“We don’t know.”
Then someone else was speaking to the corporal. A hand went over the mouthpiece of the phone, and Rhyme could hear only mumbles. Poitier came back on the line. “I will take your number, Captain, and if I am able to find anything helpful I will give you a call.”
Rhyme’s jaw clenched. He gave the number then quickly asked, “Could you search the scene again, please?”
“With all respect, Captain, you have far greater resources in New York than we do here. And, to be honest, this has all been a little overwhelming for me. It’s my first homicide case. A foreign activist, a sniper, a luxury resort, and–”
“First homicide case?”
“Well, yes.”
“Corporal, with all respect–” Echoing the man’s own line. “–could I speak to a supervisor?”
Poitier didn’t sound insulted when he said, “One moment, please.” Again the hand went over the receiver. Rhyme could hear muted words. He thought he could make out “Moreno” and “New York.”
Poitier came back on a moment later. “I’m sorry, Captain. It seems my supervisor is unavailable. But I have your number. I will be glad to call you when we know something more.”
Rhyme believed this might be his only chance. He thought quickly. “Just tell me one thing: Did you recover bullets intact?”
“One, yes, and–” His conversation braked to a halt. “I’m not sure. Excuse me, please. I must go.”
Rhyme said, “The bullet? That’s key to the case. Just tell me–”
“I believe I may have been mistaken about that. I must hang up now.”
“Corporal, what was the department with the police force you transferred from?”
Another pause. “Business Inspections and Licensing Division, sir. And before that, Traffic. I must go.”
The line died.
CHAPTER 15
Jacob Swann pulled his gray Nissan Altima past the house of Robert Moreno’s limo driver.
His tech people had come through. They’d learned that Moreno had used an outfit called Elite Limousine when he was in the city on May 1. He discovered too that Moreno had a particular driver he always used. His name was Vlad Nikolov. And, being the activist’s regular chauffeur, he probably had information that the investigators would want. Swann had to make sure they didn’t get those facts.
He’d made a fast call via his prepaid–“Sorry, wrong number”–and learned the driver was home at the moment. His thickly Russian or Georgian accented voice sounded a bit groggy, which meant he’d probably worked the late night shift. Good. He wasn’t going anywhere soon. But Swann knew he’d have to move fast; the police couldn’t datamine with the same impunity as his technical services department but traditional canvassing could reveal the driver’s identity too.
Swann climbed out of his car and stretched, looking around.
Many livery workers lived in Queens. This was because the parking situation in Manhattan was so horrific and the real estate prices so high. And because limo work often involved shuttles to and from LaGuardia and JFK airports, both of which were located in the borough.
Vlad Nikolov’s house was modest but well tended, Swann noted. A spray of flowering plants, thick and brilliant courtesy of the delicate spring temperature and a recent rain, bordered the front of the beige brick bungalow. The grass was trim, the slate slabs leading to the front door had been swept, possibly even scrubbed, in the past day or two. The centerpiece of the yard was two boxwood bushes, diligently shaped.
The utility bill information, including smart electric meter patterns, and food and other purchasing profiles that the tech department had datamined, suggested that the forty two year old Nikolov lived alone. This was unusual for Russian or Georgian immigrants, who tended to be very family minded. Swann supposed that perhaps he had family back in his native country.
In any event, the man’s solitary life worked to Swann’s advantage.
He continued past the house, glancing briefly at a window, covered with a gauzy curtain. Lace. Maybe Nikolov had a girlfriend who came to visit sporadically. A Russian man would be unlikely to buy lace. Another person inside would be a problem – not because Jacob Swann minded killing her but because two deaths increased the number of people who might miss a victim and bring the police here all the more quickly. It made a bigger news splash too. He hoped to keep the driver’s death quiet for as long as possible.
Swann came to the end of the block, turned and slipped a plain black baseball cap over his head, pulled his jacket off, turned it inside out and slipped it back on. Witnesses see upper garments and headgear mostly. Now, if anyone was looking, it would seem that two different people had walked past the house, rather than one man doing so twice.
Every grain of suspicion counts.
On this second trip he looked the other way – at all the cars on the street in front of and near the house. Obviously no NYPD cruisers but no unmarkeds either that he could sense.
He walked up to the door, reaching into his backpack and withdrawing a six inch length of capped pipe, filled with lead shot. He wrapped his right hand around this, making a fist. The point of the pipe was to give support to the inside of the fingers so that if he happened to connect with bone or some other solid portion of his victim when he swung, the metacarpals wouldn’t snap. He’d learned this the hard way – by missing a blow to the throat and striking a man on the cheek, which had cracked his little finger. He’d regained control of the situation but the pain in his right hand was excruciating. He’d found it was very difficult to flay skin with the knife in one’s non dominant hand.
Swann took a blank, sealed envelope from his bag too.
A glance around. Nobody on the street. He rang the bell with his knuckle, put a cheerful smile on his face.
No response. Was he asleep?
He lifted a paper napkin from his pocket and tried the knob. Locked. This was always the case in New York. Not so in the suburbs of Cleveland or Denver – where he’d killed an information broker last month. All the doors in Highlands Ranch were unlocked, windows too. The man hadn’t even locked his BMW.
Swann was about to walk around behind the house and look for a window he might break through.
But then he heard a thud, a click.
He rang the bell again, just to let Mr. Nikolov know that his presence was still requested. This is what any normal visitor would have done.
A grain of suspicion…
A voice, muffled by the thickness of the door. Not impatient. Just tired.
The door opened and Swann was surprised – and pleased – to see that Robert Moreno’s preferred driver was only about five feet, six inches and couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds, 25 fewer than Swann himself.
“Yes?” he asked in a thick Slavic accent, looking at Swann’s left hand, the white envelope. The right was not visible.
“Mr. Nikolov?”
“That’s right.” He was wearing brown pajamas and was in house slippers.
“I’ve got a TLC refund for you. You gotta sign for it.”
“What?”
“Taxi Limousine Commission, the refund.”
“Yeah, yeah, TLC. What refund?”
“They overcharged fees.”
“You with them?”
“No, I’m the contracting agent. I just deliver the checks.”
“Well, they pricks. I don’t know about refund but they pricks, what they charge. Wait, how do I know they not ripping me off? I sign, I sign away my rights? Maybe I should get a lawyer.”
Swann lifted the envelope. “You can read this. Everybody’s taking the checks but it says you don’t have to, you can talk to an arbitrator. I don’t care. I deliver checks. You don’t want it, don’t take it.”
Nikolov unlatched the screen door. “Lemme have it.”
Swann appreciated that he had no sense of humor but he couldn’t help but be struck by the man’s unfortunate choice of words.
When the door opened, Swann stepped forward fast and drove his right fist, holding the pipe, into the man’s solar plexus, aiming not for the ugly brown cloth of the PJs but for a spot about two inches beyond – inside the man’s gut. Which is where blows should always be aimed, never the surface, to deliver the greatest impact.