The Kill Room

“That man? Haven’t we seen him before, outside the other office? Is he following us?” The person he noted was a young, somber faced white guy, looking through a magazine. That alone struck Lydia as odd, something out of an old time detective film, where a PI pretends to read a newspaper on the street while spying on a suspect. Nobody lounges on the streets of New York, browsing through reading material; they check iPhones or BlackBerrys.

Lydia would be sure to tell the police officer about the incident; maybe that man had something to do with Mr. Moreno’s death.

Digging through Redweld folders, she assembled her notes from the assignments she’d had with Mr. Moreno over the past few months. She’d saved everything. As an interpreter, she worked with the police and court system from time to time. She had gotten into the habit of being very conscientious about retaining all her files in such cases because a mistaken phrasing of a detective’s question or a suspect’s answer could easily result in an i

The police would get nearly a thousand pages of translated material by and about the late Mr. Moreno.

The intercom buzzer rang and she answered. “Yes?”

“Ms. Foster, I’m with the NYPD,” a male voice said. “Detective Sachs spoke to you earlier? She’s been delayed and asked me to come by and ask you a few questions about Robert Moreno.”

“Sure, come on up. Twelve B.”

“Thank you.”

A few minutes later a knock on the door. She looked out through the peephole, to see a pleasant looking man in his thirties, wearing a suit. He was holding up a leather wallet containing a gold badge.

“Come on in,” she said, unbolting and unchaining.

He nodded a greeting and stepped inside.

As soon as she closed the door she noted that there was something wrong with his hands. They were wrinkled. No, he was wearing flesh colored gloves.

She frowned. “Wait–”

Before she could scream he struck her hard in the throat with an open hand.

Gurgling, crying, she dropped to the floor.

CHAPTER 40

He sometimes wondered about people, Jacob Swa

Either you were conscientious or you weren’t. Either you scrubbed every bit of scorch off your copper bottomed, stainless steel sauté pan or you didn’t. Either you went the distance with the soufflé, and saw it rise five inches over the top of the ramekin, or you said to hell with it and for dessert served Häagen Dazs, spelled in faux Scandinavian but made in the U.S. of A.

Standing over a crumpled, gasping Lydia Foster, he was thinking of Amelia Sachs.

She’d been smart enough to destroy her cell phone (and it was  destroyed, not simply castrated, his tech people had learned). But then she’d made the mistake of calling Detective Sellitto back from a pay phone only about twenty five feet from Java Hut. By the time she called, those same tech gurus at headquarters had rammed a tap on this phone – and several others nearby.

(While of course officially claiming they didn’t know how to do it and, even if they had known, never would.)

Sometimes your Miele oven conks out – just before you’re ready to slip the lamb roast in, natch – and you have to improvise.

Sure enough, Sachs had delivered to Lon Sellitto – and inadvertently to Jacob Swa

He now moved through the apartment quietly, verifying that they were alone. He probably didn’t have a lot of time. Sachs had said she’d be delayed but presumably she’d call or arrive soon. Should he wait for her? He’d have to consider that. She might not show up alone, of course. There was that and while he did have a pistol, shooting, as opposed to cutting, was the sloppiest (and least enjoyable) way of solving problems.

But if Sachs was  alone? Several options presented themselves.

Slipping the knife away, he now returned to the interpreter, grabbed her by the hair and collar of her blouse and dumped her in a heavy dining room chair. He tied her to this with lamp wire, cut with a cheap utility knife he carried–not  the Kai Shun, of course. He never even used the blade to slice string for tying beef roulade, one of his favorite recipes.

Tears streamed down her face and, gasping from the throat punch, Lydia Foster shivered and kicked.

Jacob Swa

My little butcher man…

He crouched beside her as she sat making ungodly sounds and shaking madly.

“Be still,” he whispered into her ear.

He thought of the Bahamas, yesterday, of A

The interpreter didn’t comply exactly but she calmed enough.

“I have a few questions. I’m going to need all the material about your assignments for Robert Moreno. What you talked about. And who you met. But first of all, how many officers have you talked to about Robert Moreno?” He was concerned that somebody had called her after Amelia Sachs.

She shook her head.

Jacob Swa

She made more bizarre sounds and then, when he brushed the knife against her fingers, she whispered, “No one.”

She glanced toward the door. It meant she believed she could save herself if she stalled, to give the police time to arrive.

Jacob Swa

He whispered, “Now, I’m going to ask you once more.”

CHAPTER 41

The drive to the sniper’s nest on the outcropping of land near the South Cove I

Mychal Poitier gave Thom a complicated route to get to the main highway that led them to their destination – SW Road. The point of this evasion was to see if the gold Mercury was following them. Poitier assured him that the car did not contain officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force conducting surveillance. The tail might have to do with Moreno or something else entirely. A well dressed and vulnerable American in a wheelchair might simply have aroused the interest of thieves.

Rhyme called Pulaski, who was still at the i

Once past the airport the traffic thi

“Here, turn here,” Poitier said.

They had arrived at a dirt road, which veered right and led through a wide, rusting gate, which was open. The road followed a narrow outcropping of land that extended a half mile into Clifton Bay. The spit was a few feet above sea level, dotted with trees and brush and scruffy bare spots, lined with a shore that was rocky in some places, sandy in others. The road was bordered with Do Not Swim  signs. No explanation was given but the water was noxious, sickly green and singularly unappealing.