She was pale and had white-blond hair and a Marilyn Monroe or Madonna look. Even with most of her face beaten black and blue and her neck swollen and purple, she'd obviously been quite attractive. Now she was naked and dead and tossed like so much trash among the construction site's drywall screws and spackle-flecked-compound buckets.
"Let me guess. This fits with the Joel Rifkin profile somehow," I said.
Emily was already on one knee, reaching into her bag, flipping through her stacks of photocopied research.
She tore out a sheet.
"Rifkin's second victim was beaten and strangled."
"Check," I said.
"The dismembered body parts hidden in buckets of concrete."
"This isn't technically a bucket, but a pretty reasonable facsimile."
"Reasonable?" Emily said as the sound of hammers rained down from above.
Chapter 89
THE HOTEL'S SECURITY CAMERAS turned out to be a gold mine.
Standing in a cramped, broiling basement security room, Emily and I watched a computer screen, where Apt, in living color, casually walked with the dead girl through the Carlyle's lobby.
"You grinning son of a bitch!" I said, clinking the screen with my finger.
Apt was wearing an expensive-looking polo shirt and jeans, dressed elegant casual, summer suave. He had on a chunky gold wristwatch. We'd already spoken to the clerk, who said Apt had paid for his $2,000-a-night suite in cash. Watching him head for the check-in desk, I thought Apt's overall demeanor seemed calm, self-confident, not out of place in the slightest in the insanely expensive hotel. The fucker.
The best video footage of all came from the camera in the corridor outside his room. At three a.m., a difficult-to-make-out man carrying something large wrapped in a sheet walked toward the rear service elevator.
"So he did her in the room, then," Emily said, nodding.
I nodded back.
"It still boggles my mind that he would take the time to prepare a batch of concrete in the basement and lay her in it. Imagine, you're down in that pit in the middle of the night. He even took the time to trowel it smooth and seamless with a craftsman's pride. I can see why this guy was a commando. He must have antifreeze for blood."
After we obtained copies of the tapes, we went up to the eleventh-floor room Apt had rented out. There was lavish furniture everywhere, an antique rolltop desk, a cream-colored sectional, gilt-frame mirrors. The window of the sitting room had an incredible view to the south, the Met Life Building on Park and the Chrysler Building.
We found the hooker's bag behind the chic sectional. Among a plethora of interesting trade equipment was a wallet with a New Jersey State driver's license. Wendy Shackleton.
"Do you think Jersey Girl Wendy here crossed Berger somehow, too?" I said. "Or is Apt maybe starting his own Dead People Club now? Branching out?"
"My money's on Berger," Emily said.
The CSU team was already in the bedroom. They'd found a bloody chair leg and blood spatter on the sheets and headboard of the bed. One of the techs told us they'd also found textbook-quality fingerprints on the chair leg.
"He's getting sloppy?" I said.
"No," Emily said, staring at the blood on the graphic canvas over the California King sleigh bed. "I'd say it's more that he just doesn't care if he leaves evidence. His main concern and number-one priority was staging the body, turning it into a copy of Rifkin's second victim. The girl was just his project material, modeling clay, oak tag."
We stared out the window as the techs clicked their cases shut, getting ready to leave. As we watched, the sun came out from behind a passing cloud and turned the Chrysler Building's iconic spire to molten silver.
"Not bad digs for a boy from coal mine country," Emily said.
"Berger transformed the lad," I said. "It's your classic rags-to-riches-to-mass-murderer story."
"What now?" Emily said as we kept standing there.
"How about we both resign, and I call room service for a bottle of champagne?"
"Don't tempt me," Emily said as she headed for the door.
Chapter 90
AFTER A HOT, frustrating ride back downtown, we headed directly up to my boss's office on the eleventh floor of HQ to show her the hotel's security tapes.
"The stones on this guy," I said as we watched. "This place makes the Plaza look like a Days Inn, Miriam. And look at him. He's walking around like he owns it. He even paid for his room with a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills."
"What's the progress on getting Berger's assets frozen?" Emily said.
"The wheels of justice move slowly. Actually, in the summer in this city, they come to a grinding halt," Miriam said, frowning. "Last I heard we'll have the warrants by the end of the day, but that's what they said yesterday. Berger's lawyer, Duques, is the executor of the estate. Why don't you swing by and appeal to his civic responsibility. It's a long shot, but maybe it'll get him to shut his damn mouth to the press for five minutes."
We took another leisurely roll in the baking midday gridlock back up to midtown. Allen Duques's office was in a glass pagoda-shaped building on Lexington Avenue across from Grand Central Terminal. I parked my unmarked in the middle of a bus stop across the insanely congested street and threw down the NYPD placard on the visor so it would still be there when we returned.
Duques's firm was on thirty-three. The outfit had the entire floor. Right out of the elevator, the name of his firm, Hunt, Block amp; Bally, stood in yard-high stainless-steel letters on the Brazilian Cherry wall.
"Mr. Duques?" said the brunette waif of a receptionist behind the glass door after we asked to see him. Her fine-boned model's face looked amazed, as if we'd just asked her to tell us the meaning of life.
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Duques is booked all day," she informed us.
"Yeah, well, this is important," I said showing her my shield.
"Really, really important," Emily said, flipping her Feds creds for good measure.
Even with all our magic badge power, we had to wait another ten minutes before another attractive flunky, who looked like she ate maybe every other day, showed up.
I trailed a finger along one of the exotic-wood-paneled hallways she led us down.
"So this is what the corridors of power look like," I said, nodding thoughtfully.
Around a corner, Duques stood in his office doorway, smiling pleasantly. The preppy bespectacled gent shook our hands before getting us seated in his plush office. He reminded me of the fancy hotel manager, polished and perfect, not a damn wrinkle in his white shirt even when he sat down. I, on the other hand, was sweating like a pig in a hot tub, despite the A/C. How did these rich guys do it?
"Now, what can I do for the NYPD and the FBI?" he said after we declined his coffee offer. The trim, middle-aged lawyer seemed affable and down-to-earth, which most likely wasn't easy for him, considering his socks had probably cost more than my shoes.
"We were wondering if you could help us," I said.
"I can try," he said, eyeing us carefully. "What's the problem?"
"We have reason to believe that Carl Apt still has access to Lawrence Berger's money," Emily said. "To be frank, we're working on a warrant to have Berger's assets frozen, but it won't happen until tomorrow at the earliest. We know you're the executor of Mr. Berger's estate, and we're here to ask you to freeze action on all accounts before anyone else is killed."
"Hmm. That's a tall order," the lawyer said, leaning slowly back in his chair. "You're assuming a lot. I'm not even sure I should admit that my client had a relationship with Mr. Apt."
"Crazy assumption, I know," I said, "considering your client admitted to it and to his guilt in his signed confession before he killed himself."