The Green And The Gray

10

It had been a long day, the paperwork at the 24th Precinct had been worse than usual, and the last thing Detective Sergeant Tom Fierenzo wanted to do was look at yet another crime scene.

"I hope this isn't going to take very long," his partner, Detective Jon Powell, commented as they showed their badges to the doorman and crossed to the elevator. "Sandy was hoping we could have the whole weekend to ourselves for a change."

"We'll be out in an hour, tops," Fierenzo promised, hoping it was true. Powell, fourteen years his junior, was still able to actually relax on his days off, and he'd been looking forward to the weekend since Wednesday morning. More to the point, so had his wife, and Fierenzo didn't particularly want to disappoint either of them with last-minute paperwork. "Nice simple robbery," he reminded the other as he punched for the sixth floor. "No homicide, no hostage situation. Easy as pie."

"Maybe," Powell grunted. "But you know Smith. If there are any complications, he'll find them."

"Point," Fierenzo conceded. Officer Jeff Smith had the detective bug as badly as Fierenzo had ever seen, and everyone from Lieutenant Cerreta on down knew it. Even routine crime scenes got the full treatment when Smith and Hill were the cops of record. "On the other hand, maybe he's got a big weekend coming up, too."

Powell snorted. "Right. Rereading the NYPD Detectives' Manual."

Fierenzo shrugged. "Somebody has to know what's in it."

Smith was standing by an open door halfway down the hall when they arrived, talking with a middleaged man wearing a khaki shirt and slacks. The older man seemed to have come down with a case of the nervous twitches, not an uncommon occurrence under circumstances like these.

What was uncommon was that Smith wasn't wearing his calm, the-policeman-is-your-friend expression. In fact, behind a rather stiff guardian-of-the-people face, he had the look of a cat with a cornered lizard in his sights.

He looked up as Fierenzo and Powell joined them, and something in his stance clued Fierenzo to play this one formally. "Officer Smith," he greeted the other. "What've we got?"

"This is Mr. Umberto," Smith said, his voice equally formal. "He's the building super."

"Mr. Umberto," Fierenzo said, nodding.

"And this is the scene of the crime," Smith continued. "The apartment of a Roger and Caroline Whittier."

"Doesn't look like forced entry," Powell commented, peering at the door.

"It wasn't," Smith confirmed. "Perps were three males, Caucasian but dark in a Mediterranean sort of way, all of medium height and slender build. One was sixty to seventy years old; the other two in their mid-twenties."

"And how exactly do we know this?" Fierenzo asked.

Smith looked sideways at Umberto. "Because Mr. Umberto is the one who let them in."

"Really," Fierenzo said. That explained the severity of the man's twitches, anyway. It was an all-toofamiliar story: some smooth-talking con man would show up, spin an impressive wall mural of smoke and mirrors, and get someone to let him past a set of deadbolts. "May I ask why, Mr.

Umberto?"

Umberto winced. "I guess... because he told me to."

Fierenzo frowned. This was usually where the defensiveness and excuses started. "What do you mean? What exactly did he say?"

The hapless super winced again. "He just... said to open the door. And I... did."

"Did he have a work order?" Fierenzo asked, moved by a desire to give the man every benefit of the doubt. "A weapon? Did he threaten you?"

"No," Umberto said, sounding more puzzled than embarrassed, as if even he wasn't sure what exactly had happened. "He just said to open the door. And I did."

"How did they get in far enough to find you?" Powell put in. "Isn't the doorman supposed to screen out people like that?"

Umberto shrugged helplessly. "He must have just let them in, too."

"What a pleasantly accommodating staff," Fierenzo said, turning to Smith. "Have the tenants been notified?"

"We tried their offices," Smith said. "Mr. Whittier, a paralegal, clocked out about ten-thirty this morning and didn't come back. Mrs. Whittier, real estate agent, never made it to work at all."

"Cell phones?"

"One," Smith said, holding out his notebook. "Mr. Umberto just gave me the number. I thought you might want to make the call yourself."

"Thanks," Fierenzo said, copying the number into his own notebook. "Let's look at the apartment first."

"Good idea," Smith said. "That part's a little strange, too."

"Oh?" Fierenzo lifted his eyebrows. "Show us. Mr. Umberto, please wait here.

Hill was waiting for them in the middle of the living room, her hands on her hips. "Detectives," she greeted them. "Interesting robbery scene, wouldn't you say?"

"Very nontraditional," Fierenzo agreed as he looked around. Not a single lamp, picture, or throw pillow seemed to be out of place. If the room had been tossed, they were talking some obsessively neat tossers. "Bedroom?"

"Same as here," Hill said. "There's a jewelry case on the dresser; doesn't look touched."

"Who called it in?" Powell asked.

"Manager of a convenience store on 96th," Smith said. "He said Mrs. Whittier told him she could see people on her balcony and to call 911. She took off right after that."

"Right after an altercation she had with her young friend," Hill added. "A young girl, ten to twelve years old."

"What kind of altercation?" Fierenzo asked, stepping over to the sliding glass door and giving the balcony a quick look. Nothing out there but a pair of potted trees.

"He was too far away to hear what they were saying," Smith said. "He did see Mrs. Whittier grab the girl by the arms, though. And after she told him to call 911 she grabbed a scarf off a rack and the two of them hit the sidewalk with it tied babushka-style around the girl's head."

"Interesting," Powell said thoughtfully. "Who wears scarves that way these days?"

"Women over eighty, and people trying to disguise themselves," Fierenzo said, slipping on a pair of latex gloves and crouching down beside the sliding door. There was an odd circular area of hairline cracks in the glass just beside the lock.

"Creditors, you think?" Powell asked. "Or stalkers?"

"Or are we talking about a kidnapping?" Smith added darkly.

"Women usually snatch babies, not ten-year-olds," Fierenzo said, running a fingertip across the crack pattern. The glass on this side was smooth. "Jon, take a look."

He moved out of the way as Powell came over and crouched down. "Looks like it was hit with a hammer or something," the younger detective suggested.

"Only the pattern doesn't seem concentrated enough to be a hammer," Fierenzo pointed out. "Not enough of a central bashed section."

"You're right," Powell agreed. "So it was hit with something softer than your basic ball-peen."

"And it was hit from the outside," Fierenzo said. Carefully, trying not to smudge any prints that might be there, he rolled the broomstick out of the track and snapped open the lock. "Hill, go back to the door and make sure Umberto stays put."

The other three stepped out onto the balcony. "I wonder what someone might want out here," Powell commented, looking around. "Besides a nice tan in the summer."

"There's another door," Smith said, nodding toward the far end of the balcony. "Someone trying to eavesdrop on the bedroom?"

"Be a good trick to hear anything over the traffic," Powell grunted, stepping around the trees and crossing to the other door.

Fierenzo crouched down for a closer look at the living room door. "This is definitely the side that got the hammer treatment," he said, running his gloved finger over the cracked glass by the lock.

"Hold everything," Powell said suddenly, dropping onto one knee beside one of the potted trees.

"Did you say a hammer? Or an axe?"

"What?" Fierenzo asked, frowning.

Powell gestured at the base of the tree. "Take a look."

Fierenzo stepped to his side. There was a shallow gash about an inch long just above where the tree trunk disappeared into the pot. "Well, now, that is interesting," he said, crouching down for a closer look. The gash had barely broken the bark and, like the crack pattern on the door, seemed oddly softedged.

"Looks like they were using a pretty dull axe."

"There's one over there, too," Powell said, pointing to the other tree.

"I see it," Fierenzo said, nodding. "Smith, go ask Umberto if his visitors had any tools."

"Right." Smith disappeared through the door into the apartment.

"You ask me, this sounds like some kind of strange joke," Powell commented.

"On who?" Fierenzo asked. "The Whittiers?"

"Or us," Powell said sourly. "There are plenty of nuts out there who love attention. Especially police attention."

"Strange, but true," Fierenzo agreed. "Have Hill call in and see if Umberto has a record."

"Done and done." Standing up and brushing off his knees, Powell went back inside.

Fierenzo eyed the gash in the tree another moment, then heaved himself to his feet and looked down at the street below. Just past the corner he could see the convenience store where the 911 call had allegedly come from.

So it was possible to see the balcony from there. For whatever that was worth.

He went inside, sliding the door shut behind him. Smith and Powell were talking together in low tones at the far side of the living room, while Hill stood off to the side, talking quietly into her radio.

"Umberto says no axes or hammers," Smith reported as Fierenzo crossed the room and joined them.

"Also no bags or backpacks."

"Though Umberto himself probably has a well-equipped workshop," Powell pointed out.

"Did you want to call the Whittiers' cell phone yet?" Smith asked.

Fierenzo hesitated. Unfortunately, intriguing aspects notwithstanding, a simple home invasion wasn't the sort of thing a detective team should be spending their limited time on. "No, you two might as well run with it," he told Smith. "I'd be interested in seeing your final report, though."

Hill popped her mike back onto its shoulder patch. "Preliminary search shows nothing on Mr.

Umberto," she reported.

"Fine," Fierenzo said. "Then I guess we'll leave this in your capable—"

He broke off. Across the apartment, from the direction of the kitchen, came the familiar trilling of a phone.

"Should we get that?" Powell murmured.

"No," Fierenzo said, heading toward the sound. "Anybody notice if they had an answering machine?"

"Yes, built into the phone," Smith said.

"Probably the dry cleaner telling them their sweaters are ready," Powell muttered as they all trooped into the kitchen.

The machine picked up with a click and they listened in silence as a man's voice ran through a quick and perfunctory response: hi, Roger and Caroline, not available, leave message. A stereotypical Manhattan couple, Fierenzo tentatively tagged them: solid and hard-working, but not overly endowed with either imagination or humor. The message ended, there was the usual beep, and he made a last-minute private bet with himself that the caller would turn out to be a telemarketer.

"Hello, Roger, my name is Cyril," a smooth voice said, with a hint of an accent Fierenzo couldn't place. "I understand you spoke to Sylvia at Aleksander's this morning. I also understand you know where Melantha is."

Fierenzo frowned. Melantha. The girl who'd been seen with Mrs. Whittier?

"I imagine Sylvia tried to persuade you to bring her there," the voice went on. "But I warn you, that would be a terrible mistake. Taking her to anyone but me will spill the blood of thousands of New Yorkers squarely onto your hands."

Fierenzo's chest tightened. The blood of thousands of New Yorkers?

"And as Sylvia may have mentioned, time is short," the voice said. "You have just five days to bring the girl to us at Riverside Park before chaos descends upon the city. We'll do whatever you want, pay whatever you ask, in order to get her back. I hope you'll do the right thing, and that we'll see you and Melantha here soon."

There was another click, and the phone disconnected.

Fierenzo looked over at Powell. "If this is a joke," he said, "it's just gone way over the line."

"Okay, I'm lost," Powell admitted, his forehead wrinkled. "Did we just jump from a home invasion to a kidnapping to a terrorist threat?"

"We went from something to something," Fierenzo agreed. "I'm just not sure where exactly we ended up. Smith, go ask Umberto if he's seen the Whittiers with a ten- to twelve-year-old girl lately.

Hill, find out if either of the Whittiers have a sheet."

Smith nodded and headed toward the door as Hill unhooked her radio mike. "You come with me,"

Fierenzo added to Powell. "I want a look at that bedroom."

They headed down the hall to the bedroom. "What exactly are we looking for?" Powell asked.

"Evidence of an extra person living here," Fierenzo said, glancing around. "Check the closet; I'm going to look in the hamper."

They worked in silence for a minute. "Nothing," Powell reported. "All the women's stuff seems to be the same size."

"Make sure there's no double-hanging," Fierenzo reminded him as he pulled a slightly wrinkled bed sheet from the hamper and laid it out on the bed.

"One outfit per hanger," Powell confirmed. "You got something?"

"A bed sheet, one," Fierenzo said, gesturing to the linens on the bed. "A pillowcase, also one. A

normal change of bedding ought to yield two of each."

Powell nodded. "Someone's been sleeping on the couch."

"My thought exactly," Fierenzo agreed.

He looked over as Hill appeared at the bedroom door. "No records on either Whittier," she reported.

"But, two nights ago, Whittier called 911 reporting that he and his wife had picked up a foundling girl in an alley off Broadway."

"Bingo," Powell said.

"Maybe not," Hill warned. "When the cops arrived, there was no girl here. The Whittiers claimed she'd gone out on the balcony and disappeared. The cops searched, found nothing, and left."

"Looks like wherever she went, she came back," Fierenzo said. "Let's see if Umberto can shed any more light on the subject."

They retraced their steps down the hallway and out the front door. "He says he's only seen the Whittiers with kids when they've got friends visiting," Smith reported. "Not even any of that in the past month."

Fierenzo nodded. "Mr. Umberto, we'll need the name and address of the doorman on duty Wednesday night about—" he lifted his eyebrows at Hill.

"The call came in at ten-forty-three," she supplied.

"From nine-thirty to eleven-thirty." Fierenzo looked back at Smith. "Then you call the guy and see what he remembers about the Whittiers that night. When they went out, when they came in, who was with them—you know the drill."

Smith nodded and turned to Umberto. Fierenzo caught Powell's eye and nodded his head to the side, and together they went back into the apartment. "Time to call the store manager?" Powell asked.

"Let's try a little cage-rattling first," Fierenzo said, pulling out his phone and consulting his notebook. Punching in Whittier's cell number, he gestured Powell over where they could both hear.

The phone was answered on the second ring. "Hello?" a tight voice answered.

"Mr. Whittier?" Fierenzo asked.

There was a slight pause; and when the voice came back it was subtly different. "Yes?"

"This is Sergeant Thomas Fierenzo of the NYPD," Fierenzo identified himself. "We're investigating a break-in at your apartment this afternoon."

"A break-in?"

"That's right," Fierenzo said. "I thought you might be able to help us."

Another brief pause. "Yes, of course," Whittier said. "What can I do?"

"First of all, is your wife there with you?"

"No, she's—not here."

"What about your friend Melantha?"

The pause this time was noticeably longer. Fierenzo strained his ears, listening to the rumbling he could hear in the background. A subway car, he tentatively identified it. "I don't understand,"

Whittier said at last.

"I just want to know whether Melantha's with you or with your wife, that's all," Fierenzo said, keeping his own voice casual.

"Sorry. I don't know anyone by that name."

"I see," Fierenzo said, cocking an eyebrow at Powell. His partner nodded, a knowing look on his face. It was the correct response from an innocent man, only it was about five seconds too late.

"Where exactly are you, Mr. Whittier?"

"Why?" Whittier countered, his voice suddenly suspicious.

"We'll need a statement as part of the investigation," Fierenzo said.

"Oh," Whittier said. "I... where do I need to go?"

"We're out of the 24th Precinct," Fierenzo said. "One-fifty-one West 100th. When can you come by?"

"I'm kind of tied up right now," Whittier said evasively. "How about tomorrow morning?"

"Tonight would be better," Fierenzo said, mentally flipping a coin and deciding not to push. He didn't want the man rabbiting before he'd even figured out what the hell was going on here. "I'll be here until nine o'clock."

"I'm sorry, but tomorrow is the soonest I can make it."

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then," Fierenzo said, trying to sound as if it didn't much matter to him either way. "Good-bye."

He shut off his phone. "He doesn't want to talk to us, that's for sure," Powell commented. "And he never once asked if anything had been taken."

"Because he knew they weren't after any of his worldly goods." Turning, Fierenzo gazed across the living room at the city lights twinkling beyond the balcony, an icy tightness settling into his gut. If there was one thing guaranteed to capture his full attention, it was the thought of innocent blood flowing in his streets, whether from serial killers, gang warfare, or terrorism. "Let's go talk to the store manager and find out just how much of a hurry Mrs. Whittier was in," he decided. "If someone's after the girl, she wouldn't have risked waiting for a bus or subway."

"Which means a cab," Powell said, nodding. "So we call the cab companies and see who picked up a woman and girl on that block at that time."

"Right," Fierenzo said. "We also have Smith and Hill take Umberto down to the station house and put him together with Carstairs. Maybe we can get a decent sketch of these intruders of his."

"We might also want to play the answering machine back for him," Powell suggested. "See if he recognizes Cyril's voice."

Umberto was still waiting when they returned to the hall, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

"These officers are going to have you listen to an answering machine message and see if you recognize the voice," Fierenzo told him. "After that, we'd like you to go to the station with them and describe these intruders for a police artist."

The other swallowed. "Yes, sir. Anything I can do to help."

"One last question," Fierenzo said. "How long had these people been gone before Officers Smith and Hill showed up?"

Umberto frowned in concentration. "Half an hour. Maybe a little more."

"And in all that time it didn't occur to you to call the police?"

"Sure it did," Umberto said, sounding a little indignant. "After a break-in? Of course I thought of it."

"Then why didn't you?"

Umberto opened his mouth... closed it again. "I don't know," he said at last. "I guess because he told me not to."

Fierenzo felt his lip twist. "I see," he said. "Well, at least you had a good reason."

Jerking his head at Powell, he headed down the hall toward the elevators.