Third Victim (9 page)

Lido emerged from the bedroom a moment later and appeared to be stunned. “You’ve got to see this,” he said with emphasis.

He was standing in front of the flat-screen TV enclosure with his mouth open when I arrived. He had opened the overhead cabinet doors to reveal a small collection of erotic sculptures, man on man, chiseled in stone.

Each piece was graphic in a unique way and there was a unifying element that tied all of the sculptures together, a technique that resonated with me. “Grab some quick DNA samples, Lido. It’s time to hit the road.”

Chapter Twenty

“On our way to the crime lab?”
Lido asked as he pulled the car door shut.

I slid in behind the wheel and cranked the engine. “Yes,
sir
,” I blurted with exuberance.

“I was surprised by the art Singer had in his bedroom. Doesn’t he have a reputation as a ladies’ man?”

“Does he?”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s up there in years, but I know that I’ve heard stories about him with Liz Taylor. I think he and Claudia Cardinale were an item as well.”

“Who?”

“You’ve never heard of Claudia Cardinale? She was a sex bomb in the sixties.”

“And I was where in the sixties?”

“You never watched
The Pink Panther
? There’s this great scene where she seduces Peter Sellers.”

“Who?” I grinned. “Just kidding. I love that movie. Anyway, maybe Singer swings both ways or maybe his publicized trysts were just publicity stunts.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Lido responded thoughtfully.

More than thirty-six hours had passed since Koufax’s DNA had been dropped off at the lab, not quite enough time for a full 13 STR loci match but long enough for some partial results to come in, probably enough of a test result to determine if our John Doe was in fact Leonard Koufax.

“You seem a little eager,” Lido said.

“Am I?” I patted the evidence bags we collected in Singer’s apartment. More than forty-eight hours had passed since anyone had seen or heard from him. His disappearance didn’t bode well with me and I thought it wise to get a jump-start on his disappearance. Procedurally, Lido and I wouldn’t be investigating a missing person’s case, but if the evidence suggested foul play …

“You have a new theory percolating in that head of yours?”

“I do. Get on the horn and see if we can pull a warrant to search Ira Bascom’s apartment.”

“You think he’s involved?”

“Yup.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Antifreeze.”

“You think that he …”

I turned to Lido and smiled sagaciously. “Yes, thanks to you.”

“I’m lost, Chalice. Cut a fledgling detective a break, would you? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Reference, Rookie Detective Gus Lido, miracle number two.”

“Huh?”

“Run it back in your mind—we watched Koufax sprint past the subway turnstile quick as a bunny. He looked fine and dandy, yet the body on the ME’s table was a victim of ethylene glycol poisoning, so if Koufax was poisoned, it took place sometime between when we saw him at the subway station and the time he expired at the chabad.”

Lido’s jaw dropped. “It was in the Jamba Juice cup?”

“Just a hunch.” I cut the wheel and pulled into a spot in front of the Charles S. Hirsch Center for Forensic Sciences. “Ethylene glycol is sweet to the taste. Bascom could’ve spiked Koufax’s smoothie with it.”

Lido rolled his eyes. “You’re really out there, partner.”

“Am I?” I snickered. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“Still, I can’t believe that Bascom would be dumb enough to hold onto the antifreeze container. Surely he’d—”

“And that’s why your second call is to the city department of sanitation. Antifreeze is bottled in plastic containers. Find out when his building recycling gets picked up. We can search the recycling bins, and if we find an antifreeze container with his prints on it …”

“What if he owns a car? That would provide him with a plausible excuse.”

I winked at Lido. “And that, Detective, is your call number three.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“It’s not him,” I shouted as I pushed the door open and looked into the conference room Lido was using to make his phone calls.
“John Doe isn’t Koufax.”

“It’s not?”

“I don’t know why you look so startled. It’s been our theory all along. Partial results confirm it. The normal mutations to the Y chromosome found in John Doe’s DNA were not present in the DNA we took from his apartment.”

“Yeah, but …”

“You thought I was crazy?”

“Well, not completely crazy. Just a little out there.”

“
Amateur
. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“Evidently.”

“Get on the horn and let Mr. and Mrs. Koufax know that their son wasn’t killed at the chabad. They must be going to pieces by now.”

“Will do, but … So where is he?”

“More answers and less questions, rookie,” I blurted lightheartedly. “I’ve got a couple of things to do. I’ll be back.”

I pulled out my phone as I walked to the morgue and dialed Victor Darhansoff. My call went to voicemail and I left him a message.

Dr. Tully was at his desk when I knocked on his door. He was munching on plantain chips and coffee. “Come in, Chalice. Having a quick snack. Join me.”

“Plantain chips?” I sat down, picked up a chip, and nibbled on it. “I guess they can take the man out of Jamaica but they can’t take Jamaica out of the man.”

“No,
mon.
Never. I been eatin’ plantains since my mama weaned me off her teat.”

Now there’s a visual I could’ve done without.

“What’s on your mind, Chalice? I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.”

“Okay if I take another look at John Doe’s body?”

“The bombing victim? Yeah, of course, but I haven’t found anything new.”

“Indulge me, okay?”

“I’ll phone over there. Ask for Maggie. She’ll help you out.”

“I appreciate it, Doc.”

He took a final sip of coffee and rose from his chair. “Now if there’s nothing else …” He grabbed a folder and tucked it under his arm.

“Go to it.” I popped out of my chair just as my phone buzzed. It was Darhansoff returning my call. “Catch you later, my friend,” I said and hustled out of his office.

“Mr. Darhansoff, thanks for the quick call back.”

“Not at all,” he began. “And how can I help the intriguing Detective Chalice now?”

“There’s a question I forgot to ask you.”

“Inconceivable,” he boomed. “Speak now and divulge this so-called oversight. I will do my best to answer your neglected query, and rest assured I will tell nary a soul of this blunder.”

Darhansoff was not an actor, but his flair for the dramatic made me chuckle. “You’re a ham, Mr. Darhansoff, but a delightful one. Here’s what I overlooked.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Back to the theater?”
Lido asked, questioning my next point of inquiry.

“Yes. Back to the theater.” Thank God Manhattan is so small. Getting back and forth with lights and a siren makes navigating the island an absolute pleasure. We circumvented traffic and arrived back in midtown in mere minutes.

“Care to share your thought process with me?”

“Do you really want to know, or would you prefer that I astound you with my feats of mental prestidigitation?”

“You’re really impressed with yourself, aren’t you?”

Truth be told I was a somewhat different person around Lido. I felt freewheeling and lighter of heart. Perhaps it was the prospect of a potential romance, or maybe my brain chemistry was messed up from the double shot of espresso Darhansoff had used to make my cappuccino. Only time would tell. I smirked. “I do have my moments.”

“So you’d prefer I follow you in there like a dumb farm animal not knowing what to expect.”

Exactly.
“It’s your choice, but I promise I won’t let you look foolish.”

“Fine. You’re top dog,” he said as we got out of the car.

Darhansoff met us in the lobby. “We’ll have to be very quiet,” he informed us. “The evening performance has begun.”

“This is my partner, Detective Lido.”

Darhansoff smiled robustly. “You accompany this delightful creature five days a week?”

Lido replied in a sarcastic tone, “And then some.”

“I imagine Detective Chalice keeps you hopping.”

Lido rolled his eyes, then turned to me. “Okay, shogun, what’s our move?”

“Lead the way, Mr. Darhansoff.”

“Yes, of course. Now mind the actors,” he warned. “We’ll be passing along the side and directly behind the stage. It’s imperative that you stay out of everyone’s way and stay absolutely silent.”

“We’ll be quiet as mice.”

It appeared that Lido was unhappy about being kept in suspense. He seared me with a laser-targeted gaze and mimicked me, “‘Quiet as mice.’
Jesus
.”

Darhansoff had been totally accurate about the path we’d take. I have to say that it was a hoot glimpsing the performance from the side of the stage and watching the set people ready props for the next act. There was a staircase at the far end of the building, which we used to travel down to the lower level.

“Two hundred dressing rooms,” Darhansoff muttered. “They could afford to have hundreds of extras for a performance when this theater was built back in the day, but now … the lower level dressing rooms are infrequently used. They remain locked, accumulating dust.” It felt as if we walked for a full minute until we reached our destination. “Here we are,” he said as he retrieved the key.

“Who does the dressing room belong to?” Lido whispered.

“You’ll see.”

“He was so excited about obtaining a role. He literally begged me for a dressing room the moment he signed the contract. As I said, these are rarely used. The cleaning staff is down here every Wednesday and Friday evening, but aside from that … I could’ve offered him a dozen.”

“Koufax?” Lido whispered.

I nodded and waited eagerly as Darhansoff inserted the key in the lock and turned it. As mentioned, Darhansoff was a robustly built man. He threw the door open, slamming it into the wall behind it.

Darhansoff shrieked and clutched his chest.

A man was on the floor. He was gagged and bound to an iron steam pipe, but very much alive. I could see from the expression on his face that he was thanking God that he had been found.

We rushed in and untied Leonard Koufax.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Koufax was quite an emotional bugger.
The first thing he did after being set free was to grab me by the shoulders and give me a kiss on the cheek.

“I could arrest you for assaulting an officer,” I chuckled as I wiped his DNA off my cheek.

He held out his hands. “Take me away,” he bantered in a parched voice, then massaged his wrists where they had been bound. He had small hands, thin wrists, and slender fingers. His fingernails were short and buffed to a soft luster.

“How long were you tied up?”

He seemed a bit woozy as he searched for the answer. “Since Monday morning. I came by to bring some of my things over.” He grimaced suddenly. “Christ, I have to pee so bad. I don’t want to … Can I?” he asked with urgency.

I nodded.

His hand shot down to his crotch. He was literally holding it in as he ran from the room.

I motioned for Lido to go with him and he took off in pursuit.

Darhansoff was still worked up. “I believe that’s the most excitement I’ve had in my thirty-five years in the theater business,” he chortled. “But how did you know he’d be down here?”

“I didn’t, but when I called you and found out that you had assigned him a dressing room … I knew we had to check it out.”

“I hope he knows who did this to him,” he said.

“That would be helpful, but in case he doesn’t, do you have any security cameras down here?”

“At every entrance, yes, but down here in the tombs …” He grimaced. “Sorry, no, Detective.”

“Who has access to this part of the building?”

“Everyone. Once you’re in the building, if a door isn’t locked, anyone can walk through it.”

Well, that’s just peachy.
“How do you provide security for the cast?”

“Most of the actors don’t require personal security. In the rare case that we have a name performer of such stature that security is required, we make arrangements as agreed to in the artist’s contract—case by case.” He presented his open palms. “This is theater, Detective Chalice. It’s not an institution.”

It only took a couple of moments for Koufax and Lido to return. Lido broadcasted his disappointment with a headshake. He had no doubt asked if Koufax could identify his attacker and had received a negative response.

“Talk to us, Mr. Koufax. Tell us everything leading up to the time you were tied up and left in your dressing room.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. There’s not much to say. I took the subway into the city, carrying a Bloomingdale’s Little Brown Bag filled with goodies.” He pointed to a torn shopping bag lying on the floor. “I remember putting my gloves in my mouth to get my keys out of my pocket to open the door, and then …” He shrugged. “I woke up in the dark.” He rubbed the back of his head and winced. “I was hit over the head.”

“Who knew that you were coming here?” Lido asked.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Lido shrugged. “No. Why would I be kidding?”

“Because.” He grinned sheepishly. “I told
everyone
: my friends, my family, everyone in my phone book, Facebook friends, Twitter followers … I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I probably told half the Eastern Seaboard.”

“Did you enter through the front entrance or the stage door?”

“The stage door.”

“So the guard at the stage door checked you in, correct?”

“No one is there at that hour of the morning,” Koufax said. “I have a key.”

Darhansoff nodded in agreement.

“My friend Rory was going to meet me here,” Koufax volunteered.