Part 5 The World’s Greatest Detectives #5
The female gardener—the source of the scream I’d heard—was huddled in the bushes behind Garrett, her hands covering her ears, looking absolutely terrified.
I’d missed the bulk of the firefight, having arrived just in time to catch the end of it.
But what I’d seen was clear: Merritt Garrett had single-handedly defended the open grave from the three attackers.
And then, abruptly, the most surprising thing of all happened.
A man popped up from the grave in which Garrett stood.
His face and hair were dirty, as was his Violent Femmes rock’n’roll band t-shirt, but like everyone else in the world, I’d have recognised him anywhere.
It was Aristo King.
And he was alive.
The cemetery was silent.
After all the gunfire—from the military drone down at the bridge and from Garrett and his assailants—the silence felt profound.
Snow drifted down through the air.
I ran over to Garrett and Aristo King, calling, ‘You guys okay?’
‘I’m hit, but not bad,’ Garrett said, glancing at the bullet wound on his upper left arm.
‘Miss? Are you hurt?’ I asked the gardener, still huddled in the bushes. ‘You weren’t hit, were you?’
‘No, no . . . I’m . . . I’m all right,’ she stammered. She clearly hadn’t expected to see a gun battle at work today.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Maria. Maria Dubrowski.’
‘Stay close, Maria, till we’re sure this area is secure.’
I turned to check on Aristo King.
He didn’t look all right. He looked shell-shocked. His mouth hung open. The plastic oxygen mask dangled from his neck. He and Garrett were still standing in the open grave, on top of a wooden coffin whose lid had been pulled open.
A yellow Post-It note was pinned to King’s Violent Femmes t-shirt. It read:
TITANIC OSCAR2
A final riddle.
‘Sir, are you okay?’ I asked again. ‘You’re not wounded at all?’
‘No . . . um, yeah . . . I’m . . . fine,’ the world’s richest man mumbled.
‘Hang back a second.’ I went over to check on the three men Garrett had shot, to make sure they were no longer threats.
They weren’t going to bother us anymore.
They were all dead, variously shot in the heart or head. Blood was still draining out of their bodies into the snow.
Two wore black Adidas tracksuits and trashy gold chains around their necks. They were big men, with broad faces, buzz-cut hair, unshaved chins and boxers’ noses.
Everything about them screamed Russian.
That made sense.
The Grandmaster had Russian ties.
The third dead man was leaner than the other two, less obviously thuggish.
And dressed better.
He wore a black woollen peacoat, leather gloves and grey trousers.
Garrett came up beside me as I stood over the dead man in the nice clothes.
‘Sam Speedman, meet Sergei Kazan, the Grandmaster,’ Garrett said.
Garrett turned to me and grinned.
‘Holy fucking shit, pal, we did it,’ he said, slapping me on the back.
But I wasn’t listening.
I was already hurrying back to the bridge to check on Audrey.
The chaos at the cemetery was over.
(Soon, a different kind of chaos would engulf us as every cop car, ambulance, fire engine and news crew in New York descended on the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.)
Paramedics from the local hospital arrived first and were gobsmacked to see that one of the people requiring their ministrations was none other than Aristo King, the richest man in the world.
The other was Audrey.
One set of paramedics threw a silver thermal blanket over King as he sat on the rear fender of an open ambulance—his head bowed, clearly still in shock—contemplating a day that had included being buried alive for a time.
A second ambulance crew took care of Audrey at the bridge.
As Xiao and I watched, they applied some temporary gauze bandages to her stomach wound, set up an IV, strapped an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and then loaded her onto a gurney and wheeled it quickly back to their ambulance.
I raced alongside the gurney, holding Audrey’s hand.
At the ambulance, the senior paramedic asked me, ‘How do you know her?’
‘I’m her . . . um . . . friend, her boyfriend . . .’ I’d never been in this situation before.
‘Whatever you are, you can’t help her right now. She needs surgery, ASAP. We’ll take her to Phelps. You can catch up with us there.’
Then he slammed the ambulance’s rear doors in my face.
I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do.
My mind—usually so organised and structured—was all over the place. In addition to Audrey’s condition, I was still concerned that King’s youngest daughter hadn’t been found yet.
Then someone tapped me on the shoulder.
Merritt Garrett. Bill was with him.
‘Sam,’ Garrett said. ‘The Feds are on their way from the cathedral. Before they get here, come look at something that your partner, Bill, found.’
I glanced at Bill. He gave me a short nod.
Garrett and Bill led me over to the three bodies of the killer-kidnappers.
‘What am I looking at?’ I asked.
Garrett said, ‘So, right after you took off to see what was happening down at the bridge, I cleared the dirt on the coffin and prised open the lid and found King inside it. But then these three assholes came running out from the trees over there, guns blazing.’
Garrett nodded at the tree line to the northeast. ‘I knew there had to be more than one of them.’
‘Yeah,’ I said distractedly. I was still worried about Audrey.
‘Anyway, while you’ve been down at the bridge with the -paramedics just now, Bill and I were checking out these bodies and Bill found something.’
‘Sam, look at this . . .’ Bill said.
He crouched over the Grandmaster’s body.
The dead man’s cell phone was peeking out of a pocket of his thick woollen peacoat.
‘Wanna take a look before our FBI friends get here?’ Garrett said.
‘Sure,’ I said.
Garrett picked up the phone in a gloved hand and tapped it a few times, using the basic unlocking code that every private investigator and Apple Genius Bar technician knows.
‘Jesus . . .’ Garrett said. ‘Look at who the Grandmaster’s last ten calls and texts went to.’
I leaned in to look at the phone.