We’d pounded on the door, and the cat freaked, ultimately knocking over the vase. That explained the crashing sound. It wasn’t the Dealer. But even before Elizabeth turned and led me into the bedroom, I knew he’d been there. I could feel it. Days ago I would’ve laughed at the idea of being able to feel someone’s presence. I would’ve made fun of myself, the full-on ridicule…professor with a PhD in psychology trips on a crystal ball and hits his head on a Ouija board.
Elizabeth put down the cat, saying nothing as we approached the bed. There was no blood, no gore to test the stomach and nerves. Yet that somehow made it even more chilling.
Dr. Amy Bensen was topless and tied up, but there was nothing sexual about it. There was also nothing to figure out in terms of how he killed her. One paddle under the right clavicle, the other paddle on the left rib cage.
Clear.
He shocked her over and over, jolt after jolt. So much so that the outlines of the paddles were practically singed on her chest, the skin crinkled and horribly warped. Portable defibrillators don’t gyp you on the juice.
“How long?” I asked. “How long has she been dead? A couple of days?”
“At least,” said Elizabeth. “Maybe more.”
No wonder the cat was a bit panicky. It was starving. I quickly went to the kitchen and found its food in a cupboard next to the stove. I filled the water bowl, too.
“You would think someone would’ve noticed a missing doctor,” I said, returning to the bedroom.
“Unless she was off for the weekend,” said Elizabeth. “Also, she lived alone…no men’s clothes in the closets, no wedding ring.”
I hadn’t noticed about the ring. I’d been too busy noticing what else she was missing.
Chapter 82
“THERE’S NO card,” I said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Not unless it’s somewhere underneath her.”
I knew the protocol. It was a crime scene. We weren’t supposed to touch the body. Tempting as it was, we’d know soon enough.
“Did you call it in?” I asked.
She reached for her cell. “About to.”
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Amy Bensen’s apartment was only a few people short of what the fire marshal would have called maximum occupancy. Save for Elizabeth, it was all guys. As I sat off to the side in a corner of the bedroom, on a tufted chaise longue that was circa last-century Laura Ashley, I entertained myself by watching most of them steal furtive glances at Elizabeth as she chatted up a fellow detective. They all treated her like one of the boys, but make no mistake, they all wanted her like the prom queen.
All total, it took another hour for Dr. Bensen to be photographed, poked, prodded, and swabbed for evidence. When she was finally cleared to be moved, there was no playing card anywhere underneath her.
Why not? Why didn’t you leave a card this time?
There was no way he was done killing. There was also something about the timing. Bensen’s file had been pulled from its storage box and was sitting right on top. We couldn’t miss it. Yet it was as if the Dealer knew that Bensen’s body wouldn’t be discovered right away. More than knew, in fact. It’s what he wanted. It’s the way he planned it.
I bolted up from the edge of the chaise, finding Elizabeth in the living room. She was off in the corner in an armchair, reading over her notes as the first responder. Her report would come later.
Later than she imagined.
“Judge Kingsman,” I said.
“What about him?” she asked.
“We need to get back to his house,” I said. “Right away.”
Elizabeth didn’t budge from her chair. She didn’t even flinch. “It’s four in the morning, Dylan,” she said. “Are you saying he’s the next victim? Because we’ll call him and then—”
“No. We can’t call him,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because there’s only a chance that he’s the next victim.”
There’s no hiding fatigue at four o’clock in the morning. “For Christ’s sake,” snapped Elizabeth. “What are you talking about?”
I sat down in the other armchair, leaning forward. Only she could hear me. “There are two possibilities,” I said. “The first is that Judge Kingsman is about to be killed.”
“What’s the second?”
I told her.
She didn’t ask if I was sure. She didn’t even ask me to explain. Elizabeth didn’t say anything to me, in fact.
Instead she reached for her phone, dialing the dispatcher at the Fiftieth Precinct. She wanted a detail outside Kingsman’s house, front and back. We were more than half an hour away, but the detail would take only ten minutes to get there, tops.
“No one goes in,” Elizabeth said to the dispatcher. “And no one goes out.”
Two possibilities.
Judge Arthur Kingsman was either a dead man or the Dealer.
Chapter 83
IT FELT like one of those sci-fi movies in which everyone else on the planet suddenly and mysteriously disappears.
We turned the corner near Kingsman’s house, in Riverdale’s Hudson Hill, the first hint of sunrise casting a yellowish glow over the entire street. Elizabeth had been keeping her hands warm in the pockets of my jacket during the ride, but she now took one out to tap my shoulder and point at my headlamp. She wanted me to cut the light.
Up ahead were the silhouettes of two cars parked at the bottom of Kingsman’s driveway.
I knew what she was thinking underneath her helmet; she didn’t have to say it. Why are there two cars?
There should’ve been only one in front. The other should’ve been on the street behind the house, covering the back.
Moreover, why were the cars parked directly in front of the house? Too conspicuous. They should’ve been on the edge of the property or down the street a bit. All they needed was a decent view, not a front-row seat.
I cut the engine, waiting for Elizabeth to step off. It was hardly a wait. She was already swinging a leg before we even came to a stop.
Sure, it was the graveyard shift, but did it have to be a rookie detail? With a huff, Elizabeth removed her helmet and practically shoved it in my hands. Some greenies were about to get an earful.
No, they weren’t. Elizabeth stopped ten feet from the first car. I caught up to her, and we were both looking at the same thing. An empty Honda Accord, lights off but the engine still running. Stranger still was that the front door on the driver’s side was slightly open.
I was about to ask if the NYPD counted Hondas in their unmarked fleet. Apparently they didn’t, because before I could ask, Elizabeth had drawn her Glock.
There was no doubt about the car behind the Accord, though. It was the same kind of sedan as Elizabeth drove. It was empty, too. The engine was off, all the doors closed.
“Tell me you carry a bug,” I said.
That was a b-u-g, as in “back-up gun.” My not having a weapon outside Dr. Bensen’s apartment was one thing. This was another. Something was up, and we were as out in the open as it gets.
Elizabeth reached down to her right pant leg and removed the Glock version of a pocket pistol, the G42, from her shin holster.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she whispered, handing it to me. She was only half joking.
“Don’t worry. I’ve only shot one other partner in the back,” I whispered in return. I motioned with my hand. “After you.”
The look on her face was almost as priceless as her slight hesitation. The irony, of course, was that there was no chivalry in this situation. I was technically a civilian, and she wasn’t. There was no way she was going to let me lead.