City of Endless Night (Pendergast #17)(11)

6

AT FOUR O’CLOCK the following afternoon, Lieutenant CDS Vincent D’Agosta sat in Video Room B205 at One Police Plaza, sipping a cup of burnt, sludgy, stone-cold coffee and watching a blurry video recording from a security camera that overlooked the industrial lot in Queens where the body was found. It was the last of three lousy security camera feeds he had spent two hours going through, with no results. He should have assigned this one to a subordinate, but a part of him hated to inflict scut work on his people.

He heard a tapping on the open door and turned to see the tall, athletic figure of his superior, Captain Singleton, dressed in a sleek blue suit, his prominent ears sticking out, silhouetted in the dim light of the corridor. He was holding two cans of beer.

“Vinnie, who you trying to impress?” he asked, coming in.

D’Agosta paused the video and sat back, rubbing his face.

Singleton slid into a nearby seat and set one of the cans down in front of D’Agosta. “That coffee should be arrested and searched. Try this instead.”

D’Agosta grasped the ice-cold can of beer, pulled the tab, which made a welcoming hiss, and raised it. “Much obliged, Captain.” He took a long, grateful pull.

Singleton sat down and opened his own beer. “So what you got?”

“As far as the security videos, nada. There’s a major dead zone between these three cameras and I’m pretty sure that’s where the action took place.”

“Got any footage on the surrounding neighborhood?”

“This is it. Mostly residential—the closest store was a block away.”

Singleton nodded. “Anything to connect this killing with last night’s? The mob lawyer, Cantucci?”

“Other than the decapitation, nothing. The MOs in the two cases are totally different. Different weapons, different mode of ingress and egress. Nothing to connect the victims. And in the Ozmian case, the head was taken twenty-four hours after the victim was killed, while with Cantucci it was cut off immediately after the victim expired.”

“So you don’t think they’re related?”

“Probably not, but two decapitations back-to-back are a weird coincidence. I’m not ruling anything out.”

“How about the security feeds from Cantucci’s place?”

“Nothing. They weren’t just erased—the hard disks were taken. Cameras outside the house and on both corners of Third Avenue were disabled ahead of time. The guy who did Cantucci was a pro.”

“A pro using a bow and arrow?”

“Yeah. Could be a mob hit, meant to send some kind of message. This Cantucci was a real scumbag. Here’s a guy who brought down one family as AG and then went to work for a rival. He’s dirtier than the wiseguys he defended, twice as rich, and three times smarter. He had more than his share of enemies. We’re working on that.”

“And the Ozmian victim?”

“A wild kid. We had the CSU go over her room in her father’s place, just as a precaution—nothing useful. And we’re checking on her fast-living friends, but no leads so far. We’re still probing.”

Singleton grunted.

“Autopsy confirmed she was shot through the heart from behind, remained in an unknown location long enough to bleed out, and was then moved to the garage, where the head was taken about twenty-four hours later. We’ve got a ton of hair, fiber, and latents we’re working through, but I have a feeling none are going to pan out.”

“And the father?”

“Supersmart. Vindictive. Total asshole. He’s got a crazy temper, screams and yells and smashes stuff, then suddenly goes quiet—scary.” The man had been so quiet when he’d come to identify the body the previous afternoon—from a mole on her left arm—it had creeped D’Agosta out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got his people out there, quietly looking for the killer. I sure hope we get the guy first. Because if Ozmian’s people find him before we do, I fear the perp might disappear and we’ll never clear the case.”

“Isn’t he grieving?”

“Sure. In his own way. If his personal life is anything like his business life, seems to me his way of grieving would be to find the perp, whittle him alive, then make a bow tie out of his junk and hang him with it.”

Singleton winced, took another sip. “A billionaire vigilante. God save us.” He glanced at D’Agosta. “Any connection to the father’s business interests? You know, kill the daughter to get revenge on the father?”

“We’re looking into that. He’s been involved in a bunch of lawsuits, gotten his share of death threats. These dot-com people are like Vikings.”

Singleton grunted and they sat in silence for a few moments, thinking. This was Singleton’s way of managing a case, to sit down late at night when the place was quiet and they could just shoot the breeze. It was why he was such a good cop and a great guy to work for. At last, he shifted in his seat. “You know this guy Harriman from the Post who’s been poking around, asking questions, harassing my guys? Is he any good?”

“He’s a prick, but he gets the story.”

“That’s too bad. Because this is already big and it’s only going to get bigger.”

“Yeah.”

“And the FBI? What’s their agenda—and how’d they decide it was a federal case?”