“I thought Grand Central closes its doors at two A.M.,” I said.
“It does. The plan is to get as much law enforcement in here as a presence as soon as possible. Uniforms and guns everywhere.”
“That won’t catch the killer,” Mercer said, “but it will comfort the commuters.”
“Exactly. The only reason the terminal shuts down between two and five thirty A.M. is that it prevents the place from becoming a homeless shelter again. Gets everybody to clear out. So that gives us an opportunity to have investigators from any or all of the agencies go through here with a fine-tooth comb.”
“If we haven’t put our hands on the killer by midnight, they can penetrate every crevice of the terminal and the tunnels.”
“From what we’ve seen,” I said, “that doesn’t even seem remotely possible. Each level leads to another level beneath or above it, or a tunnel that leads to another part of Terminal City or a wheelhouse or a room that isn’t on the blueprints.”
“Losing heart, sunshine?” Mike asked. “It doesn’t sound like you.”
“Whoever this guy is, he’s done his homework. Wherever we go, he’s been there first. Yes, I’m demoralized by it.”
“And you’re sweaty, and maybe a tad hungover?”
“All of the above,” I said.
“So the manpower is the first order of business. Next is Lydia Tsarlev.”
“They’ve found her family?” I asked.
“No. It’s several of her classmates who called in. She’s an exchange student, here on some kind of visa. The lieutenant has a team going to White Plains to search her apartment. He needs to contact her parents, check her computer if there is one. Routine stuff.”
“How about Corinne Thatcher’s parents? Or her brother? I can get Ryan to work on that with your squad.”
“He’s on it, kid. Looking for any connection between the two vics. Where have you been all morning? In a black hole?”
“Very black. I’m about to clean up.”
“Before you hear the DNA results?”
“The lab got a match?” Somehow the adrenaline was pumping again.
“Not a perp, Coop. Not yet. Just case to case.”
“So the speck of blood on the curtain at the Waldorf wasn’t Corinne Thatcher’s after all?”
“All cred to Dr. Azeem and his fancy camera,” Mike said. “The killer must have cut himself.”
“And it matches some of the blood in the Big Timber train car?”
“Yeah. Case to case. Confirms the killer of both women is the same guy.”
“If you didn’t know any other way.” I crossed fingers on both hands. “Now tell me he’s in the data bank.”
“Weren’t you listening? There’s no profile for him in either the city or the state banks.”
“But they haven’t tried NDIS yet?” I asked. I was referring to the National DNA Identification System maintained by the FBI.
“Going in as we speak. Should have results later today.”
“It’s like Pug said when we were first at the Waldorf.” I was removing the tags from my shirt with renewed spirit and energy. “Nobody comes out of nowhere. Not with a killing style like this.”
“I’m with you, Alex,” Mercer said. “This bastard has killed before. He’s got to be high profile in somebody’s data bank.”
TWENTY-NINE
We had each cleaned up as best we could, put on our new shirts, and were back in Ledger’s office. Mike had brought in sandwiches, suggesting we eat now because there was no telling when we would have the chance again.
“Where to?” I asked.
“We’re going to the Waldorf.”
“Something breaking over there?”
“No, we’re taking the Terminal City path,” Mike said. “We’re going underground. We need to see if our perp could have found his way in through this route.”
“I’m assuming however we’re going is a path without a blueprint,” Mercer said. “There’s got to be a reason no one was aware of this connection.”
“Better than a blueprint. Hank Brantley, the cop whose specialty is the tunnel homeless population, is going to lead us through.”
“So much for a fresh change of clothes.”
I was hungrier than I thought and washed down half a turkey sandwich with a full bottle of water. Brantley arrived within minutes, handed out our hard hats and flashlights, and we were ready to take off again.
He led us down to the gate on the lower level-number 100-which a Metro-North patrol officer was guarding.
“Same rules apply,” Hank said. “Stay close. Walk on the platform as far as it goes. It gets pretty narrow up ahead, and this time you will have a third rail off to the far side of the tracks. That’s what electrifies the trains. It’ll light you up pretty good, too, if you give it the chance.”
We headed down the first ramp away from the departure gate, a slight incline that took us away from the brightly lit terminal into the dark, subterranean maze of tunnels.
I would never get used to seeing people huddled in holes in the concrete walls or foraging for scraps between the railroad ties, but on this trip I was slightly less shocked than I had been a day earlier.
The live tracks were only a dozen feet away from our platform. As a train approached, headlights glaring through the arched openings in the wall between where we stood and where the train was slowing to a stop, I froze in place, unable to stabilize my footing. We were in a single row-Indian file, as Mike called it-with him behind Brantley, then me, then Mercer last in line.
“I can’t get you there myself,” Hank said. “It’s not exactly a straight line any longer, so I took a walk out just now and asked Smitty to meet us at the point this platform stops.”
“Great,” I said to Mercer as I flapped my arms to regain my balance. “What’s wrong with starting out up in the daylight on Park Avenue? Taking the Northeast Passage? I’m beginning to feel like a troglobite.”
Mike got half of what he heard right. “Troglodyte?”
“That’s you, Detective. Somebody whose thinking is out of step with the times. A throwback to Neanderthal thinking.”
“What’s the difference between bites and dytes?”
“Troglobites are animals who spend so much time in caves that they’re practically blind, but their eyes adapt to seeing in the dark.”
“Bite me, Coop.”
“I would, but you’re walking too fast.”
Our presence in the tunnels, now at least one city block away from the terminal, had stirred up some of the population. Heads poked out above us and below. Huge rats-seemingly unafraid of us-played on the tracks while roaches the size of small rodents crunched under Hank Brantley’s feet.
Smitty, the former mayor of the Grand Central tunnel system, was waiting for us in the shadows of an enormous steel girder. I figured we were somewhere near 45th Street, in our slow trek north of the terminal.
Hank handed him a small plastic bag. “Three sandwiches and sodas and a carton of cigarettes. We appreciate your help.”
“The platform ends up ahead about fifty feet,” Smitty said, now leading our pack.
An outbound train made so much noise as it passed by us that I couldn’t hear what Hank said back to him.
“What happens when the platform ends?” I called out.
“We go the rest of the way on the tracks,” Smitty said, “but it’s a dead line. No trains running on it these days. It only goes so far as the siding up by the hotel you’re going to.”
“That makes no sense,” I said to no one in particular.
The walkway ended abruptly. There were two large steps down to the tracks. I didn’t question Hank Brantley, who seemed to have complete faith in Smitty.
Three men and a woman were sitting on the old rail ties in our path, playing cards and drinking beer. They greeted Smitty and expressed surprise at seeing the rest of us.
I flinched as a locomotive, which seemed to be heading in our direction, rounded the corner on an adjacent track as it slowed on its final approach to Grand Central.