The Final Cut

She called the ME and more CSU people. They were in for a long night.

Mike remembered Elaine had been dressed in business clothes but no shoes. She tried to work up the scene in her head: Elaine returning home from a long day’s work, leaving the man in the living room to take it easy, slipping off her shoes, rubbing her feet a bit, then heading for the shower. Or the man was hiding in the bathroom, leaping out at her. She fought for her life; they struggled back into the living room. She somehow turned the needle back on him, and he got her gun from her and shot her with it. That didn’t work. The dead guy was big, didn’t look at all helpless. Elaine was only five-foot-six or so; he would have overpowered her in a second.

There had to have been a third person involved. A person who murdered them both. She was sure of it.

Mike walked backward from the bathroom to the living room, eyeing the overturned chair, sofa pillows on the floor, a broken glass near the ottoman. The struggle ended here, with the body. So the man had fought the murderer. He’d died, and Elaine had ended up in the river. Whatever the actual scenario, the murderer had been smart and strong and fast. He’d murdered both a big man and a trained cop. He must have left believing Elaine York dead, only she hadn’t been dead, not yet, not until she’d wandered into the East River.

Paulie stood over the victim. “Find anything?”

“A trail of broken and overturned stuff. Bathroom’s totaled.”

“Come look at this, Mike.”

“What do you have?”

“Initially I thought his face was just congested, but look at how red his skin is. And look at the corners of his mouth, that black stuff.” Paulie bent close to the body and sniffed. “Hmm. You try.”

Smelling a dead guy’s breath didn’t rank high on her list of fun things to do, but she leaned down and breathed in. Patchouli. Garlic, maybe onions. And death, the smell of death.

“Am I supposed to smell something special?”

“Almonds.”

Her head jerked up. “You’re thinking cyanide?”

“Yeah. Whatever, I’d still steer clear if I were you. I’ve seen a cyanide poisoning before; it looked like this.”

Mike said, “Rigor has passed. I’d say he’s been dead awhile, maybe a day.” She slipped on nitrile gloves and pulled the dead man’s wallet out of his back pocket. “According to the driver’s license, this is Vladimir Kochen, and he lives in Brighton Beach.”

Paulie scratched his neck. “Not to make assumptions, but you know a lot of the Russians out there are mobbed up.”

“Tell me, then, what would a Scotland Yard inspector be doing with a Russian mobster in her apartment? Maybe he’s a friend who showed up at the wrong time?” Yeah, like she believed that for a second. Mike rubbed her hand over her forehead where a headache was begi

“Hey, boss. We’ve got another body in York’s apartment. Russian from Brighton. There’s no sign of a break-in, no sign someone tossed the place, but there was a struggle. The dead Russian has a syringe sticking out of his leg. Paulie thinks it’s cyanide. We’ll process the scene and let you know if we find anything else.”

Zachery groaned. “What did this woman get herself into? Don’t mind me, rhetorical question. Do what you need to. Thanks for the heads-up. Call Captain Slaughter from NYPD, let him know what’s going on, see if he wants to send some people, or not, since the FBI’s dealing with it.”

She called Captain Slaughter, woke him from a dead sleep, told him what they’d found. Slaughter told her to keep him in the loop and volunteered to send over a couple of officers to interview neighbors, check out the neighborhood. He sounded relieved it was her problem.

They heard sirens. Their crew was here. And weren’t the neighbors going to love this disturbance in the middle of the night.

Five minutes later, the new medical examiner lumbered into the apartment. Janovich was heavyset and tired, with hangdog eyes and a graying beard. Another dragged from the warmth of his bed.

“Special Agent Mike Caine,” she said, and held out her hand. “We met—”

“At the Kirkland crime scene. I remember. Those crazies ever get caught?”

“We got them, yes.”

“So why are we here?”

“Inspector Elaine York from Scotland Yard was murdered; this is her place. I got here and found a dead Russian.”

“She’s the one pulled from the river earlier?”

Mike nodded. “That’s her. I think you’re going to find this guy interesting, too.” She pointed to the body. “There’s a needle sticking out of his right thigh.”

Janovich stroked long fingers through his graying beard. “Gotta admit, don’t see that every day.”

“I’ll let you get to it. Please let me know if you find anything of interest.”

Mike walked through the apartment again, going over different scenarios this time, trying to figure out how it had all gone down. She said aloud, “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

She jumped. Ben had snuck up on her.

“What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t sleep, so when Zachery texted me and asked me to come over and help you, I already had one foot out the door.”

“Okay, I’m glad you’re here. Would you check nine-one-one, see if York made any distress calls? I’m going to scope out the rest of the building, go across the street to fetch the feed from a video camera I saw. York might be on it. Maybe our Russian, too. And the killer.”

She’d pressed the elevator button for the lobby when her cell rang. She hadn’t received a middle-of-the-night call from her former SAC Bo Horsley in several weeks, not since he’d retired. She knew immediately something was very wrong.

“Sir? What’s happened?”

“Mike, good to hear your voice, even though it’s the middle of the night. Zachery called me to let me know there’s more to Elaine’s case than we first thought, wanted me to know right away. Talk to me, Mike.”

And so she told him what she saw, some of her theories, ending with, “There was clearly a third person here. Though how he pulled it off, I don’t know.”

He paused for a moment, and she heard him talking to someone in the background. Then he said, “Have I got a nice surprise for you, Mike. You’ve heard of Savich and Sherlock, right?”

“Of course. I worked with Dillon Savich on breaking a Chinese cyber-crime syndicate. He’s incredible.”

“He’s not the only incredible one. Sherlock has this gift. She walks into a crime scene and can tell you exactly what happened. Both Savich and Sherlock are here with me. And we’re all still wide awake. You want me to send them to you? Sherlock’s up for it, if you are.”

I must really be stupid tired to need help on a crime scene like this, Mike thought, but she agreed instantly. Why should other agents sleep when she couldn’t? “Send them over.”

“Okay,” Bo said, “they’re on their way. Now, Mike, I need a favor. Milo said that since you were the lead on this case, you were the one to do it. My nephew, who is also Elaine’s boss, is on a plane from London as we speak. He lands at eleven ten a.m., British Airways coming into JFK. Can you pick him up and fill him in on what’s happening?”

Bo’s nephew? Great, just wonderful. She knew all about Bo’s nephew, the only offspring of Bo’s sister and a Brit father who was some damned aristocrat. She knew more about him than she wanted to know, since Bo spoke of him as often as he did his own four girls. He was supposed to be this frigging super-spy who’d given it all up for a reason Bo had never mentioned and joined Scotland Yard. And now he was coming to stick his nose under the tent, probably stick in his whole big foot. No, that was wrong. He’d want to barge right into the tent and take charge. She could see this guy throwing his weight around. She didn’t need this, she really didn’t.