“We could use a woman’s touch on this case,” Davidson said.
Jane squeezed my hand. Hard. “Wow,” Jane said. “Sexist much?”
“No kidding,” I said. I put myself between the two of them, as protective jealousy rose up in me. “And why’s that exactly?”
Davidson held his arms up, hands open and empty. “Easy, Mr. Canderous,” he said. “I’m just saying we might need someone with her particular assets.”
I turned to the Inspectre. “Sir?”
The Inspectre hesitated, and then gave a slow, stern nod.
“You want to tell us what’s up?” Connor said, still seated.
Davidson’s smile faltered. “I’m not really sure yet,” he said. “We’ve got a crime scene. The regular cops who showed up on the scene wouldn’t say. They just called it in to my department and left it at that. Whatever it is, though, they want nothing to do with it and when a call comes in on something like that, well. . . it’s usually something in your realm of expertise. We’ve got a dead teacher on our hands.” Davidson pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open. “A Professor Mason Redfield.”
“Mason?” the Inspectre asked. The color drained from his face as if he was seeing a ghost. “A gentleman around my age?”
“I’d say so,” Davidson said. “Not nearly as lively as you, clearly. You know him?”
The Inspectre stared off across the room, lost in thought, and gave a slight nod. “I did,” he said. “Long ago.”
“So, I can have a few of your people?” he asked.
The Inspectre nodded again, his face sad and distracted. “Take whoever you need,” the Inspectre said, and then turned to me. “You take point on this.”
I looked over at Connor, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Are you sure, Inspectre?” I asked.
“Very,” he said, his face dead serious now.
“Great,” Davidson said, trying to speed things along. He gestured toward the exit. “I think Simon, Connor, and Jane should cover it. Shall we?”
My eyes stayed on the Inspectre. I had never seen him so unnerved before.
“Go,” the Inspectre said, closing the folders in his hands. “I’ll let Director Wesker know that Jane went with you. He won’t be too pleased that I allocated one of his people to Davidson, but there are some perks to being the senior ranking officer around here, I suppose.”
“I’ll try to return them in one piece,” Davidson said, the sparkle returning to his smile. “Promise. I have a police van waiting outside. It will spare you having to cab it back uptown. I know how tight you folks are for cash around here.”
Connor stood up and brushed past Davidson, heading for the front door of the café. “Don’t get too toothy there, smiley,” he said to me. “I call shotgun.” Davidson started after him.
“Dammit!” I said. “I wanted shotgun.”
“Fine by me,” Jane said. She took my hand and ran off after them, practically dragging me. “I call flamethrower.”
4
Davidson drove while the rest of us rode in the back of the police van in silence. Jane leaned her head against my shoulder as we listened to the sound of the rain beating down on the roof of the van as it raced up through the concrete canyons of Manhattan.
The going got slower as we headed farther up to the East Side. Rain that lasted more than a few hours in Manhattan could bring the city to a dead stop, but at the moment we were at least maintaining a slow crawl through an ocean of traffic. Somewhere in the east Forties we turned right off of First Avenue and headed farther east than I usually traveled. I thought we might be heading into the East River itself, but then I noticed several large buildings filling the skyline.
All of them were towering—about ten in all—and looked like they all belonged to the same construction project, with each of them in various states of completion. Large straight towers of steel fit with bare construction bulbs rose above the slick black glass and modern steel architecture of the finished floors below. Only the center grouping of buildings looked finished and lit up from habitation.
Davidson pulled into the only finished arc of a drive that I could see, running through a small patch of unfinished landscaping that still managed to block the entrance view from the street. Several empty cop cars were already parked along the drive.
We stepped out of the police van and I held an umbrella out for Jane as she crawled under it with me. Davidson came around to our side with his own umbrella and looked up at the impressive size and design of the building.
“You sure this place is habitable?” I asked.
Davidson nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “There are several buildings going up for this whole development. About three of them are finished and already have occupants.”
Connor whistled as he joined us and took it all in. “How much is rent on this place?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Davidson said and started toward the entrance to the lobby. “Let’s just say I don’t think anyone with our government paychecks will be moving on up to the East Side to a deluxe apartment in the sky anytime soon.”
“Funny,” I said. “I figure with the kickbacks you see from helping out Sectarians and vampires, you’d be set up for life.”
Davidson stopped and turned on me. With the look on his face, I braced for him to launch into me. Instead, he pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not tonight, Simon,” he said. “We’re about to enter a building where some of the most prestigious people in Manhattan live and we’re going to be trying to investigate something discreetly. My interests are the Mayor’s, not my own. If you want to cut into someone, why don’t you write him a letter?”
“Like I need more paperwork?”
Davidson walked over to Connor. “I liked him better when he was still new,” he said. “At least then he followed your lead a bit before becoming irreverent.”
Connor shrugged. “What can I say? I trained him right.”
Davidson turned away from us all and headed into the building without waiting.
I turned to Connor. “Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Can I borrow the car?”
Connor headed for the building as well. “Don’t start that with me,” he said. “I get enough of that from Aidan. He acts like he’s actually eighteen sometimes.”
“But he is your older brother, right?” Jane asked.
“Vampires seem to have a very distorted sense of age and maturity,” Connor said, “because time doesn’t affect them quite the same. I think they get a really bad case of arrested development. How does one act their age when one is technically ageless?”
We hurried after Davidson and headed into the most finished of the buildings. The lobby was swanky with fresh leather furniture and a few choice art pieces that were actually tasteful. Davidson flashed an ID and our group hit the elevators, riding up until we got off on the twenty-seventh floor. A large assembly of police officers was gathered in the hallway nearby and we had to push past them before we found someone in charge. A uniformed officer in his forties with a little paunch nodded at Davidson. He eyed the three of us with the usual disdain that we were used to from the regular cops.
Davidson reached out and shook the officer’s hand. “What’s got your men so spooked, Sergeant?” he asked.
The head officer hesitated, a look of frustration crossing his face. None of his men made a move to offer up anything.
“You know what, Mr. Davidson?” he said. “Why don’t you just take your Monster Squad inside and see for yourself?”
“Nice,” I said. “Why don’t you clear out some of your boys, then? Or is the NYPD afraid of a little rain outside?”
The officer’s eyes widened. He looked like he might be on the verge of pulling his gun on me.
Davidson raised one hand to the officer and the other to me. “Gentlemen, please,” he said. “Let’s just do our jobs.”
The officer nodded, and then started ordering his men off the floor of the apartment building. Once they cleared the area, Davidson threw open the door to the apartment in front of us.