Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 3

He peeled back the tarp that covered the body, gave us ten seconds to take in the mutilation, and then discreetly covered it back up.

“As the vanity license plates would suggest, the vehicle is registered to Alden Investments, which is owned by Hunter Hutchinson Alden Jr. There’s no evidence of a struggle inside the car. Judging by this pool of blood, Mr. Chevalier was standing outside when he was decapitated.”

“Time of death?” I asked.

“Somewhere between 7:52 and 8:11 last night.”

“How the hell did you come up with such a narrow window?” I said.

Dryden almost smiled. “It was well below freezing last night,” he said. “Even colder here at the river’s edge than in the rest of the city, so I can’t give you a definitive time frame till I get him to the lab and run a thorough check on blood pooling, stomach contents, rigor — the usual indicators. However, we retrieved a cell phone from the ground under the driver’s side door, and it appears that the victim was composing a text to Mr. Alden when the killer came up behind him.”

He held it up so we could read it.

Cant find Tripp. Do you want me to

“The text is unfinished and unsent, so I can’t tell exactly when he wrote it,” Dryden said. “But then there’s a flood of incoming texts, all from Alden, all basically saying ‘Call me — where the hell are you?’ Since all of Alden’s previous texts were answered promptly, a logical conclusion would be that the time of death was somewhere between Mr. Chevalier’s last reply, at 7:52, and Mr. Alden’s text that followed at 8:11.”

“Cause of death?” Kylie asked.

“Excellent question, Detective,” Dryden said. “Many cops would hesitate to ask what killed a headless man, and they’d be wrong. There are no bullet wounds or puncture marks on the body, but there is a fresh bruise on his lower back consistent with the classic knee strike delivered in conjunction with a garrote attack. However, since his head was removed with a rope saw, which is quite messy, I can’t find any visible ligature marks in the field, so a garrote is only an educated guess. It’s also possible that he was strangled with the rope saw, and then the killer kept cutting. Either way, decapitation was postmortem.”

“I’m a city girl,” Kylie said. “What in the world is a rope saw?”

We knew that Dryden had a treasure trove of weaponry in his cerebrum, and we’d always suspected that he might have quite a few of them in his basement.

“A rope saw is a jagged-toothed carbon steel chain attached to two handles. It affords the user all the benefits of a chain saw without the noise.”

“Thank you, Chuck,” Kylie said. “You are, as usual, incredibly thorough.”

He nodded. “I’ll call you from the lab once I have further findings. And needless to say, if you come across la tête de Monsieur Chevalier, make sure you send it my way.”

“Sure thing,” Kylie said. She waited till we were twenty feet away before she whispered out of the side of her mouth, “He probably needs it to complete his collection.”

“I had Matt Smith run Peter Chevalier’s name through the system,” Kylie said. “Over the years he’s picked up hundreds of parking violations for Alden Investments, which is no surprise. People who ride in the back of limos would rather pay a fine than walk half a block. Otherwise, he was an upstanding citizen.”

“Upstanding citizens don’t usually have many enemies,” I said. “His boss, on the other hand, is one of the richest, most ruthless bastards on Wall Street.”

“And as good fortune would have it,” Kylie said, “rich, ruthless bastards are our specialty. Let’s go have a chat with Mr. Alden.”

We double-parked on East 81st Street and were about to get out of the car when the weathered-bronze front door opened. Hunter Alden was standing there with another man, who was about to leave.

“Holy shit,” Kylie said. “The short one in the coat is Silas David Blackstone.”

“You know him?”

“Oh yeah — smarmy little bastard. He’s the head of SDB Investigative Services. If you have a legal matter you want done, Silas Blackstone will do it. If it’s illegal, he’ll do it for more money. Let’s find out what he’s doing here.”

We got out of the car. The two men saw us immediately.

“Kylie?” Blackstone said. “Kylie MacDonald?”

He bounded down the steps and let us in the front gate.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Blackstone said. “I’ve been following your career, and you are just burning up a trail at NYPD, aren’t you?”

“This is my partner,” she said, ignoring the question. “Detective Zach Jordan.”

“Silas David Blackstone,” he said. “Jordan, you are one lucky devil. I’d kill to ride around town all day with this woman. Only with me, it would be a much better car.”

He extended his arm, and it was hate at first handshake.

He turned back to Kylie. “How is your husband doing these days? I heard he was ill.”

Smarmy was an understatement. He must have known that Spence was in rehab because he put air quotes around the word ill.

“He’s on the mend, thank you,” Kylie said. She pulled out her shield and held it up. “NYPD. Hunter Alden?”

“That’s me,” Alden said. “Come on up.”

Kylie and I walked up to the doorway with Blackstone right behind. “Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan,” she said. “If you’ve been consulting with Mr. Blackstone, you must know why we’re here.”

“Yes, Peter’s been missing since last night. I was concerned and called Silas.”

“And I picked up the one eight seven on the scanner. I came here to break the bad news to Mr. Alden.”

“How did you pick it up?” I asked. “The victim’s name wasn’t on the air.”

Blackstone’s lips curled, transforming his phony plastic smile into a genuine contemptuous sneer. “Yes, Detective, but there was a description of the car. Not many Maybachs on the road. They start at about four hundred grand. Plus, this one is tricked out with armor plate, bulletproof windows, and a complete—”

“That’s enough, Silas.” It was Alden.

“I just want them to know that’s a million-dollar car they’ve impounded, and we’d appreciate it if they returned it to you sooner rather than later. By the way,” Silas said, turning back to me and Kylie, “it’s pronounced Mybock, not Mayback. I guess your dispatcher is more used to Hondas and Toyotas.”

Alden raised his voice. “Enough, damn it.”

“I was just leaving,” Blackstone said. “Wonderful to see you again, Kylie. Remember, there’s always a job opening for you at SDB.”

He took the first three steps and then turned back to his boss. “You’re in excellent hands, Mr. Alden. These two cops are not just NYPD: they’re with NYPD Red, which is as good as you’re going to get” — he arched his eyebrows and shrugged — “from the public sector.”

Hunter Alden escorted us into one of those grand foyers that most people see only in movies. I’ve learned enough to know that directly ahead of us was what they call a butterfly staircase. Or as us poor folks say, the curved kind where you can walk upstairs from either side.

I could see by the grain that the floor was wood, but it gleamed like the ebony keys on a piano. Overhead was a crystal chandelier suspended from an intricately carved paneled ceiling. To the left was a pair of ebonized wooden doors inset with silver grillwork and beveled mirrors.

The only contrast to the monochromatic tones of black and gray was a glorious Christmas tree that was the seasonal focal point of the room. It towered past the iron-forged balcony railing on the second floor and looked like it would be as at home in the White House as it was here on 81st Street. It was like stepping into the holiday edition of Architectural Digest.