Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (24 page)

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER,
F
ULTON WALKED INTO
K
ARP’S OFFICE.
He held up the MP3. “Deep Throat sends his regards.”

Karp looked up from where he was locked in conversation with Jack Swanburg and Kenny Katz. “Thanks, Clay,” he said, holding out his hand for the MP3 and then placing it in his desk drawer. “I’ll listen to it later.”

“What’s that, the missing eighteen minutes from the Nixon White House tapes?” Swanburg joked.

“I wish.” Karp laughed. “Then I could quit this lousy job and write a book.” Then his face turned serious. “Kenny just returned with a search warrant for the office and home of Dr. Kip Bergendorf, the assistant medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on Stewart Reed. “We’re going to go serve it now. Want to join us?”

“You bet! Going to arrest him?” the big detective asked.

“Depends,” Karp said. “Right now, we’re going to sit him down and ask him a few questions. If he’ll talk…”

Dr. Kip Bergendorf looked up from his desk in the small glassed-in office he shared with two other AMEs and nearly swallowed his gum when he saw the New York district attorney, accompanied by
a young man with bushy hair and an old man in a full white beard, enter the New York Medical Examiner’s Office. Karp spoke to one of the other AMEs who was milling around the entrance, and then looked up in his direction.

Bergendorf pretended not to notice as he stood up and left his cubicle to head for the exit behind him. He stopped at the door when a large black man suddenly appeared on the other side.

“Excuse me! Dr. Bergendorf? Could we have a word, please,” Karp said in a loud voice as he came up behind the doctor.

“I, um, need to use the restroom,” Bergendorf, a dumpy middle-aged man with a receding hairline, replied.

“It can wait,” the big black man growled, flashing a gold NYPD detective’s badge and handing him a document. “I’m Detective Clay Fulton and this is a search warrant for your office, including computer records; another is being served at your home in Newark.”

“My wife’s at home…” Bergendorf wailed. “This will really upset her.”

“Well, if she’s home, at least we won’t have to bust the door down,” Fulton replied.

Bergendorf turned to Karp. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Sure,” Karp responded. “It’s about a homicide investigation.”

“What homicide?” Bergendorf said, licking his lips nervously.

“That of Stewart Reed.”

The AME turned white as the blood drained from his face. “But I did that autopsy, it was a suicide.”

“It wasn’t a suicide,” said the older man with the beard. “He was murdered. Jack Swanburg’s the name, pathology’s the game, and as the man said, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Is there someplace we can sit quietly?” Karp asked. “Or would you rather we asked out here.”

The AME looked around. Other AMEs were standing around their desks and talking in small groups as they stole glances in his direction. “We can go back in my cubicle, it’s small but private.”

“Lead the way,” Fulton said, gesturing.

Ten minutes later, Swanburg had laid out his case, complete with graphs and charts. No luxation, death by asphyxiation, yet no ecchymosis. “Practically screams homicide,” Swanburg noted. “Then
there’s the needle track on the buttocks. Remember that? You should, you took a photograph that included a blood smear.”

Bergendorf just swallowed hard, so Swanburg continued. “Took a bit of looking, but my friend and colleague Griff—he’s a forensic chemist, one of the best in the country—found it. A fast-acting neurotoxin injected into the muscle—immobilized him within seconds, killed through asphyxiation within six to eight minutes…before the killer hung him, thus no ecchymosis. The poison itself, which appears to have been one of those developed by the Soviets during the height of Cold War spy versus spy, had metabolized. Griff found what was left over from the metabolizing process and worked backward.”

When Swanburg stopped, Bergendorf shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know what to say. Good work. I obviously missed something. I’ve just been exhausted lately, we get so many cases and there isn’t the time or resource to do a decent—”

“Can it, Bergendorf,” Karp growled. “All Dr. Swanburg and I want to know is why and who?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bergendorf protested, and appeared ready to continue until Karp held up his hand.

“Before you say another thing, think about it,” Karp warned. “You hit the radar, and we’re going through your files here, and at your home—if there’s something you kept that implicates you more, we’re going to find it. Face it, Kip, you aided and abetted a murder of one of my men, you’re going to swing in the big house big-time. Now I’ll give you a choice: you can be a cooperating witness or an adverse defendant. Your call.”

Bergendorf’s hands trembled as he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. “If I say anything, I’ll be killed.”

“It depends on what you say, but you might just qualify for witness protection in a prison in another state or at least administrative segregation at Attica,” Fulton said. “Someplace where you might survive just getting to the lunchroom.”

Bergendorf hesitated. “I want to call my wife,” he said.

“Go ahead,” Karp agreed. “You won’t mind if we listen?”

The AME appeared about to say something, but then shook his head. “I just want to make sure she’s all right.” He pressed the
numbers on his cell phone and everyone in the cubicle knew when she answered because she started screaming at him. All Bergendorf could get in was a weak apology. “I’ll explain later. Just pack up the kids and go stay with your mother. It’s going to be okay.”

The woman screamed something else that caused Bergendorf to wince and close his cell phone. “Maybe I should call a lawyer?”

“You’re free to do so and you’re free to go,” Karp replied. “You’re not under arrest…yet. However, let me explain what will happen. If you ask for a lawyer, and that’s your right, we won’t be able to ask you any more questions. And that means we’ll have to assume that you’re unwilling to cooperate with us. Do you want to stop cooperating?”

Bergendorf started to cry. “No, I want to…help. I got a call from a guy to meet him at a bar. He’s Russian or something, big guy, and I mean big…six-five, maybe three hundred pounds…got a face like a Neanderthal. Anyway, he tells me that on such-and-such a date, a body is going to be brought into the morgue, and all I have to do is look the other way and rule it a suicide.”

“What was in it for you?” Karp asked.

“Twenty grand.”

“So you noticed the lack of ecchymosis and yet no luxation?” Swanburg said.

“Yeah, sure,” Bergendorf replied. “It was clearly a homicide.”

Karp nodded. “Well, Mr. Kip Bergendorf, now it’s official, you’re under arrest. Detective Fulton will read you your rights and you will be escorted to the Tombs for booking.”

As Fulton began to repeat the Miranda warnings to Bergendorf, the man sat back heavily in his chair. “Can’t we work something out?” he cried. “What if I was to tell you that this Russian guy said to expect another body tonight? A woman this time.”

That got everybody’s attention. Karp leaned toward the man as if he might jump across the desk onto him. “I’m not making any deals with you, Bergendorf. But if you want to avoid a second charge of murder, then I suggest you talk.”

“The Russian called again a couple of hours ago. He asked if I was working the afternoon shift and told me to be watching for a ‘heroin overdose.’”

“He give you the name of the victim?” Fulton demanded.

“Carmina,” Bergendorf replied. “Carmina Salinas, age twenty-four.”

“She’s an actress in Maplethorpe’s play,” Karp said. “Marlene thinks that she knows something, or Maplethorpe did something, but she’s afraid to talk. Apparently, someone wants to make sure she doesn’t have a change of heart. When is this supposed to happen?”

Bergendorf sniffled and then said, “Sometime after three.”

Karp looked at his watch. “It’s two forty-five.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Clay, call Father Dugan, see if he has an address for Carmina Salinas.”

“Who are you calling?” Katz asked.

“Marlene,” Karp answered. “She was supposed to see Alejandro this afternoon. He’s a friend of Carmina. He might be the fastest way to find her.”

As Karp called his wife, and Fulton tried to reach the priest, Katz turned to Bergendorf. “Did this Russian say who he was working for?”

The AME shook his head. “No. Just that he had a job for me.”

“Why would he know he could come to you for this?” Swanburg asked. “There must be a lot of AMEs who work here. Why you?”

Bergendorf licked his lips. “Let’s just say I got involved with the wrong people and sold my soul.”

The AME glanced over at Karp, who was just getting off the phone. “In fact, if you’re willing to make a deal, Mr. Karp, I might be able to help with another case you should be interested in.”

Karp glared at the AME. He was in no mood to negotiate with the weasel. “Yeah, what’s that, Bergendorf? You talk, I’ll decide later what it was worth.”

“Does the name Newbury ring any bells?”

Marlene flipped her cell phone closed and rushed back into La Fonda Boricua, a Puerto Rican restaurant in East Harlem, where Alejandro Garcia flirted with the waitress, who was asking him to autograph her short skirt.

Up until thirty seconds ago, Marlene had been eating a delicious
lunch of pork
chicharrones
in an effort to distract herself from worrying about Lucy. Her daughter had sent another text message saying she was still on a retreat and was only taking a break to send a quick message. “Be back in touch soon,” the message ended.

Marlene was aware that if Lucy was with some of the Taos Indians on this retreat, cell phones weren’t allowed. In fact, it was unusual for someone who wasn’t a member of the tribe to be invited, which spoke to Lucy’s standing with the tribe due to her work at the mission, as well as Jojola’s putting in a good word for her.

In truth, Marlene wondered if Lucy was really on a secret mission for Jaxon and the whole “retreat” explanation was a ruse because she wasn’t allowed to say.
Or she didn’t want to worry us,
she’d thought when she had first walked into the restaurant for a late lunch with Garcia.

Then her cell phone went off to the ringtone of “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. “It’s Butch,” she said, and laughed when Garcia wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“I certainly hope so, señora,” Garcia replied. “I’d hate to think you were stepping out on the Man.”

La Fonda Boricua was a busy, noisy restaurant and Marlene had to step outside to hear what Karp was telling her. But once she did, she didn’t waste time asking questions. She rushed into the restaurant and pointed at Garcia. “We need to leave, now!”

“What’s the rush? You forget your credit card and now we have to dine and dash?” He laughed, tossing a large bill on the table to cover the tab.

“Carmina’s in danger,” Marlene replied. “Do you know where she’s at?”

Alejandro was on his feet in an instant and led the way out the door. “Probably at home in her apartment on Pleasant Avenue, getting ready for her show tonight. What’s this shit about her being in danger?”

Before Marlene could answer, Garcia stepped out in front of a taxi. As the cabbie laid on the horn, he ran around to the passenger door and yanked it open. “Get out!” he shouted at the surprised Japanese tourist.

“What the fuck,” the cabbie yelled. “Get away from my passenger!”

Garcia reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill. “Here’s a hundred bucks,” he said, handing it to the cabdriver. “There’s another one if you can get me to One Sixteenth and Pleasant in two minutes or less!”

“You got it,” the cabbie agreed. He turned to the tourist and gestured at the door. “You heard the man, get the fuck out of my cab!”

“Who’s after her?” Garcia asked as he dialed Carmina’s number on his cell phone.

“We’re supposed to be looking for a very large Russian. Thick features,” Marlene said, then clapped a hand to her forehead. “I ran into a guy that fits the description that time I met you and Carmina at St. Malachy’s. He wanted directions to Radio City Music Hall.”

“Sounds like a guy named Gregor, who works for Maplethorpe as a bodyguard,” Alejandro said.

“Tell Carmina to leave the apartment and go somewhere with other people around,” Marlene said. “I’m going to call Butch and he’ll send the cops.”

Alejandro nodded, and after a few moments he slammed the cell phone shut. “Dammit, she’s not picking up,” he cursed. He banged on the partition between him and the driver. “Pedal to the metal, hombre, or that hundred goes back in my pocket.”

The driver punched the gas pedal and leaned on the horn as he slipped in and out of lanes. “Okay, but you also pay the ticket if I get pulled over.”

“No problem, just don’t stop until you get there!”

Carmina looked through the peephole at the large man in the Elkins Plumbing and Heating uniform outside her apartment door. He had a cap on and she couldn’t see his face very well. “What do you want?”

“Superintendent sent me,” he said in a bored, heavily accented voice. “There have been complaints about no heat.”

“I’m not having any problems,” Carmina replied. “You can check me off the list.”

“Sorry, but super says I have to check all apartments. Please, lady, I lose my job if I don’t check all.”

Carmina rolled her eyes. All she wanted was a bath and a nap before the evening performance of
Putin.
But this guy wasn’t going to go away, so she unlatched the dead bolt and removed the security chain to let him in. “Make it fast, please.”

She turned around and led the way into her living room before turning around and getting a good look at the man. “Gregor? What the hell are you doing?” Suddenly, she realized she was in danger and made a dash for the front door.

However, the big man was agile as a tiger and grabbed her by the arm with one hand while his other snapped a plastic bag over her head. “Where you going, little Carmina?” he said as he brought his hand up and helped secure the bottom of the bag around her throat as she gasped for air.