City of Endless Night Page 11
“Would this Ms. Iyer have enough knowledge to circumvent the system?”
“No. No way. She’s pretty junior in the firm, hasn’t been with it more than a couple of months.”
“Tell us about your ex-partner, Lasher,” said D’Agosta. “The one who helped you with the original install. What kind of guy was he?”
“He was a strange one. Man, he gave me the creeps—not from day one, though. It came on kind of gradually. At first he was really closemouthed, didn’t say a word, but as we worked together more he sort of let down his guard. Oh, I can see why Ingmar hired him—he knew his stuff, no doubt about that—but he talked some strange shit.”
“Such as?”
“That the Apollo moon landings were faked, that the jet contrails you see in the sky are actually chemical trails the government is spraying on people to brainwash them, that global warming is a Chinese hoax. Unbelievable crap.”
Pendergast, who had been silent, broke in. “How did a fellow with these views pass Sharps and Gund’s allegedly CIA-level vetting system?”
Paine laughed. “CIA-level? Is that what Ingmar told you?” He shook his head. “Ingmar hires on the cheap, no benefits, long hours, no overtime, a ton of travel. The only vetting he does is to make sure you don’t have a criminal record, and even then he’d probably hire you because you’d come cheaper. Lasher seemed normal at first, but then he got weirder and weirder.”
“Anything in particular?” D’Agosta asked.
“It was mostly about women. A total creep. No social skills, asked them out on dates right in front of the whole office. Always angry, too, making disparaging comments, telling stupid jokes, bragging. Lot of talk about big tits—you know the kind.”
D’Agosta nodded. He knew the kind.
“He should’ve been fired the first time it happened. Ingmar tried to ignore it but eventually had to do something about it. He would have lost some of his valuable female employees otherwise. But it was probably Cantucci’s constant complaints that actually got Lasher the ax.”
This Lasher was looking better and better. And they still had a decent window before Singleton’s thirty-six-hour deadline passed.
“You know where Lasher lives?” asked D’Agosta.
“Yeah. West Fourteenth Street. At least, he lived there when he was fired.”
Time to wrap up this interview. “Agent Pendergast, you got any more questions?”
“No, thank you, Lieutenant.”
D’Agosta rose. “Thank you, Mr. Paine, a squad car will take you home.” He walked out of the room with Pendergast. Once the door was shut, D’Agosta said: “So what do you think? We’ve got two suspects, in my view: Lasher and Ingmar himself.”
Pendergast did not respond, and D’Agosta couldn’t read his face. “I mean, this guy Ingmar, he’s got the means, the motive, and the ability.”
“Oh, Ingmar was never a suspect.”
“What do you mean? You called him a ‘person of interest’ right to his face.”
“Only to intimidate him. He wasn’t behind the killing.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“For one thing, he would not have needed to break into the van to exchange the cell phone circuit board—he could have substituted the board in the office. Breaking into a van on a city street is a risky business, and there was no guarantee the two men would have both left it unguarded.”
“Lasher could have done it in the office, too.”
“No. Lasher had been fired prior to the service call.”
“Right, right, but I still think Ingmar is a suspect.”
“My dear Vincent, if Ingmar wanted to kill Cantucci, why would he do it in a way that would damage his own company? If Ingmar wanted Cantucci dead, he would have done it outside his home.”
D’Agosta grunted. He had to admit that made sense. “So that leaves Lasher as the only suspect? Is that what you think?”
“I think nothing. And I would advise you to think nothing, either—at least, not until we have more evidence.”
D’Agosta didn’t agree, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with Pendergast. In the ensuing silence Curry, looking up from his phone, said: “Lasher still lives on West Fourteenth Street.”
“Good, let’s send a team over there right away for a voluntary prelim. Nothing in-depth, just see if he’s a viable suspect, if he has an alibi.” He turned to Pendergast. “You want to go? I can’t, got a ton of paperwork.”
“I, unfortunately, have a previous engagement.”
D’Agosta watched his black-clad frame leave the office. He hoped to God his guys would come back with just enough to get the media break that Singleton and the mayor so desperately wanted by the end of the day—otherwise he’d never hear the end of it.
20
WHEN PENDERGAST ENTERED the office this time, Howard Longstreet—who was sitting in a cracked and comfortable leather wing chair, reading a report with a red-stamped classified jacket—motioned him wordlessly to the sister chair. Pendergast took the proffered seat.
Longstreet spent another minute or two looking over the document, then slipped the papers into an open safe by his desk, closed and turned the lock. He looked up. “I understand you’ve become more active in investigating these decapitation killings.”
Pendergast nodded.
“Perhaps you can fill me in on the most recent one.”
“The third killing was, like the second, carefully planned and executed. The security assets were neutralized in what appears to have been a precise and orderly sequence. The challenge of the victim’s having a safe room was dealt with in a most clever manner. It would appear the entire sequence was choreographed down to the last step.”
“You make it sound like a ballet.”
“It was.”
“Any fresh evidence?”
“We have the make and model of the getaway boat, along with the engine VIN. However, those were not illuminating. The boat was reported stolen that night from a nearby marina in Amagansett, and no physical evidence remained. We did, however, manage to retrieve a single, remarkably clear footprint near the scene—size thirteen.”
Longstreet grunted. “Planted?”
A smile. “Perhaps.”
“The police still cooperating?”
“The East Hampton chief was unhappy about a certain drive I took along their beach. But he and the NYPD are officially grateful for our assistance.”
Longstreet took a sip from his Arnold Palmer, sitting on a coaster on the nearby table. “The last time we spoke, Aloysius, we were dealing with two murders in which both victims were beheaded. I asked you to determine whether there was a connection between the homicides; if both were the work of a single killer. Now we have three such murders, in addition to six others that could best be described as collateral damage, and the question is even more pressing. Are we dealing with a serial killer?” He raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“I take it you’re aware of the NYPD’s theory?”
“You mean, that one individual killed Grace Ozmian, and that killing in turn inspired a second and third killing by somebody else. Is that what you think, too?”
Pendergast paused a moment before speaking. “The similarities in the M.O. between victims two and three are striking. In both cases the killer was methodical, calm, deliberate, and exceptionally well prepared. It’s likely they were the work of a single individual.”
“And the first one?”
“Highly anomalous.”
“What about motive?”
“Unclear. We focused on two suspects with strong motives in the first two killings. The suspect in the Ozmian killing was cleared. The second suspect, an ex-employee of Sharps and Gund, will soon be questioned. He looks promising, so far.”
Longstreet shook his head. “That’s the strangest thing. The victims seem so unconnected that it’s hard to imagine a linking motive. What does a mob lawyer have to do with a Russian arms dealer with an irresponsible socialite?”
“There you go again, Aloysius, talking riddles.”
Instead of responding, Pendergast waved a hand.
“You’re still avoiding my question: Do you or do you not agree with the theory that the first murder was committed by a different person than murders two and three?”
“It all revolves around the anomaly of the first beheading—why wait twenty-four hours? The other two happened almost before the victims were dead.”
“You’re still evading my question.”
“Another item I find interesting. No matter how violent or messy the murders may be, the beheadings were done with great fastidiousness. This would argue against the first murder being done by a different killer. On top of that, the first body appears to have been—unlike the others—deliberately concealed.”
Longstreet grunted. “Interesting, as you say—but on its own, inconclusive.”
“We’re in a logical bind. It could, as the police are assuming, be a copycat situation, especially since murders two and three have numerous points of congruency not found in the first. However, equally logically, the coincidence of three beheadings in the space of a week would strongly suggest a single killer. We suffer from a paucity of evidence.”
“You and your ‘paucities’ and ‘logical binds,’” Longstreet growled. “It almost got us killed by that recon party of Ugandan mercenaries—remember?”
“And yet we’re sitting here today, are we not?”
“True—that we are.” He reached over and pressed a buzzer on a nearby intercom. “Katharine? Please bring an Arnold Palmer for Agent Pendergast.”
21
ANTON OZMIAN SAT behind his vast desk of black granite, staring out the south-facing windows in his corner office, his gaze taking in the myriad lights of Lower Manhattan reflected in an overcast winter sky.
He looked past the bulk of the Freedom Tower, past the buildings of the Battery, and over New York Harbor toward the dark outline of Ellis Island. His grandparents, coming by ship from Lebanon, had been processed there. Ozmian was glad that some self-important, xenophobic bureaucrat had not tried to Americanize the name to Oswald or some such nonsense.
His grandfather had been a watchmaker and repairer of clocks, as had his father. But as the twentieth century drew to a close, it became a dying profession. As a child, Ozmian had spent hours in his father’s workshop, fascinated by the mechanical movements of fine watches—the fantastically tiny systems of springs, gears, and rotors that made visible that ineffable mystery called “time.” But as he grew, his interests turned to complex systems of another sort: the instruction registers, accumulators, program counters, stack pointers, and other elements that made up computers—and the assembly language that governed them all. This system was not unlike a fine Swiss watch, in which the ultimate goal was to make the greatest use of the least amount of energy. That was how assembly language coding worked—if you were a true programming acolyte, you constantly strove to shrink the size of your programs and make each line of code do double or triple duty.
A young man who’d grown up in the outskirts of Boston, after college Ozmian had passionately immersed himself in a number of unusual hobbies—composing, cryptography, fly fishing, and even, for a time, big-game hunting. But his hobbies fell by the wayside when he discovered a way to blend his interest in music and ciphers with his fanaticism for tight code. It was this marriage of interests that helped him develop the streaming and encoding technologies that would become the backbone of DigiFlood.
DigiFlood. He flushed at the thought of his company, whose stock price had soared for years, now being hammered because of the unauthorized leak of its most valuable proprietary algorithms onto the Internet.
But now—as happened so often—his thoughts returned to the killing of his only daughter…and the filth about her that had been exposed by that motherless ass-fucker of a reporter, Bryce Harriman.
A distinctive triple rap on the door of his office interrupted these free-flowing thoughts.
“Come in,” Ozmian called out without turning his gaze from the window.
He heard the door open; the soft tread of someone entering; the door closing again. He did not look around; he knew very well who had just stepped inside. It was his most unusual and enigmatic employee with the noble, ancient, and unusually long name of Maria Isabel Duarte Alves-Vettoretto. Over the years Alves-Vettoretto had worked for Ozmian in many capacities: aide-de-camp, confidante, expediter—and enforcer. He sensed her presence come to rest a respectful distance from his desk and he turned to face her. She was compact, athletic, and quiet, with a tumbling mane of rich mahogany hair, dressed in tight-fitting jeans and an open silk blouse with pearls. In all his years, he had never found anyone quite so remorselessly efficient. She was Portuguese, it seemed, with antique notions of honor, vengeance, and loyalty, whose ancestors had been involved in Machiavellian intrigue for eight hundred years. In her, the art had been honed to perfection.
“Go ahead,” Ozmian said, turning his gaze away from her intense face to stare out the window as she spoke.
“Our private investigators have submitted a preliminary report on Harriman.”
“Give me the short version.”
“All reporters are of questionable character, so I’ll leave out the minor sins and peccadillos. Aside from being a muckraking, ambulance-chasing, rumormongering, backstabbing journalist, the man is a straight arrow. A preparatory school product who comes from old, old money—money that is petering out with his generation. The bottom line is that he’s clean. No prior convictions. No drugs. He used to be a reporter for the Times, but then—for reasons that aren’t relevant—he made a lateral move to the Post. While that might seem like a career killer, he did very well for himself at the Post. There isn’t anything in there that will give us traction.” A pause. “But…there is one piece of information worthy of special note.”
“Go on.”
“His girlfriend—they had been dating since college—died of cancer about three years ago. He was very active in trying to help her fight it. And after her death, it became a crusade for him. He wrote articles about cancer awareness and possible new cures, and he gave a lot of visibility to various nonprofit cancer prevention groups. Also, even though he doesn’t make much money as a reporter, he made a variety of donations to various cancer causes, some of his own money and some from family trusts, over the years: especially the American Cancer Society. He also set up a small charitable foundation himself in the name of his deceased girlfriend.”
Ozmian waved his hand dismissively. Harriman’s good works held no interest for him. “Why do you say of special note?”
“Only that this interest suggests a point of entry for…extreme leverage. Should the need arise.”
“Has he written anything else about my daughter?”
“No. All his most recent articles have focused on the subsequent killings. He’s milking them for all they’re worth.”
There was a pause while Ozmian contemplated the cityscape beyond his windows.
“How would you like me to proceed?” Alves-Vettoretto asked.
For a long moment, Ozmian remained silent. Then he fetched a deep sigh.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “If these new murders are working him into a lather, maybe he won’t publish any more shit about my Grace. That’s my concern. Fighting this rogue release of our proprietary code is consuming all my time—if he’s no longer a problem, I’d rather not get distracted if I don’t have to.”
“Understood.”
And now, for the first time, Ozmian wheeled around in his chair. “But keep an eye on him—and on what he writes. If necessary, we’ll squash him like the roach that he is: but only if necessary.”
Alves-Vettoretto nodded. “Of course.”
Ozmian turned back around, giving another wave with one hand as he did so. The door opened softly; closed again. Bu
t Ozmian barely heard it. He was looking out over the harbor, his mind already far away.
22
EDDY LOPEZ DOUBLE-PARKED the squad car on Fourteenth Street, reported their arrival to the dispatcher, then got out with his partner, Jared Hammer. The two homicide detectives took a moment to check their surroundings. The place, 355 West Fourteenth Street, was an unremarkable five-story brick apartment building next to a funeral home. It was one of those neighborhoods that had suddenly gotten expensive with the rise of the Meatpacking District, but was still dotted here and there with crappy old buildings and rent-controlled apartments filled with sad-sack tenants.
As Lopez contemplated the façade, a cold wind scraped an old piece of newspaper along the street in front of them. The sun had already set, and not even a trace of afterglow stained the western sky. He shivered.
“Getting colder by the minute,” said Hammer.
“Let’s get this over with.” Lopez patted the pocket of his suit jacket, checking for his shield, his weapon, and his cuffs. Then he glanced at his watch and said, out loud: “Arrival five forty-six PM.”
“Copy.”
Lopez knew that D’Agosta was a stickler for paperwork and got pissed off when times were rounded off and details left out. He wanted their report on his desk by seven thirty—less than two hours from now. When Lopez worked backward from seven thirty to the present moment, and figured out what it would take, timewise, to get that report on D’Agosta’s desk, he figured it left them about twenty minutes for the interview. Barely enough to get someone talking.
Maybe the guy, Lasher, wouldn’t be home. At five forty-six on December 23, two days before Christmas, he might be out shopping. He hoped that was the case, because it meant he could get home on time for once, and maybe even do a little Christmas shopping himself.
He went over to the intercom. The apartments were labeled and, sure enough, the one next to 5B said LASHER.
He pressed the buzzer and they waited.
“Who is it?” came a faint voice.