William Diehl - Seven ways to die

“Yup.”

“All she had to do was walk across the hall, if she had a key.”

“Yup.”

“Would you consider her a suspect?”

“Why not? So’s the maid at this point,”

“Just asking.”

“Until somebody makes a proper I.D., we can’t discuss the case with, or give up the victim’s name to, anyone but the crew. From what I gathered all Cluett understands is, Handley’s dead. No details. Right now, the maid knows more about the scene of the crime than anybody but us-and the killer.”

They peeled off their gloves, left the house and put their satchels in the back seat of Cal’s cruiser.

“Let’s get a few blocks down Lex before we put the red light on,” Cody said, taking out his cell. “Then we’ll have some fun wiggling through morning traffic.”

Bergman smiled. “My favorite thing,” he said.

Cody dialed Rizzo.

“Here I am,” came Rizzo’s answer. “Wilma’s got her friend from next door sitting with her. She took a sleeping pill and was dead to the world when I left.”

“She and her friend understand to keep mum.”

“Of course. I’m approaching the garage as we speak.”

“Do me a favor. Call Rick McKeown. Tell him we have a hot one. We need him to send two men to the address. One downstairs inside the front door. Tell him not to tape the outside of the apartment. We don’t want to advertise what’s going on. The other man will stand outside the apartment door. They don’t need to know anything except that nobody goes in or out until Wolf finishes. He’ll tape the crime scene only when I give the word, and the upstairs man stays until we release him.”

“Gotcha. We need a couple of Rick’s boys to canvass the neighborhood?”

Cody thought about that for a moment.

“Not yet, let’s keep it in the family until we brief the crew. Also the woman across the hall is Amelie Cluett. She’ll be going to work and that’s okay. I’ve already debriefed her.”

“Usual procedure?”

“Yup. We’re on our way back. Ring the church bell and tell everyone mass will begin when we get there.”

“Uh huh.”

“And see there’s plenty of doughnuts and coffee-good coffee, not that Starbucks shit-for all the parishioners.”

“Done.”

He hung up and turned to Bergman, eyeing the evidence bags.

“Okay, tell me about the stuff you’ve got there.”

“There are more names in the book than there are in War and Peace. Phone numbers, addresses, coded references, indexed and divided by friends, acquaintances, business associates, adversaries, favorite restaurants and hotels all over the world, you name it. Not a word about family. But, I mean, some of these names are kids he knew in grammar school.”

“Brothels?” Cody asked.

“Probably. I haven’t gotten that far into it yet. Why do you ask?”

“Our Mister Handley had a sex jones just as compulsive as his need for order.”

“That what Ms. Cluett told you?”

“Among other things.”

Bergman grinned. “Sounds like an interesting interrogation.”

“Yup.”

Cody thought for a moment, then added, “She’ll be calling back.”

“You think so?”

“She was very stressed. When she calms down she’ll remember other things. Some of them will be important. A lot of them will be just wind.”

Bergman whipped through the clogged streets, concentrating on traffic. Then he returned to the subject at hand. “The back half of the book is an hour-by-hour list of all his business appointments for the last month with tabbed reminders,” Bergman said. “And then there are the receipts.”

Cody held up the baggie containing the receipts and looked at them. “Thorough, neat, orderly.”

“Those are receipts for everything he spent for the last week, including his plane tickets to and from Cincinnati yesterday, where he had breakfast, lunch and dinner. And taxis-he didn’t hire a limo there.”

“How about the limo that picked him up when he got back.”

“No. Nor the taxi he took home from wherever he went after the limo dropped him off. Those cards are missing from the deck.”?

Bergman was the newest member of the TAZ crew, or at least half-member. He still had one foot in regular NYPD, and served as the group’s liaison with the hoi polloi of the force. He had an astronomical I.Q., had graduated from high school at sixteen and was top man in his class when he graduated, at twenty, from Harvard.

Halfway through his second year he quickly focused on two subjects that challenged and excited him: forensic pathology and criminology.

One afternoon, almost whimsically, he quit pre-med. His parents, enraged and embittered by what they considered their son’s defiance and betrayal, demanded he come to his senses.

When he refused, his father disowned him.

To Cal Bergman, experiencing the sudden rush of freedom from their stifling influence was like an aphrodisiac. He sold his car and headed for New York where he applied for and was accepted at the NYPD police academy.

He neither expected nor got any favors. He graduated top of the class and started his career as a patrolman. Bright, dependable, intuitive, eager, unassuming, professional, all defined his slow climb up the ladder where he made detective after eleven years. His sergeant was Frank Rizzo.

It took four years of careful screening and special training during which Cody and Rizzo developed the men and women whose unique qualities defined the TAZ before Rizzo brought his name up. They had been searching a month or two for one more cop to round out the crew.

“There’s this kid in the Fifth…” Rizzo began one day then stopped as he ran Bergman’s qualifications through his head.

“Yeah?” Cody said.

“Tall, good-looking guy. A real chick magnet.” Rizzo paused, staring into space as he thought some more about Bergman. He nodded. “Yeah, he was really good.”

“He couldn’t be that good if it took you four years to remember him.”

“Well, he was a quiet guy. Not pushy, you know. Not a glory hound. A very professional guy. Knew a lot about forensics. Very tough but not so’s you’d notice it. I got thinking about him last night.”

“Does this guy have a name?”

“Yeah,” Rizzo said. “Uh…Bergman. Maybe we should pull his record and see what he’s been up to.”

So they pulled his record. They interviewed him. And he had what Cody called “the wisdom for the job.” Only one problem: he didn’t want to lose his place at the Fifth Precinct. He was “emotionally attached” to the crew there. Go figure. But somehow Cody liked the sound of even that. It might even be a good idea to have a NYPD regular on the team, as practical-and public relations-liaison to keep the regulars’ noses from going out of joint. So Cal fit perfectly, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Calvin Bergman became the last jewel in the crown.?

They were three blocks down Lexington when Bergman rolled down the window and put the light on the roof. He kept nudging the siren as they wound their way south.

Cody held up the bag of receipts and shook them a little.

“What do you know about Handley’s last day on earth, Cal?”

“He had three meetings in Cincinnati. His limo driver picked him up at home at about four-thirty, a.m. Handley flew American. He was traveling light. No luggage. The flight was about twenty minutes late taking off and got in about seven forty-five. Had a room at the Airport Hilton and had breakfast in the room. My guess is he wanted to freshen up and brief himself for his first meeting which was a lunch at high noon with a man named Wilkes at a German place called the Hofbrau.

“His second meeting was at a bar in the Wilkes Hotel. A woman named Christine Sykes. Got there about four and the meeting lasted an hour-and-a-half. One vodka and rocks, two Manhattans. My guess is the lady was drinking the Manhattans. It’s a lady’s drink.