“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” I said. “You mean he was released at the arraignment?”
“Yeah, he was bailed out. I’ll have the court papers pulled and let you know in an hour or two by whom and for how much. Suffice it to say that he jumped bail two weeks after the arrest.”
“So it’s still an active case?”
“Wide-open,” Catherine said. “There’s a bench warrant for his arrest.”
“Seriously? What did he do?” I asked. I signaled to Mike to open the door. I had no plans to stay on here at my cottage in the woods. “What’s the underlying felony?”
“He killed a man, Alex. Murder two,” she said. “Ko-Lin Kwan stabbed a man in a robbery, on Mott Street, right behind the office.”
“You’re my guardian angel, Cath,” I said. “Keep a copy of that warrant on your desk for Lieutenant Peterson. Speak to you later.”
“What’s Peterson got to do with this?” Mike asked. “And where do you think you’re headed?”
“You can call Peterson and have him pick George Kwan up. We’ll get him remanded without bail,” I said. “Catherine found a warrant for his arrest. I think the reason young Ko-Lin fled to China all those years ago is not exactly the story he told us. It’s more likely connected to the fact that he killed a man when he was fifteen years old. Get him in a cell in the squad room today and I bet he’ll start talking to me about anything we want to know.”
I was out the door and in the front seat of Mike’s car. There was still no sign of Kate Tinsley.
“Let me tell Kate,” Mike said, “so she can let Prescott know we’re headed back to New York.”
“Tell her nothing,” I said.
Mike looked toward the main building—thinking about saying something to Kate Tinsley, I knew—but got behind the wheel instead.
“Prescott’s had a week to figure this shit out, and he’s nowhere at all—which may be just where he wants to be. We’re taking this over from him—which would have pleased Paul Battaglia beyond imagining. This is an NYPD investigation now,” I said. “Fuck the feds.”
FORTY-THREE
Peterson called back before we were halfway to the city. He had sent two detectives to the Kwan town house before we left the grounds of Three Sisters. The housekeeper let them in. There were no security guards there to stop them from gaining access this time, because George Kwan had left the house.
“Now what?” I said. “Will you take me to my apartment so we can hang out for the day? Have a little privacy?”
“That’s a firm ‘no can do,’ Coop. Too risky that someone will find out you’re there—see you coming or going.”
“What’s the lieutenant doing about Kwan?” I said. “How about an Amber Alert?”
“You know better,” Mike said. “That’s a child abduction warning system.”
“So? He’s wanted, and he was fifteen when he committed the crime.”
“Peterson turned it over to the Warrant Squad, and he’s got Port Authority Police notified at each of the airports.”
“They’re on it, then,” I said.
Mike moved to the right lane as we approached the cloverleaf intersection of two highways just south of Scarsdale.
“Don’t take me back,” I said. I figured he was going to exit and make the loop to head northbound again. “It’s such a gorgeous afternoon.”
“Kate Tinsley’s head must be spinning by now.”
“It’s only a matter of time till James Prescott calls,” I said. “I love my freedom.”
Mike put his turn blinker on anyway.
“Rats.”
“Don’t give up on me so fast, Coop.”
Mike took the exit, but instead of reversing direction, he followed the large green overhead signs to the Bronx River Parkway. “How about a walk on the tracks?”
“That works for me in the daylight.”
“I just want to get a sense of what the scene looks like. You game?”
“Always.”
The Sunday traffic slowed us down a bit, but we passed the signs for the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo before getting off and taking the city streets.
The residential area of the South Bronx was across the highway, leading all the way east to Long Island Sound. This part was like a vast graveyard of train cars—thousands of them—that wouldn’t ever ride the rails again.
Mike drove a few blocks through deserted streets and came to a stop in front of a grand-looking building—one that looked totally out of place in this ’hood. A dozen or so people were walking in and out of it, and others were just standing beneath the entrance, which was capped by an enormous clock.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked. “And why are we stopping here?”
“It’s the safest place around to leave a parked car, Coop. That’s the station for the Dyre Avenue Shuttle I was telling you about. It’s actually the old East 180th Street station, but that building was put up in the elegant old days of train travel—see the year 1912 carved into the foundation on the front?—for the NYW&B railroad that Mercer was telling you about. Got a major overhaul a few years back. It’s the only part of that system that survived.”
“It looks like an Italian villa,” I said, “plopped down here by mistake.”
There was a magnificent stone carving of a man’s head, with wings that arched out over and around the giant clock.
“That would be—?” I asked.
“Mercury. The Roman god Mercury.”
“Fleet-footed messenger,” I said.
“God of travelers and tricksters and thieves,” Mike said. “This slice of the Bronx is the perfect site for him.”
“If only I could introduce him to Diana.”
The clock told me that it was 2:25. We got out of the car and started to walk.
“Am I looking for anything? Anyone?”
“I’m curious,” Mike said. “That’s all. Two guys with drug busts right in this general area—ten years apart, but now they both show up with connections to the same case. Which seems even more significant now that we know the contraband animal parts are smuggled in as part of the drug trade. And on top of that, the rail yards back against the Bronx Zoo. I like it. I like the way it lays out for us.”
“Some trainspotting, then?”
We walked away from the station and toward the acres and acres of tracks. It was clearly a maintenance area for transit departments, but nothing I could see looked like it had been maintained.
Mike was walking pretty fast. There was a chain-link fence that surrounded all the acreage of the yard. He kept pulling on sections of it, hoping to find a way to get inside. Warnings were posted everywhere—KEEP OUT; DANGER—HIGH VOLTAGE, and a few that said DON’T FEED THE CATS, but the C had been crossed out on those and graffitied over with an R.
There was no sign of life inside the fencing. No humans, but the signage made me imagine there were rats everywhere.
After seven or eight minutes, we still hadn’t covered much of the territory, but Mike’s banging and shaking had attracted a security guard.
“You lose something, buddy?” the guard yelled to Mike.
“Sorry. Didn’t think anyone was home,” Mike said, taking out his badge and showing it to the man. “NYPD.”