VC03 - Mortal Grace (55 page)

The desk clerk was glugging a Rolling Rock while he watched a commercial on a black-and-white Sony Watchman.

“You let Jonquil’s visitor leave,” Cardozo said. “I asked you not to.”

The clerk thunked his bottle down. “There are three street doors to this hotel and I got one pair of eyes.”

A very bloodshot pair of eyes, Cardozo noted. “Too bad for your hotel. He killed her.”

“Shit.”

“I need to use your phone.”

Concentrating like watchmakers, the crime-scene crew performed their joyless ceremony. The still camera flashed; the videocam purred. The woman with the

measuring tape measured distances and made notations on a crime-scene sketch. The man with the black powder dusted surfaces for prints.

Cardozo searched the bureau drawers, sifting through panty hose. “She wore an ivory cameo ring,” he said. “I don’t see it. So all of you keep an eye out.”

His hand struck the edge of something solid. Three small leather-bound date books had been fastened together with rubber bands. He snapped the bands off and leafed through. The entries appeared to be straightforward listings of daily engagements.

“Now, what do you suppose that is?” The man from the medical examiner’s office was shining a flashlight into Jonquil’s mouth.

“Looks like a cocktail cracker. Maybe matzo.”

Cardozo could see something white and paperlike lying on her tongue.

The tape woman came across the room and looked. “Communion wafer.”

“How can you tell?” the medical man said. “The shape. Priests break wafers into quarters—don’t ask me why.”

“My priest doesn’t.” The print man was using an atomizer to pump powder around an ashtray. “We get a whole wafer each.”

“Pays to go to a rich church,” the tape woman said.

Cardozo closed the door to his cubicle and sat at the desk and studied Jonquil’s date books. They went back three years.

He sensed a cloud of whispers hovering over the pages, whispers he was only half hearing. There were errands to run, appointments to keep, part-time jobs, one-shot gigs. There was pain and solitude and at the same time a determination not to be crushed.

Back rent to pay, bill collectors to dodge. Doctors to consult, clients to service. A savings account, now totaling ninety-two hundred dollars, every deposit meticulously noted down to the cent.

She had listed the clients by first name—Bob, Tom, Jack, Abdul. Except for one—Wzn. Rzm. Mr. Rzm. showed up three times in the current year, and one of those was 4
P.M.
today. Rzm. appeared to be the last person to see her alive.

And possibly the first to see her dead.

Time ticked by, and Cardozo became aware of a faint throbbing in his stomach and a not-so-faint throbbing in his head. He went to the men’s room, dampened a paper towel in cold running water, and held the cool compress to his forehead for a slow count of ten.

He stared at himself in the mirror. He saw eyes like a beagle’s and a lined forehead that looked as if Mother Nature had been doodling with a dull trowel.

Is this any way for the man in charge to look? Or feel?

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the sink, trying to empty his mind for just a moment of all the thoughts and questions that were giving it cramps. An idea came suddenly to him—a kind of double exposure inside his head. He saw a transparent calendar laid over an opaque one. Two sets of entries lined up. And then it hit him in the brain.

He tried to walk, not run, to his cubicle. He cleared desk space with a sweep of his forearm. He laid the list of runaways’ known or estimated death dates next to Jonquil’s date book.

He began with the most recent, Sandy McCoy. The date was known. May twelfth.

He turned to May twelfth in the date book. His finger moved down the page.

10
A.M.
: Walk Sheba’s dog.

1
P.M.
: Audition for Club 82 sex show.

He skimmed to the bottom. No Mr. Wzn. Rzm. He turned the page.

10
A.M
.: Walk Sheba’s dog.

And there it was:
1
P.M
.: Wzn. Rzm.
—
lunch/matinee.

The death just prior to Sandy was Tod Lomax. Approximate date, first week in March. He flipped back in the date book to March first.

Walk Sheba’s dog
, but no Wzn. Rzm.

March second. No Wzn. Rzm. there either.

It was not until March tenth that he found 8
P.M.
—
Wzn. Rzm.
—
supper plus all-night-a-thon!

Gilmartin’s approximate death date: February or March of two years ago. In the date book on March twelfth:
1
P.M.
—
Wzn. Rzm.
—
matinee.

Wills’s approximate death date: January or February of two years ago. In the date book on January nineteenth:
1
P.M.
—
Wzn. Rzm.
—
matinee.

Vegas’s approximate death date: sometime between October and December of three years ago. In the date book on November fourth:
1
P.M.
—
Wzn. Rzm.
—
matinee.

Cardozo sat tapping his ballpoint, wondering if it was a genuine pattern or just his coffee-fueled imagination imposing connections.

The phone jangled. He realized he hadn’t heard the warning buzz. He snatched up the receiver. “Cardozo.”

“Our young friend Sandy was hitting the drug smorgasbord,” Dan Hippolito said. “His blood was loaded with alcohol, meth, Valium, crack, grass—and our old friend azidofluoramine.”

Cardozo frowned. “What form does this drug come in?”

“It’s a two-milligram pink pill.”

“Nell says one of her Johns gave her a pink pill. Says it sent her to Jupiter.”

“The two-mil dose would send you at least to Jupiter.”

“How would kids be getting this drug?”

“Possibly they all serviced the same John?”

“But where would he get it? You say there’s not even a street analogue.”

“The only thing I know of is the double-blind studies.”

“Who are the doctors running those?”

“The FDA published the protocols yesterday. Let’s see if I can access that on the computer. Okay, we’ve got Dr. Robles Milton in San Diego.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Join the club. We’ve got Dr. Randolph Blanca in Wichita.”

“Never heard of him.”

“It’s a her.”

Okay
, Cardozo thought.
Randolph Blanca is a her.
“Anyone else?”

“One more. Right here in New York. Dr. Muller Vergil”.

A ripple of electricity passed through the hairs on the back of Cardozo’s neck. “Those names are reversed, right? The last name is listed first?”

“Right.”

“So Muller Vergil is Vergil Muller.”

“You say that like you know him.”

“I sure do.”

SEVENTY

“S
HE SEEMS CHEERFUL,” JILL
said, “but all she does is watch TV. I don’t know if I should worry about her or be glad.”

“Give yourself a break,” Cardozo said. “Be glad.”

There were changes in the apartment, little touches of tidiness that it took him a minute to put his finger on. No newspapers or clothing on the sofa. No coffee cups on the table. No drinking glasses anywhere. There was a new smell, too—pot roast—and he realized he hadn’t smelled cooking in his sister’s home since the predrink days before she’d started sending out for fast food.

“How’s she eating?”

“Better than in the street.”

“I’ll bet you’ve put ten pounds on her.”

“But she’s still underweight.” Jill looked away. Her hair was cut and neatly styled—no camouflage kerchief, no loose strands. He flashed that she was happy and embarrassed to show it.

“Go say hello.” Jill gave him a push. “She’s in Sally’s room.”

Nell Dunbar was sprawled like a pouting princess across the arms of a velvet-covered easy chair. She was wearing jeans and one of Sally’s high school sweatshirts, lazily flicking channels with the remote.

Cardozo went and bent down to kiss her on the top of her head. “How’s your new life?”

“The truth?”

“The truth.”

“I miss getting high.” A smile peeked through the tough-girl frown. “But I like having my own room and I love having my own TV.”

“You and Jill getting along?”

“She’s no trouble. I can handle her. Except I wish she’d get Home Box Office.”

“Tell her to get it. Tell her it’s your birthday.” Cardozo lifted the remote out of Nell’s hand. “Put on some shoes. You two need a change of scene. I’m taking you out.”

On the dot of 6
P.M.,
Dr. Vergil Muller’s spherical face came bobbing like a bespectacled buoy through the door of Delilah’s pub. He saw Cardozo and smiled and pushed through the sea of loud, lubricated patrons.

“Lieutenant.” He extended his hand. “What a pleasure. May I join you?”

“It’s your regular table,” Cardozo said. “I’ve joined you.”

“In that case, be my guest.” Muller dropped into a seat.

The hostess brought his martini—a double, straight up. He waved a finger at Cardozo’s half-drunk diet Pepsi. “And another for my friend.” He lifted his glass and clinked with Cardozo. “Health to us all.”

“You’re looking well,” Cardozo said.

But Muller wasn’t looking well: he was looking damp and red-faced, as though this was far from his first drink of the evening.

“Summer’s truly the worst time.” Muller daubed his forehead with a Delilah-embossed paper napkin. “Once that thermometer hits eighty-five, half the population of this town goes crazy.”

Cardozo had put Nell and Jill at a table in the corner. Nell was making signals and he realized Muller had his back to her. She hadn’t been able to get a clear look at his face. She stood up from her seat and began circling through the crowd behind him.

“Don’t know how many evaluations I had to complete today.” Muller shook his head glumly. “But I don’t suppose summer’s any picnic for you either.”

“No season’s a picnic,” Cardozo said.

“Which is why I say, God bless happy hour.” Muller took a long, savoring sip. “What brings you to this neck of the woods, Lieutenant? It couldn’t be Delilah’s vintage diet Pepsi.”

“As a matter of fact, I happened to see your name in an FDA protocol.”

“Really?” Muller looked surprised. “Don’t tell me you have time to read those things.”

“Not ordinarily, but azidofluoramine has been showing up in some of our homicides.”

Muller fixed him with strangely blank eyes.

“Thought you might be able to help me.”

“Gladly.” Muller harpooned his olive on a toothpick and began nibbling. “But you have to realize that I only—”

“This is him.” Nell stood beside Muller’s chair, nodding. “I called him ‘sir.’”

Muller looked around. He saw Nell and his martini went over. Understanding seemed to come in two punches—recognition of the girl, and then realization that she was with Cardozo. The second punch did it.

Muller sprang to his feet. The chair did a backward flip into a waitress. A tray of drinks catapulted into free fall and Muller began shoving toward the door.

Now Cardozo understood the wax on the victims’ skin: Muller, not Damien. Eff had been supplying them both from the same pool of runaways.

By the time Cardozo pushed through the crowd to the sidewalk, twilight flowed through the street like a rising tide. His eye raked streams of homeward-bound office workers, cars parked legally and illegally at both curbs.

Muller stood at the intersection, fighting an old lady for a cab.

Cardozo went over and touched him on the elbow. “Come on. Be a gentleman.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Muller begged.

“My car’s down here.” Cardozo guided him around the corner.

“It wasn’t what you’re thinking. It was research. They told me they were over twenty-one. They signed releases.”

“Where would you be more comfortable talking?” Cardozo unlocked the passenger door. “Your place or the precinct?”

“Could I offer you something?” Muller said. “I’m going to make myself a martini.”

“No, thanks.” Cardozo looked around him. The decor of Vergil Muller’s Fifth Avenue co-op was a glossy magazine’s notion of an English lord’s country home—all brocade and oriental antiques and broad inlaid table-tops and dark oil paintings of hunting parties and horses.

Muller went to a carved sideboard and fussed with bottles and ice and a crystal pitcher. The shelves behind him displayed bone china that looked as if it had been in someone’s family since the Battle of Gettysburg.

He brought his martini glass around to the sofa, jittering like a nervous guest panelist on a TV talk show. “You’re wondering how I happen to know Nell.”

Cardozo nodded. “I’d be curious to hear your side of it.”

“It goes back to a case that the district attorney called me in to consult on. A priest had been murdered. A juvenile by the name of Francis Huffington had been charged.”

“Francis a.k.a. Eff.”

Mueller smiled as though they had discovered a blood bond between them. “Then you know him.”

“I know about him. I can’t say I understand much.”

“Eff has way-above-average intelligence, but he’s a sociopath. He was never completely formed. Somewhere along the line, something was left out of him.” Muller sank further into the sofa. “Maybe the cause was genetic, maybe it was environmental. But he never learned to identify with other people—to feel their pain as his, their joy as his. He sees other living things as dead matter to be used and sold, punctured, burned—you name it. That’s his problem.”

“If it were only Eff’s problem, I’d say let him have it. But it’s also the problem of anyone unlucky enough to stand in his path.”

“I take it then that you knew Father Romero?”

“I know a little about the case. I’d like to know more.”

“It was my job to evaluate whether Eff was sane, and whether he was telling the truth.”