The Oni, page 5
Her name was Francine Cooper.
Matching Mrs. Cooper’s stride was a stewardess half her age, whose crimson tailored uniform and fresh-scrubbed complexion pointed up Cooper’s haggardness. The younger woman’s left hand was near the other’s right elbow, ready to support if necessary but not impatiently insisting. Cooper’s mental haze had cleared enough for her to appreciate this courtesy. She made a conscious effort to memorize the name tag, and a silent promise to write a letter of praise to the airline.
When the stewardess tried to steer her to a lounge area, however, she hung back, shaking her head.
“You don’t want to lie down for a few minutes?”
Cooper tried to smile. Her thin lips twitched into a grimace. She gave up the effort. “I’d rather not. I’ll be fine now. Sorry to have been a bother.”
“No bother. That’s what I’m here for. You needn’t feel embarrassed. Even Dramamine doesn’t work for everyone.”
“It’s not fair,” Cooper protested, “to get airsick when you’re over forty.”
It wasn’t motion that had made her ill, though. After the visit at dawn from a Boston police detective and a hurried confirming phone call to New York, Francine Cooper had had a dozen details to attend to: checking flight times, calling a cab, advising her answering service, cancelling appointments, extending deadlines, making preliminary arrangements long distance with a New York crematorium. Her conscious mind locked into neutral, but inertia kept her going. Once aboard the airplane, with an hour or so ahead of her in which she could do nothing more, Cooper felt the full sense of her loss like a blow to the stomach.
The stewardess didn’t know this, of course. She nodded solemnly. “Some things one never outgrows, unfortunately. Well. If you’re sure you’re all right, I have to get back to my station.”
“I’m fine.” Her memory slipped; she looked at the name tag again. “Thank you, Brenda.”
“No problem. If you want to freshen up, those stairs lead to the rest rooms. Have a good day, Mrs. Cooper.”
Cooper fixed her gaze on those steps for a moment, missing Brenda’s departure. A knot of passengers from another flight stampeded down the corridor, filling it with babble and shoe-scuffles. They split around her, reforming the herd once past without a pause.
Cooper brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. She turned to stare past glass walls. A DC-10 started to taxi toward the runways. If she looked half as bad as she felt, Cooper did not want to face a washroom mirror yet.
She was ready to look for a cab to Manhattan when the man walked up to her.
He was half a head taller than she, with thinning hair, deep set eyes, and skin the color of a manila envelope. His raincoat hung open, revealing an ill-fitting sports jacket and a loosely-knotted tie of some indeterminate dark shade.
“Mrs. Cooper? Francine Cooper?”
His voice was low but clear, even against the backdrop of roaring jets. The question, by its tone, was a statement.
“Should I know you? I’m not meeting anyone.”
He flipped open his card case in a smooth, practiced move. The gold badge glittered in the hazy light from outside. When he put the case away, Cooper saw the black holster at his shoulder.
“Lieutenant Amos Foster, Detective First Class, N.Y.P.D. We spoke this morning. You made it clear that we were to expect you. My car is waiting.” He nodded at her oversized purse. “Do we stop for luggage?”
Cooper noticed with mild surprise that the detective was already leading her down the corridor at a brisk clip. His touch was so assured she hadn’t noticed it. “I didn’t bring any, Lieutenant. I’m only here for a few hours.”
“Good. That’s something, anyway.”
Cooper decided she did not like Amos Foster. She did not like his acid tongue, his brusque attitude, or his habit of alternately making eye contact and looking everywhere but at her when he spoke. No further words were exchanged until Foster sat behind the wheel of the unmarked car, Cooper beside him, and they sped toward the Midtown Tunnel.
“This won’t be pleasant,” Foster growled.
“I know what to expect, Lieutenant. Freelance researchers have taken me into morgues. The nasty part is that it’s Lynda who’s dead, and the shock of that hit me right after the shuttle left Logan. I won’t get hysterical.”
Foster spared her a sharp glance. Abruptly he swerved into the next lane, accelerated past the Nova in front of them and slipped back into place.
“I hate when they crawl like that,” he muttered. “What I meant to say, Mrs. Cooper, is that this is unpleasant for me. I should be tracking your daughter’s killer, not playing chauffeur to her grieving mother.”
Cooper’s cheeks colored. “You didn’t have to pick me up, Lieutenant. I’d planned to take a cab.”
Foster watched the asphalt disappear under the hood of his car. “We haven’t the slightest doubt of your daughter’s identity, you know. The photo wired to Boston for your verification was a formality. There’s no need for you to view the body personally.”
“I haven’t seen my daughter since last Christmas. I was tied up on a project until yesterday. We’d planned on New Year’s for my annual visit.” Manhattan’s skyline loomed before them. Cooper turned sideways, bracing a hand on the dashboard. “I just want to see her for the last time, all right?”
“The body will be released to you, shipped up to Boston if you want,” Foster snapped. “We had to reschedule the autopsy. You would have arrived in the middle of it. Don’t tell me that wouldn’t bother you!”
Cooper stared out the side window. Leafless trees lined the shoulders of the expressway. Gasoline fumes mixed with the stale smell of sweat and gun oil. Her stomach churned, but held nothing more for her to lose. She lowered the window halfway. Cold air blew her dark, straggling hair, drying perspiration she hadn’t realized was beading her forehead.
“Lieutenant,” she said at last, “exactly how did my daughter die?”
Foster’s scowl deepened. “What did they tell you in Boston?”
“Assault. Internal hemorrhage. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce rape.” She took a deep breath. Her fingers intertwined in her lap.
“That’s about it,” Foster said.
“Lieutenant.”
“It’s not police policy to discuss an active investigation with civilians.” He paused. “Especially reporters.”
Cooper’s jaw tightened. “That’s a cheap shot and you know it. As a researcher I do background, not news. I am not writing up a lurid sex murder. I’m Lynda’s mother.”
Foster said nothing.
“I’ll find out eventually.”
Foster sighed. “Hell. The worst of it will be in the afternoon papers, anyway. The opinion of the Medical Examiner at the scene was that the victim had been violated by a foreign object of unknown origin, capable of inflicting internal damage.” He let that sink in. “We won’t know if she was actually raped until the autopsy and lab reports are completed. From my experience with this kind of crime, I’d guess she wasn’t.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
Cooper chewed her lower lip. “It’s hard to imagine, really understand, how often something this … awful … happens. You must see more of it than anyone.”
Foster shrugged. “You get used to it. You can get used to anything.”
“How do you catch someone who commits such a pointless crime?”
“Not entirely pointless. We think we know the motive.” Foster freed one hand to knead bunched muscles in his thick neck. “You sure you want more?”
“I’ll get it anyway.”
“I bet you will. Your daughter’s body was found on a vandalized houseboat moored at the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin on the West Side. The vessel is registered to a small-time dealer named Gary Cross. Cross has disappeared which makes him our prime suspect, though it may not be that simple.”
“You said … dealer?”
“We found three kilos of cocaine under a deck plank. Cross has a record, so we knew we should look. Your daughter was not a known associate but our files aren’t complete. My theory is that Cross got ambitious and the competition decided to make him an example. It was your daughter’s bad luck that she chose to connect with him last night.”
Cooper stiffened. “You’re saying Lynda was an addict?”
“I’ll remind you, this is all off the record. To be frank, she didn’t look like one, but the autopsy will tell us if she used drugs. Even if she didn’t, she could still be involved, either just starting to get hooked or maybe distributing the stuff for Cross.”
“That’s even more ridiculous,” Cooper declared.
“You would say that, naturally. It’s still a good reason for her being with Cross.”
“You’ll find you’re mistaken, Lieutenant.”
Foster shrugged again. “I might, if we were interested enough in her relationship with Cross to check it out. We aren’t. Not yet. I figure Cross for the real target. What the squad is doing now—what I should also be doing—is checking out everyone who might know where Cross is hiding, and anyone with a motive for wanting him out of the way. There’s quite a list.”
“Won’t you even try to prove Lynda was an innocent bystander?”
Foster sighed. “Mrs. Cooper, this city is short on manpower as it is. Which do you think should take priority: locating a killer before he strikes again, or proving that a dead girl was as wholesome as apple pie? Especially when our time is taken up by visiting relatives.”
“You keep throwing that up, Lieutenant,” Cooper said icily. “And I told you you didn’t have to meet me at the airport.”
“No,” he replied softly. “I didn’t.”
Silence filled the car as it plunged into the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
CHAPTER 10
Homicide detective Sergeant Joseph Evans rested an elbow on the roof of the unmarked patrol car he’d signed out. His heel scraped the pebbled curbing, dislodging a grease-glued gum wrapper. The green paper strip fluttered into the gutter. The sergeant’s hands sank deep into the pockets of an unbuttoned smoke-gray overcoat, his one concession to a day of drizzle. His necktie flapped over the lapel.
New York winters could not pale Evans’s ruddy face, which set off the turquoise of his bulging, shifting eyes. A long chin weighted the corners of his mouth into a perpetual frown. The detective was unaware of this attribute, which contributed to his high success rate in interrogation.
This coming June would mark the twentieth year of his solid if unspectacular career, but Evans gave little thought to early retirement. This was not ambition; he knew his limitations. He’d never rise above his present rank, and actually felt he’d done well for an undirected college drop-out who’d joined the force primarily to escape the military draft. At that time, Evans was one of the few people aware of how serious the Viet Nam involvement was, and how easily it could worsen. Evans was not cowardly, but he despised senseless waste. For the same reason, he’d failed to meet the requirements for a college degree. He’d been delighted to discover real purpose in police work. What he did made a difference in people’s lives. Not always, not even most of the time, but often enough to satisfy him.
It was for Liz’s sake that Evans considered retiring at all. In their early years of marriage, his wife had accepted the risks of his profession. Recently, however, as it became obvious they would never have children, Liz had grown increasingly dependent on her husband. Evans admitted he’d been lucky the past two decades. His most serious on-duty injury was a minor knife wound, requiring a tetanus shot, a few stitches and a night in the hospital. Liz Evans bore that bravely, even cheerfully, but that was eight years ago.
Liz did not nag. She never mentioned the subject. But sizing up people was part of Evans’s job. Facial expressions and odd phrases in her conversation told him that a decision to quit and enjoy his pension would not be unwelcome.
A strand of curly brown hair fell in front of his eyes. He patted it back into place. He was overdue for a trim. After the holidays he’d take care of it.
A slim black patrolman, sweating in his winter blues, hurried down the precinct house steps. His heels clicked sharply on the stone. He waved to Evans.
Took long enough, Evans grumbled silently. Probably had to polish his shield. Well, he could’ve refused when the desk sergeant offered him a rookie. Evans grunted, opened the car door, and motioned the patrolman to the street side.
“You drive,” said Evans. He slid in, coattail tucked between the seat of his pants and the icy plastic seat cover.
The patrolman turned the ignition key. The engine groaned to life. The uniformed man flashed a quick, nervous grin.
“I’ll let it warm up.”
Evans nodded. He rolled his window halfway down. In his own uniform days, Evans had had a partner nearly suffocated by a faulty exhaust. Since then, the detective never took for granted the ability of any patrol cars, marked or unmarked, to properly vent carbon monoxide fumes. Intellectually, he accepted the event as a freak accident, but to die that way would be stupidly wasteful.
“My name’s Sam Carver.” Carver looked to Evans for conversational encouragement.
The detective watched the street in the constant search that becomes second nature. “The desk sergeant told me, Carver.”
“I recognized you right off. I know every detective working out of this precinct, by sight, anyway.”
Evans’s lips pursed in what might have been a smile. “He also said you were a little green.”
“Not so green, sir. I’ve got two felony arrests to my record.”
Evans rubbed his long chin, hiding his grin. “This should be a piece of cake for you, then, Carver. Routine. We’re picking up a man for questioning.”
“About the houseboat murder?”
Evans grunted again. He didn’t feel like talking. He and Foster had established a rapport over the years that made speech almost superfluous, and he hadn’t talked shop with a civilian since that damned reporter quoted him at length and turned a good bust into a mistrial. He was out of the habit. That wasn’t a good enough reason to cut Carver, though. Evans remembered his own rookie days, when he was eager to make points.
“That’s right. The boat belongs to a penny-ante pusher named Gary Cross. We want to talk to anyone to knows where he might be hiding—if he’s still alive—or who might be gunning for him. Most of the squad is rounding up known dealers on the West Side. One or more of them should know something.”
Carver’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “Known dealers? You know who’s selling junk?”
“We keep active files on them.”
“Then why don’t you put them all away?”
Evans settled back. The seat cover squilched beneath him. He rubbed his neck on the headrest and released a languid yawn. “No, you’re not green. Not much. You’re talking nickel-and-dime operators, Carver. Say we bust them. Say we even get convictions on every one. How long are they off the streets? Two years? Three?”
“That’s three years the streets are clean,” Carver spat back. This sort of thing had been mentioned at the academy but had sounded so bizarre he’d given it little credence. Let drug dealers run free? Carver’s best friend in high school had overdosed on heroin on his fifteenth birthday. If the pusher who’d sold that junk had been locked up in the Tombs, that kid would still be alive, maybe a lawyer or a baseball player, instead of ashes on a plastic mantelpiece in a rent-controlled apartment. Carver’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The flesh beneath his nails turned white.
Evans noted this.
“It doesn’t work that way, Carver. Sure, those guys are off the street, but new talent takes their place. We start from scratch, rebuilding our files. I don’t like it myself, but it’s more practical to have a line on who’s doing what when something big comes along.”
Carver rubbed damp palms on his blue slacks. “Like a homicide? You wait until someone gets killed?”
Evans shook his head. “Usually it’s Narcotics, looking for a line on a bigger supplier.”
Carver stared straight ahead, returning his hands to the steering wheel. “And who’s the scumbag we’re picking up?”
Evans now regretted getting drawn into conversation. Carver was too much on edge. He still possessed self-control, though. The sergeant shrugged. The kid had to learn sometime.
“He uses the name Eric Fuchsia. Damned if I know why. Lives with a fortyish secretary in her apartment on West Eighty-Ninth, between Broadway and Amsterdam. Been with her about two years, off and on. She’s clean, if not too bright. His yellow sheet’s what you’d expect. We don’t know his current source, but Narcotics has some candidates.”
“You working with Narcotics on this one?”
“Not yet. Not until we tie the killing to drugs with more than a theory.”
“This Fuchsia, he’s dangerous? Armed?” Carver’s nostrils flared.
“Never carries anything deadlier than a homemade nightstick. That could be the murder weapon, but it’s unlikely. We don’t have an excuse to enter with guns blazing, if that’s what you’re after. We’re only asking questions. Foster’s orders.”
Carver was visibly dissatisfied. “You partner with Foster a lot, don’t you?”
“We work well together.”
The patrolman licked his lips. “How come you asked for a uniform this morning?”
Evans watched the intersection ahead where a taxi was illegally blocking a crosswalk to pick up a fare. An insolent edge was creeping into Carver’s voice which the sergeant did not care for. Had Academy discipline deteriorated since his day, or was middle age making him overly sensitive?
