Jeff Rovin - Vespers

“I know. But the medical examiner is going to have his hands full with the tunnel people. This lady came from someplace else.”

“Obviously-”

“I need to know where and I need to know it soon. Chris’ll do this fast and right.”

Moreaux thought for a moment. “Okay. I’ll go set it up.”

Gentry thanked him. Moreaux looked pale as he took the wallet and went back to his office. The captain was the one who was going to have to call the young woman’s family.

Before leaving, Gentry went over to Arvids and thanked him for his help. Then he started up the stairs.

“Detective,” Arvids said.

Gentry stopped and looked back.

“I just thought you should know that Dr. Joyce was still pretty steamed when she left.”

“I’m not surprised. And I don’t blame her.”

“What I’m saying is, maybe you should talk to her. Keep her in the loop. She wants to help. And this”-he gestured behind him-“is gonna take some explaining.”

“Don’t worry, Arvids. I’m going to involve her.”

Arvids thanked him. Gentry wondered what the hell that was really about.

It was much easier getting out of the tunnel than it had been getting in. In order to accommodate the evacuation team, subway traffic had been rerouted along the tracks leading to the underground rooms. The detective was surprised at how cool and clean the air tasted and how bright the daylight seemed when he reentered the terminal. The concourse was much less crowded than it had been before.

Gentry stopped at a pay phone and called Chris Henry. He told him to expect Barbara Mathis’s body within the hour and to front-burner the autopsy. He wanted to know as soon as possible whether the woman had been sexually assaulted and if there was anything on her that would place her whereabouts at the time of her death-dust particles in the lungs or eyes, muffin crumbs in her mouth, anything. Henry thanked him and said he’d be back to him as soon as possible.

As he left Grand Central, Gentry’s mind was on the bats. As he walked west toward the station house, he wondered whether the attack and possible infestation were going to be a small problem or a big one; or whether it was a small problem that would become a big one when the media got their teeth into it. Nancy had been right about one thing. He wished he knew more about bats. Unlike human perps, he had no way of knowing what, if anything, they were going to do next. That was frustrating.

People were ambling along Forty-second Street, self-absorbed or talking to whomever they were with. Some were looking at Bryant Park or toward Times Square or the Chrysler Building. They were oblivious to the hidden worlds of the city, to the hidden dangers behind walls or beneath their feet. Which was how it should be. The job of the city’s forty thousand police officers was to give them that luxury. He was proud of the way they handled that responsibility even when, as now, the problem was moving faster than he was.

After the silence of the underground world, the Midtown South station house seemed unusually raucous. Gentry got himself coffee, shut the door to his office, opened the window, and stared at the street for several minutes before starting through the folders on his desk.

The phone beeped. He snapped it up.

“This is Detective-”

“What’s going on in the subway, Robert?”

“Kathy. How are you?”

“Not good.”

“Sorry to hear that…”

“Come on, Robert, talk to me. What’s going down?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “Subway service has been disrupted, and I got a solid tip that there was a dismembered bicyclist down there and that you found her among a bunch of dead homeless people. True?”

“If the tip’s solid, why are you asking me?”

“Because I need two sources, and that’s all my other source would tell me.”

“Which source was that?”

“Don’t do that,” Kathy warned.

And then it hit him. “I saw you on TV last night withKathy.” Not Kathy Leung, just Kathy. Officer Arvids Stiebris, you dumb, beauty-struck, horse’s ass of a rookie. He’d been sticking up for Nancy, too, the Romeo.

“I’ll tell you what, Kathy,” Gentry said. “I’ll tell you what we found if you promise to do me a favor.”

“That depends. What kind of favor?”

“I want you to spin it as an aberration, a one-time event. You go tabloid on me, give me a subway system under siege, and I’ll make sure Arvids Stiebris is transferred to a place where he’ll do you absolutely no good in the future.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Kathy said quickly.

“We found the body of a young woman in a bicycle helmet down there. We also found several dead homeless persons. We have no idea who the woman was,” he lied to protect the privacy of the family, “but it looked like all of them were killed by animals.”

“What kind of animals?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Dogs? Rats?”

“We’re not sure.”

“How old was the woman?”

“Our guess is late twenties.”

“How’d she get down in the subway?”

“We don’t know. Maybe she was some kind of outreach worker-we just don’t know.”

“How long will subway service be disrupted?”

“Until the bodies have been removed.”

“Good,” she said. “Now that you’ve told me not very much, how about the truth?”

“Sorry?”

“You’re playing me. I want to know about the bat guano that was found on the tracks.”

What did that dopey bastard Arvids do? Tell her everything?

“Kathy, there’s nothing unusual about bat guano on subway tracks,” he said. “Ask Al Doyle over at health.”

“I will. In the meantime, what really went on down there?”

“I told you, we don’t know.”

“What do youthink? Is there any connection between the dead people in the subway and bats? Could this be related to what happened in Westchester?”

“We don’t know that either.”

“Whatdo you know?”

“Nothing other than what I’ve told you,” Gentry said. “Maybe your source can tell you more. Why don’t you go back to him?”

“I will. But frankly I’d rather talk to you. I’d rather that you help me-that we help each other.”

“I know. Wasn’t that the real reason you agreed to date me after the Mizuno bust?”

“Not entirely-”

“That didn’t do a lot for my ego.”

“Look,” she said, “I went from Connecticut to Westchester, which isn’t exactly a step up. I want off the fucking beat. If these incidents are connected, the story’s still mine. That puts me in the big city with a big breaking headline. Help me and I can help you in the future. Promote the work you’re doing.”

“I don’t need help, thanks.”

“Maybe not now. But one day you will.”

Gentry said nothing. The idea of cooperating with Kathy was not an option. When he worked undercover his policy was to trust only those people who were with him in the trenches. He paid for help or information in cash, not trust.

“Kathy, I’m sorry. No.”

“Detective, I’mgoing to get this story.”

“I know.”

“I can call Dr. Joyce. She went on the consultant payroll last night.”

“Fine.”

Kathy hung up.

Gentry placed the receiver in the cradle. He looked out at the street. He smelled hot tar from a roof across the street.

Part of him actually wished he could have helped Kathy. He admired independence and tenacity, and she had a lot of both. And he still liked her. But until he knew exactly what had happened in the subway, he wasn’t going to say anything.

Gentry put in a call to Moreaux to find out whether he’d discovered anything about where Barbara Mathis had been before they found her. Captain Moreaux said that a patrol car had found her abandoned bicycle and makeup kits on Riverside Drive near 120th Street at 5:22A.M. There were traces of blood on the seat. They found the address inside one of the kits, went to her apartment building, and contacted her husband at work. He gave them her destination and they confirmed that she never arrived.