The Monarch (10 page)

“How much!?”

Jonathan smiled and leaned forward. “Eighteen percent.”

“Of ten million,” Lew said when he stopped choking.

“Yes, sir.”

“I think I just found my purpose in life,” Lew said, holding up his coffee cup.

“You and me both, my friend,” Jonathan said, clinking his coffee cup to Lew's like they were drinking champagne, which soon they would be. Lew looked in Jonathan's eyes and knew they weren't talking about the same career. Oh, they'd be doing the same thing, but not for the same reasons.

Not at first, anyway.

 

9

FCI Yazoo City

Yazoo, Mississippi

12:10
A.M.
Local Time

L
EW MADE SURE
the phone was in the exact position it had been before he'd called Jonathan, not that it was likely Quinn would notice if it wasn't. His desk was a mess of papers, receipts, and electronics manuals. Lew pushed the edge of the blotter to the side and smiled when he saw several travel brochures hidden underneath. If nothing else, this wasn't a setup. Of course, that didn't guarantee Quinn would make good on his promise if Lew went through with it. He needed some leverage.

Before he could search the office any further, he saw Quinn making his way across the yard. He only had moments before he'd have to commit one way or the other. After the phone call, he pretty much knew what he was going to do, but if he feigned indecision it might give him a chance to find that leverage he needed.

Lew sat down. He looked away from the television. It was just a rerun of
Match Game
, but the memory of what he'd seen there was still too fresh. He acted bored as he heard Quinn's footsteps approaching.

Quinn, damp and smoky, pattered in and immediately unlocked Lew's cuff. He strained up on his toes and peered out the window like a kid about to steal a cookie. When he was apparently satisfied, he slipped around his desk, fumbled with some keys, and unlocked a drawer.

“Everyone's either locked down or working the fire,” Quinn said. “The truck is parked at the loading dock. Get it done and then hide in the back with the body. The doc is busy treating some wounded men. The truck driver is locked down in the waiting room. We couldn't have planned it better.”

“What do you mean
we
, paleface. Did I miss the part where I agreed to do this?” Lew said, knowing he could stall for only so long. Quinn was right; if he was on the level, this was the perfect window to get this done.

Quinn took his hand out of the drawer, and Lew looked down the barrel of a snub-­nosed revolver. A long moment stretched out before Quinn flipped the gun around and offered the handle to Lew.

“Please,” Quinn said. Lew realized Quinn had gotten himself into a pickle and Lew was the guy's only way out. The funny thing was Quinn was
his
way out too. Lew took the gun, careful to remember where he touched it. He'd wipe those spots, and the other fingerprints on the gun would be his insurance.

“Aren't you worried that the autopsy will show a stabbed prisoner is full of lead?” Lew asked.

Quinn's reaction was silent but telling. “Colero's not gonna make it to the coroner, is he?”

“You better hurry” was all Quinn said. Lew stood up, put the gun in his waistband.

“How is Costa Rica this time of year?” Lew asked. The look on Quinn's face was priceless. But the good humor didn't last once Lew thought of what he was about to do.

L
EW PEERED INSIDE
the door leading to the loading dock. Miguel Colero sat on a beat-­up picnic table smoking a cigarette and looking bored. Lew figured he must have greased a few more guards to be here instead of in the morgue. Beyond Colero was the coroner's cube van, the back gate rolled up and waiting to be fed. Inside was a single pine box. Other than that, the van's cargo space was empty, save for a storage locker in each corner for supplies.

He eased through the door and across the concrete floor toward Colero. Lew reached for the gun in his waistband just as his victim turned around.

“What are you doing here,
ese
?” Colero asked.

Lew pulled out the gun and pointed it at him. Colero's demeanor remained unchanged.

“You're probably not going to believe this . . .” Lew said, then, “Holy shit!” Lew looked at the truck with shock plain in his eyes. Colero turned and Lew slammed the butt of the gun into the back of his head.

Colero groaned and fell face first onto the picnic table, like he'd been served up for a feast. Lew ran back and checked the hallway. When he saw it was clear, he put the gun back in his waistband and searched the shelves along one wall. It took him a few minutes, but he finally found some duct tape.

By the time he had Colero trussed up like a shiny gray mummy, the pint-­sized drug lord started to come around.

“
Chingada Madre
,” he said groggily.

“That's pretty bad language for an accountant, hombre,” Lew said. He tore off a foot-­long length of tape before he put the roll back on the shelf and checked the door again.

“What the hell are you doing?” Colero said, fighting his bindings.

“I told you, you wouldn't believe me,” Lew said.

“Try me,
hijo de puta
!”

“I'm saving your miserable, worthless life,” Lew said. He put the length of tape over Colero's mouth and then heaved him up on his shoulder. “But I can see how you'd be confused.”

 

10

Washington Heights

New York City

1:00
A.M.
Local Time

“S
LOW DOWN.
Y
OU'RE
not making any sense,” Emily said.

Dan Cooper, a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty years old, had shown up at her door ten minutes after she'd gotten home.

He was some sort of intern for the
New York Times
. He was short, slight, and had shaved his head and sported a patchy goatee in an apparent attempt to look older. It hadn't worked. He looked like a cancer patient with a dirty face. If he'd paid more than fifty dollars for the suit that hung on him like a sack, it would be a crime. He wore black and white Keds running shoes, one of them with the laces untied. He'd been struggling with a mishmash of folders and rolled-­up tubes under his spindly arms when she'd answered the door. But all of that wasn't why she'd let him in, it was what he'd said: “I know who murdered those ­people.”

But he'd been talking nonstop for ten minutes and still wasn't making any sense. Several of his rolled-­up tubes were unwound on her kitchen table. They were maps of New York, and Dan had drawn on them with several colored markers.

“I'm sorry. I get excited sometimes. Could I get a glass of water if it's not too much trouble?”

“Help yourself,” Emily said. She scanned the maps again while he went to the sink, but her focus waned when she realized Dan was standing beside her oven.

The metal case of cash had been waiting for her on the kitchen table when she got home. Once she got over the idea of someone being inside her apartment while she'd been gone, she looked inside. The cash from the limo was there, along with a folder with a single word on it: “WAGNER.” Then the kid's knocking had startled her, and she'd dropped everything on the floor. After quickly scooping the contents back into the case, she'd panicked and jammed the case into her oven before answering her door.

“Um, you still haven't told me how you got past the car out front.” Wagner had sent a car to watch her, but the masked man had warned her that might happen. Even so, it had been disturbing to her, so she wondered how this Chihuahua of a person had handled it with such composure.

Dan turned around, holding his glass with a self-­assured grin on his face. “I paid a homeless guy twenty bucks to pee on their car,” he said with pride before putting the glass of water to his lips. Emily shook her head. Maybe she'd underestimated this guy.

“Brazen,” Emily said. “Most seasoned reporters wouldn't have figured out how to get past a ­couple of FBI agents.”

Water shot across the room. Dan almost dropped the glass as he coughed another few ounces out of his lungs. Emily jumped up and went to him, taking the glass from him and patting him on the back.

“F . . . FBI?” Dan managed when he could breathe again.

“Yes. Who did you think they were?”

“Jeez, I just thought it was a ­couple of reporters. I think I'm going to be sick.”

“Not here!” Emily said, grabbing him and pushing him toward the bathroom. They almost made it.

Half an hour later, she'd finished cleaning up the mess. Dan lay on her sofa, his suit jacket hung on the back of a chair, and a cool compress rested on his forehead. She sat beside him and with a motherly touch, checked his temperature by pressing her hand to his cheek.

“Feeling better?”

“How am I going to be a reporter if I go to prison?”

Emily looked at his slight build and thought if he went to prison, a career choice would be the least of his problems. “You're not going to prison,” she said, thinking if anyone in that room was headed that way, it was she.

“I am. I know I am. Cripes, they're probably listening to us right now,” Dan said. She saw him getting worked up again and tried to think of a way to distract him.

“Tell me about this again,” Emily said, walking over to the table. “What do you think you found?”

“It's probably nothing,” Dan said, carefully sitting up. But she could tell by his voice he didn't believe that. By his voice and the fact that he was in her apartment. He'd apparently tried to get his coworkers to help him, but they wouldn't listen to him. She was his last-­ditch attempt for vindication.

“Humor me,” she said. “The dots all along the streets. What are they?”

“Traffic cameras,” Dan said, carefully standing and coming over to the table. They sat down. Talking about it seemed to relax him. And the sooner he recovered, the sooner she could get him out of here.

“What about them?” Emily asked, egging him on.

“During each murder, the traffic cameras in the area went dark for a short period of time. Just a few minutes. Just long enough to . . . well . . . do it and get away without being seen.”

“Do they know how he did it?” Emily asked, interested in the answer.

“No. Or not that I know of, anyways. But here's the thing, it's a pretty unique trick. So I started thinking, if I was smart enough to know turning off the traffic cameras would let me kill without being seen, what about my getaway?” This was where he'd gotten all excited last time and Emily had lost him. She wasn't sure if she finally got her mind off the money in her oven or something, but this time it was making sense.

“If you can't see him kill, you just look at the cameras outside of the dark zone and you can piece it together.”

“Right,” Dan said. “My uncle works for the traffic department, so I asked him for a listing of any other dark areas around the same time as the murders.”

“Good thinking,” Emily said, honestly impressed.

“Thanks. Well, the first two murders were dead ends. No other cameras went dark. I figure he probably got on a bus or went down into the subway or something. But here . . .” Dan flipped through the maps and pulled the one he was looking for on top. Emily could see it was a map of the area of town where the third murder took place.

“You got something?”

“Just after the time the third murder took place, a bunch of other traffic cameras went out in sequence. They started close to The Cloisters museum,” Dan said, pointing to the dots he'd marked. Then he drew along the streets with his finger, showing Emily where the line went. “And ended here, near Brooklyn.”

“What's the big red X mean?” Emily asked.

“This is where it gets really
Twilight Zone
-­y. Just before the last traffic camera came back on, there was a traffic accident right there. A truck hit a car, killing the driver. Then boom, just when the accident is over, the camera comes back on.” He stopped talking and smiled, leaving Emily feeling let down.

“It's interesting, but probably just a coincidence. There were likely a lot of accidents during that window.”

“That's what I thought at first. Then I saw the police report,” Dan said, digging through the papers. She grabbed his hand.

“Just tell me, Mr. Cooper.”

“Oh. Uh, okay,” he said. “The report said that while they found the remains of the driver of the car, there was no body in the truck. Kind of weird but not unheard of. I mean, maybe the driver fell asleep, woke up after the crash, and took off.”

“So?”

“Well, there was this big fire that burned up the truck and car—­and the body—­so none of it could be identified. But when the camera came back on, they were still burning. I played around with the images in Photoshop and got these,” he said, handing her two pictures.

One was of the truck's license plate and the other was a little more blurry but apparently was the car's license plate.

“Okay, the truck I'll give you, but how'd you get the car's license plate? The back end is hidden by the truck and facing the wrong way,” Emily said, pointing to the original unretouched photo.

“You can thank the fire for that. Look here,” he said, pointing at the window of the coffee shop the truck had smashed the car into. She could just barely see a reflection of the car's license plate, illuminated by the flames on the truck.

“Brilliant,” she breathed. She had totally underestimated this kid. She got a sense that it happened to him a lot.

“It was fuzzy and backward, so it just took longer to render. Anyways, I checked them and the truck was stolen the day before.”

“What?”

“That's not the best part. The car was licensed to a recent ex-­con who was paroled early. I'm still looking into that,” Dan said, digging through the papers again. “To this guy.” Dan beamed with pride, but Emily didn't recognize the man in the picture.

“Who is he?”

“Are you kidding? It's David Jordan!”

Emily stared at him, her expression unchanged.

“No?”

“Sorry,” Emily said, feeling let down again.

“Maybe it happened before you came to New York. The final murder victim, Bob Cummings, you know he was a news anchorman.”

“That I know,” Emily said.

“Well, Cummings used to be a cop. In fact, there was a huge racketeering case brought against him a few years back. It turned out he was clean, but the assistant DA had gone after him too hard, so he sued. Made a bundle of cash and was exonerated in the public's eye. He became a weird kind of martyr for blind justice. Besides the money, he got famous. Which made it easy for him to get a job in front of the cameras.”

“I still don't see—­”

“Cummings was exonerated, but his
partner
was guilty. Went to prison for it.”

“And just got out,” Emily said, feeling a chill.

“Now you're getting it. The guy killed in the car just before the traffic cameras came back on was David Jordan, Bob Cummings's ex-­partner.”

“Jesus,” Emily said tracing her own finger along the map lines backward from the accident to The Cloisters. “Follow the yellow brick road.”

“So what do you think?” Dan asked.

He's not the killer
, Emily thought. At least, not the one who had killed leaving his symbol in his victim's dead flesh. There was no way to know if he had been driving the truck or not, but Emily's loyal mind reasoned that even if it was him behind the wheel, he hadn't killed but protected—­protected his symbol, his reputation, and anyone else from being killed in his name.

“I think you're bloody brilliant!” Emily said, hugging him.

“D
ON'T LOOK AT
me like that, Church,” Emily said when she felt her hulking tomcat's green eyes burning into her. She was standing by the door paging through the pictures she'd taken on her digital camera. Dan had made the mistake of going to the bathroom and leaving his maps and photos lying out on the table. Was that her fault?

Before he'd left he'd told Emily what he wanted from her. A phone call, that was all. A simple phone call to his editors. Somehow he thought her endorsement would make them take him seriously. She knew a call from a struggling true crime author would make no difference whatsoever, but she didn't tell him that. She just wanted to get him out of her apartment. Of course, she had no intention of making the call. Her guilt was easily overridden by her excited conviction that The Monarch was innocent.

Churchill lay on the window ledge staring at her, his tail doing a slow, rhythmic snap every now and then that, to Emily, screamed disappointment.

“I didn't ask him to come here,” Emily said, though if he hadn't she wouldn't have had the pressure in her chest relieved.

Despite what she'd told Wagner and her publisher, sometime in her final year at Oxford, during a conversation with her father, Emily had first learned about The Monarch. She'd almost immediately fallen in love with the faceless, debonair outlaw. It hadn't made any sense, but she couldn't help it.

When the masked man had mentioned her “error in judgment,” he'd been talking about how she'd taken her school grants and loans and had used them to chase every rumor of The Monarch across Europe instead of finishing her degree. Her goal in life had become to find the object of her affection. Just as, apparently, it had become the masked man's goal. Now that he could use the killings as a way to—­

The frightening thoughts from the bus stop rose up in her mind again. What if these killings weren't just a convenient tool the masked man could use? What if he was
responsible
for them? He had power and pull. He also seemed to have a flair for the dramatic. And since almost every murder scene screamed,
Ta-­da!
, that didn't bode well for him just being an opportunist.

“There's something bigger going on here than some kid's dream of being Clark Kent, Church,” Emily said, flopping down on her couch.

Churchill rolled off the ledge and thudded to the floor. Emily wondered how he could do that. He just pushed himself into the unknown and somehow always rolled enough to land on his feet. He padded over and hopped up on the sofa, nuzzling his way onto Emily's lap.

“What does this guy want, Church?” Emily asked as she scratched behind his ears. He purred an
I don't know
.

Emily had her suspicions—­some of them horrifying—­but with thousands of dollars roasting in her oven, it was almost impossible for her to take the righ­teous stance.

“Maybe he
is
just a fan? Maybe he just wants more of the book?” Emily tried to lie to herself. Churchill twitched like he was trying to shake something off. “Yeah, I'm not even buying that one.”

Emily thought for a while longer and finally realized she didn't have enough information—­about either the murders or the masked man—­to make a decision either way. Her eyes fell on the oven across the room as she thought.

She pushed Churchill aside and took the case out of the oven, placing it on the table. Emily put the file on the table and took the cash out, making a mental note to find a place for it before going to sleep.