Richard Hawke - Cold Day in Hell

The body was splayed on the ground on her back. The woman was petite. Maybe five-one. Long blond hair, clumps of which were saturated with blood. Her slender neck was a mess, the blood in the wound more black than red. Like a mass of insects, Megan thought. The victim appeared to have suffered several blows to the left side of her head, just above her ear. Her right arm was stretched out above her head, a pair of handcuffs attached to the wrist. Her left hand was resting on her chest, held in place by what looked to be a nail, hammered dead center.

“Who’d you piss off, cutie?”

Megan’s words were so soft they were barely discernible to Pope. She squatted next to the victim’s head and forced herself to gaze at the face. Perfect skin. White as wax. The large brown eyes were open, staring up at the underside of the canopy. Mascara ran from them like dark, blurred tears. A dozen sentiments crowded onto Megan’s tongue, but she forced them all to retreat. The revolving light of the silent ambulance was playing off the victim’s face, lending the illusion that there was some slight movement there. Megan closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer. Not so Pope could see, her hand dropped and she let her fingers trail lightly along the victim’s wrist.

IT WAS LESS than an hour after getting back from the park that Megan overheard Brian McKinney starting in on Nicole Rossman. He was cracking a can of Pepsi at the door of the so-called lounge.

“I hear we’ve got someone slashing blow-up dolls out in the park.”

He was talking to Ryan Pope, but his comment was aimed for as large an audience as could hear him, Megan being the prime target. To say nothing in response was to hand him a simple victory. To bother responding was doing the same thing. Lose, lose. Story of her life these days.

Megan said, “Better go check your locker, Brian. See if your doll is missing.”

McKinney gave a deliberately slow reaction, a world-class lousy show of surprise. “Why, it is missing, Detective. But I thought you said you were going to return it last night after you were finished with it.”

Calm, Megan thought. Inhale, exhale. McKinney went on, “I hear you caught yourself a real silicone special over at the Needle. Jackson ’s promised to share some of the shots he took on the scene. Bodacious. He swears he saw a pair just like them at Hooters the other night.”

“Does your mother know you’re this cute?”

McKinney leveled a finger at her. “Hey now, Lamby. Don’t go bringing my dear mother into this.”

“The victim was somebody’s daughter, Brian. It might not hurt to keep that in mind.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Thank you for reminding me, sir.”

Pope shot Megan a sympathetic look. She nodded tersely at the both of them and headed down the corridor toward Gallo’s office. As she rounded the corner, she heard McKinney ’s deliberate stage whisper: “Shake it now, Lamby chops.”

Gallo was at his desk, reading the medical examiner’s preliminary report. He looked up as Megan entered his office. “I’m looking at a number here, Megan. You want to give me a name?”

Megan dropped into the chair in front of Gallo’s desk. “Nicole Vanessa Rossman. Friends called her Nikki. Twenty-four. Single. Employed at the Tigress fragrance counter at Bloomingdale’s. Lived in a rental in Tribeca.”

“Says here there’s evidence of recent sexual activity. Quote, not gentle, unquote. Do we think she was raped?”

“Nothing at the scene takes us in either direction. If it was rape, the panties went back on before the gentleman moved on to his next order of business.”

“Cynthia Blair wasn’t raped.”

“That’s correct. However, both women were left at the base of a fairly obvious phallic symbol.”

Gallo’s eyebrows raised. “I hadn’t thought of that. They didn’t have cigars in their hands, too, by any chance, did they?”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Sorry. It’s just not something I’d have thought of right away.”

“Blame it on my therapy.”

Gallo ran his hand lightly over his hair. “Okay. First thing’s obvious.”

“Who was she seeing?”

“Right. Boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Wanna-be boyfriend. Next-door neighbor with a peephole drilled into the wall.”

“It should be so easy.”

“And the other thing,” Gallo said. “Probably more important. The connection between Rossman and Blair. Were they friends? Did they frequent the same restaurants or bars or clubs? Maybe the same health club. What was it you said Nikki Rossman did? Sold perfume at Bloomingdale’s? See if Cynthia Blair had any of that perfume at her place. Somebody knew the two of them. That’s the triangulation we’ve got to make. We know we’re not talking about a copycat here. We haven’t released the information about Cynthia Blair’s hand being affixed to her chest.”

“And so far, Jimmy Puck doesn’t seem to have gotten the word.”

Gallo took a beat. “We both knew that Blair’s pregnancy was bound to come out sooner or later.”

“It would have been nice if it had come from us. I mean officially.”

“There’s a message for either of us to call Cynthia’s mother in Tucson,” Gallo said. “If it doesn’t make any difference to you, I’m going to make the call.”

“ McKinney should make the fucking call,” Megan said pointedly.

“You wouldn’t do that to the Blairs.”

“No, I guess you’re right. You know, he’s already started, Joe. Just now I had to do a little dance with him about Nicole. For Christ’s sake, she’s practically still warm.”

“No one ever accused McKinney of bucking for the Mr. Sensitivity merit badge.”

“Let’s forget him,” Megan said. “I’m sorry I brought him up.”

“Look, maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the word on Cynthia being pregnant will bring someone forward. Contacting every obstetrician in the city to see if they were seeing Blair hasn’t exactly been the lean-and-mean approach. It could prove to be a decent leak.”

“Do you want to pin a badge on Jimmy Puck and make it official? This is our case. How about we control the flow of information? Well, forget it. It’s done. Cynthia’s going to be background noise anyway, now that there’s fresh blood. Nicole Rossman was a pretty little sexpot, to put it bluntly. I’m sure you know there’s already a pool on how many days in a row her photo will make front page of the Post .”

“We need a connection between the two, and quick,” Gallo said. “If this is just random women…Well, how many random women do we have in Manhattan alone?” Gallo’s phone rang. He grabbed it. “Yeah? Okay. Tell them I’ll be right out.” He hung up the phone and straightened his tie. “Nicole Rossman’s parents are here.”

Megan groaned. “Take a look through all those papers on your desk, Joe. I know my resignation is in there somewhere.”

MEGAN CALLED a Thai restaurant for takeout. When the delivery guy showed up, she had to walk down the narrow steep stairs of her building to the first floor. One day the buzzer would work again, she just knew it. Josh had offered to fix it, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted the landlord to fix it, like he was supposed to do. Of all the battles a person might choose, Megan knew that this one was among the most ridiculous. She couldn’t explain clearly why she allowed her slovenly landlord to get under her skin. She could have opted to avoid him more often, work around him, call a truce, go on a charm offensive, ignore her apartment’s problems, any of a dozen options.

That she chose to keep him as an object of her anger might have been amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. Josh had been the one to suggest that maybe it was because Helen had always been the one to square off against the landlord and that, in her absence, Megan was taking up the battle. When Josh had floated the theory, it had sounded too pat to Megan’s ear. Typical Josh-think. But as she reflected on it, she had seen the logic. She didn’t want to see it, but it was there and hard to deny.