Secret of the White Rose (17 page)

I half smiled, knowing he meant
Hogan’s Alley,
one of the
World
’s popular color comic strips—and no doubt one of the few nonacademic topics that captured Alistair’s attention.

“If you’re here, you must have uncovered something interesting,” he said, showing no sign of worry or concern. I was relieved that he did not yet know about the judge’s murder—but that feeling was immediately tempered by the realization that now I would be the one to tell him.

For his part, he ordered another single-malt scotch, neat. Then, after pushing aside his paper and a half-eaten serving of baked salmon, his eyes caught my own—and immediately widened with anxiety.

“What is it, Ziele?” he asked, his voice steely but quiet.

“About what time did you finish with Judge Porter last night?” I watched for any hesitation or other sign that he was lying.

But we had come to know each other too well. Something in my voice or manner betrayed me.

“Why do you ask?” Now his voice was laced with ice—though from fear or worry, I did not know.

“I need to know when you last saw him,” I repeated.

“Blast it, Ziele!” He pounded his fist on the table, rattling the dishes and silverware. “You might behave like a friend and not a policeman.”

Several heads turned toward us.

“Quiet,” I said, and my own voice was brittle. “The fact is, I can’t tell you more until you answer my question. I need to know where—and when—you last saw Angus Porter.”

Alistair’s breath caught sharply. “Your question can only mean one thing. My friend is dead. And
this
is how you tell me?”

Now we had the full attention of most surrounding diners. I forced my own voice into a low whisper when I said, “You’re not letting me tell you anything—much as I want to. Please—just let me know where and when you left the judge last night.”

“He left me,” Alistair said without emotion. “We talked until near midnight. Mrs. Mellown was still up, tidying the kitchen. She saw him out, as I’m sure the elevator attendant and man downstairs did.” He shook his head. “Now for God’s sake—”

I interrupted him as his voice rose again. “Judge Porter was shot in the head last night in room five hundred three of the Breslin Hotel. His hands were bound tightly together, and there was a Bible and a white rose on the nightstand next to his corpse.”

Alistair froze. “Damn.” The word, loud and anguished, was wrenched from somewhere deep inside of him.

The waiter who resurfaced to bring his scotch and my coffee gave us a worried look. “Please, gentlemen,” he reminded us. “Remember our other members this afternoon.”

Alistair seemed not to have heard, though he took the glass the waiter offered. The slight trembling of his hand made the caramel liquid slosh, though it did not spill. He raised the glass to his lips and took a large gulp; then just as abruptly, he placed it on the table. All blood drained from his face, and just as I thought he might become ill, he excused himself.

I finished my coffee and waited several anxious minutes for him to return. I had handled it badly—and yet, there was no good way to deliver terrible news like this.

“I’m sorry,” I said, more gently, when he returned.

“He was a good man.” Alistair wiped his face with his napkin, then took another sip of his scotch.

“What did the two of you talk about last night?” I asked.

His ice-blue eyes seemed fixated on a point in space just behind me. “We talked of Hugo and old times. Nothing more.”

“You must have discussed the case,” I said, pressing him.

“Not after you left.” He took a sip of his drink.

I looked at him sharply. “You mean to tell me that Judge Porter didn’t discover anything new? Something that might have led him to confront someone or go somewhere—”

“Of course not,” Alistair cut me off roughly.

“How can you be so certain?” I said. “He was murdered within a couple of hours of leaving you, and his crime scene is almost a perfect replica of Judge Jackson’s.” I leaned in closer. “There has to be a reason why…”

“You said he was shot,” Alistair said, after a moment of silence, with his head held in his hands. “That his hands were tied. Those are important differences. I’ve told you time and again,” Alistair said, his face growing red, “that killers tend not to vary their methods. Method is
everything.
” His voice began to rise again. “Vidocq was correct when he showed us that every criminal has a certain behavioral pattern—or style—that remains consistent throughout every crime he commits.”

I leaned back in my chair and looked at him askance. “Exactly. That’s the difficulty here. Nothing about the crime scene matches up. Except that when I see a white rose and a Bible in the room of a dead man, I see something too remarkable to be a coincidence.”

Alistair shook his head. “The gun is a very different weapon from the knife. It takes one kind of personality to hold one’s victim close while slicing his throat. A gun appeals to another sort of person entirely: it requires less strength, only the ability to shoot straight.”

I shot him a look of disbelief. “You, of all people, can’t be telling me you don’t believe these murders are linked. Angus Porter was Hugo Jackson’s friend and colleague—not to mention the fact that he was advising us on this case. If you are suggesting that there are two separate killers at work, then the only argument that makes sense is that those two killers were motivated by the same cause and they endeavored to deliver the same message.”

“You mean, two different anarchists?”

“It would explain the difference in weapon. I’ll grant you that. And the fact that Judge Porter counseled Judge Jackson on Drayson would account for his being targeted. But the coincidence is still too much.”

“Was there music?” Alistair asked, a worried expression crossing his brow.

“You mean at the crime scene?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know.”

“I let him keep the composition we found among Judge Jackson’s papers,” Alistair said glumly.

“No matter. You kept copies, I assume.”

Alistair nodded. “Made them myself, by hand.”

“The more important question is: Why did Judge Porter go to the Breslin after leaving you?”

“Again, I don’t know.” Alistair’s voice was dull.

“Was there a lead there he hoped to track down? Or—I know nothing of his personal life—could he have been meeting someone?” I asked, trying to put it delicately.

“Angus was a confirmed bachelor,” Alistair replied. “His own living quarters are on lower Fifth Avenue. Had he wanted to meet anyone at home, only his housekeeper would have objected. He didn’t need to go to a hotel in the middle of the night.”

“Yet, last night he did—right after leaving your home. He was registered under the name Leroy Sanders and listed his home address as Three Gramercy Park West.”

“I don’t understand,” Alistair said.

“I suspect that either Judge Porter’s killer or a co-conspirator posed as the judge at the registration desk. Judge Porter was later invited upstairs and killed—at which point his murder was called in to the commissioner’s office, possibly by the killer himself. You see, the hotel staff would have identified him as Mr. Sanders.”

“It must have been a trap. I’m only surprised because Angus was being careful.”

“Stranger things have happened, Alistair,” I said, “and we often know less of our friends’ personal lives and secrets than we might think. But I believe that you know more about Angus Porter than you’re telling me.”

“I don’t like your tone—or what you’re implying.” Now Alistair was almost shouting, and the movement of his arm overturned my half-drunk cup of coffee.

Our waiter hustled over to clean the spill, quickly joined by the maître d’. The latter spoke up. “Perhaps now that you gentlemen have finished, you might take your discussion outside. I’ll put the bill on your account, Professor.” When Alistair gave him a blank stare, he added, “The other diners are taking too much of an interest in your confidential conversation. I’m sure you understand—and would appreciate having greater privacy elsewhere.”

I had been facing the rear of the room, looking into the kitchen, but now I turned and saw: every pair of eyes in the room was fixed on us, in rapt attention.

Alistair apparently noticed, too, for he rose, mumbled an apology, and staggered out of the room—leaving me to step awkwardly behind him, trying to catch up as all eyes followed me.

We rode the elevator to the lobby in silence, not trusting ourselves in front of the attendant.

Outside, we began walking south on Broadway, fighting against the crowds that swarmed around us. Alistair turned to me, and for the first time I thought I saw something that almost resembled fear in his eyes.

“I’ve got to get home,” he said.

“We’ve got to get out of these crowds,” I replied and, taking his arm, ushered him toward Trinity Church. I pulled him off the street and onto the quiet of the church grounds, finding a wooden bench under a sycamore tree, where I forced Alistair to sit.

The wind whipped above us, shearing the tree of its remaining leaves, and whistling around the belfry as the bells began to chime a hymn. Still, we took a moment to collect ourselves in the relative peace of the grounds—where a few yards over in quiet graves the dead slept amid the crowds and noise on the surrounding streets.

I spoke again. “I know you’ve lost two friends this week. And I know you usually prefer to share only the information you think is relevant to a particular case. But it’s important for you to tell me
everything
here—whether you think it pertains or not.”

Alistair was indignant at the suggestion. “I’m not hiding things from you, Ziele.”

“Then you’ll tell me more about your evening with Judge Porter.”

He spread his hands wide. “There’s nothing to tell. We drank, we talked.” He shrugged. “Nothing more.”

“Alistair,” I said, more insistently this time, “less than two hours after leaving your home, Angus Porter ended up in a hotel room, shot to death. There is a reason for that. And if your conversation with him in the hours before his death doesn’t hold the key—well, then I don’t know what does.”

“I am not Angus’s keeper,” Alistair said, his voice rising again. “I haven’t socialized with him in years. I don’t know what he did when he left me. I
assumed
that he went home.”

“Then help me figure out what might have happened to intervene. Was he worried about anything? Did he have an idea on the case that he wanted to explore? Was there someone he wanted to confront?”

Alistair remained silent—and so we sat for some moments, facing one another, braced against the ever-growing wind.

“When someone is killed,” I said, “there’s usually a pivotal decision point. Something happens to make the killer decide that his victim must die now—not tomorrow, not next week or next year.”

Alistair looked at me, his eyes clouded. “I don’t know why Judge Porter was targeted last night after leaving me. I can’t figure it out myself.”

“That’s why you need my help,” I said, almost cajoling him now. “Tell me more about Leroy.”

“I don’t know,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “I promise I’ll search for his name in the legal archives.”

“Did Judge Porter know the name ‘Leroy Sanders’?”

“Of course not.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” I said, looking into the bleak gray sky above. I chose my words carefully. “I think that both you and Judge Porter had your suspicions. And they were near enough to the truth that the judge was killed because of them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alistair said, scoffing at my suggestion.

But by now, my own frustration was rising. “Look, Alistair—you brought me into this case. I’d never have been assigned to it otherwise; it wasn’t within Mulvaney’s jurisdiction, and I’ve no political connections of my own. But I’m in the thick of it now—and thanks to the commissioner’s involvement, my very career is at stake. Meanwhile, two of your friends have been killed. You have to understand”—my voice broke slightly—“you
must
understand that only by sharing everything that you know with me, without reserve, will we be able to solve this.”

Alistair only looked at me, his eyes unreadable. “You ask too much, Ziele.”

“I ask no more than what you owe me.” I stood, and when I replied, my voice was bitter. “Sometimes, Alistair, I regret ever getting to know you.”

I walked away, not once looking back, as the wind whipped through the trees and the bells of Trinity Church tolled their last chime of the hour.

CHAPTER 12

5
P.M.

After an afternoon spent pursuing fruitless leads, I checked in at Mulberry Street headquarters, where scores of anarchist sympathizers were being interviewed. Mr. Strupp had left a message for me: Jonathan would meet me that night. Alone. While that meant no fellow policemen were welcome, I knew that I was on my own in other respects as well.