Law & Order Dead Line Read online

“Why, the obvious!” said the man.

  “I’m sorry. I was simply trying to contact Mr.

  Chesko about a stolen credit card. His phone seems out of service.”

  “Chesko bellied up six months ago. Moved within a month. People say things, but I still think he was on the up and up.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He just got dragged down by the Williams thing.

  Falling dominoes. He lost more than his job, you 12

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  know. Emily ran away as soon as the growth fund collapsed.”

  “Emily? Was that Mrs. Chesko? Have you seen her recently?”

  “Not for, let me think, three months. Ah, well, Ralph shouldn’t have been surprised. She was in it for the money. Anyone could see that. But, you know, Ralph didn’t actually own the Boer Mansion. It was on a Preservation Society lease. Maintain it and you can live in it. Providing you don’t alter it.”

  A housing subsidy for the rich, thought Green.

  Wouldn’t want the non-moneyed moving into the nabe and ruining the ambience. “So you haven’t seen Mrs. Chesko for several months?”

  “Since she moved out. She was carrying the Moore.”

  “The what?”

  “The Henry Moore. A mother and child sculpture.

  It seemed funny. The not-very-motherly Emily carrying an image of motherhood like it was her child. I imagine when the divorce is through, it’ll turn up on the schedule at Sotheby’s”

  Green noted “valuable statue” on his notepad. “Mr.

  Walston, could you describe Mrs. Chesko for me?”

  “If you’d seen her, you’d know her, and how!” said the neighbor. “A brick carriage house. Blonde, of course. Tried sultry Grace Kelly, but came out Judy Holliday.”

  Blonde? Green’s pen hovered. “How tall would you say?”

  “A long drink of water,” said Walston. “Six, I’d imagine. I’m five ten. Yes, I’d say six.”

  The dead woman was definitely not six feet, thought Green. He tapped his pen on the desk. “The blonde was natural?”

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  “As natural as Iowa polyethylene.”

  “Could she have been blonde to cover a speckling of gray?”

  Walston laughed. “Emily hadn’t turned over her first batch of pubic hair!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If the girl was a day over twenty-five I want her doctor!”

  Green thanked Walston and hung up. “Damn!” he said. “She isn’t Mrs. Chesko.”

  Briscoe rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me!”

  “Mrs. Emily Chesko is about six feet, under thirty years old, and quite a looker.”

  “So the card is hot,” said Briscoe.

  Just then, Lieutenant Anita Van Buren approached.

  “What’s with the jumper?” she asked.

  “We don’t know who she is,” said Briscoe.

  “Jumpers usually want you to know,” said Van Buren. “It’s their big moment.”

  “The credit card number must have been stolen,”

  said Green. “Either by the Jane Doe or her boyfriend.”

  “They’re faxing over the last couple of statements,”

  said Briscoe, “but there’s the other theft possibility, too. There is no purse, no wallet, and she might have had a small computer, you know, a laptop or something. Two accessories were left behind.”

  “Jewelry?”

  “Not that we can tell,” said Green.

  “That doesn’t mean she didn’t have any,” said Briscoe.

  Van Buren shrugged. “A perp gains entry. She screams. He pushes. Or she backs up to the window.”

  “Fell?” said Briscoe.

  “It happens,” said Van Buren.

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  “Could be,” said Green, “but the window wasn’t easy to back out of, even completely open. She’d have to bend over. There’s the condom wrapper, which could have been missed by the maid the day before.

  But it’s more likely somebody was with her.”

  “Maybe the boyfriend took her stuff.”

  “I called robbery,” said Briscoe. “They haven’t had any thefts like this in midtown hotels. They’ve sent out their usual notices to the pawnshops for a Sony laptop.”

  Green shrugged. “It could have been a hotel employee, somebody with a passkey. But nobody knows anything, of course.”

  “The perp sneaks into her room, gets surprised when she comes back…” said Briscoe.

  “Or they just filch it when she’s already towered out.”

  “Took the whole purse?” mused Van Buren.

  “If she had one,” said Briscoe.

  “Maybe it was an expensive one.”

  “That would fit,” said Briscoe. “Otherwise it’s just take the money and the fencibles and run. If the purse itself was fencible Gucci or something. Yeah, why not? We got a couple of unis checking the local trash bins.”

  “How’d you get out of the dumpster dive?” said Van Buren. “I’m not getting complaints about you using up manpower, am I?”

  “Well, we’ve got to identify her, don’t we?” said Briscoe. “Anyway, I collected on a favor.”

  Green suppressed a grin.

  “Whatever. Just clear this up,” said the lieutenant.

  “I need help on that Soho drive-by.”

  “Briscoe!” someone called. A uniform stood in the 15

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  doorway, holding several sheets of paper. “Detective Briscoe! Faxes.”

  Briscoe turned and raised his hand. The uniform handed him a set of American Express statements.

  “About time,” he said.

  “What are we looking for?” said Green.

  “A clue,” said Briscoe.

  Green rolled his eyes and hunkered down over the papers. The top list began in mid-May. Lunch at the Plaza. Broadway tickets. Schmelling and Sons, Pur-veyors of Fine Food. The Wine Shop. The Wine Shop.

  Must have been a good weekend, he thought.

  “Here’s a ticket on Virgin Airlines. Maybe he’s out of the country.”

  “And wouldn’t know his card is being used,” said Briscoe.

  “There’s a hotel charge for the Hotel La Place, St.

  Brelade, Isle of Jersey. Not a very large charge.”

  “Maybe it was just a one-night stand. Still, motels in New Jersey are cheaper.”

  “He bought something at a shop in Heathrow a day later.”

  “So he was either moving on from London or coming home.” Briscoe rocked back. “The one night stand idea has me thinking. Maybe Chesko was having a fling with Jane Doe?”

  “With a young trophy at home?” asked Green.

  “Maybe he missed mama’s home cooking.”

  They went back to scanning the charges. “Well,”

  said Briscoe, “he’s either back in the U.S.A., or somebody’s buying on his card.” He held up the list.

  “A week ago there was a big charge at a building supply store.”

  “Maybe there was a delivery,” said Green. “What’s the supply store?”

  Briscoe’s phone rang. “Brooklyn Lumber,” he said, then snapped up the phone. “Yeah? Oh, Carl! So that 16

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  was quick. Have fun? Yeah, yeah. So?” His expression changed. “No kidding?” He covered the mouthpiece.

  “The purse!”

  “How does he know it’s hers?”

  Briscoe nodded, listening. “Nothing? You checked the whole thing out, right? Women’s purses got all those hidden pockets and things. Right. And you?

  Okay. Bag it and bring it in. See if there are any cans you missed.” He listened for a second and laughed.

  “Hell, Carl, you can take a bath anytime. When do you get the chance to break a case?”

  “What’s up?” asked Green.

  “They found her leather purse in the hotel dumpster.

  Coach brand. There was the hotel rec
eipt: American Express, R.E. Chesko.”

  “So who is she?”

  “That’s the catch. There’s a grocery receipt, cash, from a store in the Village. A couple of eyebrow pencils and a cheap pen with the NYU logo.

  Everything else is gone.”

  “So the thief took the wallet, and if we’re lucky, the card.”

  “And they might use it yet,” said Briscoe. “Maybe they’re just spending her cash right now.”

  “We could see if anyone remembers her in the grocery,” Green suggested. “But, first, let’s see where all of these building supplies went.”

  “What you want to bet to a vacant lot? Charge the stuff, have it delivered, move it in an hour. It will be emptier than the last scene of On the Beach.”

  Green hesitated for a moment, then decided not to ask. He began dialing.

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  SHAMIR’S PAWN AND USED

  EIGHTH AVENUE AND TWENTIETH

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

  “So I called. I don’t need no grief.” The pawnshop owner’s breath smelled of cardamom seed. His fingernails were manicured and his mustache was neatly combed. Shamir was a big man in a big Hawaiian shirt. In the neighborhood, he was often called “Shamu.”

  Briscoe looked around at the usual pawnshop assortment of dusty musical instruments, electronics, and a case full of rings.

  “I saw it on the bulletin. The notices come on the fax. You got here quick.”

  “We were in the neighborhood,” said Green.

  “On our way to a vacant lot,” muttered Briscoe.

  “The last time I call in something, a detective don’t show up for two weeks.”

  “Robbery’s pretty busy,” said Green.

  “So the customer comes back to redeem it. The guitar. The creep steal it, pawn it, then see in the paper it once belong to Sid Vicious and he wants it back.”

  “Sid Vicious, eh?” said Briscoe.

  “So what happened?” said Green.

  “I say it’s all his. Hey, I don’t need to be shot by 18

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  no gangsta. Not my fault the cops, I mean ‘officers,’

  don’t come.”

  “Right,” said Briscoe sarcastically. Shamir gave him a look.

  “We appreciate your trying,” said Green. “You got a Sony laptop?”

  “I look down the list, I think maybe it’s it. The woman wasn’t right. You are lucky I called after last time. I almost sent her away.”

  “It was a woman?”

  “Yes.” Shamir held up the pawn slip. “Ermilia Santonio. She showed me a green card for I.D.”

  Briscoe’s eyes met Green’s. “A maid?” he asked.

  Green flipped through his notepad. There were nine maids on duty at the Waterloo on the two days. An Ermilia Santonio was number five on his list, but they hadn’t talked to her. Green held up his notepad.

  “Bingo,” he said.

  “You said you knew the woman wasn’t right?”

  asked Briscoe.

  “On a laptop, I want to see if it works. You can get NYU students here who crash their machines and try to pawn them. This woman, she could be a student.

  Students come in all shapes now. But she had a hard time opening the latch. When I asked her what the thing would do, she just said ‘many things.’ So I asked her where she got it. She said her brother gave it to her. I turn the thing on, it has a password and she can’t tell me what it is. She says she forgot and her brother’s out of the country.”

  “So you suspected it was stolen?”

  The man twitched his nose. “How would I know?

  I figured I’d see if it turned up on the lists.”

  “You could have called in immediately.”

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  “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t. I feel like you’re accusing me.”

  “Tut, tut, Shamir. You shouldn’t be pawning stuff you think is stolen,” said Green.

  “And if I didn’t, she’d have walked out of here,”

  said Shamir. “I’m out thirty-five bucks, and this is the thanks?”

  “Come on, buddy,” said Briscoe. “If it hadn’t shown up on the list, you’d have gotten yourself a computer on the cheap. But we’re not interested in that, okay?

  Show us the machine.”

  Shamir gave them another half-lidded glare and unlocked the mesh door of his cash register cage. He brought out a black briefcase and set it on the counter.

  As he unlatched it, Green stepped forward.

  “Let us handle it,” he said. “There might be fingerprints.”

  “Fingerprints?” said Shamir. “This is something important, eh?”

  “We don’t know,” said Briscoe.

  Using a handkerchief, Green slid the computer out of its case. It was a thin silver Sony Vaio, model number PCG-R505GCP4. Green pointed at a slit in the side. “A memory stick goes there.”

  “Is there anything to identify it?” asked Briscoe.

  “If it’s registered, the serial number will be on record,” said Shamir.

  Briscoe nodded. Green opened the top. “You tried it?”

  “You need a password.”

  “And you put your hands all over it, I suppose.”

  Shamir turned up his palms. “What do you expect?”

  Green pushed the button and waited until the screen lit. “PASSWORD:” appeared.

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  He typed in “CHESKO.”

  Nothing.

  He entered “RECHESKO.”

  Nothing.

  “RALPHCHESKO.”

  Nothing.

  “RALPHECHESKO.”

  Nothing.

  “A kid could bust it in twenty seconds,” said Shamir.

  “And I don’t suppose you know one,” said Briscoe.

  Shamir smiled.

  “You didn’t…?”

  “I call you right away!”

  “You pawned a machine like this for only thirty-five bucks?” asked Green.

  “Hey, it was charity,” he said. “You never know what’s bad with a computer, do you? I felt sorry for her. I figured maybe it was worth that in parts. Now I don’t even get that.”

  “You win some, you lose some,” said Briscoe.

  “We’re grateful, okay? We’re just trying to figure out if this is the one we’re looking for.”

  “These disks were in the case pocket,” said Shamir.

  “This isn’t like one of those spy things? I read in the paper about laptops being stolen from the Alamo.”

  “Alamagordo?” asked Briscoe.

  “Chinese guy.”

  “We don’t go after spies too often,” said Briscoe.

  Green took the diskettes and looked at the labels one by one. “CHECKBOOK,” the first read, then

  “LETTERS.” The third was a photo-editing program.

  “SHAFTED,” he read on the fourth one. “What does that mean?”

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  “Anything else in the case?” asked Briscoe. “Like a charging cord?”

  Shamir shook his head.

  “You get an address for this Ermilia Santonio?”

  asked Green.

  “On the slip. If you find her, I want my thirty-five bucks,” said Shamir. He reached into his shirt pocket and shoved a curled piece of paper at them. “If she ain’t got it, what you say you do something about this parking ticket?”

  “And they call Trump the master of the deal,”

  muttered Briscoe.

  “Santonio’s way uptown,” said Green, checking the address.

  “We’ll go by way of the invisible building supplies,”

  said Briscoe. “The odds on two addresses to nowhere are getting too short to bet.”

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  245 WEST 22ND STREET

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 5:47 P.M.

  Green clicked off his cell phone as they turned onto Twenty-Second Street. “The hotel says Ermilia Santonio is off
for two days, but they have the same home address.”

  “Amazing,” said Briscoe. “Given the traffic, she’ll die of old age before we get up there.” He craned his neck looking for house numbers. “Well, whaddya know, Ed? It’s not a vacant lot.”

  “It’s not exactly the Dakota.”

  “It doesn’t look occupied,” said Briscoe, pulling up to the curb, “but it’s not an empty lot.”

  The roughhouse had received delivery of 1200

  square feet of prefinished light oak flooring and 1500

  square feet of subflooring, all paid for on R.E.

  Chesko’s platinum American Express. Plywood, however, covered the front windows and a folding steel gate, the kind a shopkeeper would use to close his store at night, protected the entryway. Green leaned his head out the car window and spotted the building permit on the other side of the steel gate.

  They could at least get the address of whoever was doing the renovation.

  As he crossed the sidewalk, however, he heard music coming from under the stairway to the front 23

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  door. He peered down the steps into the basement and saw another steel gate, with an open door behind it.

  Briscoe caught up. “What’ve we got? A crack outlet mall?”

  “Listening to Mozart?”

  “What? The poor can’t have taste?”

  They climbed down the stairs.

  “Hello?” shouted Green. “Anybody there? Police!”

  A salt-and-pepper-haired man cautiously looked out. “Can I help you?” he asked. He was the kind of man who aged well, thin and outdoorsy. His white overalls were smudged on the bib and thigh with something caramel-colored, but he wore them more like a model in a Ralph Lauren ad than a working carpenter. In his right hand he held a goblet of red wine.

  Green raised his badge. “Did you just get a delivery of flooring?”

  “A week ago,” he said. “Is there some problem?”

  “We’re Detectives Green and Briscoe. Can we talk to you?”

  His brows narrowed. Sweat rushed down his nose.

  “If I’m being served, you can stick it through the bars.”

  “Detectives don’t serve papers,” said Green.

  “You expecting a lawsuit?” asked Briscoe.

  He shrugged. “They arrive as regularly as the tide.

  Fortunately, they also fall away with great regularity.

  But if you want to take the flooring you’ll have to use a crowbar on half of it.” He looked at the wine in his hand as if surprised it was there and set it on a ledge on the wall to fish for his keys. “I’m not quite down to boxed wines, yet, but they’d have me at Mad Dog 20/20 if they could.”