Robert Knightly - The cold room

‘You know that for a fact?’

‘I saw a child at Domestic Solutions and there were car seats in the van they used to transport their workers. Look, Dominick, I’m not asking for the moon here.’

‘Then exactly what are you askin’ for?’

‘Anything in Aslan’s file that might lead me to him, especially the name of his sponsor.’

It was Capra’s turn to pause. ‘I don’t know, Harry,’ he said after minute. ‘I’ll think about it. See, the thing is, I know that somebody’s computer is gonna be flagged if I use my own computer to pull the file up. Now, there’s a hard copy, too, and maybe no one’s lookin’ at it too hard. But maybe someone is. I mean, I got my family to think about.’

Sergeant Sabado favored me with his customary scowl, which I eagerly returned, forcing him to look away as I climbed to the squad room on the second floor, then found my cubicle. Hansen Linde was in his chair, awaiting my arrival. He greeted me by displaying a printout that must have been six pages long.

‘The phone records for the warehouse, going back three months. We should have a lot of fun with these.’

‘What about the names of the sponsors? Aslan’s and Barsakov’s.’

‘Not yet. Plus, I was only able to get a list of outgoing numbers. Incoming’s gonna be another couple of days.’ Linde tossed a Coles Directory onto my desk. ‘Whatta ya say we get crackin’?’

A Coles Directory is often called a reverse directory because it allows you to put a name and address to a phone number. This was exactly what we did for the next two hours. The job was painstaking and tedious, and ultimately disappointing. There were no outgoing calls to Manhattan addresses where live-in maids were likely to be employed. In fact, there were no calls to anywhere in Manhattan.

‘I need new glasses,’ Hansen finally declared.

‘Don’t get comfortable,’ I warned. ‘We’ve got a long way to go.’ I watched him lay his reading glasses on his desk, then rub his eyes. ‘First, I want to record how many times each number was called, then break the list into residential and business numbers, then organize the lists by neighborhood with the most frequently called numbers first.’

Linde groaned. ‘Whatta you say we just pick up the phones and start dialing?’

‘And ask what? Do you employ a maid from Domestic Solutions in your home? How long do you think it’ll take before someone calls Aslan and says, “Yo, wolf-man, the police are looking for your workers”?’

‘Alright, I get the point.’

‘Good, because that doesn’t mean we can’t knock on doors looking for Aslan Khalid. Given Barsakov’s sudden departure, Aslan’ll be expecting me to come calling. But I want the women left out of it.’

Hansen leaned back in his chair and I got the distinct impression that he was sick of my attitude. I wasn’t surprised. Linde worked for the First Dep, while I was a lowly squad detective. If life was fair, he’d be giving the orders. Still, I wasn’t finished.

‘How about a photo, Hansen? Did you, by any chance, make a copy of Aslan’s DMV photo?

Linde shook his head.

‘No photos. No sponsors’ names. No outgoing phone calls. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to impede this investigation.’

Hansen fixed his baby-blues on me for a moment, then smiled. Not his radiant, prairie-boy smile, but a smile nonetheless.

‘Feel free to stop me if you’ve heard this one, Harry,’ he said. ‘Ole and Lena decide to get married. They have a big wedding in their home town, followed by a catered reception, then head off to a honeymoon in Minneapolis. As they’re nearing the city, Ole puts his hand on Lena’s knee. Lena giggles and says, “If ya want to, Ole, you could go furdder.” So Ole drives to Duluth.’

It was eight o’clock by the time we left the Nine-Two. With Linde driving, we managed to check out a cluster of twelve residential addresses in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend. The addresses were all in apartment buildings inhabited by ordinary workers. That the residents of those apartments were more likely to be maids than to employ them was obvious at a glance. But it was also obvious, given the number of calls from Domestic Solutions, that Aslan was known to these individuals, virtually all Russian, that we interviewed. A few even admitted to recognizing Aslan’s photo, the one I’d pulled off the squad’s computer. But they hadn’t seen him and didn’t know where he was. Nor did they care to discuss the nature of their relationship with him.

At one point, as we bounced from address to address, Linde asked an obvious question: ‘What the hell are we doing, Harry?’

‘We’re knockin’ on doors, Hansen, in the hope, slim as it may be, that we’ll run across somebody with a grudge against Aslan. Someone who’ll sell him out for the pure pleasure of doing so.’

‘A needle in a haystack?’

Three hours later, we headed back to the house, re-crossing Brooklyn on Bedford Avenue, from Avenue Z only a few blocks north of the Atlantic Ocean, through Sheepshead Bay, through Midwood, though Flatbush and Bedford-Stuyvesant, finally into Williamsburg. There were traffic lights on every corner and most blocks were lined on both sides with closed storefront businesses. On the surrounding streets, the architecture ranged from squat five-story apartment buildings, to single-family homes on spacious lots, to high-rise housing projects. How many thousands of people did we pass? Fifty thousand? A hundred? Five hundred? This was New York stripped of its glamour. This was where all those people who work in the basements of all those New York skyscrapers live out their uncelebrated lives. I knew that Aslan might be anywhere among them. Or in dozens of other equally uncelebrated neighborhoods in Queens or the Bronx.

Thursday was fast drawing to a close. On Saturday, Aslan Khalid, ever the good shepherd, would gather his flock. I closed my eyes for a minute as Hansen drove across Empire Boulevard, imagining the women I saw at Blessed Virgin, their fresh, hopeful faces, the summer dresses they wore. I imagined them led along a narrow ramp into an airliner. Right this way, ladies. Watch your step.

‘Alright,’ I finally said, ‘let’s hear it.’

‘Hear what, Harry?’

‘Those little tasks I gave you, the ones you mentioned before. Let’s hear the results.’

Hansen slowed for the light, then threw the transmission into neutral before producing a small notebook. ‘Okey-dokey,’ he said. ‘First, the lab compared the tire-impression photos you took at the crime scene with tire impressions found in an oil spill at Domestic Solutions. They got a match.’

I shook my head. ‘The van can only be tied to Konstantine Barsakov. Let’s not waste time on it.’

Linde dropped his eyes to the open notebook without protesting. ‘The blood found beneath the bathroom tiles at Domestic Solution is the same type as your Jane Doe’s. A DNA analysis is ongoing. We’ll have results within a week.’ He looked up at me, but I waved him on. ‘The Barsakov autopsy was done early this morning by a pathologist named Moore. She estimates time of death between nine and ten thirty on Monday night.’

‘And the manner of death?’

‘Well, Moore’s calling it a homicide. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Barsakov’s prints were found on the gun and a test of his right hand for gunshot residue was positive.’

‘How about the finger that was blown off? Did they find gunshot residue on the finger?’

‘Don’t know, Harry.’

I waved him on.

‘I managed to contact Barsakov’s lawyer, Martin Cardiff, and, believe me, it wasn’t easy. Cardiff says that he and Konstantine split up when they left the precinct on Monday night.’