payphone. I used quarters for the call.
The phone rang three times before it was picked up. I said hi.
‘Eddie Fly, how you doin, Flyman?’
I had known the man who answered my call for over thirty years. At one time, we were like brothers. In many ways, we still were. We helped each other when we could. He was someone I could always rely on to do the wrong thing at the right time.
His name was Jimmy the Hat.
‘Not so good, Jimmy. I need some help.’
‘Money or muscle?’
‘Something a lot worse.’
I’d guessed it would take a day. Maybe a day and a half.
But in less than eight hours I found myself driving to a nice suburban neighborhood in Queens.
Jimmy used to say that he was in the problem-solving business.
It’s a much more polite moniker than saying you run the major Italian crime family in New York, but in a way problem-solving wasn’t a bad description, even if some of the problems he solved were very much of his own making.
When family was involved, problems tended to get solved quicker.
Still, eight hours was pretty fast.
It was dark when I pulled into the driveway.
I hadn’t been out here in a few years, and in some ways I was glad to see the place.
The lawn was neat and well kept, as always.
The house must have had a fresh coat of paint not too long ago.
A Cadillac with purple and silver-flecked paint took up the entire driveway.
Compared to my Mustang, the Caddy looked like an aircraft carrier.
The homeowner’s Dodge Ram was on the street, outside the house. I guessed his van was in the garage.
I pressed the door buzzer, and as I waited I thought about the events that would’ve taken place in the last eight hours.
I guessed that the identity of the photographer wouldn’t have taken long to establish.
The hotel where Amy had attended the party wasn’t part of a major chain and only a few years old.
There’s a lot of carefully curated and managed bureaucracy to navigate before you can open a hotel in Manhattan.
There are dozens of permits required, fire safety regulation standards to be met, hospitality and food safety certificates to obtain, then there’s the unions whose staff will provide the beating heart of the hotel.
That’s a lot of red tape to get tangled in.
Happily, or unhappily, depending on your point of view, for a fee and a modest ongoing monthly percentage, all of these potential pitfalls with unions and city departments can be navigated swiftly and smoothly.
It’s not cheap because there are a lot of union leaders and city officials who have to be given a lot of brown envelopes, but it can mean the difference between opening and running a hotel and not opening or running a hotel.
If you wanted things done in Manhattan, you paid Jimmy the Hat.
I imagined the purple Caddy and the black van in the garage had paid a visit to the hotel, and the occupants of the vehicles entered the security suite and viewed security camera footage where they identified a certain newly employed bartender, who was really a paparazzi working an angle.
That bartender’s name, address, social security and phone number would have been swiftly provided to the gentleman in the purple Caddy and his tall, quiet companion in the black panel van.
Then it would only have been the small matter of identifying the real-time location of this bartender, and inviting him into the quiet gentleman’s van for a ride here, to his home.
Tony Two Fucks opened the front door. It was difficult to tell, at first. A solid reinforced barrier of a door had been opened to reveal an equally impenetrable barrier of flesh.
‘Eddie Fly, ya fuck! How the fuck you doin’?’ said Tony.
Some people ask why Tony is called Tony Two Fucks – that is, until they hear him speak.
‘I’m okay, Tony. Denise said she’s keeping a lasagna warm in the oven for you.’
‘Fucking A, I love Denise’s lasagna. I think she’s half Italian, you know? She denies it, but I’m pretty sure. Come on through, we’re out back.’
My secretary and Tony were dating, and as a result even a reminder of Denise tended to help Tony moderate his cussing.
Denise didn’t mind it, but she worried about what her mother thought of Tony’s language and had been training him to broaden his vocabulary.
As a result, he was rapidly becoming Tony One Fuck, which was about the best that could be hoped for.
Tony No Fucks wasn’t on anybody’s bingo card.
The custom license plate on his Caddy read TNY 2FCKS.
He might need to get that changed.
He led me through the house and out the back door to a spacious yard with a separate one-story purpose-built building about the size of three shipping containers laid side by side.
It had its own central-heating system to include state-of-the-art temperature controls.
Soon as I walked in, I felt the high humidity and the heat.
It was really hot in here. It had to be.
For the pets.
The interior was divided into two spaces by a thick wall of triple-glazed glass.
It was dark on the other side of the glass, but I could make out a bed of straw on the floor over there.
The space I stood in was clean and set up like a workshop.
Tools hung on the walls, along with an assortment of handguns, shotguns and assault weapons.
A large worktable sat in the middle of the room with a vice at each end.
But this wasn’t a conventional worktable.
First, it was solid steel, and it had a series of purpose-built holes drilled through the center, for drainage.
The paparazzi photographer who had drugged Amy lay naked on the table, held down by thick leather straps on his wrists, thighs, waist and ankles.
On the other side of the table, wearing a leather apron over his bare chest, was the Lizard. His moniker hadn’t been given to him. He had insisted on that name and it wasn’t solely because of the large reptile tattoos he had on his arms and legs.
‘Eddie, the Lizard is glad to see you,’ said the Lizard.
He often referred to himself in the third person, which creeped me out, along with most other people he knew, but strangely nobody thought to mention it to him.
Certainly not in moments like this, when he held up the twelve-inch filleting knife to the LED lamp hung over the table, and inspected the edge of the blade.
The paparazzi didn’t say anything, which was understandable considering there was a ball gag strapped over his mouth, but I heard a high-pitched whine escape from behind the gag when he saw the Lizard holding that knife.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked.
‘He’s called Cory Hill,’ said Tony. ‘Freelance. I had a look at some of the pictures in his home studio. Likes to take photos of female celebrities in short dresses when they’re getting out of cars. Fuckin’ perv.’
Tony handed me Cory’s phone.