Stuart Kaminsky: Blood On The Sun

He made the short dash to the door. Once on the street, he would know how to hide. He might have to do more killing, but he knew how to hide and how to survive.

He opened the door and Mac Taylor punched him hard. The blow broke his nose. The man who had been calling himself Arvin Bloom stepped back, didn't raise a hand to his nose. He charged Mac, who faked a punch to the head.

The man instinctively reached up to protect his broken nose. Mac's punch was to the man's solar plexus. The man went down hard, dazed, to a sitting position on the floor.

"You both okay?" Mac asked.

Stella was standing a few feet away, her Taser in hand.

"Sore shoulder," she said.

Aiden was picking up the table.

"I'm fine," she said.

Stella snapped the cuffs on behind the back of the man, whose nose was now gushing blood. He stood up.

"He doesn't give up," she said, leading the man back to the chair behind the table.

Aiden turned, reached into her kit and came up with large gauze pads. When the man was seated, she pressed the pads against his bloody nose.

"He can't afford to. His name is Peter Moser," said Mac, who leaned over, his face inches away from the man, and said, "I have another name you might be interested in: Harry Eberhardt."

They knew who he was and he knew who had told them. They had found Eberhardt, which meant that his ace in the hole, the documents, had been found and probably destroyed. No more leverage.

"How did you find him?" Moser said.

"You said that you'd sold the bloodwood cabinet yesterday," said Mac. "You didn't know who you sold it to. It was a heavy piece."

"It took at least two people to move it," said Aiden.

Moser looked up. He would find a way to get out of this. He had been in worse situations.

"We checked for fingerprints on the pieces near where the bloodwood cabinet had been. Lots of prints. One set in particular, fingers and palm, as if someone had put his hand against the wall to get some leverage to move the cabinet away from the wall. The print wasn't good enough to run through the system. The fingers and palm that made it were worn by acid and chemicals."

Moser was breathing heavily through his mouth.

"The print had traces of chemicals we don't usually find on fingerprints," Mac went on. "Monomethyl-p-aminophenol sulfate, acid, sodium hydroxide, potassium bromide. Know who uses those chemicals?"

Moser knew but said nothing.

"Photographers," Mac said. "They use it for developing and printing. Photographs are almost all digital now. Drugstores, photo supply stores do develop film, but the processing is all done by computerized machines. The only ones who still process their own film are professional photographers, the ones who do portraits, landscapes, homes, some weddings, fashion, upscale catalogues."

Moser didn't answer. Aiden, now wearing latex gloves, took the blood-soaked pad from Moser's nose, dropping it into a bag. The bleeding had slowed. She pressed a fresh pad on his nose. When it began to slip, she taped it to his face.

"We could have checked them all out," Mac went on, "but we didn't have to. We looked for those close enough to your shop so two men could carry that cabinet."

"Block and a half down from his shop," said Stella, remembering.

"Harry Eberhardt, photographer," said Mac. "We found the bloodwood cabinet in the room behind Eberhardt's studio. There's also a darkroom. Detective Flack told him you were facing three charges of murder and that one of the victims was the woman you had shot a few hours ago. Eberhardt gave me the sealed envelope. A representative of the federal government has it now."

Moser looked straight ahead.

Mac turned to Stella to take over.

"We were wrong," she said. "You didn't kill Asher Glick because you owed him money. You killed him because he had come into your shop. You gave him your name, told him you were Bloom, told him where you were supposedly from. He probably asked more questions about your youth. You would have done your homework, given all the right answers, but Glick knew you weren't Bloom. Your bad luck was running into someone who knew the real Arvin Bloom when he was a boy, knew you weren't him, knew he was dead."

"You probably made up a story," said Mac. "A good one, but not good enough. He had told you about the morning minyan. You promised to be there and bring evidence that you were telling the truth about your story."

"You got him alone," said Stella. "Improvised, killed him and tried to make it look like a ritual killing. And then when we came to you as a suspect you were afraid we'd dig and find out you were a fraud. So you decided to kill again, another Jew, in the same ritual way, a victim with whom you had no connection. The Hebrew words in chalk had no meaning. You probably got them off the Internet. Then you found…"

"… a good person to take the fall," said Mac. "Joshua."

None of the three investigators said a word for a full minute. Stella sat unblinking, looking at Moser. Aiden's arms were crossed as she eyed Moser with disgust. Mac laid his palms flat on the table.

There was a knock at the door and Jane Parsons entered. She was wearing her white lab coat and carrying a single sheet of paper, which she handed to Mac, who read it and then handed it to Stella, who, in turn, handed it to Aiden. Jane looked at the bleeding man, but seemed to have no reaction.

Moser showed no interest in what was going on. If he went to trial he would be convicted. The evidence was overwhelming. He would go to prison. That was a certainty. He might even get the death penalty. If he made a deal and confessed to avoid the death penalty, he doubted if they would let him survive more than a few weeks or months in prison, but he had a good deal to make. Even without the evidence Eberhardt had turned over to the police, Moser knew enough- names, dates, events- to cause havoc. They couldn't let that happen, couldn't let him go public. He would either have to escape within the next few days or be killed.

Mac looked at Jane. She looked tired. They were all tired and hot and sweaty.

"Thanks," he said.

Jane smiled. She had been doing that more often recently. Then she left the room.

"Good news," Stella said, looking at Moser, who couldn't keep from looking up.

They've decided to come through for me, Moser thought. He would be back on the street before the day was over and then he would have to hide before someone put two bullets in his head.

"We're removing the charge of murdering your wife from the list of charges," Stella said.

Moser's mouth tightened slightly under the bloody pad.

"Want to know why?" asked Mac.

Silence.

"Because," said Aiden, "the woman you killed in your bedroom wasn't your wife. She was your sister."

Moser probably wouldn't even be safe in an isolated, guarded, secured location, the kind where they put mob hit men who talk to save their lives, have someone ghostwrite their largely invented memoirs, watch television and stay alive. It was worth a try.

"I want to make a deal," Moser said.

"We don't have the authority to make deals," said Mac.

"Find me someone who does," said Moser.

"What do you have to deal with?" asked Aiden.

Moser looked at them individually with a tilt of his head and a ghastly smile and said, "Thirty-seven assassinations for a government agency, assassinations in nine countries, most of them in Korea, North and South."

"One question," said Aiden. "Why cabinetmaking?"

"It's a perfect meditation," said Moser. "Creating objects of utility and beauty with your hands touches the soul and confirms the wonder of the universe."

"We ran your sister's fingerprints and came up with a match for a Lily Drew from Cleveland," said Stella. "The Cleveland police found your aunt and uncle. We're going to have them identify you. You used your sister as a front and when you decided to run, you killed her. Anything you want to say, Evan Drew?"