Харлан Кобен - Win

Shorter still: We all see what we want to see.

The doorman at the Beresford is waiting for me. He leads me to the security monitors behind the desk. There, cued up on the screen, is a black-and-white image of two people walking single file. I can’t make out much. The shot is from above, the quality not great. The person in front is likely Ry Strauss. He has a hoodie pulled over his head. The person behind him is totally bald. Both keep their heads down, walking so close together that the bald head looks to be leaning on Strauss’s back.

“Do you want me to hit play?” the doorman asks.

The doorman looks young, no more than twenty-five. The military-style uniform he wears is far too big on his thin frame.

I say, “This is the basement, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have any contact with” — I don’t know what to call Strauss, so I point — “this tenant?”

“No,” he says. “Never.”

“Did anyone ever call him by a name?”

“No. I mean, we’re trained to call our tenants by their last name. You know, mister or missus or doctor or whatever. If we don’t know the name we use ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ But with him, I mean, I never even saw the guy, and I’ve been here two years.”

I turn my attention back to the screen. “Hit play, please.”

He does. The video is short and uneventful. Strauss and assailant walk with their heads down, single file, staying close together. It looks odd. I ask him to rewind and play it again. Then a third time.

“Hit pause when I tell you.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Now.”

The image freezes. I squint and lean closer. I still can’t pick up much, but this much seems clear: Both knew that they were on a security camera and at this point — the point where I’ve asked the image to be frozen — the man we now know is Ry Strauss looks up into the lens.

“Can you zoom in?”

“Not really, no. The pixels get all messed up.”

I doubt that I would pick up much anyway. The assumption, and I think it is a righteous one, is that the bald man behind Ry Strauss is the killer. Their manner is so off — stiff, short steps, staying so close — that I assume Strauss is being led at gunpoint.

“To your knowledge, did the deceased ever have visitors?”

“Nope. Never. We all talked about that this morning.”

“We?”

“Me and the other doormen. No one remembers anyone coming to see him. Not ever. I mean, I guess they could have come with him up through the basement like this.”

“I assume this visitor eventually left?”

“If he did, we don’t have it on tape.”

I sit back and steeple my fingers.

“We done?” the doorman asks.

“How about the footage of the tenant departing the building?”

“Huh?”

I point at the screen. “Before he met up with this visitor, I assume the deceased left the building?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“Could you show me?”

“Give me a second.”

This video is even less eventful. Ry Strauss keeps his head down. He wears the hoodie. He walks by, though I do note that he seems in a rush. I check the time — forty-two minutes before he returns. This all adds up in my view.

“You said he never left in the daytime, correct?”

“Not that anyone remembers.”

“So this” — I point to Strauss walking out during the daytime — “would be unusual?”

“I’d say, yeah. Hermit normally only went out like super late at night.”

That piques my interest. “How late?”

“You’d have to ask Hormuz. He works the night shift. But really late, way after midnight.”

“Will Hormuz be on tonight?”

“Yeah. Whoa, someone is coming with packages. Excuse me a moment.” The young doorman departs. I take out my phone and call PT.

“Did your guys find a phone in Strauss’s apartment?” I ask.

“No.”

“No landline either?”

“No. Why?”

“I have a theory,” I tell him.

“Go ahead.”

“Someone called Strauss on a phone and told him something worrying. Perhaps that his cover was blown. We can only speculate. But someone called him and told him something so worrying that the hermit left his apartment during daylight hours. My suspicion is, it was a setup.”

“How do you figure?”

“The killer placed the call to Strauss and said something on the phone they knew would get Strauss to react. When Strauss leaves the building, the killer intercepts him at gunpoint and forces Strauss to bring him back to his apartment.”

“Where the killer shackles him to the bed and kills him.”

“Yes.”

“And leaves the Vermeer behind. Why?”

“The obvious answer,” I say, “is that his murder wasn’t about the stolen art.”

“So what else would it be about?”

“It could be a lot of things. But I think we know the most obvious one.”

“The Hut of Horrors,” he says.

We are silent for a while.

“The Bureau hasn’t put that part together yet, Win.”

I say nothing.

“They still don’t know why your suitcase is there. When they do, they’ll want alibis for your cousin. And for you.”

I nod to myself. His is a solid analysis.

“It seems likely,” I say, “that Ry Strauss was involved in some way with the Hut of Horrors.”

His voice is grave. “It does.”

I feel a chill at the base of my neck. “So I’m wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

“Everyone has always believed that Uncle Aldrich and Cousin Patricia were random victims of serial predators. Uncle Aldrich was killed, so as to abscond with Patricia to the hut.”

“You don’t think so anymore?”

I frown. “Think it through, PT. It can’t be random.”

“Why not?”

“Because Strauss had the Vermeer.”

He takes a second. “You’re right. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“And that means Patricia wasn’t a random victim. She was targeted.”

We fall into silence.

“Let me know how I can help, Win.”

“I assume the Bureau will be analyzing these CCTV videos?”

“We are, but the quality is crap. And this has been a pain in my ass for years — why the hell do we keep all the cameras up high? Every criminal knows that. He just kept his head down.”

“So nothing else on him?”

“They’re still analyzing, but all they can tell us is he’s slight, short, bald.”

“It’s more important that you scour the nearby buildings for CCTV,” I tell him. “We need to figure out where Strauss went when he left the Beresford and who he encountered.”

“On it. Where are you going now?”

I check my watch. Enough work for the moment. My mind shifts quickly to the 9.85 rating.

“Saks Fifth Avenue,” I say.

I am nearing Saks when the phone rings. It’s Nigel calling from Lockwood.

“Your father heard about the Vermeer,” Nigel tells me. “He also heard that Cousin Patricia was in the house.”

I wait.

“He would like to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

I push the door open and enter Saks by the men’s suits department. “Urgent as in tonight?”

“Urgent as in tomorrow morning.”

“Done,” I say.

“One favor, Win.”

“Name it.”

“Don’t upset your father.”

“Okay,” I say. Then I ask, “How is he, Nigel?”

“Your father is very agitated.”

“Over the Vermeer or Cousin Patricia?”

“Yes,” Nigel says and hangs up.

I head into the basement of Saks and pass the Vault jewelry department.

The rendezvous app has a rather lengthy questionnaire to “discover your type in order to make the best matches.” I skipped answering the questions and went straight to the comment section.