Law & Order Dead Line Read online

  DEAD LINE

  J. MADISON DAVIS

  new york

  www.ibooksinc.com

  An Original Publication of ibooks, inc.

  Copyright © 2004 Universal Network Television LLC. Law

  & Order is a trademark of Universal TV Distribution Holdings LLC and a copyright of Universal Network Television LLC. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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  ISBN 1-58824-657-4

  Edited by Judy Gitenstein

  Special thanks to Bill Fordes for his invaluable assistance Cover photograph

  copyright © 2003 Universal Network Television, LLC

  WATERLOO HOTEL

  871 SEVENTH AVENUE

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

  Ayounger man! Goran Hagopian’s wife, Hermine, had lost her mind. What did she think this greasy operator just off the plane from Yerevan wanted? A forty-eight-year-old woman? “The Quick Stop,” said Goran to his assistant, Romero. “Why can’t she see it?”

  Romero tried to be sympathetic, but his English had failed him too many times before, stoking up Goran’s anger when he’d tried to dampen it. What kind of pathetic cabrón would want Hagopian’s hole-in-the-wall store? Romero shrugged as the service elevator opened, hoping a resigned “¿Quién sabe? ”

  would shut Goran up.

  “He thinks the Quick Stop will make him rich,” said Goran, charging down the corridor. “The Quick Stop I bought by working two jobs! I should kill him.

  Hermine thinks she’s in love. I should kill her. Isn’t that what you’d do in Mexico?”

  “I am from Santo Domingo,” said Romero, gritting his teeth.

  Goran drew his thumb across his throat and made a skritching noise. The door to room 547 opened as his index finger reached his ear.

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  “Are you the engineer?” asked the red-faced guest.

  “You Mr. Coster? A problem with the air condition-er?”

  “It’s hot as a gol-darned oven in here.” He pulled his white shirt away from his chest. “Look at that! It’s ruined.”

  “So change it,” Goran said sharply.

  Coster gaped at his gray-haired wife, sitting by the open window and fanning herself with a tourist guide to Broadway. She raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “It’s New York. What do you expect?”

  Coster reddened like he was going to pop an artery.

  “We fix quick as possible,” said Romero, shoving Goran in. “No problem.”

  “There certainly is a problem!”

  “Please, Emmett,” said the wife. “The sooner they get started…”

  Goran narrowed his eyes to slits, and Coster turned away. Romero noticed light between the frame that held the air-conditioning unit in the window frame.

  The narrow strip of foam that sealed it hung half out.

  The unit seemed to have been shoved. He wanted to ask if these people had bumped it. It would have taken a hell of a bump. But, strangely, the plastic front of the unit was undamaged, as if it had been tugged from the outside.

  “Is it plugged in?” asked Goran.

  “You think I didn’t check that?” snorted Coster. He was auditioning hard to stand in for the guy who stole Goran’s wife.

  “Emmett…” sighed Mrs. Coster.

  Romero leaned against the mullion and stuck his head out of the window to see the back of the unit.

  The corner of it was crushed, as if a cinder block had 2

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  been dropped on it. At first he thought there were feathers stuck in some kind of oil, but then it looked more like hair.

  And dried blood.

  He looked up. The bricks above him stretched like a Martian landscape to the sky. Something had been dropped off the roof? At the bottom of the air shaft, an aluminum can glinted. A potato chip bag rolled and danced near the ventilator from the coffee shop.

  Romero got a good grip and leaned farther out. He saw a bundle of discarded clothes between the rattling ventilator unit and the wall. Then, he saw the bundle had legs.

  “Jesus! ” he shouted. “Is a woman! Look!”

  Mrs. Coster stopped fanning herself.

  “Is woman!” Romero repeated. “Dead woman!”

  Mrs. Coster gasped and Goran leaned out beside Romero. Their eyes met.

  Goran shrugged. “It was too much to hope,” he said. “Hermine weighs three times as much.”

  Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green stood in the stifling air shaft staring at the windows above them.

  Briscoe tugged a uniform’s sleeve. “Tell them to turn off the ventilator,” he said, “or we’ll all smell like French fries.”

  “A simple suicide and we’re home for dinner,” said Green.

  “Dressed all in black, for her own funeral,” said Briscoe. Suicides often dressed for the occasion, depending on the nature of the occasion. Some put on a tailored suit, others their college sweatshirt. A certain number left the world as naked as they came into it. No matter what they wore, dead never looked nice.

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  The ventilator stopped blowing its greasy plume, and the man from the medical examiner’s office moved toward the body. This version of dead was particularly un-nice. In striking the air-conditioning unit, most of the woman’s face had been ripped away.

  Muscle glistened. Bone gleamed.

  “Been here a while,” the examiner said, standing up. “There’s not much blood, not even on what’s left of the face, so she was lucky and went fast. I’d guess early morning. One to two. No later than three.”

  Green glanced up at the windows. “And nobody saw her for twelve hours?”

  “The only reason anyone looks out here is if somebody else is taking a shower across the way,” said Briscoe.

  Green stepped closer to the body. “Straight up, it’s hard to see down here.” He pointed, “But over there…”

  Briscoe drew a line of sight in the air. “The ventilator box would block the view.”

  “Dark bundle in the corner. Who notices?” said the M.E. “The birds hadn’t found her yet.”

  “So that,” Green indicated the mutilated face, “that happened in the fall?”

  “Hit something on the way down is my guess. She dropped at least five floors.”

  Green made a noise of disgust. “If someone had seen that lying there, you think they would have called.”

  “Even if someone saw her here and didn’t bother to report it, what’s the difference?” said Briscoe.

  “Unless they saw her fall.”

  “You guys thinking up reasons not to question all the guests?”

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  “Us?” sneered Briscoe. “We just love to talk to dozens of turistas. It’s why I never want to retire.”

  “Well, if you’re done, we can haul her away.”

  “No I.D.?” asked Green. “Is she a guest? Just a jumper?”

  “Nothing on her. No note. She’s mid-forties. Five-six. About one-thirty-five. Slim enough to look good in stretch slacks. Didn’t dye her hair.” He lifted up the cover. “See the gray mixed in?”

  Briscoe rolled his eyes. “I’ll take your word for it
.”

  Green avoided looking at the victim as well. “Is there enough there to get a sketch or something someone could recognize?”

  “I wouldn’t show the photo around,” he said. “She’s looked better.”

  “That’s often the case with the dead.”

  “No, I mean from what’s left, she wasn’t wearing makeup.”

  Green thought about the clothing, or lack of it, on suicides. Did women usually make up before killing themselves? He made a mental note to find out.

  The man from the M.E.’s office continued. “She was dressing down, you know what I mean? She had great cheekbones, a narrow nose. My guess is she would have been a knockout about twenty years ago.

  And judging from her hands, she hasn’t washed many dishes or dug many ditches.”

  “Just maybe some gold, huh?” said Briscoe. “Any other deductions?”

  “Just let me know if I’m right, which I usually am,”

  he sneered, signaling a uniformed officer to bring the stretcher.

  “With our luck, you will be,” said Green.

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  “Nothing’s more fun than the idle rich,” said Briscoe. “Except the dead idle rich.”

  “Let’s climb straight up,” said Green to the day manager as Briscoe questioned the clerks.

  The manager hunched over his keyboard, squinting as if he were going to rest his nose on the CRT’s glass.

  The monitor looked like it was built for the ENIAC

  and the lettering blurred. “Six-two-seven’s got a couple from Turin. Got in about noon.”

  “Who was in there before them?”

  “Some jackass from Dubuque.”

  “Why ‘jackass’?”

  “Screamed how he didn’t watch Pay-Per-View.” The day manager tapped the monitor’s glass. “He did.

  The equipment don’t lie.”

  “Maybe what he watched isn’t legal in Dubuque,”

  said Green.

  “That’s why they love New York,” said the manager.

  Briscoe leaned into the doorway. “No one remembers a woman in black. Wrong shift.”

  “They get in at four,” said the manager. “Seven-two-seven’s a family of three.”

  “I’d think they’d report a missing mommy,” said Briscoe.

  “Here you go,” said the manager. “Eight-two-seven.

  Checked in at five yesterday. Hasn’t checked out. Paid a cash deposit for incidentals. Don’t see that much, except from foreign tourists. ‘Mrs. R.E. Chesko.’” He quickly picked up the telephone. “Reserved on Tuesday, by Internet. American Express Platinum.”

  “Don’t kill yourself without it,” said Briscoe.

  “She planned ahead for her suicide?” said Green, thinking out loud.

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  “Not all that strange,” said Briscoe. “But there are eight more floors above this one.”

  “I’m ringing eight-two-seven. There’s no answer,”

  said the manager. He dialed another number and spoke slowly, carefully, to the maid. “The privacy card is on the door. She thinks she hears the TV, but there’s no answer.”

  “Tell her not to go in,” said Briscoe.

  As the door swung back, Briscoe and Green heard the loud oooh of a studio audience. On a 27-inch color screen, Maury Povich tore open an envelope with DNA results.

  “Hello?” said Briscoe. “Police.”

  The bed was slightly rumpled, but the cover had not been pulled back. The window was closed, but the curtain rod was bent. Someone had pulled down hard on the sheer.

  Briscoe rapped on the bathroom door. “Hello?

  Anybody in there? Mrs. Chesko?” The unlatched door swung back. Someone had used a single hand towel, then tossed it on the sink.

  The manager reached for a black beret on the end table.

  “Don’t touch anything!” snapped Green.

  Briscoe craned to look on the other side of the bed.

  “I remember those,” he said. “I even remember using them regularly, back in the late Neolithic.”

  “What?” asked Green.

  “Galoshes,” said Briscoe. He pointed to a torn, bright blue foil square under the hanging edge of the bedspread.

  “Mrs. Chesko and partner took precautions before she died.”

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  “Proving that safe sex isn’t always safe.” Briscoe turned to the manager. “I don’t want to read this in the paper,” he warned.

  “What are you saying? I don’t want this in the paper.”

  “Then don’t give them anything to write about,”

  said Green.

  “We should have an address,” the manager volun-teered.

  “That would be a big help,” said Briscoe, nudging him toward the door. “You print us all the records: phone calls, room service, if she watched any movies.”

  “Sure,” said the manager. He had almost closed the door when Briscoe grabbed it.

  “Wait. Have you got security cameras in the hall?”

  “At the front desk and near the elevators. There’s one on the delivery door.”

  “We’re going to need those tapes.”

  Green was already dialing the crime scene investigators on his cell phone.

  “No purse,” said Briscoe. “She didn’t even bring a toothbrush.”

  Green leaned toward the window frame as he spoke. “Right, eight-twenty-seven. A full workup. It’s not for sure a suicide.” He snapped the phone closed.

  “Maybe she was robbed.”

  “We should check the maid. Her stuff might have been lifted after she took the dive.”

  “And the trash cans in the area. Her purse could have been dumped.”

  Green pointed to a scratch in the paint on the windowsill.

  “She reserves a room Tuesday to meet somebody on Wednesday. Gets here at five.”

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  “About the time her boyfriend gets off work?”

  “Or she does. Or they both do.”

  “So one of them works in midtown, wouldn’t you think?”

  Briscoe watched Green kneel to look under the bed.

  “I’d say if they had something to hide, that it would be close, but at least a couple of blocks.”

  “There’s a subway stop on the corner.”

  “So maybe a lot of blocks,” shrugged Briscoe. “They meet. They can’t even wait to pull back the covers, but they do have the presence of mind to march with the Trojan. Slam-bam.”

  “She begs him to leave his wife,” said Green, standing up. “He shoves her out the window.”

  “It works for me,” said Briscoe.

  “Say,” said Green, “what is this?” He pointed to the corner of a rectangular item lying just under the edge of the television. Green pulled his pen and teased it out. It was a rectangular piece of plastic with a logo that said “SanDisk” and “128 MB” below that. On the long edge, it said “MEMORY STICK.”

  “It’s a memory card, like for a digital camera,” said Green.

  “There’s no camera, but did you notice the plug down there?”

  Green bagged the memory stick and knelt to look at the electric socket beside the TV stand. A small charger about two by six inches had been hidden under the stand. A thin cord from the transformer curled among the cable wires in the corner.

  “It’s too big for a cell phone,” said Briscoe. “A radio adapter? It says ‘Sony.’”

  “I’ll bet a computer—a laptop or a notebook,” said Green.

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  “If she had a computer, it’s gone. It’s looking like theft.”

  He answered a rap at the door.

  A forensics technician carrying an investigation kit came in. “Hey, Lennie,” he said. “What’s the deal?

  Find a note?”

  “No, but we got everything figured out,” said Briscoe. “At least until you gu
ys find the wrong kind of fibers.”

  “For a small fee, I’ll plant what you like.”

  “Until I get a raise,” said Briscoe, “I’ll have to solve cases the old-fashioned way.” He nudged Green. “Let’s go find out who R.E. Chesko is.”

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  SQUAD ROOM

  27TH PRECINCT

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

  Twenty minutes on the phone and Briscoe was wearing his “why me?” look. The “R.E. Chesko” on the credit card turned out to be Ralph Emerson Chesko, and according to the rules of American Express, his card wasn’t supposed to be used by anyone other than Ralph Emerson Chesko, not even a wife, but since the reservation had been prepaid on the Internet, whoever it was had only needed the number. The identity of the body was now in question. The card hadn’t been reported stolen, nor was there any unusual activity on it, but when the detectives tried to call the R.E. Chesko number, the phone had been cut off two weeks previously, for lack of payment. Since the address appeared to be in the toniest area of the Hamptons, this seemed peculiar.

  People with phone problems didn’t normally live in that neighborhood.

  While Briscoe went through the procedures to get the last couple of credit card statements, Green called the local police on Long Island, who said they knew nothing about the Chesko estate, other than that the house was on the historical register as the Boer Mansion and had been built in 1915 by a Dutchman in 11

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  diamond mining. Green asked them to drive by and see if anyone still lived there. He drummed his fingers on his desk, then found the address and phone number of the nearest house.

  “Can I help you?” answered a voice Green would have described as “very white,” the voice you inherit when your family’s first million came in doubloons.

  “This is Detective Green of the New York City Police Department.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are Mr. James Riley Walston?”

  “This is supposed to be an unpublished number.”

  “Well, Mr. Walston, I am a detective.”

  “Indeed. So you say.”

  “The reason I’m calling is that we were wondering if you knew your neighbor, a Mr. Ralph Emerson Chesko?”

  “Too well, I’m afraid, but not well enough.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So, there are charges being preferred?”

  “Against Mr. Chesko? What kind of charges?”

  Briscoe, who had been on hold, peered across the desk.