Линкольн Чайлд - City of Endless Night

“I wonder,” he continued gently, steering the conversation, “if you could tell me something about his relationship with his daughter, Grace.”

“Well, you know she was from the first wife. She wasn’t mine, that’s for sure. Grace — what a name!” She gave a poisonous laugh. “She and Ozmian had a close relationship. They were both cut from the same cloth.”

“How close?”

“He spoiled her rotten! She partied all the way through college, only graduating when her father gave a new library to the school. Then she did a two-year Grand Tour of the Continent, sleeping her way from one Eurotrash bedroom to the next. Spent a year clubbing in Ibiza. Then she was back in America, burning through Daddy’s money, supporting half of Colombia’s gross national product, I’m sure.”

This was new. During the divorce, the daughter had been more or less off limits to the press. Even the Post wouldn’t drag a kid into a divorce like that. But she was dead now, and Harriman could feel his reportorial radar starting to ping big time.

“Are you saying she had drug issues?”

“Issues? She was an addict!”

“Just a user, or a genuine addict?”

“Two times in rehab, that celebrity place in Rancho Santa Fe, what was it called? ‘The Road Less Traveled.’” She gave another derisive snort of laughter.

The martini was gone and the butler brought her another unasked, whisking away the empty glass.

“And what drug was at issue here? Cocaine?”

“Everything! And Ozmian just let her do it! Enabler of the worst kind. Terrible father.”

Now Harriman came to the crux of the matter. “Do you know, Ms. Ozmian, of anything in Grace’s past that might have led to her murder?”

“A girl like that always comes to a bad end. I worked my butt off in Ukraine, I got myself to New York, no drugs, no alcohol, ate healthy salads without dressing, worked out two hours a day, slept ten hours a night—”

“Was there anything she might have done, such as buying or selling drugs, getting involved with organized crime, or anything else that might have led to her murder?”

“Well, as far as drug dealing, I don’t know. But there was something in her past. Awful.” She hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t say — Ozmian made me sign a nondisclosure agreement as part of the divorce settlement...”

Her voice trailed off.

Harriman felt like a prospector whose pick had just glanced off a vein of pure gold. All he had to do was poke around and brush away some dirt. But he played it cool; he had learned that instead of following up with a probing question, the best way to let something like this come out was silence. People felt compelled to talk into a silence. He pretended to look over his notes, waiting for the second double martini to do its work.

“I might as well tell you. Might as well. Now that she’s gone, I’m sure the NDA is no longer valid, don’t you think?”

More silence. Bryce knew enough not to answer a question like that.

“Right at the end of our marriage...” She took a deep breath. “Drunk and high, Grace ran over an eight-year-old boy. Put him in a coma. He died two weeks later. Just awful. His parents had to remove him from life support.”

“Oh no,” said Harriman, genuinely horrified.

“Oh yes .”

“And what happened then?”

“Daddy got her off.”

“How?”

“Slick lawyer. Money.”

“And where did this occur?”

“Beverly Hills. Where else? Had all the records sealed.” She paused, finishing her second drink and plunking it down in triumph. “Not that sealing records matters anymore — not for her. Looks like that girl’s luck finally ran out.”

Howard Longstreet’s office in the big FBI building on Federal Plaza was exactly as Pendergast remembered it: sparely decorated, lined with books on every imaginable subject — and computerless. A clock on one wall told anyone who was interested that the time was ten minutes to five. With the two dusty wing chairs and small tea table arranged on a hand-knotted Kashan rug in the middle of the room, the space looked more like the parlor of some ancient English gentlemen’s club than a law enforcement office.

Longstreet was sitting in one of the wing chairs, the omnipresent Arnold Palmer on a coaster on the table. Shifting his large frame, he ran a hand through his long gray hair, then used the same hand to silently gesture Pendergast to the other seat.

Pendergast sat down. Longstreet took a sip of his drink and replaced the glass on its coaster. He pointedly did not offer one to Pendergast.

The silence stretched on and on before the FBI’s executive associate director for intelligence spoke. “Agent Pendergast,” he said in a clipped tone, “I’ll have your report now. I want to know your opinion, in particular, if the two murders were done by the same person.”

“I’m afraid I have nothing to add to the case report you already have on the first homicide.”

“And the second?”

“I haven’t involved myself with it.”

A look of surprise crossed Longstreet’s face. “You haven’t involved yourself? Why the hell not?”

“I didn’t receive an order to investigate it. It doesn’t appear to be a federal case, sir, unless the two killings are linked.”

“Son of a bitch,” Longstreet muttered, frowning at Pendergast. “But you’re aware of the second murder.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t think they’re linked?”

“I prefer not to speculate.”

“ Speculate , damn it! Are we dealing with one killer — or two?”

Pendergast crossed one leg over another. “I will review the options. One, the same killer did both; a third would define him as a serial killer. Two, the killer of the first victim dumped the body, and the head was removed by an unrelated party who then went on to try his own hand at a murder-decapitation. Three, the second murder was a simple copycat effort imitating the first. Fourth, the killings are entirely unrelated, the two decapitations coincidental. Fifth—”

“That’s enough!” Longstreet said, raising his voice.

“My apologies, sir.”

Longstreet took a sip of his drink, put it down, and sighed. “Look, Pendergast — Aloysius — I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t assign you that first murder as a form of punishment for your rogue performance on the Halcyon Key case last month. But I’m willing to bury the hatchet. Because, frankly, I need your peculiar talents on this case. It’s already blowing up, as you surely know from the papers.”

Pendergast did not reply.

“It’s vital we find out the connection between these two homicides — if there is one — or conversely prove there’s no link. If we’re dealing with a serial killer, this could be the start of something really terrible. And serial killers are your specialty. The problem is, despite the noise we made about the first body being brought in from Jersey and dumped in Queens, there’s really no proof it was an interstate crime — making our investigation delicate in terms of protocol. I can’t officially involve anybody else from our office — not until the NYPD asks for help, and you know that won’t happen unless terrorism is involved. So I need you to get in there and take a close, hard look at the second homicide. If this is the work of a nascent serial killer, I want to know. If it’s two separate killers, then we can back off and let the NYPD handle it.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Will you please quit with the ‘sir’ business?”

“Very well.”

“I know Captain Singleton, he’s a stand-up guy, but he’s not going to tolerate our involvement for long without a clear federal mandate. I also know you have a long history with the commanding lieutenant... what’s his name? D’Agosta.”