Terminal City (13 page)

“Maybe the killer first saw her on a train,” I said. “Maybe the madman’s a trainspotter. Maybe he . . .”

“Your
maybe
s can fill a trash can, Coop. As usual,” Mike said. “Who’s the dead man?”

“Thirty years old or so. Caucasian,” Mercer said. “’Bout as filthy dirty as can be. Single stab wound in the back. Could be homeless, ’cept he’s got some decent clothes on. Labels and all that.”

Dominick came over with the bill, and Mercer stood up to pay.

“Found on the loneliest piece of pavement in Manhattan,” Mercer said. “DePew Place.”

THIRTEEN

At 10:30
P.M.
, in the pitch black of a hot summer night, I was standing in a desolate alley in Midtown Manhattan. The city street sign marked it as DePew Place.

Mike and I had often jousted over the existence of old roadways on our island. I figured if I’d never prosecuted a crime that occurred on an obscurely named motorway in my dozen years on the job, then it probably had been obliterated by developers. I was wrong about DePew.

I spotted the salivating dogs before I saw the dead man’s body.

Four guys in civvies were each holding leashes—two with Jack Russells straining against their owners’ grip and two others with small terriers as well.

“Gentlemen,” Rocco Correlli said to Mercer, Mike, and me, “I’d like you to meet Toby Straight. He’s the man who found the vic.”

“Actually, it’s Bertie here who did the deed,” Straight said, commanding his pet to sit.

“Mr. Straight runs a little club called RATS,” the lieutenant said. “Guess all the classy names were taken.”

“What’s that?” Mercer asked, keeping one eye on the medical examiner’s team, which had set up a spotlight over the deceased.

“It’s an acronym, really. Rat Alley Trencher-Fed Society.”

“RATS, obviously,” Mercer said. “So help me out.”

“We had our first go at this here in DePew Place,” Straight said, gesturing at the narrow alley just east of the 45th Street piece of the landmarked train terminal, running north-south for the length of one city block. “We come back at least once or twice every year.”

“I know where we are,” Mercer said. “You’ll have to help me with
trencher-fed
.”

Mike had both hands in his pants pockets as he stepped closer to the body. “Probably in the twenty-first-century dictionary, m’man.”

“Afraid not, Detective,” Straight said. “The word comes from a much earlier time. It refers to the keeping of hounds to hunt.”

“No wonder you lost me. Granddad wasn’t from the hunting-hound Chapmans. Must have lost ours in the potato famine. What’s your deal?”

Toby Straight looked like a fish out of water in this urban cul-de-sac. His long-sleeve shirt, rolled up at the cuffs, had initials monogrammed on the pocket. His jeans were perfectly clean and neatly pressed, and his tasseled loafers seemed impervious to scuffs. He wore a tweed cap and carried a walking stick or fancily carved cane, despite the fact that he appeared to be younger than I and wasn’t limping.

“We started meeting almost fifteen years ago, right after I got out of graduate school. When I lived in town.”

“You don’t live here now?” I asked.

“No, Bertie and I drive in from Darien,” Straight said, bending over to pick up his dog and stroke his belly. “The group meets once a week.”

“Here?” I looked around the dark alley, which had none of the familiar trappings of a city street—no traffic lights, trash bins, or pedestrian crossing lines. Wedged between the edge of the terminal building and bordering the west side of the US post office that fronted on Lexington Avenue, DePew was now a dead end, filled with loading docks and truck bays.

“Anywhere there’s garbage, Ms. Cooper. Ryders Alley downtown, Bayard Street, the walkways in Riverside Park.”

“What’s the attraction to garbage?” Mike asked.

“Where there’s garbage, Detective, there are rats. And the hunt for rats is what indulges the basic instincts of these terriers.”

“Sorry?”

“These dogs were bred to chase small game—to chase vermin, if you will,” Toby Straight said. “It’s sort of like a twofer. In a city with a rat population that’s out of control, we may not make a noticeable difference, but we do our bit. And the dogs have a good time at it.”

The other Jack Russell was yelping now, tugging against his leash and posing like a pointer. A homeless man came out of a doorway at the rear of the alley, below the Park Avenue Viaduct that circled the majestic terminal, now a century old. The dog barked again, practically howling, as the man dragged a huge plastic bag that clanged along the street as though it was filled with empty soda cans.

“Watch this, Mike,” Rocco Correlli said, lighting a cigarette. “Let your dog go, Mr. Straight.”

“Are you crazy, Loo?” I said. “There’s a dead body twenty feet away and some helpless vagrant stumbling around, not expecting any police activity.”

Straight bent down, holding Bertie over the ground while we argued.

“You’ll see. He doesn’t want either of them.”

When Straight let go of the terrier, he scrambled faster than a racehorse out of the gate, past the ME crouched over the deceased and around the startled homeless man. The other three dogs barked furiously.

Bertie disappeared out of sight for almost a minute before returning with a rat in his jaws, shaking the rodent vigorously from side to side to make sure he was dead.

Toby Straight seemed pleased with the kill. I was revolted.

“We’ve offended you, Ms. Cooper,” he said.

“Hard to do,” Mike said. “I’ve been trying for years.”

“Bertie’s exercising his brain. It’s a form of mental stimulation. It’s in the nature of a terrier.”

“And what does this have to do with the dead man?” I asked. “This—this urban fox hunt.”

“I never think of you as having such delicate sensibilities, Alex,” the lieutenant said. “Or else I wouldn’t have invited you here tonight.”

“Let it be, Rocco,” Mercer said. “I’m the one who invited her.”

“I’m not sure what it means,” Toby Straight said, cocking his head in my direction, “that the sight of a dead man doesn’t bother you, but a dead rat does.”

“I could give you a solid answer to that one,” Mike said, “but I’m hoping to hang on to my private parts.”

Straight turned away from me, gloved up like a Crime Scene investigator, bagged the creature that Bertie deposited at his feet, and then rewarded the dog with a treat. “The Department of Health actually pays us for ridding the streets of these creatures.”

“So you guys,” Rocco said, referring to Straight and his friends, “you call yourselves—?”

“Ratters, Mr. Correlli. We’re ratters.”

“You came in here tonight—when was it?”

“About eight forty-five, sir. Right after dark.”

“You didn’t see the body at first.”

“Not at all,” Straight said. “We know DePew well. As you’re probably aware, it’s owned by the railroad company—Metro-North—and it’s mainly used for mail trucks and as a freight loading area, so there’s no automobile traffic to endanger the dogs.”

“That makes it the perfect free zone for rats,” the lieutenant said. “Workmen create garbage during the day, throwing away remains of sandwiches and food and tossing soda cans. There’s a couple of Dumpsters towards the rear. The rats come out of the sewers and subway gratings at night and go hog-wild.”

The three other men were talking among themselves, watched over by a uniformed cop.

“I walked to the end of the alley,” Straight said, lifting his walking stick and jabbing it into the air, waist-high. “This cane isn’t an affectation. I lead off by pounding on the Dumpsters and stray piles of debris.”

“And that stirs up the vermin,” I said.

“Exactly. Tonight a stream of them came shooting out the big hole in the bottom of the Dumpster. And the stick protects me if any of them decide I’m fair game. Then we let the dogs off the leashes and they hunt,” Straight said, smiling at me as though to test my reaction, “like they were born to do.”

“The dead man,” I said.

“When the rats came running out of the Dumpster, there weren’t many places for them to go. Bertie and I were closest to them, and he was pretty agitated. Farther up the alley were my friends, and three other excited terriers. So they scattered, looking for a safe way back underground or out onto the streets of Manhattan.”

I shuddered. Popular lore was that in New York City, where the rodent population matched the size of the human population, one was never farther than thirty feet away from a rat.

“Bertie kept pointing to that last truck bay on the left,” Straight said, lifting his stick. “I let him take me there. That’s where the body was.”

“And rats?” Mercer asked.

“Some of them must have smelled blood—or death—and found it irresistible to stop and explore. But when Bertie turned the corner he was within six, seven feet of them, and they were gone in a flash.”

“Any damage to the body?” Mercer said to Rocco.

The lieutenant shook his head. “I don’t think he was there very long. Might be a scratch on his eyeball, but that’s about it.”

“But he was moved?”

“My fault entirely,” Straight said. “I knew if I left the man in that dark cul-de-sac, they’d be chewing on him in minutes. I dragged him out here, where you see him now, and yelled to one of my buddies to call 911.”

“You flipped him?” Mercer asked.

“I did. If he were still breathing, I’d have tried to resuscitate him.”

Rocco crooked his finger at me and walked away from Toby Straight, telling him to stick around. Straight tipped his cap, kept a tight rein on Bertie, and rejoined the other hunters.

Mercer and Mike followed us toward the deputy medical examiner.

“How’s that for a bunch of sick fucks?” Rocco said. “The rat brigade.”

“Tell me the truth, Coop, was that guy at your deb ball? Your coming-out party? Tallyho and all that?”

“Sorry to disappoint again, Mr. Chapman. Never was a deb,” I said. “I would, however, dearly like to take Mr. Straight’s pants off.”

“Here and now?”

“Didn’t you see the blood on his pants leg? And his shirtsleeves?”

“He dragged the dead guy, who’s oozing from a stab wound,” Mike said. “Or maybe it’s rat blood. What’s your point?”

“Who are these men and why are you treating them so lightly?” I said. “Because they’re rich white boys from the burbs?”

Mike was standing behind the deputy ME, who was on his knees next to the corpse, looking over the young doctor’s shoulder.

“Anybody home? They’re into blood sports, Mike.”

“Relax, Alex,” the lieutenant said. “We’ve got all their names and numbers.”

“What’s with those marks?” Mike asked the doctor.

“Postmortem scrapes. No active bleed.”

“Never helps when somebody moves the body before you see it,” Mike said. “The man’s stabbed in the back. How come the blood’s on his sneakers?”

“The fellow who found him,” the deputy doc said, “told me he dragged him out of that passageway over to here while his friends called 911. Turned him over first to see whether he was still breathing, so the blood got all over his hands. I had to get him facedown again to examine the wound. Then one last turn so Crime Scene could photo his face.”

It was impossible to know what amount of trace evidence had been lost in all that movement. That, coupled with the fact that the outdoor location—impossible to scour in the dark—would be teeming with commercial workmen by daybreak and any efforts to retrieve more clues of value would be futile.

“The fingernails?” Mercer asked.

“Chipped and full of dirt to begin with. I don’t think there was any kind of struggle.”

It looked as if the man’s pants legs—the only thing the deceased was still wearing—had been pulled up to his knees during the move, and his skin had abrasions from being dragged across the pavement.

“I’d like to get the body out of here.”

“We need to see the marks on his skin,” Mike said.

“That means I have to roll him again?” the doctor asked.

“I’ll scope it when you lift to put him in the body bag. How’s that?”

“Better for my purposes. Would you call in the attendants to get to work?”

Mike signaled to the uniformed cop who was standing with the ratters. “The morgue van out on the street? Get those guys in here, stat.”

“Are you swabbing the hunters for DNA?” I asked, seemingly to anyone who would listen to me.

“Last thing on my mind, blondie,” Mike said.

The two attendants trudged in from the street with the large vinyl sack that would carry the remains to the autopsy room.

“You want to see the clothing before I pack it up?” the doctor asked, unfolding a stack of brown paper bags, each one of which would hold a separate item.

Mercer stepped in. “What have you got? The jeans look pretty raggedy.”

“He was wearing this,” the deputy ME said, holding out a dirty men’s sport shirt, pale yellow with long sleeves and a button-down collar. “I had to cut it off him to get at the wound, but otherwise it’s in pretty good shape.”

Mercer put the tip of his pen under the shirt collar and held it up, turning it around slowly so we could look at it. The rear panel was blood-soaked, and there were some pulls in the fabric that had probably been caused when Toby Straight pulled him out onto DePew Place.

“Looks almost new otherwise, unlike the denim, which is full of holes,” Mercer said. “It’s got a Gap label.”

“And this,” the doctor added. “A baseball cap. Mr. Straight says it was on the body when he first saw it but fell off while he was dragging the man.”

I looked at the shaggy brown hair that reached the dead man’s shoulders. There seemed to be the slight indentation of a cap mark.

“What’s his team?” I asked.

Mercer, having put the shirt in the paper bag and closed it, held up the cap with his pen. It was navy blue but didn’t bear any sports logo.

“Poor guy didn’t even have this long enough to get grease marks in the lining,” Mike said. “Looks like one of those generic hats from a tourist stand in the city. At least we didn’t lose a Yankees fan.”

The attendants got in place on either end of the corpse. As they lifted him to put him into the bag that would lie on the stretcher for the ride downtown, the three of us squatted.