“Guaranteed less agita in chowing down,” Mike said. “Anyway, I don’t have my car.”
“Neither do I. Mercer’s the wheelman.”
The three of us said good night to the security guard and walked around the corner to Mercer’s car. I climbed into the backseat and rested my head. Mercer filled Mike in on our day, including my story about Raymond Tanner.
We parked near the restaurant and were greeted at the door by the owner, Giuliano. The bar was crowded and busy, packed with well-dressed Upper East Siders who liked the scene as much as they enjoyed the food.
“Ciao, Signorina Alessandra,” the big man said, sticking out his hand to Mike and Mercer. “Nice to have you here.”
“You have a quiet table in the back?” I asked.
“Right here,” Giuliano said. “I’m going to put you right here at table two, by the window, so Dominick can take care of you. Just give me a minute.”
Giuliano wanted us to have the best service in the front of the always-crowded room, but the seating was too visible for a serious catch-up with Mike.
“The usual, Alessandra?” Dominick asked.
“No Scotch tonight, thanks. Something light and refreshing.”
“I’ll bring you a nice pinot gri, okay?”
“Perfect.”
Mike ordered a dirty martini, super dry, with onions and olives. Mercer, who was counting on going back to work, asked for a large bottle of sparkling water.
“You ready to order?”
“Not yet, Dominick. We just need to relax for a while,” I said.
In the three minutes it took for the drinks to arrive, we were already back in conversation about Corinne Thatcher’s death.
I told Mike about the work she had been doing with returning vets, and Paco’s vituperative rage at the president for his brother’s injury.
“Then she broke up with Paco,” Mercer said.
“So you can’t rule out limericks, can you?”
“Limerence,” I said, correcting Mike.
“See, I knew all along you had that word in your vocabulary.”
“I just heard it for the first time tonight.”
“Obsessive love. Paco makes mincemeat of Corinne.”
Mercer looked at his watch. “I should have a handle on that before midnight.”
We were all aware the clock was ticking and the FBI would be on board by midday tomorrow to do the presidential advance work.
“But why the Waldorf?” I asked. “Too much drama, and he couldn’t get it done alone.”
“I’ve been thinking about those drawings on her skin,” Mercer said.
“The ladders?” Mike asked.
“The double helix is constructed on a ladder,” Mercer said, sketching one with his finger on the tablecloth. “Suppose it’s someone with a familiar DNA profile. A killer who’s already in the data bank, taunting us to figure out who he is. The ladder is the frame for his genetic fingerprint, which is in the system.”
“Has to be a really sick motherfucker to plan one this big. If there were fava beans in her belly at the autopsy, I’d be looking for Hannibal Lecter.”
“No fava beans. Just a lot of green salad,” Mercer said. “And we don’t know this guy, because his turf is some other part of the country.”
“It’s a thought.”
“But your SVU buddies have been checking serial killer cases all day,” I said.
“So they need to go international,” Mercer said. “Maybe Canada, maybe Europe.”
When Dominick saw a break in the conversation, he approached us to take our order. I went first, followed by Mike’s spaghetti alle vongole with a grilled veal chop, and Mercer’s salad with a chicken paillard.
It was almost ten by the time we finished eating dinner. I had sipped two glasses of the chilled white wine and was thinking about whether to top it off with a third.
Mercer dialed Rocco Correlli’s number and waited for him to pick up. Mike was staring across the room and seemed miles away from both of us.
“Loo? I’m hanging close, hoping I can do the boyfriend’s interview tonight.”
I couldn’t hear the lieutenant’s answer but saw the expression on Mercer’s face change.
“When did that go down?” he said, listening again. There was a long pause while Mercer took in information, motioning to Mike for a piece of paper and pulling a pen from his jacket pocket. “What street? Say that again. What kind of track marks?”
Mercer ended the call. “You want the bad news first, or the really bad news?”
“The bad,” Mike said.
“Corinne’s boyfriend took his brother home today.”
“Home?” I asked.
“Yeah. They flew to the DR at nine A.M. Two one-way tickets. Hasta la vista, Paco.”
“So the good news is we can have another round,” Mike said, waving his hand at the bartender. “What could be really bad about that?”
“The really bad news is that the cops just found another body.”
“A woman?” I asked. “Another mutilation?”
“Not this time. It’s a guy, actually,” Mercer said. “And you’d better make that cocktail a roadie. We ought to take a look.”
I didn’t get the link to our homicide. “The hotel again?”
“No. A deserted alleyway in the East 40s. What we’ve been calling ladders? First cops on the scene looked at the same lines and saw them as tracks.”
“Track marks?” I asked. “Like a junkie?”
“Railroad tracks. We’ve been looking at the marks on Thatcher’s body like little ladders, just because that’s how Rocco described them to us the first time he talked about them. That’s the power of suggestion. But these cops find a body right outside Grand Central and they make a different connection.”
“Railroad tracks,” Mike said, repeating Mercer’s words. “What the hell does Corinne Thatcher have to do with something like that?”
“Maybe the killer first saw her on a train,” I said. “Maybe the madman’s a trainspotter. Maybe he…”
“Your maybes can fill a trash can, Coop. As usual,” Mike said. “Who’s the dead man?”
“Thirty years old or so. Caucasian,” Mercer said. “’Bout as filthy dirty as can be. Single stab wound in the back. Could be homeless, ’cept he’s got some decent clothes on. Labels and all that.”
Dominick came over with the bill, and Mercer stood up to pay.
“Found on the loneliest piece of pavement in Manhattan,” Mercer said. “DePew Place.”
THIRTEEN
At 10:30 P.M., in the pitch black of a hot summer night, I was standing in a desolate alley in Midtown Manhattan. The city street sign marked it as DePew Place.
Mike and I had often jousted over the existence of old roadways on our island. I figured if I’d never prosecuted a crime that occurred on an obscurely named motorway in my dozen years on the job, then it probably had been obliterated by developers. I was wrong about DePew.
I spotted the salivating dogs before I saw the dead man’s body.
Four guys in civvies were each holding leashes-two with Jack Russells straining against their owners’ grip and two others with small terriers as well.
“Gentlemen,” Rocco Correlli said to Mercer, Mike, and me, “I’d like you to meet Toby Straight. He’s the man who found the vic.”
“Actually, it’s Bertie here who did the deed,” Straight said, commanding his pet to sit.
“Mr. Straight runs a little club called RATS,” the lieutenant said. “Guess all the classy names were taken.”
“What’s that?” Mercer asked, keeping one eye on the medical examiner’s team, which had set up a spotlight over the deceased.
“It’s an acronym, really. Rat Alley Trencher-Fed Society.”
“RATS, obviously,” Mercer said. “So help me out.”
“We had our first go at this here in DePew Place,” Straight said, gesturing at the narrow alley just east of the 45th Street piece of the landmarked train terminal, running north-south for the length of one city block. “We come back at least once or twice every year.”